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Blog Day 190-206 Sat 12th-Mon 28th November 2011
Melbourne!!
So up we get nice & early to plough our way through to Melbourne to a suburb called Williamstown. We arrive at Brett's early afternoon & he quickly has the kettle on & a brew in our hand before we have even sat down. We chat for a while catching up with all out latest adventures & what he's been up too since we met in Thailand on a boat house in the middle of the River Kwai. He's invited us to go out for dinner tonight with his sister, just to a restaurant in town. By this time we are starving, so we grab a quick shower & head into Williamstown for dinner. The food is lovely & the company is great too. Brett is happy to have Dan start work with him on Monday. Brett has a houseful of lodgers at the moment so unfortunately we cant stay in the house but he does have space on the drive, which is fine by us, having been in the camper for weeks now we are kind of used to it! We have a nice lie in on the Sunday followed by a wander around Williamstown so Trish can get her bearings & we do a supermarket sweep so that we cook our traditional (thank you for having us) curry. An early night follows & before you know it 6am rolls around & the alarm clock is going off. Time for Dan to get up! He is working on the other side of the city refurbishing a sports bar with Brett and his sidekick Trevor. It isn't the hardest of work but having not done a thing in months it takes Dan some time to get back into it. Trevor is a real character he looks like he's been beaten up by Jack Daniels and Jim Beam, however he is a lovely guy even if he has labelled Dan as 'The Pom'!
By 6.30 Trish has the camper to herself. By 8.30 she is up, showered & ready to go into Williamstown to look for some casual work. Now she hasn't had a chance to drive the camper yet as Dan is not a very good passenger. The idea actually scares her a little so she decides to walk it. Brett had previously said it would take at least an hour to walk but this doesn't bother Trish at all. Turns out it's a real boring long road into town but it does only take 30mins. Once in town Trish decides to try out all the salons she can find first. First salon she tries, the therapist say's that they are looking for someone & that she will call Trish as soon as she has finished the treatment she is doing at the moment. Trish's stroll continues, trying all the salons she can find with no joy. Just as she is about to try out the restaurants & cafés the phone rings. Nicki from Beauty spa Temple the first salon calls & has a chat to Trish. After 10mins all is set for Trish to pop back to the salon later that evening for a quick trial. Fortunately the trial goes well & Trish is set to start work the following day at Beauty Spa Temple with Nicki & Jess who are two very lovely Vietnamese therapists (and before you can think it, no its not a 'special' salon!)
Both of us have a pretty easy work schedule for the next 8 days. Dan is at work by 7 & home by 3 & Trish is averaging 6 hours a day mostly on reception & doing any walk in beauty treatments.
The second Saturday that we have in Melbourne we have been invited to Chris & Helen's house (one of Dan's old PE teachers from the Grammar School) for dinner & a bed for the night, after fighting our way through Melbourne city traffic we finally make it out to their house within an hour or so. Its great to see Mr Cronin again and the catching up goes on into the early hours of the morning. The dinner is lovely, a nice bit of steak followed by a chocolate mousse & the plenty of alcohol flowing. It's a really easy going evening with plenty of chitchat & laughter. After a bottle of bubbly & 2 bottles of wine for the Trish & Helen & a good 10/12 beers each for the Chris & Dan we finally hit the sack around 2am ish. What we didn't think about however was the fact that we would have a wake up call at 7am by 3 of Chris's 4 children trying to deflate our blow up matress with us still asleep on it! Haha bless em. So with our heads a little worse for wear we are entertaining 4 kids while Chris & Helen start the morning breakfast process. We decide to take a walk to the park & throw a ball around for a bit to wear the kids out a little before a lovely early afternoon roast lunch. We say our goodbyes & are soon back off to Brett's for an early evening. It's been a great few days with fantastic company and we cant thank Chris and Helen enough for having us over. We do however have work tomorrow!!!
The last weekend at Brett's we are invited to his sisters husbands 40th birthday party, the weather is shocking but nothing stops the Ozzies having an outdoor party. The garage is open & a marque set up, they have a huge & gorgeous house with a good size kitchen & living/diner so space inside isn't really much of an issue either. We have a fab night & Dan creates an audience by doing some great magic tricks even to the extremely drunk people.
The rest of our 2 weeks in Melbourne was pretty much spent chilling out as we had work we only really had evenings free. We took a walk around the city a couple of times & went to see the Inbetweeners at the flicks, which was a great movie.
Before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye to Brett, we are so grateful to have met so many lovely people on our travels this year & cant thank them all enough for their great hospitality. Next stop Sydney!!!
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