So this is it - the last blog for Australia…..cannot believe that we have been here for 7 months and it is now almost over - it has flown by but we have had a blast!

It turns out the stop over in Albury was a good shout as we weren't too far from Melbourne - only around 3 hours in the car which by Australian standards is just down the street!! We arrived into Melbourne around lunchtime, parked the car and checked into our home for the next 6 nights www.hotelclaremont.com - it was now 2 July 2011. We didn't get up to much that first day - explored the area around the hostel a bit (South Yarra), stocked up on cheap eats from the supermarket and went to bed early - sheet, duvet AND blanket required down here……..bloody freezing!

We decided the best way to spend our time here was to do a few tours to see as much as we could in the short period of time we had! We had already booked a Phillip Island Tour (Penguin Island from the BBC series) when we were in Sydney so the next one to sort out was the Great Ocean Road but first we had the Australian Motor Show to get to! Volkswagen had given me 2 free tickets so we spent a couple of hours walking round on the Sunday morning - some class motors about - even Laura saw some she liked and wouldn't you know it they were the most expensive models of Mercedes in the place - only $200,000 - we'll have 2!! Coolest car of the whole show was the Bumblebee (from Transformers) Limo, see the photos - it was class! The rest of the day was spent exploring the CBD area and buying some warmer clothes, socks and gloves ahead of NZ! No chance of a relaxing night in the hostel - another school group taking over the common areas - I swear they must be following us round the country!

Monday we were off to St Kilda - Melbourne's beach suburb! Thanks to me we took the scenic route there (went the wrong direction on the tram) but in my defence we got to see a part of Melbourne we would not have otherwise seen!! St Kilda seemed really nice but definitely would have been nicer in the summer - it was FREEZING! We were cold in 4 layers and our coats so imagine our surprise when we walked down the beach and saw what looked like a football team (some of them in underwear only) standing in a huddle in the sea!! They must have had a bad result at the weekend and that was their punishment haha! Grabbed a coffee and caramel square in one of the well known local cake shops before sorting out our Great Ocean Road tour with Peter Pans for the next morning - we couldn't wait! We decided to walk off the cakes by dandering the 3.5km back to South Yarra!

We were halfway through our cereal on Tuesday morning when my mobile went - the bus was outside ready to go to the Great Ocean Road! We learned later that day that the Great Ocean Road was built as a memorial to fallen Australian soldiers from the First World War by returning soldiers who needed jobs and wanted to honour their colleagues - a nice touch we thought! The weather was pretty rotten on and off but we got some good spells in amongst it! Made plenty of stops along the way including Bells Beach (where Rip Curl & Quiksilver were founded), Great Ocean Road sign, a caravan park with wild Koala's and very friendly birds (see photo's), Cape Otway Light House (mainland Australia's longest surviving Lighthouse), Cape Otway rainforest, the famous Twelve Apostles (now only 8 standing), Loch Ard Gorge, and finally Gibson's Steps were we went down to the beach to view 2 of the apostles from sea level! We would recommend this trip to anyone - a fantastic way to spend a day if you're in this part of the world. We had the Phillip Island Tour booked for tomorrow………or so we thought!! I checked what time we had to be at our pick up point on Wednesday morning and when I looked at my own writing in our book sure didn't it say it was for Tuesday morning!! Yes that's right we had missed the tour! A sob story was required to get us rescheduled but it luckily worked and thank goodness it did or I would have been killed!!

