Blogs we like

I’ve written before about how Australia’s Op Shops blow the pants off Britain’s charity shops. In the UK, you tend to find out-of-date travel guides, recipe books you already owned, yet have never used, and CD singles from long-forgotten 1990s boybands. The merchandise tends to be crammed into a couple of musty rooms and arranged in a haphazard way.

In Australian Op Shops, you get things you actually want. When furnishing our room, I picked up a half decent pair of speakers to use with my iPod at a shop in Brunswick run by the local Catholic Church. I also have my eye on an $3 ‘Esky’ cool box, one of the must-have accessories for an Australian backpacker. That said, I’m not sure what I’ll actually do with it, because we don’t have a car of our own at the moment and can’t go on picnics, but I’m sure I’d find a use for it.

I suppose being a backpacker, and therefore highly transient, Op Shops really come into their own. Maybe that’s why Australian ones are so good. There are so many backpackers needing to offload the possessions amassed during their travels that you are bound to get some decent gear.

At the moment, Australians seem particularly obsessed with Op Shops. In The Age this week there was an article about a rush to second hand retailers, which has inspired a number of blogs sharing op shop finds and favourite stores. The same newspaper has also revealed plans to open a vast out-of-town shopping complex entirely made up of second hand retailers and shops run by charities, which I have blogged about for New Start magazine.

The area of Melbourne in which I live seems particularly well endowed when it comes to Op Shops. These include Savers, a supermarket size store that raises money for people with disabilities, and the ubiquitous ‘Salvos‘ (Salvation Army).

But this abundance of stores run in the name of charity has not discouraged people from earning a little money by offloading unwanted goods. Almost every weekend I pass signs on lampposts advertising a ‘yard sale’ somewhere in the neighbourhood. So it seems that there are plenty of ways that Melburnians’ appetite for second hand goods can be satisfied at the moment.

It looks like Kieron and I may soon be replenishing the merchandise of the local Op Shop ourselves because our time in Melbourne is coming to an end.

In the middle of next month we head for Alice Springs, hoping to visit Uluru, Kings Canyon and the other attractions of the Red Centre. We’ll then spent the next five to six weeks exploring Australia with the aid of low cost airlines and, hopefully, campervan relocation deals. Our Australian adventure ends on the 28th May in Perth.

*Yet another XTC inspired title