G'day Rowan,

No ... a friend and I lobbed into Melbourne, by 'bus down from Sydney, hoping to grab a seat on the Princess of Tasmania - first to walk through the Cradle Mt/Lake St Clair NP - then hitch-hike around Tasmania. Unfortunately, it was between Christmas and New Year (1964) ... and Melbourne was SHUT! We had to kill time until the shipping office opened ... and a bench in Fitzroy Gardens dealt with accommodation until we found the YHA. Capt. Cook's Cottage was firmly locked ... and we clearly didn't have anything worth a possum's effort to steal.

Maybe, if we had found our way out to Fitroy we might have gotten cheap digs (in the students' absence)... but we were sticking as close as we could to the vicinty of the shipping office!

Regardfs,

Bob