Crossing the road.

I arrive in Melbourne to the best coffee of my life. It's 6:30am and it's still dark, I withdraw some money from the cash machine and make my first Australian purchase: a flat white. Don't say a white coffee here or they'll get mad, it's a flat white. It was gloriously smooth. I thought it was a product of my two days of travelling that made me enjoy it so much. As it turns out that's just coffee in Melbourne. Back home I hardly ever drink it, today I'm on my second and it's only half eleven.

I get the skybus into town as the sun was rising over fields of green and gold. A verdant landscape stretches into forever from either side of the bus. Trees line the road, interlocking branches forming a tunnel that we speed through. They are, I later discover, Red River Gums, a form of Eucalyptus and the most common tree in Australia. We pass over a railway and a streak of silver flashes in the sun, straight as an arrow, heading for the horizon. We pass through an industrial suburb. Lines of small coloured boxes form buildings and offices along the edges of roads. I start to see trams criss-crossing the streets.

I am so excited at this point that I can barely sit still. There is a huge grin on my face, anyone on the tram must think I'm some sort of crazy. I can't even listen to my music. I don't want to be distracted. I don't want to miss out on anything around me. Instead I listen to the bad electro-pop playing in the background of the welcome to Australia video. I love it.

Around the land is green and the sky is clear and blue. Then we turn a corner and I see the city, silver towers shining in the distance, and I know Amy is waiting for me. My friend on the other side of the world. We pass under a bridge and huge blocks of red and yellow form a sculpture over the road. I love the architecture here, there is so much variety. Patches of colour abound. On one side there are trees; Eucalyptus and pine and London plane, interspersed between churches and rows of houses. On the other there are huge cranes and a power converter for the national grid. What looks like a huge incomplete Ferris wheel looms over Costco.

 Apparently it's Melbourne's response to the London Eye but it was never completed. I see a stretch hummer pass us at half past seven. Who needs a stretch hummer at half past seven? I look out the other window and there is another one, but even bigger. And bright pink. I see trains and realise we are approaching Southern Cross station, our destination. And Amy. We pull in and I get out of the bus and who do I find waiting to meet me?

The Queen.

She is everywhere, all over the money. Now the money is extremely odd. It's as if someone has tried to re-create British money without ever actually seeing it, only hearing descriptions. The 50 cent coin has far too many sides, the 10 cent is a bit too small and I'm pretty sure they've forgotten about the 20 altogether. And bizarrely $2 coins are like $1 coins but slightly smaller. I think the dollar feels less weighty too, but that's probably just me. Give me a pound any day.

The song 'Oh my god I can't believe it, I've never been this far away from home' rattles round my head while I frantically look from side to side like some sort of meerkat, trying to find the face I'm looking for. Eventually she arrives and we do the classic run and hug.

We spend the day around Melbourne, me taking in the sights like the tourist I am. I decide that I love the city. There are interesting buildings everywhere and (for now) it is sunny and warm. It feels like early June back home which considering we're in the final vestiges of winter is pretty good going.
Within four hours of being in Australia I get roped into a street performers show. I am made to wear an afro wig and do silly dances. I left Edinburgh fringe festival and flew to the far side of the world only to get instantly caught up in street comedy. What is the point.

Melbourne is a city of wide tree-lined streets with trams gliding through the middle and of tall narrow alleys covered head to toe in graffiti. Apparently these are set aside specifically for that purpose. And the trees are almost all London plane which greatly excites me. These trees are much planted in cities due to their high tolerance of atmospheric pollution and are so named because they abound in our capital. In some aspects Melbourne feels surprisingly similar to back home. The wind for example reminds me of Edinburgh. Biting and cold. And when the sun goes behind a cloud (yes it does happen here) it is freezing. It's cloudy today and I'm wearing three whole layers!

We have lunch squeezed onto a tiny table in a small café up an alleyway. It's lovely. The food is amazing. The tea is amazing. I discover that the Australians call peppers capsicums and nearly have a fit. Amy tells me they also call pepper spray capsicum spray which I guess follows but I still find it hilarious. As it turns out Capsicum is the name of the genus to which both sweet and chilli peppers belong. I guess it makes sense.

The strangest thing I have found so far though is crossing the road. There are a surprising number of differences involved in this seemingly simple task. Firstly I am told that jay-walking is a crime, I'd like to see them try and introduce that one in Edinburgh. Secondly here the red man flashes not the green. Thirdly is crossing the road in the rain (yes that happens too). All the Australians freak out. There is often a covering over part of the pavement so you only need to get wet when crossing from one pavement to another. When this happens they all wait under the edge of the cover in a huge mass a good three meters back from the edge of the road. Meanwhile I stand like a true Scotsman on the kerb getting soaked. Then as soon as the green man turns on there is a mad dash where they all run at top speed across the road until they are under the cover at the other side.

