Moving to Melbs

HOW I ENDED UP MOVING FROM PERTH AND SETTLING DOWN IN MELBOURNE.

So there I was, living in Perth on a working holiday VISA (WHV), my wallet loaded with a new bank card, medicare card and several library cards but no hard-earned Australian dollars as of yet. The next step in my new, stable, not-so-travel-packed-but-hopefully-better-funded life was to attempt to find a job.

In all honesty I didn’t try very hard in Perth at all. I was a pro at getting all of the required life admin sorted out in record time, but actually trying to get a job? Well… as much as I told people I wasn’t precious and would take anything, I was really only lying to myself. I thought I was trying – I spent ages anguishing over my CV, unsure of how to make it suit roles I’m far too experienced for now (because I knew, even then, that I wouldn’t get roles at my current career level on a WHV), signed up to a promising recruitment agency and toyed with the idea of going into cafes and just forcing my resume upon unsuspecting servers. As little effort as I actually put in, when I left Perth, less than a month after arriving, I actually did have some good options. The main reason I left though was because I felt the inevitable pull of another city…

Before I ever visited Australia, people told me about Melbourne. They told me how much, I, specifically would adore her, how she is colourful and dynamic and edgy and emphatically cool and how I absolutely have to go. Admittedly this kind of introduction will stay with you, and I’ve always known I needed to live in Melbourne. I started in Perth because I wanted somewhere familiar and stable after my travels, but actually, after being there for probably about 10 days, I kind of knew in my gut it wasn’t right this time. The more people I spoke to, the more I got it into my head that if I wanted to live in Melbourne, I’d be better off going now, before the summer kicked in and all of the other WHVs moved there, in order to have the best chance of getting a job. I think it was this subconscious reasoning that meant I didn’t try very hard in Perth to settle in or get a job, and that, ultimately, made it easy to leave.

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So, two weeks in and I’d already given up on my first love, Perth, and decided to try the hipster capital of the southern hemisphere as the base for my new life. Before I left, however, I did have two new travel experiences I want to mention. First: spending Halloween, my favourite celebration, in my WA home. This was amazing and I’m so glad I planned it this way. Not necessarily because Perth does anything exceptional, but because I happened to be living with a few like-minded people and we took over the TV area for horror movies over the full week before Halloween, everyone got impressively dressed up (given that we’re all backpackers with a limited wardrobe), and they sourced me a 90’s night costume party where the bartender took a liking to me and bumped me to the front of every single queue. I didn’t get to do my usual array of horror themed baking but I had a much, much, more exciting and satisfactory time than I was expecting.

The one other thing worth mentioning from this short stint in WA was that Benji (Perth bestie who was still there but leaving imminently) and I went to go hold a koala in one of the only places in the world that it’s legal to do so: Cohunu Koala Park. It’s a bit of a journey from the main city, especially if you don’t drive, but it’s well worth it. We thought we’d just be seeing some koalas from afar, queuing for an hour to hold one, and then going home. This was not the case at all. It turns out that Cohunu Koala Park, albeit quite small, holds way more than just koalas. We got in immediately to hold and take photos with the koalas, and then spent several hours trying to pet llamas, making friends with kangaroos and laughing hysterically as Benji was chased by an Emu. The main area of the park is just an open space with many of the animals freely roaming, hungry for the bag of popcorn we got free upon arrival. I’d not even seen a koala or an emu yet so I was glad I could tick off another Ozzie experience before leaving Perth.

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Three and half weeks after leaving Asia for good, I found myself landing in Melbourne after a 6 hour overnight flight from Perth. I had no real idea where I was hoping to live and so I’d just booked 4 nights in a central hostel in order to get a feel for the place before looking for a longer term address. I landed first thing in the morning, made my way to my accommodation, dropped my bag there, and went to source some of that famous Melbourne coffee and blog for several hours whilst I tried to wake up. By about 10am I felt slightly more alive, took myself to the local library (and acquired a library card) and did what I should, realistically, have done in Perth: Googled recruitment agencies and sent my resume to every single one. By the time I was able to check into my hostel at midday I felt very accomplished. I spent the next four days wandering around the laneways, applying for jobs at the library and making lists of all of the things I wanted to do in Melbourne when I was finally earning good money.

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After my four nights in my CBD hostel were up, I ended up, rather by accident, moving to Brunswick (about 6kms out of the centre). Benji messaged me saying he was, in fact, moving back to Melbourne, where he’d lived earlier in his year abroad. He’d already found his favourite long-term hostel here and so, not having anything better to do, I booked the same one. It was pretty far out and more expensive than some of the others so I only intended to stay one week to check out the area, and then move onto the next. It specifically caters to WHVs and you can’t book less than a week at a time. I hadn’t realised the difference that this would make but, since it’s also quite small (only around 40 guests at once) it ends up feeling far far more like a shared house than a hostel. You know everyone, and by that I don’t mean that you simply recognise their face, but that you legitimately know and talk to and build relationships with everyone in there. If you told me back in the UK that I’d end up living in a share house with 40 people I’d have cried, but actually, since it’s officially a hostel and there are rules about clearing up, as well as staff to keep it clean, it actually works brilliantly. It helps that everyone who lives there specifically chose that kind of lifestyle, so you immediately know you have that in common at least. Anyway, after I spent my first three days painstakingly remembering everyone’s names, and realised I felt more at home and more comfortable than I had done in months, I knew I wouldn’t move before Christmas.

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Less than a week after moving to Brunswick I got offered multiple jobs. The first two I was offered were a weekday office job and weekend job and so I took them both. It was a very busy December for me. It was what I needed though: I didn’t have the energy to do tourist things – I just wanted to earn some money and feel productive.

I have to say, I didn’t take an instant liking to Melbourne as a city. I had nothing against it but it just didn’t turn out to be what I thought it would. I should have known, realistically, that it would be huge and metropolitan, but I think I was expecting the Australian equivalent of Hoi An in Vietnam: small and quirky and the place to be. Melbourne is just like a more accessible London – and I was never a London girl. I had committed though – hell, I even bought a bike – and I was living somewhere that really felt like home for the first time in my travel packed life. I finally had draws to unpack my things, a comfortable and curtained private bottom bunk and a whole house full of people I could chat to without that forced awkwardness. Yep, I was in Melbourne for the long haul.