Melbourne

Right onto Melbourne! So if you ever come over to Oz and you're sitting on a computer booking a flight to Melbourne and you ask the person sitting next to you which is the main Airport and they reply Avlon......Give them a slap as it's in the middle of nowhere! Obviously that happened to me and though Jules was on a flight a hour earlier than me I ended up arriving at our hostel about 3days later, well maybe three hours.....

Melbourne was wicked, we stopped in a place called St Kilda which is by the beach and very chilled out. A definite contender as a place to live, the atmosphere is very indie pop, cool, not too touristy and plenty to do. The five nights we spent there just went far too fast. Our second day we went into town and explored. Sydney as a city seems nicer in terms of the people aren't trying to be so individual, in fact they're all trying so hard to be individual in Melbourne they all look the bloody same! ha normal people win again! We went to the Museum which was good and rode around on the free tram to have a look around. The hostel we were staying in was really nice (Cooees) very sociable so a load of us went out and had a jolly good time! The hangover was cured by a nice walk down the beach and the pier which had the feeling of England as it was pretty cold and windy.

Melbourne is home to Australia's oldest Botanical gardens and as they're free we went and had a look at them along with a war memorial centre with our bread and cheese for lunch, they very nice, better than Sydney I reckon. Other activities in Melbourne were meeting the old drunk people in the local pub across the road (Anita ex pat from England), trying to give directions to prostitutes thinking they were lost and rollerblading during which Julie and Laura both took a tumble!

Final night Julie and I went in search of a band but instead found a very good DJ and had a good night before leaving for the Great Ocean Road the following day which was just going to be me, Danny and Laura as I couldn't afford Fiji with Jules. Turns out Fiji is in the middle of it's worse storm in 50years so lucky I didn't push it and go but I do feel bad for Julie especially as I told her she'd probably just get rained on when she was rubbing it in.....I'll have to apologise in New Zealand!