While waiting for a coach earlier in the trip, I had struck up a conversation with a young woman by the name of Christine who had warned me that I should expect to find a much more residential lifestyle in Melbourne. There would not be, I had been told, anywhere near as much to do as in her beloved home town of Adelaide where she had been born and raised - and when she came to think about it, she didn't think that there was any point in me going to Melbourne at ...

When Eloise and I arrived in Melbourne at the end of our tour along the Great Ocean Road, our plan was to stay just long enough to take a trip out to nearby Philip Island to see the world famous Penguin Parade and to book the ferry which would take us to Tasmania, the only remaining Australian state to which I hadn't yet been. I had passed through Melbourne before, on day 85 of my 1999 world tour, and remembered it being a vibrant city of trams trundling along pe...