On Monday I hired a car and drove to Phillip Island. I visited in my first week in Australia with a friend from back home, but it’s quite close and the weather is still pretty decent. I caught the train to Frankston instead of driving through the city as I wanted to miss rush hour traffic and there’s a lot of dickheads on the road in the city.

Once I’d gotten into the car, I’d already established my first world problems:

• The WiFi in my flat is pretty bad and didn’t download the Spotify playlist properly
• I was probably going to run out of battery on my phone, for which I was relying on the GPS, and my portable charger wasn’t fully charged
• The indicators and windscreen wipers are controlled on the different sides of the wheel than in the UK, and I have to overthink which side they are on. This was the first time I’ve driven a car in Australia and not used the wipers instead of indicating. Go me.

An hour or so later I reached an animal sanctuary and petted some kangaroos.

Half hour after leaving the kangaroos behind, I drove to the Nobbies Center, which is a boardwalk on the coast. Really nice views.

The weather was still clearing up, but after reaching Cape Woolami the sky was blue. Bearing in mind that I work on my feet all day and had done around 15km of walking just a few days before, I opted for the shortest walk.

Next week or the week after, depending on my shifts, I’m going to go to the Mornington Peninsular for a day. At the moment I’m working not a lot of hours with two jobs, this week it’ll be around 30 hours and am expecting the same next week.

Last Wednesday I arrived back in Melbourne. Technically, Thursday as my flight was delayed by three hours – one of the budget airlines that crack the shits when your bag is 150g over the weight limit, but it’s fine for them to be delayed most times I fly with them.

My last day in Perth I didn’t really do a lot – I was going to go to the Pinnacle Desert but they day would’ve cost me around the $300 mark and a five-hour round drive, which I didn’t think it’d be worth it. Instead, I chilled in the Botanical Gardens.

Around five hours after going to bed I had a job interview, and was requested back on the Saturday to do a trial and got the job. I just got in from a shift and it’s nice to finish when it’s light outside, but I think I need to try and find a part time/evening job to get my hours up so I can put off having proper adult responsibilities for that bit longer.

The flat that I’m going to move into isn’t ready as the person who’s moving out has extended their stay, so I’m in a hostel for a week and a half or so. Once I have my shit together I’m going to plan out what I want to get out of living in Victoria before I leave here (including a couple of road trips) and start getting myself ready for the next continent to travel through.

The year before last I took a tour of the Great Ocean Road. Using phrases like ‘the year before last,’ make me feel as though I’ve been in this country for bloody ages. When I was 18 I passed my driving test (first time!) and it seems such a waste to have a license and not use it. So, with four days off work I thought sod it, and hired a car.

Sunday, I took the bus to Geelong, bought some party mix and hired the car, then I drove to Torquay. The whole idea of me doing this was to get some time in a car and not so much seeing everything, so I stopped in Torquay for a bit, then a couple of other stops, and then finished at the Twelve Apostles. I was intending to also go to Apollo Bay, but I saw the car park and thought that there was no way in hell I’d ever be able to park in there. With that said, I did manage to reverse park successfully a couple of times.

The few days after I still had the car so I took it out locally – a couple of days I spent in Torquay and I went to an animal sanctuary nearby which to be honest was a bit shit. I spent a day in Torquay as I figured if I was going to lounge around all day I may as well go somewhere nice. It was a pretty nice day, though I found out that I may as well have not put sun cream on as my skin is now blistered -there wouldn’t have been much difference if I put vegetable oil on my right arm. A quick drive to Woolies to get some after sun was very much needed and a very shitty email was sent to the suncream company (response being “if you get burnt, discontinue use” – no shit!)

It looks like I’m off work until Friday or even Saturday. At the moment, I’m looking at going to Uluru but I will need to work my magic with cheap flights, and to be honest I’ve drank the best part of a bottle of wine tonight so that may have to wait until tomorrow. If not, I’m looking at going to Port Douglas and maybe Adelaide, and if that doesn’t work out I’m going to Melbourne. The week after next is my final week at work, so it may be more convenient to leave some places I’m intending to visit until I’m unemployed again, but I think I”m going to have the best month in Australia next month, making the most of not having a job as I know it’s going to be the final time I chill out, giving less shits than usual, before I find myself a job before heading to Asia.

Monday was supposed to be chilled but halfway through the train ride into the city I’d realised that I forgot to bring a change of clothes with me (yes I’m being serious) so a trip to h&m was in order. Other than that, I had a few things to do and checked into the hostel. During the evening I was thinking about going to the cinema but there wasn’t a lot on. Instead, I went to the ACMI and saw a documentary in their cinema about Obama’s last year in office which was pretty interesting. There’s a few things they have coming up which look good, and will also be when I’m back in the city.

Tuesday, I started the day off being a tourist. First stop was the Queen Vic Market which wasn’t all that, then I went to the ACMI to have a look at their screens exhibition – it’s quite interesting and a good way to kill some time playing video games. Afterwards, I went to visit a friend at work then went off to see the Foo Fighters – I managed to get a really good spot in the crowd. Weezer were on first and I enjoyed their set but the Foo Fighters were awesome. Perhaps a bit too much with their guitar solos but it was up there as one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to.

Wednesday, I slept in and went to South Melbourne Market for a late breakfast – I had planned to take a day trip to Wilsons Prom which ended up getting cancelled – the weather was shit anyway. Spent most of the day chilling then saw a friend who I did my farm work with; was great to see her again. The whole hostel got banned from drinking goon within six weeks of me being there, then we had regular alcohol bans, for which everyone put the effort in to hide the fact that we were drinking, but other than that the ban was always ignored. After I left, apparently there was a “crackdown” of people drinking goon from coloured bottles/out of mugs so the backpackers would cut the string off of a teabag, stick the string to the cup and filled it with goon so it just looked like they were drinking a lot of tea.

I worked 22.5 hours this week. The next few weeks I’m not working a lot so it’s going to be four days off and around 30 hours I think. At the moment I have enough money saved up for Asia so I’m using work to pay my rent and to go towards my days off. The next four days I have off so I was thinking of going to Torquay, one of the stops of the Great Ocean Road. You can get there by bus but I thought sod it, I’ll hire a car and do the whole bloody thing. One of my hangups with driving I think is that I’ve always been hesitant with it as there’s an instructor who knows where I’m going and not myself – as long as I don’t go too fast I’ll be fine.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll be packing a bag, absolutely nothing booked bar the car hire. I think the plan is to do the Great Ocean Road tomorrow and just get back here pretty late, then the couple of days after go to the hot springs (apparently the best in the world, I’ll see how they compare to Budapest’s baths) and Phillip Island.