Melbourne to Albury and Back

Mar 16 – 19

It's been hard to write about things that we ourselves don't want to dwell on too much. We've been feeling a little sorry for ourselves and kind of home sick with the way things have been working out. Or rather how they haven't been working out. We've been applying to jobs and trying to get in touch with some agencies. We did go into to town on Sunday the 18^th, it's a much cheaper fare. We checked out the Queen Victoria Market. It reminded us of the markets in Asia although a lot more expensive and a lot cleaner. If needed we'll come back here to pick up some warming clothing. You can buy a hoody for $10-20. But honestly we've been pretty boring. We have been walking the dogs though and in one park there are kangaroos. I got some pictures of them on one of our visits.

Mar 20 – To Albury

Today we are driving to Albury, New South Wales with Monique so we can put the van in our name. Monique is going there for a conference so fortunately we have a ride. During the day though we got a very unfortunate phone call from the mechanic. Turns out that one of valve sleeves had fallen into the engine and had been rattling around (at least that's my understanding of what happened). The engine needs to be replaced or reconditioned....shit. The mechanic said he was pursuing all the contacts he had to see if he could find an engine. This put a huge damper on our day. We were traveling to another state to change over a van into our name and it may never run again but it needs to be done. We picked Monique up after work and started the three hour drive to Albury. Along the way we called some places to stay, we hadn't pre-booked, and of course the place we had been looking at was full. We contacted a hostel and they wanted $35/person for a 4 bed dorm! We figured we'd find something once in town or worse case scenario go stay at the hostel. On the way into Albury we saw a sign for a motel room for $70/night and it included breakfast. We dropped Monique off at her hotel and then checked into the motel. We walked down the main street from the motel and got some stirfry noodles for dinner. We were feeling pretty down about everything so to cheer us up we decided to go see a movie. “21 Jump Street” was playing at the theatre across from the restaurant so we decided to go to that. It was also cheap night Tuesday which was a plus. The movie was pretty funny and our night ended on a laughing note.

Mar 21 – Back to Diamond Creek

After our included breakfast, toast and cereal, we walked down to the vehicle registration offices and got Dotti put in our name. We headed back to the car and ran some errands in town. Then we headed back to the main strip and walked around the down town a bit. I was able to find a kangaroo charm for my charm bracelet. We met up with Monique around 5pm when her conference had ended and then headed back to Diamond Creek. We were glad to have our little trip over and done with.