Melbourne #6 (including Philip Island), Victoria, Australia

20th February – 25th February

20th February

After a late night, in the city, saying bye to Jan and Pete, I was up early the next day, so that I could get back to work. After creeping around the room, trying not to wake Joe up, as I was leaving, he woke anyway, as he didn’t want me to go to work without a lunch. Once everything was ready, I set off on my bike just after 8. I felt very low on energy after only having little sleep, and being non-stop all weekend, but it was definitely worth it!

I opened the shop up and had a very quiet morning, on my own. At lunchtime, I had another big sale, as a customer needed a new wardrobe of clothes, so ended up spending over $1000, giving me more commission. My original shift was until 3, but as it was so quiet, Robyn said I could leave at 2. However, that all changed when fourteen boxes of delivery arrived and needed unpacking, so I ended up staying on until 5.30.

While I was at work, Joe unpacked our things from the weekend and had a bit of a tidy up, before riding up to Coles to buy some new sun cream. When he got back, he was going to sort the photos out from the weekend, but when he tried, he couldn’t get the cameras to work. In the end, he left it until I got home from work.

After work, I got changed and rode home. It was a very hot and muggy night, so the ride wasn’t so pleasant. When I got back, I had my dinner and then spent the evening trying to sort the photos and writing the blogs.

Although I was able to retrieve the photos from the SLR camera, the photos and videos from the GoPro were gone. I couldn’t figure out where they had gone at first. I could see most photos and videos up until half way through our surf lesson in Torquay, but nothing after; and when I plugged it into my laptop, there were just a few things from the beginning of our New Zealand trip – the rest had gone. After messing around with settings and trying a few different things, I realised that when Joe had plugged the GoPro into the laptop earlier in the day, he hadn’t turned it on first, and for some reason the memory card didn’t like this. I knew that it didn’t work without turning GoPro on, as I had tried it before, but I didn’t think it would wipe the media – I should have been more clear about how to get the photos, so it was my fault, but it was very frustrating.

The rest of my evening was spent trying to find the photos and videos. I downloaded various software to try and get it to work but when I tried to find my GoPro on the software, it didn’t seem to work, and I was losing hope very quickly. I eventually gave up for the night, as it was only making me frustrated and I couldn’t do anything, so decided I would try and get help from ‘Ted’s Cameras’ in Highpoint, after work the next day.

After turning the laptop off, I moved over to the sofa and settled down to watch the rest of the film that was on: The Lovely Bones. Once the film was over, I was straight up to bed; I was well and truly ready for some sleep before my next shift.

 

21st February

The next day, I was on a much shorter shift, so I didn’t need to take any lunch me with. I got up at normal time (about 7.30) and got ready in silence, sneaking out without waking Joe. Once I had eaten my breakfast and got my bike out, I set off.

I opened up the shop and although there was a 20% off promotion, it was a quiet morning, giving me a chance to finish off the delivery jobs from the day before. I was only working until 2, and was meeting another member of the team, for the first time.

While I was at work, Joe was back at home trying to sort the photos out, for the second time. As I had already put the photos from the SLR camera onto the laptop, he could organise those. Just before I finished my shift, Joe set off to Highpoint with some lunch and the GoPro and laptop, so that we could try and get things sorted.

Once my shift had finished and I had eaten some lunch, we went into Ted’s Cameras to ask for some help. The workers in there weren’t overly helpful and could only offer to send the GoPro off for $85 with no guarantee or money back if nothing was found, so I wasn’t particularly persuaded to risk that.

After leaving Ted’s, I went to try the Apple Store. I knew it was a long shot as a GoPro isn’t an Apple product, but I thought they might know about retrieving data. The guy that I spoke to just gave me advice from his experience and told me to try plugging the SD card directly into my laptop, rather than using the wire to attach the camera like I already had.

From the Apple Store, I went to buy a holder for my SD card but when I saw them, I realised that I already had one back at the house, so instead we cycled home.

When we got home, I found the SD holder and managed to plug it into my laptop. Once it was connected, I was able to find the card, on the apps I had downloaded, so I selected the option to find all of the media that it could from my card. As we had planned to go out for the evening, I had to leave it to be searching for my photos and videos while we got ready.

Just after 5.30, we set off on our bikes towards Yarraville station, to get the train into the city to meet Katie and Jack at the Night Markets. Once we were in the city, we got the free tram up to the markets and then the hunt for Katie and Jack began.

Once we had been reunited and had a quick catch up, we decided to find some food before searching for some seats together. Me and Joe decided to share some loaded pork fries to begin with, before going back for some other bits. After we had bought our food, we tried to find somewhere to sit, but it was so busy and with there being four of us, it was a struggle.

