Another day, another city walk! I’d already hit upon the Yarra River a tiny bit, but today I’d explore it more at length.
The Right Turn Rule of Melbourne
Generally, road rules here make sense. There is no goofy ‘Give Way’ rule in Australia that New Zealand had (recently abolished there as well!). As Melbourne is a large city, traffic is primarily controlled via stoplights rather than roundabouts. All in all, nothing too special.
Except when you factor in these things:
Museums and Markets
A rainy, grey day gives good reason to find shelter amongst the many indoor activities that Melbourne offers. One of the larger, more time consuming options is the Melbourne Museum. From my hostel, to get there I go to walk through the sizable Carlton Gardens. At the middle of the gardens sits the Royal Exhibition Building.
Funny Money
Australia’s monetary system is quite similar to that of New Zealand, with a couple minor differences.
First, sizing. While the paper bills grow in length as the value increases, the coins…are a bit more random. The $2 coin is actually the smallest coin of the bunch. The 50 cent coin is simply gigantic. It may not look it in the picture, but you really notice when you get the coin. Second is the denominations and rounding. There is a 5 cent coin in Australia (not shown). While there is no penny in Australia, with the 5 cent coin final prices get rounded to the nearest 0 or 5 cent mark. New Zealand took things one step further and eliminated the 5 cent coin, making all rounding, either up or down, to zero. Either way, still nice to not have useless coins. I’d also say that the vast majority of things have rounded to the zero cent mark, rather than the 5 so far. I’ve only gotten a single 5 cent piece back in change after nearly a week. Finally, I found the colour here to be quite striking and different – the NZ currency colour reminded me of Canadian money. Aussie colours are all wrong! $20 should be GREEN! 😉
In the ‘same as NZ category’ (with the fine print of, Canada should really adopt this!), taxes here are already included in prices (10%), and tipping is not practiced, required, or expected. Wonderful! 🙂
Welcome to Melbourne
My flight from New Zealand got me into Australia fairly late in the evening, around 8pm or so. After clearing customs and retrieving my baggage, I made it to my hostel by 9pm (actually 11pm for me, on NZ time). So pretty much all I did that night was I found my room and jumped into bed.
The next day however, I was up and eager to explore. The morning rains cleared quickly and I found myself in the downtown core. The central spot would probably be Federation Square. It had the visitor’s center and several large convention/exhibition/gallery type places, and it was pretty neat looking to boot, so I figured it would be as good a spot as any to start at!
Flying with Style
My flight over to Australia was with an airline I had never flown with before, but had heard about. I wasn’t really prepared for it though. Living in North American had gotten me used to tiny chairs, limited entertainment (Air Canada is great, though US carriers are terrible), and non-existent food options. My flight down to New Zealand on Air New Zealand was a great joy, but that was partly buoyed by using points to bump me into getting a lie-flat seat. It was back to cattle-class for my 4 hour flight across the Tasman sea on my way to Melbourne.
The check-in was auspicious and easy enough. No waits, as there were about 20 check-in agents working hard. Which was good, Emirates had all 3 of their flights that left Auckland (going to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, before all heading onwards to Dubai) within an hour window. So, lots of people at the airport. No worries, I had dropped off my bag and headed towards security within minutes.
So Long, New Zealand
51 weeks later, I’ve packed my things and should now be at Auckland Airport, awaiting my departure from New Zealand. Australia is next on the docket. I’ll be landing in Melbourne and finding my way from there. I don’t have a specific plan or itinerary for when I get there. I’ll just figure it out as I go.
New Zealand has been a great home for the past year. There are quite a few things I’ll miss about it. But, my desire to keep travelling is still strong, so I’ll keep on going.
Here are some of the things I’ll miss when I leave New Zealand:
Trials and Tribulations
With no more travel in New Zealand to look forward to, I set my sights instead on Australia and getting down to organizing my necessary paperwork.
The Working Holiday Visa was the easy part – I’ve had that since December. Much like New Zealand, the WHV for Australia is done solely online and I received instant approval. It costs a bit more money (~$280 vs $100) but otherwise is nearly identical. Australia also has a provision that allows people on a WHV to stay for a second year if they choose, and have met certain qualifications (working in agriculture for a certain amount of time is the main one, I believe). I don’t plan on spending more than 12 months in Australia though, so I just considered it an interesting point and didn’t pay much more attention than that.