It's been another great week! Melbourne has been incredible, my favourite place so far I think! Last Monday we met up with one of Jo's friends who lives in Melbourne now and she showed us around a bit and went for coffee's. It's got such a cafe culture here, which is probably why I love it so much, it doesn't matter what time of day it is, all the little coffee places will be busy. Melbourne city centre is built like a grid, 9 vertical streets and 5 horizontal and then in between each of them there are smaller roads and lanes which is where a lot of the coffee places and restaurants are. It's got such a lovely feel. That night we went to the neighbours night, woohoo!! It was amaaazing!! It was at this Englishy pub in an area called St Kilda and it was kind of a quiz night in tables but three of the characters came out and came around the tables to have pictures taken and sign autographs etc, sad I know, but I love neighbours :)! We met Elle and Paul Robinson and Stu Parker who left a few years ago. Paul Robinsons band played aswell which was actually really good. He could only get away with it because he's Paul Robinson though, otherwise he's just a 50 year old guy thinking he's really cool in a band lol! We almost missed our tram back to Ashlea's house so we were running after in and then jumped on the back until it stopped!!

Tuesday was more neighbours stuff! We figured you can't go to Melbourne and not see where neighbours is set! We went to the neighbours office in town and another old character Jenelle came in and had photos and then 20 of us went in the neighbours bus and went to Ramsay Street, which is actually called Pin Oak Court and real people live in the houses! One week all of the filming is done inside this huge warehouse building, and another week all of the outdoor filming is done at this site which has the facades and the street too. We loved it, so glad we saw it, it looks so much smaller in real life though!

We didn't do too much on Wednesday, just went in to town again and wandered around and got coffee and cupcakes from this amazing cupcake bakery! We met Ashlea from work and went to hers and made dinner and chatted with her family for a bit. Thursday was such a nice day though, we met up with Caddy, a friend who was at Durham for a year in our 3rd year but is from Aus. He knows Melbourne really well so he took us for such a nice lunch and showed us a bit more of the city, it was so great to see him! We met Ashlea after she'd finished work again and we all went for a glass of wine and then Caddy had to fly to Perth, which is where he's from.

On Friday evening we went to our first Aussie Rules footie match! Ashlea ans her family are major AFL fans, go to watch their team, the Bulldogs every single weekend! It was a breast cancer special game though, so before to football started 5000+ women and some men all went on the pitch and stood in the shape of a pink lady. We all had pink ponchos on with pink flashlights and a helicoptor took a photo of it all. It was all to raise money for Breast Cancer Australia so was cool to be a part of! The game itself wasn't great, Jo and I both concluded that rugby is sooo much better. It's just such a scrappy game and on a pitch the size of a cricket pitch so you can't really see what's going on all of the time. We can now say that we've been to an Aussie Rules game though! After the game Ashlea drove us down to where the Great Ocean Road begins and we stayed in her Aunts caravan.

Saturday was such an amazing day. We drove nearly 3 hours to the 12 apostles and took lots of photos of them! There are only 8 now and they're huge! They make the stacks in Portugal look miniscule. We then worked our way back down the Great Ocean Road stopping a various points to take photos, including Johanna Beach which Jo obviously loved! The waves all of the way down were so big, I don't think I've ever seen waves that big! On Sunday we went to Bell's Beach early in the morning to watch all the surfers. It's the most famous surf beach in that area so the waves were amazing, there were some incredible surfers out there too, catching some huge waves!! We then just made our way back to Melbourne and stopped at a nice little town called Queenscliffe for coffee...had to have our coffee fix for the day! Ashlea dropped us at Jo's friend's house as we stayed there Sunday night so that we could get to the airport on time for our flight to Christchurch.

We got here ok, the view from the plane as we were flying over New Zealand was breath-taking, soo many mountains! Christchurch is so quaint! I don't think there is any other way to describe it! If it was mid-winter and there was snow it'd feel like an Austrian town or something! We haven't properly explored yet, we have all day tomorrow though. We're both so excited to get our campervan and start driving around New Zealand! Queenstown next I think!!