Leaving Melbourne is always much harder than leaving any other place I've been to. I'm lucky enough to have the most amazing group of friends there that have become more like family over the last few years, and they make it very hard to move on. Right now I'm sat in the airport waiting to board my flight to Adelaide where I'll be spending a week catching up with an old friend, but as excited as I am to see him, there is part of me that is really sad to be leaving this city. It just holds so many amazing memories, so many incredible people that have meant the world to me. In my two six-month stints living here I've had some of my biggest travelling highs and lows - I've had great loves, found some crazy new careers to be successful in and made some new friends for life. 
So it seemed only right to leave with a bang and how better to finish my time here than with a weekend spent with some of the best people I've met here, and my closest friends, celebrating a joint birthday? Around 16 of us rented a house for the weekend in Ocean Grove, just past Geelong on Great Ocean Road, for a weekend of fun, partying and luxury. The house was amazing - more than we could have hoped for - with a heated outdoor swimming pool, a huge barbecue area, surfboards, a man cave with a pool table, karaoke and much more. Best of all? It overlooked the ocean with some amazing views of passing ships including the Spirit of Tasmania. At just $100 each for the weekend, it was a bargain with plenty of money left over for barbecue food and drinks.
Driving up on the Friday evening, we were overwhelmed by the incredible home that awaited us for the weekend. Celebrating with birthday cakes, pizzas, a LOT of drinks and a LOT of crazy dancing ending with a pool party. It was so much fun and just what we all needed. The following day we headed down to check out the beach, some of the gang grabbing scooters and skateboards from the man cave. A blustery beach walk awaited us, and a lot of hilarity as one of the boys stripped off and dived into the freezing water. Afterwards we headed into the town for a pint and to buy more food for dinner, before heading back to the house for more pool time and a lot of girls vs guys games. It was so nice to have so much chill time together as a group, while getting drunk was fun, I will treasure the downtime we had just as much. Our last night was filled with barbecue, chilled drinks, games of pool and some bad karaoke. A perfect end to a perfect last weekend.
While I'm sad to be leaving, it has definitely reminded me how lucky I am - not only to have such amazing friends but also to have the freedom to live this traveller life. What is it Winnie-The-Pooh said?
"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard" - A.A.Milne
What makes me luckiest of all is knowing I have this to come back to - if it doesn't work out on the West Coast, I have a family waiting here for me to return. That's what makes it easy to leave - knowing it doesn't have to be the end of this life or these friendships. Melbourne, you've been great to me these past few months, but it's definitely time to move on and see something new, something different that takes my breath away.
But for now, Melbourne, over and out.
