We checked in then got straight back in the car for a drive along the coast. You really do get a sense of how big and empty Australia is when you’re out in the countryside. The horizon swept around us in an uninterrupted circle, no hills or houses to break up the vast stretch of green-brown fields. We stopped at Eagle’s Nest, a rock formation in the sea between Inverloch and Cape Paterson, and got out for a walk. That area of the coast reminded me of Northern Ireland, which I visited with my family shortly before coming out to Australia.

It wasn’t late by the time we got back to the motel but since we’d decided (Sag decided and I reluctantly agreed) to get up at 6 the next day, we went about getting ready for bed. I wriggled in under my bed sheets, which were tucked in tightly under the mattress in typical hotel style, and lay there like a mummy with my arms pinned by my sides while Sag prayed. He asked if I wanted to join him but I declined. I wondered if I should leave the room to give him his privacy but I was wedged between the sheets and by the time I’d worked out what kind of ninja-like manoeuvres it would take to get me out of there, he was already finished.

“Good night,” Sag said, leaning over my bed to kiss me.

“Good night,” I said, turning my face so that his lips landed on my cheek. Then he lay down on my bed beside me with the too-tight bed sheets stretched taught like a sheet of cardboard between us.

“How about I just stay here tonight?”

“No!” I lifted my head off the pillow as much as my restrictive bed linen would allow.

“Please?”

“Absolutely not.”

“But I won’t do anything.”

“Either you get into your own bed, or I’ll get another room.”

“Ok, sorry, sorry!” Sag leapt up as though he’d been burned and went over to his own bed.

“Please can we not talk about this again?” he asked.

“Fine by me,” I said.

The following morning my alarm went off at 6 but I didn’t feel much like making life easy for Sag so I stayed in bed for another hour. We still made it to Wilsons Prom in good time.

It was absolutely beautiful; an impossibility of greens and blues. Even the areas that had been destroyed in the 2009 bush fires were dramatic and impressive looking: ash grey branches poking up through the pale green regrowth. We walked through rainforests and along beaches where the rounded quartz crystals in the sand made it squeak underfoot. I forgot about what happened the night before and just enjoyed being there.

In the car on the way back to Melbourne, Sag apologised and asked if I would see him again. Although that incident didn’t put me off looking for travel companions online – I went on an amazing road trip recently which was also organised through Gumtree – it did put me right off Sag. I had to say no.

I found Sag on Gumtree when I was trying to kick start the universe into providing for me (item 3 on my universe wish-list was a group of nice people with a car that I could travel with). Sag’s advert said he had a car and time on his hands to do some travelling in Victoria.

We met for a coffee to get to know each other a bit and to plan our upcoming trip. He seemed like a nice guy and we got on well, although I did not completely discount the idea that he might be a serial killer. My flat mate reassured me that when you go on a road trip with a stranger, the other person is much more likely to piss you off than kill you. He didn’t have any statistics to back up this claim, but I suspected he was right.

All the same, when Sag picked me up just outside Melbourne city centre I typed the registration of his car into a blank text message. Scrolling through the contacts in my phonebook, I couldn’t think of anyone I could send the text to that wouldn’t either panic unnecessarily or think I was overreacting.

I reasoned that it probably wouldn’t do me much good to send the text anyway. If Sag was a killer, no one would know about it until my body was discovered. Would I really be bothered about whether or not the police could track him down using the registration plate of his car, bearing in mind that I would be dead?

I was just mulling this over, wondering if I owed it to my family to give them a vital clue to help solve my murder, when Sag interrupted my thoughts. “The police in Scotland are very good, aren’t they?”

“I’m sorry, what?” I glanced down at my phonebook again. Maybe I should send that text after all…

“You’ve never heard this before? They are very good at solving cases, if someone gets murdered.”

I knew that Scots had a reputation for being stingy and for drinking whisky, but I didn’t know our police force was renowned. Worried that Sag was calculating how likely it was that he would be caught if he killed me, I decided to play along.

“Yes, that’s right. We have very good police in Scotland. Very good.”

