POST, PHONES and INTERNET
Post
Melbourne has a number of post offices scattered around the CBD, including one at 250 Elizabeth Street and another at 45 Collins Street. Generally, Melbourne post offices, as well as post offices and agencies in regional Victoria, are open from Monday to Friday 9am–5pm. You can buy stamps from Australia Post shops, newsagents and some general stores, as well as from the National Philatelic Centre, Ground Floor, 321 Exhibition Street. To get an approximate price for letter and parcel deliveries in Australia and to overseas destinations, access the postage assessment calculator on the Australia Post website.
If you need to receive mail while you’re in Melbourne, but you’re not sure where you’ll be staying, have it sent ‘Poste Restante’ to any CBD post office. Likewise, any suburban or regional town post office will receive post for you (make sure it’s properly addressed), but you have to pick up such mail in person, usually within a month, and provide photo ID.
Phone
There are plenty of public phones in Melbourne, especially in pubs and bars or outside post offices and major transport terminals in the CBD. Public telephones operate with coins and phonecards, which are sold through newsagents, post offices and Telstra shops, and which can be used to make international calls. You can also send text messages (or SMS) from a number of public phones.
For call costs, domestic and international operator services or information on bringing your mobile with you to Australia, contact Telstra or Optus. For directory services, check out the Yellow Pages and White Pages directories.
- The area code for domestic calls to Melbourne from outside Victoria is 03
- When calling from overseas, dial the international access code followed by 61 3, then the number
- To call out of Australia, dial 0011, followed by the country code, then the area code and number
- The cheapest time to call overseas is from 6pm to 6am, and on Sunday
Internet & email
It’s easy to get online in Melbourne. Most hostels have Internet access for reading email and surfing the web, and usually charge around $5-10 an hour, often with a number of minutes free on arrival. Likewise, cybercafes offer similar rates, not to mention plenty of workstations and cheap food and drink. As well, some local libraries provide free access, while public kiosks in some laundries and larger shopping malls will have you online for a small fee. To get a free email address, register with Google, Hotmail or Yahoo, which will allow you to send and receive email messages from any computer connected to the web.
