"If you're not a fan of the weather just wait 5 minutes". This melboune mentality proved to be pretty darn accurate as we were battered by the 46 degrees celcius bushfire heat, quite literally blown home on many a windy night and annialated by giant rain bullets on the way home to work during our time in Melbourne.

After reuniting the Tripod (James, Matt and myself) we moved into an apartment which was roughly the size of a postage stamp in St Kilda. In hindsight I think all of us are a little unsure just why we agreed to cram into a one bedroom apartment where it would be a struggle trying to make room for a cat, let alone try and swing it.

But hell, maybe I have my rose-tinted glasses stuck on but it was a blast! Of course, we were dancing on the wrong side of the law as our landlord had been adament that the apartment was only for two people which meant that everytime some one knocked on our door we all froze in fear that it was Ron (the stud of a landlord) coming to hunt us down in a surprise attack and steal away our precious bond money. As a result we took the time to plan a water-tight defence strategy: in the event of a random Ron visit, my job was to dart to the bathroom and hide the third toothbrush, shampoo bottle etc, Matt's vital task was to dive into the living room and fold up the sofa bed and James's role was to hide in the cupboard. In fact he got so good at keeping an ear out for Ron ascending the stairs to our front door that i once woke up, opened my cupboard to find a sleepy-eyed james standing bolt upright wedged between my empty rucksack and stacks of clothes after thinking he heard the door being knocked.

But, we didnt move to melbourne to sit in the flat all day watching the Farmer wants a Wife or Jeremy Kyle, or contemplate the logistics of buying a PedEgg.... although all activities are worthwhile in my humble opinion. We had some awesome daytrips to the MCG 20-20 cricket match, we went to the Melbourne Tennis Open and watched Federer smash his way to victory then after a couple boxes of goon we watched the most entertaining match of the day: James v.s Kate in an epic mini-tournament on an unmanned court with invisible rackets. Priceless.

Of course all of these activities were massively overshadowed by the greatest day in the history of the world. Forget seeing the sunrise over the Taj Mahal, who needs an elephant ride through the indian jungles.... we went to Ramsay Street. Boy oh boy it was a blast! By this time Karl Kennedy and I were like old mates as he was a bit of a regular at my bar so you know, we caught up, had some chats about when he did panto in the good old granite city, ah, he was probably seconds away from asking if he could be my facebook friend when we were bustled back into the minibus to take a peruse around ramsay street and take 20 million identical photos of us each hold That famous sign. awesome!

Melbourne is famed for its cafe culture and it doesn't take more than an afternoon stroll around st kilda to see why - the streets are bursting full of parisian style coffee houses with profiteroles and pastry's piled high against the windows to woo in the customers so by the time April came to an end we had explored the hell out of melbourne.

We had spent my birthday cruising along the Great Ocean Road feeling like Jeremy Clarkson behind the wheel winding down the seemingly endless road; we had gone to the Neighbours Night Bushfire Appeal and taken 101 photos of all the neighbours cast (past and present) from every possible angle; I was lucky enough to be working at a great bar in St Kilda and met some fantastic people whom i never wish to lose touch with. All in all, melbourne was six months of sweaty-sticky-tarmac-melting-heat-crammed-together-in-a-box-flat-madness with Karl Kennedy as the metaphorical cherry on the cake.

Sadly, however all good things must come to an end and a mere few weeks later I was sitting on my lonesome on the empty floor of our apartment after both matt and james had headed for christchurch and suddenly the flat didnt seem so small anymore.

It was strange being there on my own after living with up to 6 people in that place when our friends came to stay so i moved into a hostel for a few weeks to save up some of the old cash and by the end of April in was on a plane headed for New Zealand. It really was the end of an era, our initial plans to stay in Australia for 3 months had been perhaps unintentionally (we lost our flights) extended to an entire year of fun in the sun down under. But now it was time for some adventures in Kiwi-land, and hell at the end of the day, if it's good enough for frodo...

Joanne