After we found some seats, we stayed there for the majority of the night. We sat and chatted and had a good catch up, before wandering around the stalls. Some of the stalls had some really beautiful things but unfortunately for us, it isn’t convenient to be buying more things.

Just before 10, we said our goodbyes and me and Joe made our way back to the tram stop, to make our way home. As we were on the last minute to catch our train, I risked scanning my myki card, so that we could make the train and put myself into public transport debt – it was worth it though, as we would have had to wait another half an hour for the next train.

After getting home at 10.30, we went straight up to bed – it felt to me like I was never going to catch up on some sleep, as I was in work again the next day!

 

22nd February

As we got home too late from the markets, to wash my hair, I was up extra early, so that I could do it before work. I showered and slowly got myself ready, while Joe got up and made my lunch. I left for work just after 8, as usual and Joe stayed up to watch the rest of the United match.

When I got to work and opened up, it was a quiet morning. I did the usual morning routine, before using some time to make myself a ‘Ripe’ shopping list, as I was deciding what to spend my commission money on.

While I was in work, Joe spent the time sorting out more photos, but we still hadn’t managed to retrieve any GoPro media yet. At around 1, he set off from home to meet me in Highpoint, so that we could have a fro-yo treat with our remaining vouchers. Although Joe’s original plan was to meet me for lunch, he arrived too late and I was so hungry, and short on time, I had already eaten when he got there.

After Joe had eaten his lunch, and we were tucking into our fro-yo, Katie came to meet us. She needed an Apple shop to sort some earphones out, and needed to shop for some new clothes for her job hunt, so I persuaded her to come and see me, while I worked.

When my lunch break was over, I left Katie and Joe to do some shopping, as Joe was on the hunt for some bike lights for us, for when we have to cycle home from work in the dark. Whilst Joe was shopping, he also bought a new SD card for the GoPro, as I wasn’t risking the other one anymore, even if I was able to retrieve the lost media.

Once he had finished shopping, Joe set off home, while I finished my shift. Danny came around straight from school and Paddy and John weren’t far behind him, just after 5. When I finished work, at 5, I rode home, arriving just before 5.30.

When I got home, dinner was ready, and I was ready for it; we had homemade burgers, with mash and veggies. After we had eaten, John went to collect Rose from footy practice to bring her back for dinner too.

Everyone left just after 7, and I went straight to the laptop to continue the GoPro video recovery job. I bought some software, as the free trial seemed to show all of the lost media, but I couldn’t recover anything on the free trial. I bought the software that said it recovers photos and videos, but once I had installed it all and tried to find the media again, the videos weren’t there, and I couldn’t understand why. I did some research and emailed the company and found out that I had to buy a particular GoPro software and the one I bought wasn’t good enough.

While I was waiting for a reply from the company about changing the software codes, I finished writing more of the blog from the weekend, so that I could get it all posted. I watched the TV from the table, so that I didn’t get too distracted, and went up to bed later than normal, as I wasn’t in work until lunchtime the next day.

I sat in bed, continuing to work on the blogs and media recovery, but I ended up falling asleep with the laptop on my knee, so Joe had to take it all off me and tuck me in. Joe finished off sorting some emails out for me, before he went to sleep too.

 

23rd February

Even though I had the chance for a lie in, I only had an extra hour and got up at around 8.30. I wanted to finish off the blog from the weekend and get it posted as soon as I could. The delay caused by the photos had put me back a bit longer than I expected, but I was starting to get back on top of it.

Joe eventually got up about 10 and joined me downstairs where we both sat and had our breakfast. Following this, I started to get myself ready for work, whilst Joe made my dinner.

At about 10.30, it started to rain so I got my waterproof jacket and, after some help from Joe, I managed to get it over my bag and zip it up – you will just have to imagine how great this looked!

While I was at work, Joe did some blog reading, before he had some dinner and then set about getting all the pictures that he had emailed from my phone the night before, in to the folder on the laptop.

Although the first half of my shift was reasonably quiet, there was a constant stream of customers from 5 until about 8.30 and as I was on my own, I was so busy. I had to phone Robyn 3 times for different queries and as I was with customers the whole time, I didn’t really have much chance to do any of the other jobs I needed to do.

After shutting up, I set off back home just after 9 and the eventful night wasn’t ending any time soon. Even though Joe had installed my new lights on to my bike, this did not make my ride home any easier. I had to double check that I had put my lights on, at one point, as a car just swung out in front of me, making me shout out to the driver, who responded ‘sorry’ in a tone that suggested otherwise.

I carried on riding towards the train station and when I got there, it was so busy, apparently there was a footy match at the stadium. As I had weaved in and out of people on the footbridge, I made my way down the ramp on the other side. Just after I thought I had survived the mayhem of all the people, a young boy came charging down the ramp after me with two large inflatable batons shouting “I’m going to get you”. Luckily, he didn’t!

