Melbourne

Queen's birthday weekend, Start of the World Cup, I went off to Mellers, to the land of Neighbours. And NO, I DIDN'T go on a Neighbours tour. I would have had to kill myself if I had done it. The thought of having my picture taken with Dr Karl Kennedy, or of shaking Toadie's hand makes me barf. So instead we went round the lovely St Kilda district, with its many bakeries filled with millions of choices of butter and sugar-filled delights, its many bars and independent and "vintage" clothes shops, and its markets with art and crafts galore. We went to see Belle & Sebastian (the band, from Scotland): not very Oz, but the place they were playing, the forum was a really cool venue, with a ceiling painted and lit to look like it was actually open air. Good job it wasn't open air, coz it was freeeeezing. Next day we hired a car and did the famous Coast Road going Westwards along the coast as far as Warrnambool and back to Melbourne. We stopped at an information place at Geelong at the beginning of the trip and got the old dears there sucking their teeth - "Its four and a half hours drive you know! And there's places to see along the way! And you're going to try and do it in 2 days! Oooh, I don't know...." Well we did it of course, and saw the famous 12 apostles and lovely beaches and coastline, and of course the lighthouse from "Round the Twist" for those of you who are old/young enough to remember that programme "Have you ever, ever felt like this, where strange things happen, are you going round the twist...?" We sang those lines which were the only ones we could remember a few hundred times, and never got any further!

Anyway, really liked Melbourne! Much more characterful and pleasant than Sydney. Gonna have to move on soon methinks...