Hello Everyone,
I hope you’re all safe and well during these very strange times. I am currently living at Spot X Surf Camp on the East Coast of Australia during the COVID 19 pandemic. It’s a weird feeling being at the other side of the world during all of this madness, but I figured I would use this time to reflect on my Australian journey. I’m sure there are so many people so eager to travel when all of this is over, so I thought I’d return to my blog and write up a cheeky post reflecting on my first couple of weeks in Melbourne pre-lockdown.
I always knew I wanted to work and travel in Australia, but I just had no idea where to even start with organising it, especially seeing as I knew I was travelling on my own (scary times). I remember googling ‘tours around Australia’ and it just felt like there were so many different things that popped up that all seemed to say the same thing, leading me to feel more lost with it all. I’ve done lots of travelling before, but I always like to not plan too much as it adds more to the adventure. Because this was my first time solo travelling, I wanted to have something planned that would make me feel less thrown into the deep end when I got to Australia. However, I didn’t want to commit to a 2/3/4 month tour - What if I wanted to spend longer than the designated time at a specific place? What if I wanted to branch out from the people in my group after a week but couldn’t because of the itinerary? Ideally, I just wanted something that would introduce me to the Aussie lifestyle, whilst meeting a new group of people, and also supporting me with advice of what to do with work and my time in Aus.
Feeling lost, I decided to ask for some help in STA travel. They recommended a company called ‘Welcome to Travel’, which was set up by two guys from Scarborough who ended up staying out in Australia after being on a one year working holiday visa. I can’t lie, because the tour was set up by Northern travellers from close to my home, I felt so much more reassured. My friend from work also recommended the tour after booking on to it last year which just made me want to do it even more. So after a few weeks thinking time, I ended up booking my flight, working holiday visa and Welcome to Travel tour through STA travel.
On TripAdvisor, the Melbourne tour is ranked number 1, with all 5 stars, and is the most popular tour within the company. The tour includes airport pickup. When you’re travelling it is so reassuring to know that when you arrive in an unfamiliar place you have someone to pick you up straight away and take you to your hostel. This was not your ordinary taxi driver, this was the legend, Clive. He was the first Australian I met in Melbourne, and he does a lot of pickups with the Welcome to Travel tour. Billy Joel ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ was blaring in the background of our very interesting conversations (touched on a few heavy topics despite the fact I’d just had a 23 hour plane journey haha). He was a very friendly and memorable welcome to Australia.
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| St. Kilda |
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| Melbourne Street Art |
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| Southgate Bridge |
Additionally, the tour includes 8 jam-packed days of fun, and 7 nights accommodation. The tour guide, Billy, was fab, and always went above and beyond to make sure everyone had the best week filled with banter. On the first day we were introduced to the team and the other travellers on the tour. I was pretty nervous but because we all ended up spending the whole week together non-stop we all gelled pretty quickly. Billy showed us around the CBD; Queen Victoria market (with lots of cheeky food samples), Federation Square and other main spots including the State Library of Victoria (absolutely beautiful) and Southgate Bridge. Billy guided us through Melbourne’s most famous street art spots. Hosier Street was my favourite. It was refreshing to have someone actually take you around the city, as Melbourne is so big. My sense of direction is so bad so the tour definitely made things a little less overwhelming. Side note: I visited my friend who’d already been living in Melbourne near St. Kilda the day after the tour finished. It took 2 hours to get there (rather than 40 minutes), one of the reasons being that I didn’t know how to stop the tram (they don’t have buttons like in England... I had to ask this random girl on the tram... turns out you have to pull the yellow string at the top), and the other being that I’d hopped on one that went the wrong way. When I finally reached my friend, a tram driver, of whom I had earlier asked for directions from, shouted across the road on the mic ‘you made it’ haha. Australians are friendly for sure.
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| Arborary Afloat with Nisha |
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| Walking Tour |
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| State Library of Victoria |
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| Hosier Street |
One of my favourite parts of the tour was going to a bring your own booze Chinese restaurant, where we all watched one guy in our group, Steffen, devour 65 dumplings in one hour. This night was hilarious and brought us all so much closer. Don’t worry if you have any dietary requirements, I am coeliac and was buzzing when I got my very own yummy gluten free dumplings, free unlimited replenishments too.
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| Gluten Free Dumplings... |
I think my ultimate highlight was the trip to Phillip Island on the Wednesday-Thursday. Approximately 32,000 penguins live on Phillip Island. Seeing hundreds of tiny little penguins waddle out of the sea through the beach and dimmed lit nature reserve was truly magical and genuinely brought a tear to my eye. They were so cute. The fact my work friends adopted me a penguin here as a leaving home present made it feel even more special. During our time on Phillip Island, we also tasted lots of lush local wines, attempted surfing for the first time, and fed and petted kangaroos at the Maru Animal sanctuary.
The whole week ran smoothly, and even on the Friday when the weather wasn’t so great for St. Kilda, Billy took us up the Eureka Tower Skydeck instead, the highest viewing point in the Southern Hemisphere. There really is something for everyone, and nothing ever felt like a problem.
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| Top of Eureka Tower |
I think the most beneficial part of booking onto this tour is the lifetime membership and guidance you receive regarding both travelling and employment. I came to Australia with only this one week tour booked, and I wouldn’t have done it any other way. The tour sort out the boring stuff that you forget to think about including your bank, tax file and phone number, which is always a bonus. Darryl helped me organise the most insane East Coast trip on the penultimate day of the tour (it is currently on hold at the minute due to corona virus), but I was also able to plan it with two other friends, Nisha and Hannah, who I met on the tour. There were 22 of us booked onto the tour, and 19 of us ended up booking on to travel the Great Ocean Road and Grampians road trip the following week, which again Welcome to Travel helped us arrange. I am so grateful for all the helpful advice throughout. Even during this pandemic, the Welcome to Travel team have constantly checked up on us to make sure we’re okay.
The Great Ocean Road & Grampians Road Trip
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| The Grampians |
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| Sunrise at Boroka Lookout |
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| Mackenzie Falls |
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| Apollo Bay |
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| Port Campbell National Park |
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| The Grotto |
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| The Twelve Apostles (although there’re only eight) |
Overall, I would say if you are a nervous solo traveller and have no idea how to start your life in Australia, get booked onto this tour. It will not disappoint. Thanks to everyone for making the first two weeks so incredible.
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| Nisha, Hannah, Lou and I on the rooftop of Melbourne Metro YHA, completely oblivious to what the world had in store for us in the coming months... |
For more information and to get booked on, visit:
I hope you enjoyed reading this post, and if you have any questions don’t hesitate to leave a comment below!
Stay safe,
Lots of love,
Alex
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