G'day from Melbourne (and for the last time in Australia!!)

As you probably know, I am now in the beautiful country of New Zealand however, before that I spent 4 days in the lovely Melbourne!

I arrived in at Avalon airport on Thursday and immediately understood why the flights were so cheap- I was in the middle of nowhere and about 50km out from the city centre!! So an hour later and I finally arrive in the city!! My hostel was in the suburb of St Kilda so I hopped on the local trams which operate pretty much everywhere in the Melbourne area! The hostel was by far the best that I have stayed at so far, and even had the luxury of an oven and grill which could only mean one thing- cheese on toast :) yummy!!

On Friday, I got up and headed down to St Kilda beach which is a short 5 minute walk!! It was a nice beach but nothing compared to some of the amazing ones that I have seen on the east coast!! However, it was perfect for topping up the tan as I knew I wouldn't be tanning much in NZ!! I spent a few hours there, before heading into the city!! While I was there the Comedy Festival was on so loads of international comedians were performing all over the city!! I managed to get some tickets for some of the performances and after a quick change back at the hostel I was back in the centre of town queuing up for my first gig!!
My first gig was by Caroline Reah which might not mean much but if I say Aunt Hilda from Sabrina the Teenage Witch??!!! She was hilarious and I was crying with laughter at one point when she was talking about men snoring!! She was very skatty and would be talking about something and then suddenly go off on a tangent and then go back to the original point 15mins later!!
I then headed further into the city for a smaller gig which was called Best of Britain!! It was 4 british comedians, plus one that hosted the evening and they all did a short 10min stint to give a flavour of their style!! There was one guy who was a psychic, which wasn't great but the others were absolutely brilliant!! In fact, so much so that I booked to go to one of their shows the next day!!

So Saturday was a wicked day!! In the morning I met up with Jess and we went down to St Kilda again and had lunch and ended up chatting for most of the afternoon!!It was really good to see her again and have a nice catch up of the last year!! Can't believe it was a year since she was in London though!! Anyway, I left Jess about 3ish (only after walking back via the most amazing cake shops ever!!!) as I was heading into the city to watch Russell Kane!! He is an English comedian and has a huge amount of energy!! It was almost like watching a game of tennis as he was walking back and forth across the stage so much!! He was awesome and made some very funny comments about parents and technology that had me crying!! Apparently his mum has a habit of randomly using capital letters and his dad avoids any technology unless he absolutely has to use it!! Sounded a bit familiar :)
I then headed over to watch a guy called Adam Ethan Crow who I saw the night before!! He is half south african and half irish so almost sounds drunk when he talks but is a brilliant stand up!! He has a very dry sense of humour though and wouldn't be everyones cup of tea but I loved him!
I then stayed on the watch the next gig, which was Nik Copplin, who hosted Best of Britain the night before!! He was very funny and ver quick witted and involved the audience a lot!!

Sunday I checked out of my hostel in the morning and chilled out at the hostel in the morning!! In the afternoon however I headed into the city to watch an Aussie Rules match!! I didn't see one when I came out 3 years ago and always regretted it so I went and saw St Kilda V Essendon! It was a brilliant match although I definitely didn't understand it all!! I got chatting to 2 ladies sat next to me who were Essendon supporters and so I decided to go for them as well!! Turned out to be a good choice as they won, and by quite a lot as well!! It wasn't as full of violent tackles as I had imagined it to be but there were a few brawls on the field but play just continued!! How the seven referees ignored it I don't know!! The most amusing part was sometimes when the ball went out of play, it was up to the referees to throw it back in!! But, they didn't just throw it normally, they stood with their feet on the line, backs to the playing area and threw it over their head with one hand!! I saw them practising in the warm up but just thought they were kids messing around!! Apparently not!!
Anyway, after the game, which lasted about 2.5hrs, I went and collected my bags from the hostel and headed for the airport ready for my 6am flight!! Jess was working at the sirport that night so once she finished her shift she came and kept me company for a couple of hours- we never knew watching men trying to clean could be so funny!!

Anyway, that's all for Australia and I can officially say that I have survived it, what with all the sharks, jellyfish, sting rays, snakes, spiders, dingos, flies, sun, waves, etc!!!

Speak to you all soon

Sending my final Aussie love

xxxx