Backpacking vs flashpacking

Summer time anywhere makes you want to head to the beach.

The most convenient coastal location here has to be St Kilda and we’d heard both good and bad reviews about the place. Interestingly, the rave reviews had come from people back home who had been travelling over here about five years ago and we got why, once we’d headed over there.

A Gumtree ad I had seen as soon as we had arrived in Melbourne, is what led us over to St Kilda so soon and I’m so glad, because it is this trip that made us realise that we definitely didn’t want to live there.

We were introduced to the lively backpacking district by a bohemian guy who makes his living renting out places that can only be described as squalor. When shown the first room that he was renting out for (wait for it…) $425 a week, I had to try my hardest not to show my thoughts via my facial expression (something that I find tricky at the best of times.) The room was littered with crumbs; stains on the carpet, kitchen drawers hanging off their hinges and what can only be described as grime that had congealed together, living in the air vents. Looking around at the dog eared sofa, scuffed walls and yellow stained mattress, I thought I might cry.

After barely saying a word, I think the guy could tell that I wasn’t exactly impressed by the place. To reassure me, he said that he thought we’d prefer the second property, which was his favourite. And this one was a ‘bargain’ at $400 a week.

Driving up a sloped drive, we arrive at what looks to be a run-down motel. A two tiered building that has wrought iron shutters over the windows and bug shielding doors. I try to keep an open mind but I know straight away that if this is how we need to live, then I need to head home. Fast!

Admittedly, this second place wasn’t as bad as the first but it was still the most basic, tatty around the edges, room. You couldn’t even shut the windows and as for the bathroom – this was a like a dingy hole that you wouldn’t even want to shower in at the public baths. I’ll give it to the guy who rents these places out, he really does try and PR them well, pointing out the most remote ‘nice’ features – he could give Phil and Kirsty a run for their money. But, he doesn’t pull the wool over our eyes.

Fortunately, me and Luke are on the same page here. Neither of us want to live like backpackers again (at least not for a long stretch of time.) With this in mind, we head back to the CBD and make a pact that we need to find somewhere ten times nicer than those places or we head back home together.