But the strangest thing of all is the noise the crossings make. There are two options here. The first one I call the Star Wars Droid. The crossing makes a sudden shooting noise, reminiscent of a laser beam, followed by what I can only describe as the noise of a small droid walking quickly. A sort of buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh. The second one is much more stressful. You can hear the crossings building up to it. There is a sort of ticking as if someone is winding a crank up to breaking point. Then it is released and suddenly there are clappers going off all around. It is almost like the sound the old departure boards used to make in railway stations. When each letter was on a different tile and they would spin round and clatter whenever the information changed. Only that sound is gentle and nostalgic. This is not. They might as well have someone screaming 'Cross the road!' right in your ear.

We have a drink in a bar on the top of a building. Ten dollars for a pint. Classic. Some things are so expensive over here and alcohol is one of them. Some are surprisingly cheap, the trams for example. At the weekend it's impossible to spend more than £2 travelling around the city, and that covers trams trains and buses. Also eating out really isn't that pricey either, especially considering how nice all the food seems to be.

It's hard to believe that I truly am this far away from home. I wander around town by myself listening to 'Sailor Song' (First Aid Kit again, what am I like) and decide that it seems a pretty good place to live. I have an Australian SIM card now and a bank account and a flat. Just a job to go then I guess I'll be officially settled in. Whether I'll feel settled or not remains to be seen, but I reckon I will. Despite all these things it is still hard to comprehend that I will be away for so long. And that I am actually in Australia. It almost feels like I'm just visiting Amy for a weekend in England somewhere. Until I have to cross the road.

And the afternoon embraces you like a million worried hands,
And I want to look forward go discover foreign land

Mainly clouds, and some Japanese.

I sit in the airport lounge in Edinburgh in the middle of a sprawling Japanese family. Children are climbing over seats and running along the edges of the windows. One particularly boisterous child has plasters covering all of his chin and a significant proportion of his face. A father and son are wearing matching, tartan and yet surprisingly fashionable, hats. I sit in silence observing and enjoying, occasionally sharing sympathetic looks with a parent. At some point those overseeing the children grow tired, iPad's emerge and eventually there is silence. But as we all know nothing lasts forever.

One minute two young boys are avidly watching Mickey Mouse then without a word of warning or any sort of provocation a full blown fight explodes into being. They each grab one end of the iPad. Screaming and crying they desperately try to rip it out of the other's grasp. An angry parent shouts to no apparent effect. She can barely be heard over the hysterical shrieks of the children. Then a gaggle of adults swoop in, pull them apart and as quickly as it began it is over. The smaller boy is sobbing into his mothers arms, inconsolable at the injustice of the world. The older, the one with the plasters, is once more engrossed in his show. He sits there in silence, content, as if nothing had happened. The younger pushes over a suitcase. I promptly set it to rights to a grateful thank you and a kindly smile from the boy's mother. I am reminded how much I would like to visit Japan.

I find myself on my plane which is a mere two hours late, enough to miss my flight to Singapore but not enough that my new plane will miss my proceeding flight to Melbourne. As the plane heads down the runway The Staves are playing in my ear and I hear them sing the words 'set in stone' and consider how my future is anything but. Then the plane takes off and the song 'Winter Trees' kicks in providing the perfect level of excitement and importance to the journey I am undertaking.

Out my window I see patchwork fields, beautiful and sprawling. There are earthy browns, vibrant greens and soft yellows, the colours of the earth. Then the world turns grey. I turn and look out the opposite window, there is a flash of brown then grey also and we are in the clouds. The grey turns to white, a bright, shining white and I feel as if we are floating through the ether. Bursts of cloud appear on the wings then vanish in an instant. I see a patch of brown appear from the top of my vision, where I thought to find sky, and realise that I am looking at the ground. I have no idea what direction is up, the plane could do anything in this fog and I would not know. I see the shadow of the fuselage on the wing and we move out of the clouds.
We graze over an endless plain of snowy mounds; that powdery snow that isn't good for anything but looking pretty. I see that we are sandwiched between two layers of cloud. In the far distance I can see a line of blue that is the sky. Below white hobbit mounds abound while above is a flat sheet. No, more like a thick duvet without its cover. We are trapped between the two in an endless icy cavern far above the ground. The world around is blue and white. It is clear and clean, vast and unknown. Paraphrasing the words of Kate Bush it is Ice and Dust and Light and Sky. And I am Here. Then we enter the second layer of cloud and there is grey once more. The view retreats from my sight and I think of the family and friends I am leaving back home. I know that some of them will be worrying about me right now and I appreciate it. I wish I could tell them they did not need to. The Staves sing my own thoughts back at me:

'Call me in the morning I'll be alright, call me in the morning I'll be alright. Call me little honey and I'll be fine. Call me in the morning I'll be okay, call me in the morning I'm far away.'