It was by far the most eventful ride I’ve had, and I thought it couldn’t get any worse. However, when I went over a bump in one of the side streets, my glasses came untucked from my top and landed on the floor. As I bent over to get them, I ended up getting water over my head from my own water bottle which was in my bag on my back – comical for anyone watching, I’m sure.

As I turned the corner, onto our street, a cat in the path decided it was a perfect time to play ‘chicken’ with me. It just stood there staring and each time I went to swerve to go a certain way, it followed me!

I eventually made it back home and have never been more ready for a sit down.

Whilst I had been at work, the company who I emailed about the GoPro recovery had sent me a new code which could be used for the correct software. I was very eager to test this out and hopefully recover everything.

I sat down with Mo and Mark, got my laptop and GoPro and crossed my fingers. The code worked and after five days of trying, I managed to recover everything from the GoPro! It was worth the money.

I began to sort out all of the videos and pictures for the blogs, as I was desperate to get it posted before another busy weekend.

Joe finished work just after 11 and messaged me saying that he was bringing a pizza home. I wasn’t particularly hungry but when he arrived home with it, I had forgotten how good it looked and smelt so I couldn’t resist. He had also brought back a small bottle of wine, both of which he had got for free, so it would have been rude not to!

We sat downstairs for an hour or so whilst we ate the pizza and drank the wine. After we had eaten, I got back to working on the blogs and, at about 1.30, it was finally complete, with pictures.

It was a very busy and eventful evening but it felt nice to finally have all of the pictures and videos back, and to have completed another blog. We both fell asleep just before 2am.

 

24th February

The next morning, we were both up about 9 as we needed to pack our bags, ready for our weekend trip to Phillip Island. I got up and had a shower whilst Joe rode up to Coles to get some supplies.  Mick and Shelly weren’t letting us pay anything for the place that we were staying in, so instead we got some drinks.

Once Joe got back, we had our breakfast before finishing packing our bags. We were picked up just after 10.30 and we got on our way.

We played some games in the car to pass some time. Jeannie had a ‘boredom busters’ book that she got some ideas from, but reading the book made me feel a little sick, so I let Joe take over.

We arrived at our accommodation just after 1pm. We picked our rooms and went out to the back garden where we sat on the benches and ate the tuna sandwiches that Shelly had made in the morning. Before Mick and Jeannie ate their dinner, they cleared the trampoline of all the leaves and had a jump around for about 10 minutes, until I had finished my dinner. It was my turn to take over from Mick, but it was tiring work and I had to keep my sandwich down. Joe managed to put it off a bit longer, but I eventually got him on and we both loved it once we were on.

After we had finished on the trampoline, and managed to drag Jeannie off to eat her sandwich, we had a quick explore of the other things in the house, before we headed to the town of Cowes which was about a 15 minute drive.

When we got there we had a walk along the beach and along Cowes Jetty, watching people fish and a group fly their kite. It was very windy and eventually, the kite ended up in the sea, although I’m not too sure how.

We walked up towards the centre, looking in to a few souvenir shops and scouting out possible places where we could go for dinner later. After we had a look around, we walked back down towards the car, obviously stopping for ice cream.

Our next stop was the chocolate factory which was on the road back towards the bridge, which led to the mainland. It took us about thirty minutes to get there, and once we arrived there it was extremely busy, and it wasn’t quite what I expected. It only looked like a small building from the outside. We wandered around the gift shop, getting some free samples before we decided we would head back to Cowes to get some dinner.

The chocolate factory had a tour but it was very expensive and not overly impressive so we did not do that, plus we didn’t really have the time – we did enjoy the free samples though.

Once we got back to Cowes, we decided we would have dinner in an Italian on the front, Isola di Capri. We had to eat early, so that we had time to have dinner before we went to see the penguins. We got there just in time because about five minutes after we had ordered, a bus load of people showed up. I think they must have come down to see the penguins too.

As Mick and Shelly had not let us pay for any of the accommodation and had driven us down and treated us to lots already on this trip, when I went to the bathroom, I paid for the bill on my way back. It was a little bit sneaky of me, but they’ve done so much for us and I thought it would be nice to pay them back. They didn’t seem to think so at first, as they said we should be saving all of our money for our travels, but they did appreciate it.

Once we had finished food, we drove back to the house to get changed and wrapped up, ready for our trip to see the penguins. We all had plenty of layers on and took blankets with us too as it was already getting a little bit cold. We set off and got there just before 7, as suggested by the website.

When we got to the beach, we sat on the bench and got wrapped up. After waiting for over an hour, we started to get our first glimpse of the small penguins. Jeannie wasn’t overly impressed up until this point, as she was tired, and it was cold, but once the penguins came up onto the beach, she loved it. We saw lots of groups of penguins coming out of the sea and up the dunes behind us but because it was getting dark and they are so small, it was proving difficult to spot them at times.

