The second Sunday in February

"The St Kilda Festival is a popular community festival held in the Melbourne (Australia) suburb of St Kilda. Traditionally held on the second Sunday in February, the festival is about showcasing live Australian music, family and children's entertainment, beach activities and much more all presented in a carnival atmosphere. The festival has run since 1980. In 2010, it attracted around 400,000 people."

I woke up relatively late. I was going to the St Kilda Festival that day and the thing started at 10am, so I was already two hours late. But I figured I wouldn't be able to manage a whole twelve hours outside anyway. I grabbed a shower and checked out the window. It was murky outside so I put on some jeans and a t-shirt and packed my bag with a hoody and a bottle of water. I phoned my Mom quickly just to let her know how I was and then I set off to the trams to head down to St Kilda.

About three trams on their way to St Kilda pulled up but they were all absolutely rammed full of people, so I waited and got on a tram going to 'St Kilda Grey Street' which was empty, which of course made me question whether or not I was on the correct tram! There was a slight breeze outside which gave me goosebumps, which isn't supposed to happen in the Australian Summer surely?!?! I rode the tram until the driver said that it was the last stop [due to the festival] and hopped off.

The street I got off was a long, wide street with shops and cafes either side and the tram track running straight down the middle. And the place was absolutely swarming with people. The whole town of St Kilda basically had shut down and was now over run with people in the streets and groups packed into the small outside areas of the cafes smoking and cheering at one another whilst they drank pitchers (or jugs, sorry) of beer. The feeling around with very electrifying and full of excitement and energy. And just as I started my walk down the long wide street, the sun appeared. And it was hot. And I was in a t-shirt and jeans...

The first act that I encountered in the street was a guy with his shirt off and a microphone connected to a little amp that was playing a beat. I walked up to the crowd to see what was going on but immediately stayed at the back once I realised. He was freestyle rapping about the day and the people in his audience and the unsuspecting people walking by. I snuck off after a couple of minutes very quietly before he could notice and rap about me walking away.

The next guy I saw had a small audience encircled around him. He was stood on a box that had a Canadian flag on it and had a couple of step ladders around him and was entertaining a little girl. I stopped to have a look at his act. He was very enthusiastic and kept making the audience clap and cheer for doing "such a great job". He pulled out three other adults from the audience and gave them props, a garden fork, a wooden oar and an umbrella. He stood on his box with two drumstick sized sticks and pointed to each one in turn asking them to throw their item. When they did, and he caught it, he started spinning them around with his drumsticks, never dropping them. He went on to juggle a hand grenade, chainsaw and knife and his finale was him lying on a bed of nails whilst asking another member of the audience to stand and put their full weight on him. It was all very circus orientated and I enjoyed it, up until just before the finale, where he gave a five minute speech about his poor life and that we must give him twenty dollars for what we'd seen because even that, was conning him. As the crowd dispersed to give him their donations, I left, feeling a little insulted. If he hadn't have begged and tried to force, well, then maybe I would have helped him out...

The sun was really blazing down on me now and my jeans were feeling very heavy. I debated on whether to get a tram back to the hotel and change, but seeing how unpredictable the weather can be over here, I left it as I'd probably change, come back and get cold. I carried on walking down the street and passed some clothing stalls and then I entered a food area. It was about 3pm by this point and I was hungry! Down on the beach level off the street, I spotted a souvlaki (basically, a kebab) stand that was surrounded by grass for me to sit on, so I made my way down to it. They were charging extortionate rates for everything, so I just had a hot dog, fries and a coke which came out at fourteen bucks and I managed to get yellow mustard all over my jeans which annoyed my thoroughly. I lazed around in the sun a while before getting up to carry on my exploration.

I went down the side of a building which lead me quite easily to the beach, at which point, like a dog, all I wanted to do was bound onto the sand and make my way to the sea. But I didn't. I walked along the beach passed all the bars with their huge queues to get in and their rooftop areas (which I bet are amazing as the sun sets. I think I'll try and go to one for some photo opportunities once I move to the new hostel). There was a Zumba class going on too.

