Finally made it to Melbourn, actually earlier than we had thought. Had a call from an old friend of my mums who lives over here. She said we could stay with her and her daughter when we got here which was great of them. So the first night we met her daughter, Heidi, and got to stay on her boyfriends farm-very rustic but fun and cosy...sitting by an open fire in a barn drinking vodka was a very nice change to being on the road until we got to tired to drive. We went for a walk around the land, to see if they had trapped any rabbits in the morning before breakfast, a good start to the day!

On the second day here we stayed at her boyfriends pub (the Edinburgh Castle) in Brunswick, a suburb in the city. Seems like a nice place-kind of like Mill Road...it got rowdy at 3 o'clock in the morning-drunk people walkking about the ahalls trying to get into our room...all a bit scary, at least it's a locals place-there are some guys that have been living at the pub for 20 years!

The third day was sightseeing. We visited the Old Melbourne Gaol-famous for Ned Kelly being an inmate and hanged there in 1892. We also got to see what it was like to be an inmate at the Watch Tower lock up and got locked in a cell for a bit-all good fun! We then did what every self respecting tourist should do whilst in Melbourne-the neighbours tour! So surreal seeing Ramsey Street (real name Pine Oak Rd) and walking around Lassiters. We got to meet one of the current cast members...someone tell me who she is as I didn't have a clue-I just posed politely for a picture.

After such a great night in the pub we were thankful to get in contact with Scott, a guy that I met in Cairns when I was there diving. He took pitty on us an invited us to stay at his after a great night out in a bar-got to sleep at 5am kind of night. He lived in a lovely area so had a good 5 hrs sleep, shower and breakie before heading back into town to meet Heidi and her mum again.

This also meant saying goodbye to the van and Laura...she's now off back to Sydney-I'll miss the van but wont miss not knowing where the next shower is coming from.

We were going to the local Hare Krishna Temple as Mary's (Heidi's mum) husband was Hindu and they were having a party to thank people for coming to his dads funeral a while back. I thought I'd go along to see what it was all about. It was very different to the orange robed nutters you see in England. The temple was very colourful and they did have lots of singing-but in it were just normal Hindus having a chat to family and friends. We got a free lunch after all the singing and praying and then headed off (after a quick pub stop) to listen to Heidi singing in a choral concert at a local church. Crepes in a local cafe after the concert made a perfect end to a long day.