The penguins were only 33cm tall and the majority of them weighed just 1kg. They are ‘The Little Penguin’ and are the smallest species of penguin. Every day, they swim 20km off shore to fish and do over one thousand dives, of up to 72 feet in depth! They are solitary feeders but come back onto the beach in groups, as crossing the beach is a scary situation for them. The adult penguins, who are still looking after their babies (chicks), regurgitate the fish and squid that they have caught that day, to feed the young. The adults whose chicks have grown up and can feed themselves, now get ready to malt. They eat so much fish leading up to this occasion, as they stay on land for 2-3 weeks while their new feathers push out the old ones. These penguins weigh around 2kg and have the shape of an Aussie rules football.

Considering they are such small animals, they work extremely hard! They go out to fish at 4.30 – 5am and swim so far, and dive so deep, all day, every day. They don’t return back to the beach until around 8.30pm, and then have to feed their young before they can settle and rest before it starts all over again.

As we were heading back to the car, this is where we saw a lot more penguins up close. The boardwalk back to the car took us up over the dunes where they were heading. It was a much better view of the penguins and we were only a couple of feet away from them at some points. It was well worth the trip to see them, they were extremely cute, especially the fatter ones.

As there were so many penguins to see on the walk back, it took us a while to make it back to the car but once we did, we headed straight back to our home for the weekend.

We were all so tired from our busy day so there was no time for us to drink any of the drinks we bought, before heading to bed.

 

25th February

The next morning we woke up around 8.30 and went straight downstairs to have some breakfast and play with Jeannie before our trip back home. We had some rounds of ‘Uno’, before Jeannie needed a play on the trampoline before we had to leave, so Mick accompanied her on there.

As Joe and Shelly were tidying up in the kitchen, I saw them having a quiet conversation. Joe went upstairs and then shortly after, called me up too. He told me that Mick and Shelly had a huntsman spider in their room – they knew about it and slept with it in there all night, and Joe couldn’t even go in to look at it without help!

We walked in to the room, tentatively, and looked up in to the top corner. It was huge but it was far away, so it wasn’t too bad. I took some photos of it before leaving it in peace.

After a couple of games of Uno, Joe went back upstairs to get a picture himself of the huntsman. However, when he walked in and looked up at the corner, it wasn’t there. This caused Joe to go in to a bit of panic – he ran out of the room, crying like a baby.

After the short moment of panic, we went to our own bedroom to start to pack our things up. This was done very slowly and carefully, making sure we didn’t take the huntsman back with us.

Once we were all packed up, Jeannie spotted another spider on the curtains. At first we just thought it was the same one as before that had moved but when I took a picture of it, I noticed that this one only had 7 legs. I checked back through my pictures of the first one and I could see that that one had 8. It was definitely another huntsman spider, not the same one.

We packed up the rest of our things, making sure they were spider free, and loaded up the car to head back home.

On our way back we stopped in Cranbourne to look at the Australian Botanical Gardens. We had a walk around the gardens and saw lots of colourful and strange plants, before heading to the café to get some lunch.

After lunch, we all got back in to the car and, of course, me, Joe and Jeannie all decided that now was a good time to have a nap. Although this was not before another couple of car games.

We eventually got back home around 3pm where me and Joe unpacked our bags and had a little bit more of a rest. I did some more blog notes in the afternoon before everybody began to arrive for Sunday dinner.

Everybody, except Cait (who was away), came round just after 5. Before dinner, I played to Jeannie and Rose, with Jeannie’s new marble game that we got her for her birthday. We tried to recreate the path on the box, although it was frustrating when the dominos kept falling before we were ready.

After we had had some tea, it was time for Joe, Jeannie and Paddy to have a go with the domino’s, and they got a little more creative.

By 7.30, everybody had left and so me and Joe went back to playing Yahtzee. It has felt forever since we played it and we got right back in to it. After we had played a few games, we joined Mo and Mark on the sofa and watched some TV before we head to bed about 11. It had been another busy weekend.

Joe’s alarm went off about 1am as he had planned to get up and watch United v Chelsea but the alarm only woke me up, which wasn’t ideal. I woke him up but he fell back to sleep for a little bit. He eventually woke up about 1.45 and watched the rest of the match in the spare room. They ended up winning 2-1 so he says it was worth it, but I wouldn’t bother if I was him.

Another weekend of adventure makes all of the work in the shop worthwhile. We’re lucky that people want to take us out and help us to make lots of memories, while we’re in Melbourne, so it isn’t just a time for working. A few more weeks of work left, with more plans for the weekends to come!

To travel is to live, Katie (co-written by Joe) x