“I thought so. Scotland Yard are very famous.”

Ah.

I tucked my phone back in my pocket. Just a little communication mishap. Nothing to worry about.

It wasn’t until the second communication mishap later that evening that I decided the road trip had earned its little-bit-of-a-disaster label.

Who wouldn’t want to experience that for themselves?

Clare, Jason and I set off for Glenrowan on Friday morning. It was my first Australian road trip (I visited Wilsons Prom with someone I met on Gumtree earlier in the week but neither of us were Australian so it doesn’t count). We listened to Crowded House and ate Cheezles, both Australian road trip essentials, according to Clare.

I had prepared this God-awful packed lunch. My intentions were good but it turned out very badly. The first packet of wraps had gone mouldy, the expiry date on the second, unopened packet was last August, but I swear I didn’t notice either of those things when I packed them. I was up late the night before frying falafel, which came out burned on the outside and mushy on the inside, and cutting out Ned Kelly shaped gingerbread men. I brought some random green leaves I found in the fridge hoping it was some sort of lettuce. Jason told me it was spinach. Whatever. I’m just glad it was something you could eat. And at least the gingerned men looked good.

Ned Kelly’s Last Stand was absolutely as horrifically bad as we had expected. Even the signs outside were bad, with a missing apostrophe on one and “effected” instead of “affected” on another. You’ll notice that the non-traditional spelling of “wimp” (on the sign in the above photo) has not been changed since Bill Bryson’s visit to Glenrowan more than a decade ago.

The show lasted about forty minutes but the first five minutes were wasted with a bizarre animatronic magician addressing empty seats in the audience: “You there, by the door… And you, by the window…” There were only seven of us watching and we sat in the front two rows. Finally the magician transported us back in time to 1880, but only after showing off his skills at conjuring up a thunderstorm with flashes of lighting and pouring rain appearing outside the window slightly out of time with his narrative.

We were directed into a saloon where animatronic Ned Kelly told us about his plight. All the while we were distracted by a rattling trap door and an animatronic dog standing up on its hind legs, resting its paws on the bar and peeing into a spittoon.

Outside we saw a re-enactment of the shoot-out where, for no apparent reason, a giant Ned Kelly and a giant police officer statue fought side by side with their human-sized animatronic counterparts.

The whole thing was rounded off with Ned Kelly levitating in his coffin while Such is Life, Ned Kelly played in the background and a red-eyed owl looked on.

It really was so bad that it was good, which is an entirely different type of good from the regular kind but equally valid and not to be frowned upon. The packed lunch? That was just plain old bad.

I hadn’t realised that Kelly was Australian until I was reminded of the story by an Aussie friend living in Edinburgh. This was shortly before I moved to Melbourne and at that point I was far more interested in raising funds for my travel than I was in Australia’s folk heroes.

It was only once I got here that I realised how idolised he is by Australians, or at least by Victorians. You can see Kelly artefacts in a number of locations in Melbourne and go on Ned Kelly tours. His name and images of the iconic bucket-helmet appear outside fast food joints and even in art. Recently I visited the Heide Museum of Modern Art where I saw one of Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly paintings: an alien looking bucket-head silhouette popping up in an Australian bush landscape.

Kelly’s popularity stems from him being a bit of an underdog. Coming from an Irish Australian family he was persecuted by the police and often in trouble for things he did and didn’t do. There’s no doubt he was a criminal; he and his gang robbed banks, but the perception is of him being a kind of Robin Hood character, stealing from the rich to help the poor. I’m not sure how much truth there is in this. Either way, the story of Ned Kelly’s Last Stand, the 12 hour shoot-out which eventually saw him captured, has become an Australian legend and won Kelly hoards of admirers.

In early November this year while I was staying out in regional Victoria with Peter and Karoline I saw a report on the news saying that the Victorian government had agreed to release Ned Kelly’s remains to his descendants. All sorts of people had an opinion on this, from a tourist in Kelly’s hometown of Glenrowan who said “Good on him” to descendants of both Kelly and a policeman killed by the Kelly Gang.

