Interstate Audits: Adelaide, Melbourne and Byron Bay

Night time shenanigans in Adelaide

Adelaide February 2010

went straight after work monday 4am
Mon - watched superbowl at sports bar with Nawlinians/ stumbled onto comedy/won at casino/spent it at Red light

Tues - trammed to Glenelg beach (weaksauce but apparently the best beach) u need a car for the other beaches/ went to the cricket/ then the new Michael Moore movie at Moonlight cinema

Wed- murray river day tour/ bbq at hostel then terrorising the city afterwards

Thurs - Rain. Did chores and tried to get "Canada runs Adelaide"shirts made up for the BC3, North Bay and myself.

Coffee and Crates. Typical Melbourne.

Melbourne, April 2010

Tuesday

• Checked in. Met 2 of my roommates Chris from Denver and Olivia from Liverpool
• Eat at iconic Degraves lane. Hipsters, milkcrates, graff, good food, good company
• Went out to Fitzroy with said new best buddies. Walking past the stadiums and through Fitzroy Gardens.
• We all took turns trying to do forward rolls in the grass. They helped me with my technique.
• Went up Brunswick St. Stores like Swindle (Obey Giant). Had a beer at the ’Black Cat bar. Dope street. Uber trendy.
• Met two girls at the Rooftop of the hostel – Salome from Switzerland and Linda from Germany
• We “goon” it up along the Yarra river under the moonlight with Salome/Linda/Olivia/Chris/Me. FYI “Gooning” is an Aussie backpacker tradition where you buy Box wine and get wasted on it. Cheap backpacker stylee.
• A dozen rowers pull up in front of us, looked like the dead rowers from Pirates of the Caribbean 2”
• A random person is playing guitar 50 metres away singing at the full moon. We thought it was a weird bald guy but actually a tomboy from the UK named Travis. We approach her. She serenades us for half an hour playing Sum 41, Eric Clapton and the Beatles amongst others.
• Together with Travis we are now 6 strong and go to the [backpacker] pub and dance the night away

Wednesday

• The Melbourne 5 (Chris, Olivia, Salome, Linda and I) are off to famous Chapel St, Prahran. John Safran’s favourite Street
• Walk through the Royal Botanical Gardens to get there. I reopen a scab hopelessly failing to climb a tree. Scab occurred from previous drunken Sydney tree climbing. Bleeding badly.
• We have $7 Thai meals on Toorak Rd
• We café it up on Chapel St. We are seated next to a table full of Bandido bikies.
• Visit Obese records. ‘Melburn’ shirts (Burn Crew) unfortunately out of stock
• Ask heads behind the counter for venues to visit for hiphop. Salome likes hiphop
• See Olivia off. She is catching a train to Sydney
• Meet up with Cate (Canada) and her uni friends at night for free Comedy at Spleen Bar. Cate is a cool friend I made from Adelaide backpacking. We are also there with roommates Francois and Justine. That makes 7 of us plus Cate and her 4 mates = 12 comedy watchers.
• Good night of comedy. Cate and crew leave for home, Chris and I wait to see them off. Salome, Linda and Francois get a headstart to hiphop venue ‘Miss Libertine’
• The crew never make it, they text saying they are going home. Me and Chris give up looking for the place. But accidentally stumble on it anyway. Pretty hip venue with heads. Didn’t look to social so we move on. Off to Goldfingers’ mission.
• Alfred and the Getaway boys had been in Melbourne the days previous. Asked him to leave me a package with coordinates. His text reads “Yo. Goldfingers [Gentleman’s club], up the stairs, turn left, find the armchair in the corner… it’s stuffed between the seat cushion and the seat back… good luck ;-)”
• Off to Goldfingers. Thought it was was on Little Collins St, would later find out that was address to “Goldfingers Facilities corporation(?)” We see a corner club that says ‘GP’ in fancy writing. Looks kinda like a strip club or a Russian mafia room/Cigar club. We are unsure. We sheepishly walk up to door. A passerby confidently rolls in and says:
  
  Melbournians: Boys. You’re at the right place
  Us: So this is Goldfingers?
  M: haha hahaha (gives us directions)
  Us: What is this place anyway?
  M: The ‘Gin Palace’
  We end up going in and checking it out anyway, stay there for an hour chatting with that guy and his mate. Random detour.
• Now we go to Goldfingers. Can’t find the package. Looked through around 7 seats. Bug Fred, no response. Get private show from Bella.