I carried on walking up to a drum workshop for kids, and then around the back to a fun fare area that had motorbikes and bmxs doing stunts along ramps and big arches. Beyond this area, was another separate enclosed area with a stage and lots of ethnic and hippy reconstructed clothes and recycling information and curry stands and a stage with some psychedelic 60's throw back band, but the people up here were dancing a little crazy and obviously on some sort of hallucinogen, so I left. I took a stroll down the pier right to the very end, passed the obligatory pier restaurant. Right down the end, a man kept throwing an empty bottle right out as far as he could and making his dog jump off the pier into the water, fetch the bottle, swim quite a way back up the pier to some steps and run back to him only to repeat the whole thing again. Stupid dog... (a cat obviously would never do that). There were some steps at the end of the pier that I went down, and down there close to the sea level, there were penguins! Maybe I was one of those stupid people that thought penguins only lived in cold places, but I saw them in their little nests in the rocks. They were a special sort of penguin and that small area off the end of the St Kilda pier was their breeding ground and a protected area.

I took a walk in a completely separate direction, passed another children's fun fare area and entered another sort of ethnic zone, with some flamboyant carnival float. It was only when I saw on the back of one of the guys jackets 'Hare Krishna Security' that I had a chuckle. They were giving out free watermelon and books and had a small stage where a group chanted whilst the audience swayed around in the breeze. I visited a tent that held 'all the secrets to vegetarian cooking' where two guys were cooking live and sharing their advice and recipes. I was only after some food..

I went back down to the beach and sat there for around an hour until my Dad called. The beaches themselves aren't much to shout about. And for that matter, neither is St Kilda. The beaches have brown water and trampled orangey sand. And St Kilda has been described as the 'Benidorm' of Melbourne which says it all really. The people are all very superficial and arrogant and walk around in their groups of identical friends. Realising this, I got up, hungry and ready to go back and sort out my things for Monday, but as I started walking, Lydia sent me a text saying that she had finished work now and was heading down if I still wanted to meet up. We met by the pier and wandered around all the sights that Lydia had missed out on by being at work, but then we decided to go and get a drink, which turned out to be a mission in itself. We walked all down St Kilda high street where all the bars and restaurants were and couldn't find anywhere that wasn't bursting at it's seams with people. We realised that it would have to be one of these full to capacity places that we went to, but when we tried to enter one, the bouncer outside told us immediately that there were too many people inside already. Even though two people directly in front of us walked straight in without batting an eye lid. I still think that it was because we were both wearing t-shirts and jeans...

We found another place that was slightly quieter outside but as soon as we set food inside it was buzzing. Tired of walking around though, we took a table and ordered our drinks. Lydia moved out of Northampton three years ago, did some travelling and went to Queenstown on the South Island of New Zealand and I think she was living and working there until recently when she decided that she wanted a change of life and moved over to Oz, starting in the Gold Coast and then coming to Melbourne. She's just sorting herself out and working for her keep in the next hostel that I'm going to which is a spot of luck. (I believe this all to be correct, like I said it was loud). We had another drink whilst we were chatting before the bill was rudely slammed down on our table (we didn't ask), and whilst we were continuing our conversation and finishing our drinks (yeah, we still had drinks), one of the waitresses came over and picked up the bill and opened it, before slamming it back down because we hadn't put our money in yet (no tip for you!).

She got me back to the hostel so I could where it was. There was a tram stop outside so we said goodbye, arranging to meet up for drinks on Wednesday because she wants to celebrate not being poorly anymore and I want to celebrate Goldsmiths. The tram took around twenty minutes to come, what with it being the festival and a Sunday night, so I didn't get back to the hotel until half eleven. I popped next door into McDonalds because I was still hungry, and as there was a queue, I had time to study the menu. I notice that they do salads and snackwraps, so I had the cheapest version of both of those and then snuck them back into my room like a hamster to munch on them before falling asleep to wake up at 5am.