The descendant of the policeman thought it was outrageous the way that Kelly had been glorified. A spokesperson from Glenrowan Tourist Centre said that it didn’t really matter if Kelly was good or bad, it was history. He added that he hoped the remains wouldn’t be buried in Glenrowan because he was concerned about grave robbers. “Ned Kelly fans are fanatics and there are too many of them!” He suggested cremation. Kelly’s descendant, however, said that he wanted to give Kelly a dignified burial next to his mother, who is in an unmarked grave in Glenrowan.

There are many appealing things about the story of Kelly’s remains. It’s astonishing that people still care so deeply about the fate of Kelly’s bones more than 130 years after his death by hanging. I can’t think of an analogous case in the UK. Generally being descended from a criminal is considered a bad thing back home, and not something to dwell upon.

Karoline had been following the saga of Kelly’s remains for longer than I had and she told me that they had only recently discovered the bones in a mass grave at Pentridge Prison. They were identified by DNA testing. Again, I am astonished by how strongly people must feel about Ned Kelly to put so much time and money into finding his remains.

A final interesting bit of trivia is that his skull is still missing. It’s a complicated tale involving a theft from Melbourne Gaol, a missing tooth and plenty of forensic studies. A few years ago someone in Western Australia claimed to have the skull but DNA testing showed that it was not a match. That means it’s still out there somewhere, perhaps sitting on someone’s mantelpiece with a burning candle inside forming a grim shrine to Kelly.

Last week on my way to the train station I snapped a pair in Thornbury. I looked around furtively before taking the photo, worried that if the criminal gang responsible saw me, they would come after me with a gun, or possibly with a length of shoelace to garrotte me.

It was early in the morning and the street was quiet so I took my photo quickly, tucked my camera back in my bag and went on my way. I probably would have forgotten all about it if I hadn’t received the e-mail from Anna, who has now left Melbourne to continue her round the world adventure.

Anna had been doing some internet research and discovered that the shoes are a form of street art. Shoefiti, if you will. I don’t know why we didn’t figure that out for ourselves. In a city like Melbourne, where the laneways are covered in graffiti, the bike racks wear knitted jackets and shop windows form quirky exhibition spaces, that is the most obvious explanation.

I’m not sure where I stand on shoefiti at the moment. Yarn bombing and graffiti have some obvious value: they are appealing to look at and some creativity has gone into making them. Anyone can toss a pair of shoes over a power line. (Actually, I’m not sure if I could. I might miss and concuss some innocent passerby). And sure, the sight of them did provoke the whole “what does it mean?” discussion, but only in the sense of “what are those shoes doing there?” and not in an existential “why are we here?” sense. Like the love locks, I can’t help but feel that shoefiti is wasteful.

I’m still working away at my yarn bombing experiment, knitting through my mistakes, but I’ll be damned if I’m throwing a perfectly good pair of shoes away for the sake of art.

My new housemates are kind people who are into yoga and sustainable living. We eat organic, vegetarian food and very little dairy; only a bit of cheese every now and again. I spoke to my mum on Skype last week and she asked if I was eating well enough. I had to laugh because I have never eaten so well in my life. Meals here consist of rice and quinoa and vegetables from the garden.

I spent a bit of time in the garden with one of my housemates, planting beans and cucumbers. Who would have guessed that I would one day do gardening for fun? Another housemate showed me how to knit and has lent me her needles and wool so I can practice for a bit and work my way up to yarn bombing something. The third housemate hooked me up with some work in a shop. I’m grateful to all of them for their help.

The shop sells Goth style clothing: chunky, buckle clad boots, floor length black coats and PVC corsets. It only opened last week so we still get respectable looking, middle-aged business women coming in to browse, then gradually looking more and more perplexed until they realise that the store they thought they were in has gone.

There’s a whole heap of new vocabulary that goes with the shoes we sell: punknews zip up sky hi six eye neon peacock creeper… Luckily the customers know what they’re looking for, even if I don’t. Not yet, anyway. I’m still working on my opening line to greet people who come into the store. The standard “How’re you going?” over here sounds fine in an easy going Aussie accent but unnatural in my tightly done up Scottish one.

