Well well well! What to say about melbourne!? We arrived on the 3rd after a impulse decision to catch a plane from sydney and settled into our new base for the first 3 days of our visit, hotel bakpak. The place did its job though it wont win any awards if u no what i mean!!! From here we took advantage of its central location and wandered the main streets, down the yarra river and past the rod laver arena (where the aussie open was held) and the MCG. We also decided to check out federation square, a sort of entertainment complex that sticks out like a sore thumb in amongst the cathedrals and ancient architecture near flinders tstreet station. As the weather brightened and the temperature rose (to 38 degrees!) we thought it wud be rude not to hit the beach just once.....sedge, true to form, fell asleep shortly after arrival!

After we checked out the best parts of central melbourne we headed for the more backpacker orientated section of the city st. kilda. We settled into our new hostel quickly and strangely our dorm took on a more family dynamic, we all seemed to hit it off immediately! Unfortunately joe fell ill with a particular nasty bout of the dreaded sniffles! When his morale was low bav and sedge decided to cheer him up with the purchase of a small cuddly pal, the 'pretty in pink' priscilla.

From base backpackers we set off on a day trip to phillip island led by possibly the most unorganised and scatty aussie tour guide imaginable! Our first stop was an animal sanctuary where we fed koalas, roo's, wallabies and emu's and met a wombat (that looked suspiciously similar to sedge after a long nap)! From here we headed to phillip island checked out its beaches, lakes etc then the rocks on the south of the island called the nobbies! As it got dark we headed to a secluded beach to watch the world famous penguin parade! We watched as the fairy penguins (theyre about 30cm high!!) plucked up the courage to waddle across the sand in groups of 10-20 to feed their chicks! Was an awesome experience as they waddled rite past where we were sitting back to their burrows! We even had them preening feeding their chicks at our feet as we made our way back across the boardwalk by their burrows!

To top the wk off we headed to the collosal MCG one more time to watch a triumphant England cricket team whoop the aussie's arse for only the second time this summer (we have now moved from unnofficial to official lucky charms for the england ODI team!) We proudly joined the barmy army and even made a fleeting big screen (and possibly TV?!) appearance when the god that is paul collingwood was being interviewed! To thank us for all our hard work as lucky charms the england team turned up nxt day at the airport (bfore we flew to coolanagatta to head to byron)! We saw them all, from freddie to monty, from big dunc to liam plunk(ett)!!! What an end to our wk in melbourne!!!!

We re off to byron bay tmr to live the beach life for a few days and needless to say we cant wait! Hope alls well at home, peace out,

Love Bav, Joey and Sedge x