A couple of weeks late with the melbourne journal entry but better late than never !...
After another fab flight with Emirates we arrived safely in Melbourne. Oz immigration wasnt as bad as we had heard and we got through very quickly without any searches etc.
It was so nice for the very first time to have someone waiting for us when we arrived - Kris's big brother Simon who now lives in melbourne.
After 2 months in south east asia it was yet another culture shock for us, but a much more welcoming climate, an esacpe from the humidity.
We stayed for two weeks in the melbourne area, the first week based in the city in South Yarra which a very posh suburb. Its only 10mins from the city centre and we managed to find a really good cheap hotel, the Claremount.
Whilst in the city we visited the Rialto tower whcih is the tallest building in melbourne and gave us a great view of the whole city and the bay.
We spent a day in St Kilda which is beach suburb about 20 mins from the city, considering it is so close its areally nice beach with cafes and bars. We met kris's brother and his wife Lisa for a few beers, sitting in the sun outside the Prince of Wales hotel, watching the world go by.
I was dsperate to see some australian wildlife especially all this marsupial buisiness, so we took a drive up to Healsville animal sanctuary, where we got to see all things of the ozzie animal variety to satisfy my curiosity. Whilst checking out the tazzy devils, roos
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and wombats we stumbled upon a real live wild snake!!..on our first day in australia!...it was a four foot long red-bellied black which is apparantly very venemous. I was chasing after it with the camera and simon and kris were having a prolapse at my curiosity and lack of fear!. I was just so excited to see a proper wild snake.......im very sad !...anyway he was too quick for me, he slithered away and all I got was a shot of the end of his tail before he disappeared under a log.
It was nice to see the austrailan countryside or bush as they call it, all the trees and stuff look really different. Bit disappointed in the koalas, they looked really grubby , but afterall thay are meant to be semi permenantly stoned out their heads on the eucolyptus.
Took a drive up to Ramsay street where they film neighbours.View image
We didnt realise that it was a regular real street that they use as the set, but was strange to be standing on madge and harolds driveway!..
Simon and Lisa organised a sunday late afternoon barbecueView image
for us on the banks of the yarra just opposite the Rod Laver Arena( and yes I was gutted I missed the auzzie open by a couple of weeks!).
Its amazing that you can just drive up and use these massive free barbecues, you just bring your own food and cook it there for free!...can you imagine if we had these in the UK......I dread to think what they would be used for...not cooking food anyway...
We also took the chance to visit good old trailfinders to finally organise all our onward flights as the dates were ficticious before...so sadly we now know the very date we will be coming home....but we dont talk about that!...
Whilst in the city we hopped aboard the free tram which goes round the city centre, its a great way to see the city for free.
We thought the city centre was really nice with some interesting modern architechture and lots of green park areas, we wandered through Fitzroy park and Captain Cooks cottage.
Spent a couple of evenings along Chapel Street and enjoyed the Jam Factory (a massive mall and cinema complex) just walking distance from our hotel. We like to continue our cinemas around the world journey.
In general we really liked the city,it had a really relaxed feel about it and everyone was really friendly. The Claremount is a great cheap place to stay, really clean and with lots of character...but beware of the week day breakfast dragon..... a certain lady who's not very happy in her work place and fits the proverbial "face like a smacked arse" pretty well...nuff said..

Then our second week we popped on the train down to the Mornington peninsula. We were very spoiled here as we were staying with some old friends of Davids: Teresa and Derek. It was great to see Teresa again as they emmigrated from scotland a couple of years ago and now live in mornington. We also caught up with some other friends: Maureen and Gavin who also emmigrated about 5 yrs ago. Of course they havent changed a bit and still sound refreshingly scottish !..its obviously a hard accent to shift.
It was great to stay with friends and do some regular stuff like sit and watch tv, and enjoy some home comforts and privacy away from hostels. Teresa and derek made us very welcome and showed us around the beautiful peninsula.
Mornington itself is a really quaint little place with a nice beach and some cafes and bars. We visited Arthurs seat for a view of the bay and some of the surf beaches on the ocean side, the very pleasant Safety Beach View image
(renamed from Shark bay a few years ago...), the very scenic Phillip Island for the day to feed the Roo's, have lunch in Cowes and visit the boadwalk by Seal Point (which has a high shark population near by...). We also had the pleasure of expanding our cinema experience - this time by going to a drive in cinema! it was like something from '60's america apart from you tune your radio to get the movie sound, instead of those old hang off the window speakers you see in the movies!
After a relaxing week in the peninsula, we picked up a hire car to check the world famous Great Ocean Road. We spent 3 days driving the several hundred kilometre's of ocean and forrest road up past Apolla Bay, Otway point and onto Port Campbell.View image
This is the route you have to take to see the amasing Twelve Apostles,

which are rock stacks that have been left after the ocean has eaten away the cliff face.
We had a bizzare expeience whilst eating in an Italian restaurant in Port Campbell....we bumped into a Canadian girl who we'd been speaking to at breakfast 2 weeks earlier at the hostel in Singapore!
Our accomodation in Port Campbell was a great little B&B called Sea Breaze - which we highly recommend.