Major Melbourne Moves

Hi there! As previously mentioned, we made it to the land of Aus! Here is our update. Major points include: car shopping, hotel hopping, and pints dropping.

1: Car

As soon as we landed, the hunt was on for our new whip. Luckily, we had done our research and had narrowed it down to 4 strong contenders. We ended up test-driving 3 out of the 4, but the fourth was sold, unbeknownst to us, until we spent an entire afternoon getting to the dealership. The lack of professionalism was evident, and even more so when they tried to con us into buying the more expensive model and tell us it was the car we were looking at all along.

In contrast to the poor customer service, we now willingly owe our lives, left arms and our firstborn child (Olga) to a woman at VicRoads. Darlene. She was an absolute gem. Despite all odds (and VicRoads requirements for customer registration), she got us exactly what we needed, and perfectly on time too. Overall, a much better experience than those at North American counterparts like Service Ontario or the DMV.

But back to the car, after meticulous pondering, we chose the 2018 Subaru Outback in crystal white.

We are getting to know our fiesty girl, but loving what we’ve experienced so far, and we’re setting her up with all the latest fixin’s. We outfitted her with two custom mattress toppers for maximal comfort and a snazzy hairdo sponsored by Thule for optimal storage capacity. Look for us on the newest episode of MTV Cribs for a whole house tour!

2: Camera

Between running around and sorting out the car, we spent little nuggets of time exploring the local parks, searching for birds & other wildlife. We've worked out a good deal where James has the camera, and Katie has the binoculars & bird book, trying to identify every species we lay our eyes upon! It’s safe to say, we may have caught the birding bug!

Both of us were especially excited to see the littlest species of penguin: the little penguin. While they come in a small package, they deliver an overwhelming amount of cuteness.

If photographing these little dudes wasn’t exciting enough, James had a new toy to test out with the best little subjects. (It is not evident from the photo, given that it is literally a black box, but James bought himself a snazzy new Canon R7 camera)!!

Little penguins are currently at the top of our “species seen” list, but other honourable mentions include: Royal Spoonbills, Rainbow Lorikeets, and Superb fairywrens. Just WAIT until James gets to editing his photos, then the gallery will be popping!

3: Everything else

Buying a car came with its fair share of craziness & hoops to jump through, including waiting a couple of extra days for the money to be transferred from the Canadian bank to the Australian bank... thank you International Date Line... So this meant inconvient things like having to get a new hotel when our AirBnb stay came to an end, but also very fun things like time to go see the penguins in St Kilda, try out Annette and Peter's favourite noodle place in Richmond, take a countless number of trams through the city, scour Facebook Marketplace for car accessories, hunt for a new perfect water bottle, try out nearly all the breweries in Melbourne, lose (badly) at a German beer house trivia night (and pretzel eating contest), eat very tasty sandwiches at Hector's deli, and watch the Australian Open final just outside of the stadium!

Thanks for being a cool city, Melbourne!! On to the roadtrip portion of the adventure!!

Love,

Katie & James