I’ve got another job too, teaching English as a foreign language. My accent is causing me some grief there too. The other day I gave a pronunciation lesson. The students played a game where they had to identify words that rhymed. “No, no, no,” I insisted. “’War’ does not rhyme with ‘sport’.” Well, they looked up the words in their phonetic dictionaries, and wouldn’t you know it? They do rhyme. But try as I might, I cannot say ‘war’ and ‘sport’ and make them sound the same.

You know you’re in a good place when the worst of your problems is a little bit of trouble with rhyming. Every so often I roll my eyes skywards and smile and say a silent thank you to the universe.

I’m not a huge fan of Christmas songs at the best of times but in this weather they’re downright irritating. There’s no way we’re getting a white Christmas here, Bing Crosby, so just keep on dreaming.

Instead of the Christmas markets prevalent in Europe, Melbourne has night markets throughout the summer months. At the Suzuki Night Market sangria is the weather appropriate alternative to mulled wine and instead of all the usual Christmas themed tat that no one wants, there are stalls selling funky designer clothes and jewellery and bags.

The Abbotsford Convent Night Market is a much smaller affair. I went there last Friday with Grace and Alex and Anna and after a loop of the stalls, which didn’t take very long, we went for a stroll through the grounds. Lilac blossom popped against the red brick of the convent buildings and lemon yellow light pooled at the base of the sky.

Standing alone in the grounds, admiring the view of the city against the backdrop of the setting sun, we saw something that was neither Christmassy nor summery but perhaps a bit Halloween-y. Apocalyptic looking, even. At first we thought the black specks swirling across the sky towards downtown Melbourne were birds but then, when we looked more closely, we realised they were bats. There were hundreds of them gliding out of the trees and flowing in a never ending stream towards the city. It was breathtaking.

And all the while that we gazed up at sky the only sounds were the chirps of birds and insects. It was hard to believe that only a short distance away a crowd of people was gathered at the night market. I wonder if any them looked up and saw the silent stream of bats slicing under the moon, of if they didn’t notice at all?

On the way to brunch with some friends we spotted a bike rack on Lygon St that had been yarn bombed. That is, someone had given it a lovely knitted cover. Yarn bombing is like graffiti, but in woollen form. Some people consider this ‘guerrilla knitting’ to be vandalism, others street art. Personally, I think it’s beautiful. I would never buy a can of paint to spray a slogan on a wall, but I’m tempted to learn to knit so that I can make a woollen sleeve for a lamppost.

Perhaps I’m underestimating the political power of yarn bombing, but it just doesn’t seem like a naughty or controversial thing to do in the way that spray painting a wall does. Don’t get me wrong, I like graffiti and I think a spray painted scrawl is just as much a work of art as an image by Banksy, but I can understand why some people dislike it and why councils have it removed. At its best it can be inspiring, challenging and attractive; at its worst it can be ugly, hate filled and offensive. Yarn bombing, well, it just looks nice, doesn’t it? What everyday object cannot be improved by dressing it in a cheerful knitted jacket?

Over brunch in L’atelier de Monsieur Truffe (another one of Melbourne’s hidden cafés, where I had the most beautifully presented and delicious hotcakes ever), Grace, Anna and I decided to go on a yarn trail to discover more of the city’s knitted artworks.

The following Tuesday we went for a walk around Brunswick where we discovered pieces by the Brunswick Bomber, Poppy Tonka and Yarn Corner, along with other untagged works. We started out at Charles Street Market then made our way up Sydney Road. It’s amazing how easy it is to miss these yarn bombed objects if you’ve not got your eyes peeled. Sometimes we walked past one two or three times before we spotted it. All in all, though, it was a successful trail with plenty of yarn bomb sightings.

