Hello from not so sunny Australia!! Actually, thats not really fair, it has been mostly sunny, its just a bit chilly and ridiculously windy!! We got to Melbourne late on Tuesday afternoon, and headed straight to our very nice hostel. We got a absolute bargain staying here, only $19 a night for the first 5 nights, normally its $28. We thought $28 was expensive, but Sydney is even worse!! Ah well, I'm sure we'll be able to balance it all out when we get to Thailand! Anyway, back to Melbourne. No sooner had we arrived at the hostel than we discovered that Dr Karl, of Neighbours fame, was playing with his band in St Kilda. So being the typical British backpackers and avid Neighbours fans that we are, we decided to head right down there!! Unfortunately, when we got there, we discovered that it was postponed for the comedy festival -serves us right for being such saddos I suppose!! Our first day was spent wandering in the beautiful sunshine (and brisk wind!) and getting acquainted with the city. Melbourne is a lovely city, I especially like the fact that it has such a big waterfront, both along the Yarra River, and the beach at St Kilda. We crammed quite a lot into that day, as it was sunny and rain was predicted for the rest of the week we wanted to get all the fine weather things done! So we wandered the city, went to St Kilda and walked along the beach and nearly got blown off the pier, and even finished it all off with a trip up to the observation desk of the Rialto Towers, Melbournes tallest building. Once again, we hit it at dusk, so got what I think were the best views. The next day, Thursday, we set off on our Great Ocean Road tour. We went for a day trip, but a very long one that got almost everything in. When we left Melbourne the weather was gorgeous, sadly, this did not last! We spent most of the time driving through torrential rain, happily this let off for most of the time we were out the bus, but it was a bit windy - in fact, probably the windiest place I have ever been! We decided that if you can't see the GOR on a nice bright sunny day, then a windy, tempestuous, cloudy day is the next best because the whole thing looks very imposing with crashing waves coming in and spray blowing around everywhere! Now isn't that making the best of things!?! It was a really good trip, and parts of the Road were spectacular, but I think as a whole, we've seen better scenery in NZ. We're now starting to worry that New Zealand has ruined us for scenery forever!! Today we needed to have a cheap day, so we went for the free shuttle city tour, and hopped on and off as directed! We stopped at the Shrine of Remembrance, which was very moving, wandered through Chinatown and then headed to Melbourne Museum. Unfortuntely, we didn't really leave ourselves enough time to do this justice, as it closed before we'd quite finished, but it was still really good! We sat on the bus to do a full circuit, so we've heard all the commentary, so can just use it to get to all the other stops to catch up on the things we missed on another day. Tonight we're hoping to head out into the city for a few drinks, and tomorrow we're going on the Neighbours Tour (I can almost hear my Dad groaning!) which includes a trip to Ramsey Street so needless to say we're all very excited!! I will of course report back, and make sure to take LOTS of photos........