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We arrived in Melbourne on Saturday morning after a very long train journey (in first class tho hehe!), and altho we managed to get some sleep we were VERY tired! Our first experience of Melbourne was leaving the station only to find it was bloody raining and cold! Not what we signed up for at all!! We headed to the hostel, was a old style converted house about 10mins from the centre of Melbourne, called South Yarra. The staff we're very odd indeed!! We arrived at about 8ish and we're told our room wouldn't be ready until around 1pm - NOT HAPPY!! So we wearily headed into Melbourne (still raining!!). We were also pretty stinky from the train, we had been wearing the same clothes for 24hrs too - hmm nice! We went to the aquarium. Was actually really good, got to see one of the guys feeding some stingrays. We also saw a very fat shark (see photos!) and a fat American, who had brought her own chair to sit on around the aquarium. We then headed back to the hostel - our room STILL not ready, grrr. Eventually after givin enough evil looks to the receptionist we finally got shown to our room. Fell straight to sleep. Headed into Melbourne again that night. Not much about really - not in our price range anyway! So we ended up at a dodgy pizzeria and ate there. Then headed home for more sleep. Mmmm sleep.
The next day we headed into Melbourne for a better look, the weather had much improved - hurrah! We wandered aimlessly for hours taking in the sights. It is a lot more laid back than Sydney, older architecture and more arty. The swimming championship was on so there was a lot of random things to do with that about. We headed toward a food and wine festival, was very busy. Had some local icecream in a Japenese noodle style box - was yummy! That night we cooked our own tea for the first time in ages!! Austrailia pulling at the purse strings a lot more than Thailand!! Next day was job day - washing etc... not very exciting at all... but needed to save all our energy for the next day.... the most exciting day so far.... THE NEIGHBOURS TOUR!!! We were promised as part of the trip you meet one of the neighbours "stars" which only added to the excitement... who could it be, Karl? Susan? Lynne? Or possibly the great Jelly Belly himself - Harold Bishop!! We were very excited! We even got up at 7am to get ourselves ready!!! We were however the last people to board the bus - and we had to run for it... not so embarrasing if the bus wasn't bright blue and covered in a "Neighbours Tour" sign. But as a fellow tourer said to us "Don't be embarrassed - embrace it!" So off we headed in our Neighbours bus, paraded round town like some kind of freak show. They let us watch a couple of episodes on the bus - real old school ones - cooool. first stop Erinsborough High (Erinsborough an anagram of Or Neighbours don't ya know). Was a real life school for kids that come from abroad and need to learn English - they have no idea why hoard loads of tourists turn up to their school everyday for snaps - bless 'em. We then headed for the studios, you can't actually go in but we got to see the outdoor sets, like the garage, Grease Monkeys and the bus stop, all very exciting! Then we headed for Ramsy Street itself. A lot smaller than we all thought and not actually called Ramsy Street :( Just a regular old street in the suburbs of Melbourne. Now for the highlight of the whole day... the star meeting... as we rolled up in the bus, everyone anxious to see who it was, clambering at the windows to get a glance... the whole bus lets out a dissapointed groan... its Dr Darcy - hasn't even been in it for 20 months! We all get off the bus and have a chat with him, he was actually a pretty nice guy. Took the acting on Neighbours a wee bit too seriously tho!! When it was our turn to get an autograph and photo (which the guide forced you to do!), we had a chat with Darcy and mentioned we had seen him in York at the Panto. Well he got so excited he couldn't even sign the autograph (100% true!). He was lovin us - seriously, it was a bit creepy! VERY funny tho! We laughed our socks off as he carried on to mention he knew where we lived as he went to Emporers Gym. Bless him - we made his day. Clare even managed to get a kiss! When Jim leaned in for his kiss however, Darcy was not so keen to reciprocate (this part is not 100% true)! Was the highlight of our trip. Anywhoo, headed back for Sydney last night, then heading up the east coast. Now stop reading and get back to work!!
Clare and James
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