Thursday

• Go to Victoria Markets with Chris. Chores mostly. Chris organises his trip. He buys comedy tickets for that evening. I bought tix in Sydney
• Go to St Kilda, Luna Park
• Forgo the pubcrawl organised by Hostel. We (Salome, Linda, Chris and I) go to Gallery opening for Niagara’s latest collection at Ubercool ‘Outre Gallery’. Free beer. Awesome art. Cool kids.
• Rockabilly chicks and Detroit Rock and Rollers. Phwoar! At first we are in awe. We take photos and now we just be chilin. Talk heaps, one girl invites herself to our shenanigans tomorrow - we planned to go to Melbourne uni for Marxism conference
• We play games with the door lady where we have to guess the person that she is describing i.e which one is the gallery owner? Which is the artist? She suggests cool venues for us to check out (Cookie)
• We head off to comedy - Headliners showcase. I am hanging out for Todd Barry (comedy veteran and actor in ‘The Wrestler’) and Christian Finnegan (funny comedian I enjoyed in NY). Chris and I sit at front thus singled out a few times. Todd Barry offers his tram pass, I score it. Finnegan has a joke about specifically visualising a person masturbating he uses me for that joke. Should have got Barry to sign his tram pass. They made themselves available. Didn’t approach them.
• We walk around to party. Its Thurs before long weekend, city is buzzin. We head into Cookie after half an hour of anxiety not knowing where to go.
• ‘Cookie’ is fun. Obviously a cool venue where the kids hang out. Ummm bump into Max. He says he might be down for beer the next day

Friday

• Ring up Rakkel (Rockabilly chick) and Max in the morn. Both pike out due too late all night drinking and late nights
• We go Melb Uni. The Marxism conference cost money which is ghey.
• We go to Lygon Street admire the fancy food. Eat Souvlaki
• Chris and I say our goodbyes to the girls for good. They want to walk home, we tram. See Chris off, he’s catching a plane to Sydney
• Walk around city by myself, a taste of what the worst case scenario of the trip could’ve been. 5 hours till my flight. Stumble on some graff being put up by a French crew in one of the lanes. Checked out ACMI exhibitions at Fed Square. Watched Free Comedy outside Fed Square
• Successfully avoided Casino the whole trip. The closest I got to Crown was gooning Tuesday.
• Home. Chris and Olivia are in Sydney. To be continued...

Post Melbourne Hanging includes

• Olivia and Co, Laura, and Slovenians go to comedy @World Bar. Too late. But we have alcoholic tea and chats.
• Hanging out with Chris @Scary Canary, meeting up w/ Olivia @Sidebar, Walking to Russell Crowe's and Harry's Pie where we conversate with drunken homeless(?) people
• Met UK birds Laz and Saz where we have adventures like 'Scenic Gooning®', drinking card games at the hostel, driving them to the Gap where we have ice cream, @Sidebar and @Scubar

Screaming into the abyss. Minyon Falls, NSW

Byron Bay, August 2010

Thursday

• Arrive at Gold Coast Airport. Shuttle to Arts Factory Lodge in Byron
• Went exploring around hostel then town. Met up with Bassy formerly from work and his mate Tom.
• Played pool and had pizza at the RSL. Bought Goon and drank by the beach.
• Tom planned shenanigans for the evening, walked for 30min for random pick up.
• Driven out to den 20min away. Then for some unknown reason we walked out of this person's house and proceeded to walk for 6hours completely Hunter S Thompsoned. Failing to hitchhike and generally just meandering.
• Got picked up by the original car that drove us to the house many hours later where we were dropped at Tom's house.
• Tom had been threatening to leave Byron on our walking trip[ping]. With little fanfare, Bassy and I knackered. Tom and our Driver drop us off at Bassy's house then proceed to the Airport where they Good Will Hunting it out to Melbourne. Tom has made a possibly life changing move within 24hrs of meeting him.

Friday

• Wake up and Bassy Votes in the election. Meet his mate who impressively has written out all 50 preference votes. We think about photocopying his list to distribute. We never did.
• Go swimming at Tallows beach. Eat a falafel near the shore. Bass drops me off at Lighthouse where I do my own sight seeing by walking from here to the hostel. See dolphins and Whales.
• Finally settle into my hostel room where I meet my roommates. Decide on Cheeky Monkeys for the night's festivities
• Ate at Cheeky's with Volt (Dutch) as my main running mate. We drink. We dance on the tables as is custom. A girl collapses and stays on the ground for almost an hour. Whuh?

Saturday

• Had breakfast with Demian (German). Hung with him as he waited for his bus.
• Got picked up by Bassy where we went to the Byron Markets to sample the authentic vegetarian cuisine and hippy wares.
• Drove out to Minyon Falls. Locals apparently don't bother with the renowned Nimbin Bay. Thus we didn't.
• Explored the falls from the Cliff edge. Car stalled on the way back and we waited 2hrs for NRMA. Bummer
• Got home to a glorious home cooked Dinner with Bassy's awesome parentals.
• Watched 'Yes Man'

Sunday

• Driven to lookout to see whales and explore the town's sights
• Mostly read books and watched DVDs from Parental's new age collection. Read: Very Byron Bay. 1 Giant Leap etc...
• Had dinner out with Bassy and his mum
• Driven to the Goldie to fly home