Bit of a lie in before going into the city to meet our bus for Phillip Island. Grabbed breakfast and jumped on the train to get us there for 11am. Nowhere near as many stops on this tour but after a quick break for chicken salad rolls we were en route to the Moonlit Animal Sanctuary who among other things helped animals recover who had been involved in traffic accidents! We saw Tasmanian Devils (nothing like the cartoon character) got feeding wallabies, a very hungry horse, a goat, an alpaca, a donkey and lots and lots of KANGAROO'S!! See the photos - Laura was in her element surrounded by piles of them, a brilliant stop! Called into Cape Woolamai Surf Beach and the Nobbies (an area which houses some of the Penguins) on our way to the main stop at Summerland Beach on Phillip Island! As we arrived the heavens opened but with our $5 ponchos we were ready for anything and headed down to the grandstand seating to watch the world's smallest penguins return from a day's fishing, cross the beach and walk to their burrows! We only ended up seeing a few on the beach in front of us but got seeing them up close on their walk back to bed beside the boardwalk - they wouldn't even come up to your knee's - about 30cm's high! Unfortunately no photos of them as there is a total ban on photography here - too many idiots with flash cameras have scared the penguins and ruined it for everyone else! Stopped for Pizza on the way home - another great day!

Thursday was a lazy day to ourselves - did some laundry and saw a bit more of Melbourne City including the famous Shrine of Remembrance (a memorial dedicated to fallen citizens from the state of Victoria), Botanic Gardens, Federation Square, China Town and the Greek Quarter. It was nice exploring the narrow side streets and cobbled lanes that give Melbourne its unique character and a very European feel - very different from "soulless" Sydney as people down here call it!! Before leaving the city Laura booked herself onto the Official Neighbours Tour for her last morning - only one seat left on the bus - I was devastated ha ha, aye right! For our last dinner in Australia we had a traditional Australian……….I mean Mexican feast! A champagne cocktail, Corona Beer (just 1 of each) and a starter and main course of Chicken Fajita's between us and we were stuffed! Packed up our stuff and hit the sack but neither of us got much sleep - thought's of travelling again…………and Dr. Karl Kennedy from Neighbours were keeping us awake!!

Laura was off early for her trip to Ramsey Street while I stayed back and caught up with some of our blogs and relaxed after checking out! The stops included the high school from the show, the studios where they film, the garage/mechanics, Grease Monkeys Diner and the street itself which is a real street called Pin Oak Court which Laura says is much smaller looking in real life! Got all the necessary cheesy snaps with the Ramsey Street sign and then off for the final part of the trip - meet a star of the show from today or past years! Laura was panicking it would be someone new as she hasn't watched the show in at least 5 years!! It turned out to be Connor - the Belfast guy who was in when she watched it - she was well pleased (not often a Belfast girl meets an actor from Belfast in Australia)!! After a bit of craic, photos and an autograph it was back on the bus and back to the city.

We met up and took a free bus tour round the city for our last couple of hours to briefly see what we hadn't seen already. Over the past few days we had noticed signs around the city for Batman Avenue and Batman Park and found out on the bus trip that they were named after the founder of Melbourne - John Batman (is this the coolest name ever or what!!??). The bus trip itself though took way longer than we expected which in turn had now made us late for getting to the airport! We wanted to be there for 3pm because of all the chaos at Melbourne Airport (Tiger Airways have been grounded) but thankfully our flight was still going with Qantas now the volcanic ash cloud had passed! We raced back to the hostel, got out bags and raced back to the train station to meet our shuttle bus to the airport! With 1 minute to go for some reason I wondered where the camera was - after a frantic search through the pockets while the train was pulling into the station we realized I had left it in the hostel!!! We had to get the next train as I sprinted back to get it - we were now even later!! We eventually got to the airport 10 minutes before check-in was due to close but Australia didn't want us to leave yet………..our flight ended up being delayed for 3 hours!! We checked our bags in and took the extra time to relax with some food and a drink before departing at 9pm.

Australia has been a great place to visit, work and live for 7 months but we were both ready to leave. As nice as it is, it isnt massively different to what we are used to back home…….albeit with better and sometimes more extreme weather! So far Asia is still our favourite place on the trip but living and working there may have been more of a challenge.

Onto New Zealand now for the start of the final leg of our trip - we are excited & nervous but cannot wait to get exploring again!

Keep checking in and sending us messages.

Craig and Laura =)