The steward from BA convinces me to have a beer. I put on Amanda Palmer and she sings of Astronauts. Not yet Amanda. But maybe one day. We sail below a thin veil of cloud. It seems so close I could touch it. An intricate silver lattice beyond which the world is blue. I wonder why we do not break into the freedom beyond. Is the pilot afraid to break through the shield above for fear of damaging its beauty, or for fear of what it is shielding us from? We glide languidly in this position for a while then descend once more to grey. We drop until barely ten minutes from London Heathrow and still all I see is grey. I assume the show is over.

Then I start to hear a roar in my ears, through my music. There is a faint vibration through the plane, growing steadily stronger. Outside the day grows dimmer. The clouds press in and suddenly I cannot see the wing before me. Without pushes against the window as if to break in and the plane shakes in protest. Then colours. The thick cloud changes with each passing second. A bright white that is almost blinding then a dark grey pregnant with omen. It turns purple then brown then black and Amanda screams in my ear. Then suddenly it is done. We break through and the world opens before us, trails of cloud streaming from our wing-tips.

I turn and behind us there is a great wall. It stretches far into the distance, from the ground up into the heights. A storm or a front I do not know. It is black and white, stretching its tendrils greedily across the land before it. Behind it the sun is setting, as if a fuel to its might. In the distance it curves forwards and all around there are great boulders and long rolling serpents, all glowing in the light of the evening. Left behind in its wake or boldly scouting before. I see tiny planes drifting through the sky, each heading in a different direction. They cross above and below and through the columns of cloud leaving their own little trails behind them. The colours of fire are in the sky. I am reminded of Star Wars. Of turmoil and battle in the air. More planes appear. They circle around the approaching airport like bees. Jealously guarding their precious treasures.

We become one of the bees; the plane turns and my view changes. All I see is the wing of the plane and a clear blue sky beyond. A single aeroplane trail languidly working its way across. Amanda now whispers along to a gentle piano and the world seems at peace. Drums kick in and the plane descends. As we land I think of all the friends I have in London. So many people that are so close that I won't see for so long. I feel sad, but it is a sweet sadness and I am glad for it.

I sit on my second plane, the plane, writing this. I realise that most of what I have written is inspired by music, perhaps I shall make that a theme. But perhaps not, I am not sure what I plan for this other than writing what I feel like writing when I am inspired to do so. I may not post again! Or there may be hundreds. Each post may be completely different from the last. Or I may continue on this vein. It might sit on the internet unread for all I know, perhaps I would even prefer that. I am listening to a Swedish band called First Aid Kit and they are swiftly becoming the soundtrack of my journey. They have a particularly uplifting song about travelling that seems to have provided me with a title (The Queen / King title one that is, not the Japanese, that would be freakishly appropriate). There will be more photo's later that is for sure. So far though I haven't exactly done anything to take photo's of. And I am trying to avoid my usual slew of selfies. At least for now.

I am not sure what to think or what to feel right now. Tired mainly, and as a result I am feeling unusually candid. Also happy, and without a doubt excited. But most of all I would say content, though that is a feeling I often get when writing. I will leave you with the song I am currently listening to, 'Wills Of The River'. It is four minutes and nineteen seconds of pure beauty. Although if you're feeling sad about my departure then this song is not likely to help. And if you are not feeling sad then you probably will be soon. But right now, as keeps happening today, it could not feel more relevant. It echoes what I feel right now. The sound is melancholy, but it is a song full of promise and full of hope. Of new beginnings and of uncertain futures.

And the wills of the river, leads you here.

Where the wind it is yielding, and the light it is clear.

To rest upon forever, or to live for one more day.

No I won't restrain the morning, I'll get ready for this spring.

Oh see them planets shining, to the south to the north.

Headed out the west wind, going to find myself a home.

Where the night it is guarded, by the shores of the sea.

And the moon it is resting, while the sun it breaks free.