Well we coudnt have been further from the truth when we presumed the greyhound bus wouldnt be as bad as the buses in Asia. Although the road conditions are better the bus itself isnt! No room to move in the tiny seats, temperatures constantly changing between hot and cold, and the awful smell of too many people in too small a space, not good! To make it worse when we stepped out of the bus station having hardly any sleep, we were met by a cold, cloudy and wet Melbourne! Luckily, we'd booked into a hostel because we would have hated to trapse around trying to find somewhere to live.

After getting extremely annoyed with the people who kept stealing our taxi as we carried our bags over, we finally got to our hostel to realise we couldnt check in until 1pm! Hmm this day wasnt looking very good! Aimee came and met us and we managed to getr checked in at 11am, so it wasnt too bad in the end. The first day was a bit of a write off catching up with Aimee and having a look around Melbourne. The night time we met Faye to say see you later (bye's are rubbish) as she was leaving the following morning for home =(

Well we ended up staying in Melbourne for nearly two weeks chilling out with Aimee and catching up with Jamie, Nick and Callum from up the coast. The Australian Open was on when we were there and although we knew nothing about or had any interest in tennis, we thought that we should check it out one day. Well it ended up being a very good move because we had a really good day, we took some drinks and a picnic and went and chilled out in the beer garden when we werent watching some matches. Not only do we now know the rules but we actually enjoyed it, the highlight being when we snook into the Nadal game where we managed to blag the lady to let us 'take some pictures'.

But because we had such a good day we decided we'd go back the following, and the fact that Ladyhawke was the entertainment made it a pretty easy decision. We had another wkd day chilling in the beer garden watching the big screen, again with drinks and picnic, the only downfall which we didnt expect was Ladyhawke! She should have been on for an hour but after 25minutes she went off claiming the crowd were crap. Now, the crowd werent the most lively but when we told the staff that the sound system wasnt working properly so you couldnt hear her, we were ignored! On top of this, we were standing on the chairs having fun singing, dancing etc and got told to get down by some grumpy women. We looked behind us think we must be blocking peoples view, but when we did we found them all sat down looking like they were in a daydream!

Becuse Aimee had been in Melbourne for a few weeks before we arrived she was out tiur guide. She took us to the Moonlight cinema which was really cool, a large projector screen in the Botanic Gardens where we sat and watched Avatar =) We also went to Victoria Market which is on every Wednesday and along with all the local stalls there are lots of food and drink stalls with different types of food.

Australia Day was abit of a let down. The daytime was good, we went over to St Kilda with the boys and had a picnic at the beach, but the nighttime was nothing special. We went to Federation Square to watch the mens tennis semi-final, and apart from a few fireworks there wasnt much else happening.

With having an early night on Australia day (not what we expected at all) we decided we'd do the Great Ocean Road the follwing day. We hired a car in the morning and set off on our lil road trip. We asked for the cheapest car (because we're budgeting) so were expecting to get a Hyundi Getz as thats what we've had previously, but were pretty impressed when we were given a silver 5 door Toyota Corolla, very nice! We visited lots of places on the drive but the best sight by far was the 12 Aposiles, once again the pictures dont do any justice.

Hmm, what else to say about Melbourne... we did some shopping (only buying warm clothes in preparation for NZ), and did a city bus tour so we got to see Melbourne the city. On our last day we did the Neighbours tour, obviously it had to be done. Just before we started we were in the office and the tour guide asked if anyone knew who was trapped in the fire at Lasiters in the show. Everyone was racking their brains, us both feeling slightly embarrassed as we havent watched the show for awhile, when a voice called out from the back 'Stu'. When we turned round everyone was shocked to see the ex (fit) character Stu, but it was only Sam who did the 'ahhh' noise. After some photo's we set off on the tour, and unfortunetly we were pretty disappointed. We got to see Ramsay Street and other places on the show but we werent allowed to do much else, so we felt $50 was abit steep for the 3 hour tour, that actually only lasted 2!

There isnt much else to say for Melbourne really, we didnt actually go out properly, the hostel we were staying in was massive so everyone just drank in the communal areas then would go to the attached bar for a bop afterwards. This is where we met the Asian guy in the photo's incase anyone was a little confused =)

After dithering about how we were going to get to Perth and if we would be able to visit Adelaide, we managed to get a relocation camper. Basically, when people hire a campervan one way the comapny have to get it back some how so they offer relocation deals where people (mainly backpackers) can drive the campervan for the charge of $1 a day back to the starting place. This works out really well for people who need to get somewhere quickly and cheaply, especially when we priced flights at over $200 each! So there we go, next stop Perth via Adelaide in a campervan. 6 days to do it, easy!