A few days later, Grace reported back that one of the knitted covers we’d seen on a bike rack in Charles Street had been removed. Only a fringed pink cuff remained. I wondered if the perpetrator was someone who disapproves of yarn bombing in general or who just objected to the combination of pink and teal stripes? Either way, the fact that someone was motivated enough to rip it off suggests that yarn bombing is perhaps more controversial than I initially suspected.

I met Mikka WWOOFing at the yoga retreat. He told me that he’d travelled for two and a half years in Asia without spending any money. I asked how he did it and he said sometimes he slept outdoors and sometimes people offered him a bed for the night. He was just as happy sleeping under a tree as he was in a five star hotel.

I don’t see myself happily bedding down for the night on a park bench, but I could carry on doing what I’m doing now, working on someone’s property in exchange for a room and board, for a long long time. This is not, however, an infinitely sustainable lifestyle. As well as having to pay for transport costs to get from one location to another, there are certain luxuries that I can’t live without, like coffee and cake in a nice café from time to time.

Mikka said that the trick is to say, yes, I’d really like a coffee but I’m only to have one if the universe provides it for me. Then, when that coffee comes your way, it’s the best coffee you’ve ever tasted. I can’t help but wonder how often the universe does provide you with coffee and would I be able to wait that long for it?

Since I’ve been here I’ve seen two examples of the universe providing. A couple of weeks ago, Ostii was making ice-cream with his Champion Juicer. The juicer was broken and unless you held it in a certain way, part of it would spin round when it wasn’t supposed to. Half way through, Ostii must have let go of the spinning part and it smashed the glass collecting bowl. He flipped out, of course, because it’s very frustrating to lose a bowl of ice-cream after you’ve spent a long time carefully feeding frozen fruit through a juicer while holding an errant mechanical part in position. Only a few hours later, we saw a Champion Juicer in a garage sale for $40. Those things normally cost a couple hundred dollars second hand.

Last week Ostii remarked to a friend that he wished he had some more hardwood for the work he is doing on his house. He’s really into sustainable building and is renovating using reclaimed materials as far as possible. This means he can’t just drive down to the hardware store for an oak beam every time he needs one. The friend advised him to be patient and the universe would provide him with hardwood.

Sure enough, a few days later Ostii got a tip off about a building site where there were piles of used timber that were going to be taken to the dump. Mikka and I went with him to load as much as we could into a trailer.

I don’t believe that the universe is some kind of ancient, wish-granting superpower, but all the same, I became quite enthusiastic about the idea of asking it for stuff. I made a list of things I want over the next few months: a room and a job in Melbourne, a group of nice people with a car that I can travel with.

Just having a clear idea about what I want has made me be more proactive about getting it. I guess this is how the universe provides. It’s not magic at all. Ostii might not even have noticed the $40 Champion Juicer if his hadn’t smashed a bowl that morning. He only got the tip off about the timber because he mentioned to a builder friend of his that he needed some. Knowing what you want means you are more likely to look out for it.

A few days ago we were unloading the reclaimed timber from the trailer when Ostii cut his leg on a bit of corrugated metal that was nailed on to one of the wooden beams. I wish that I could say it was lucky I was there to help; I am a trained first aider, after all. But unfortunately the sight of blood makes me feel faint and I had to sit in the next room with my head between my knees while Ostii cleaned himself up. The wound needed five stitches in the end.

It’s not that I believe that the universe is some kind of ancient superpower, but for me this whole incident has somewhat taken the shine off the idea of asking it for stuff.

Normally I am against buying books second hand. My reasoning is that if you buy a new book the author gets royalties for it, if you buy a used book they don’t. Libraries are great because not only do you get free access to books, but every time you borrow a book the author gets a little bit of money too. At least that’s how it works in the UK. I need to find out what the situation is here in Australia.

In the Castlemaine bookshop I was looking for more Paul Jennings stories and I managed to find a collection (after being given directions and a map) of three of his Un books in one volume. At $7.50 it was a bargain. Even second hand books here normally cost almost as much as a new book in the UK. I didn’t feel too guilty about my purchase because I’d already bought all of his books once before. Not only did I not feel guilty, I’d even go as far as to say that transaction made my day.