Today we left Christchurch for our next stop - Melbourne! Had to get up at 3 in the morning as our flight was at 6! had a 3 hour flight and arrived at about 8 o clock Oz time (2 hours back) feeling as if we had been up for too long already! Got a shuttle from the airport to our hostel just outside the centre and dropped our bags off before going out to find some much needed brekkie and a cup of tea! Walked along the river and thought it looked a lot like london southbank! found a nice cafe and had one of the best cups of tea we'd had in a while! explored the centre of town for a while - it was quite a shock to be in such a big city after New Zealand (the 'cities' there were more like towns at home) - there were loads of people and shops!!!! felt a bit lost! we were walking around a bit like zombies as we were so tired so went and sat in the sun by the river for a while until we could check in to our hostel. When we did we realised that we were going to be staying in what felt like a mental asylum! the walls were all white and our room had no windows! scary! it was really modern though so good for everything else. Had a pretty quiet evening and early night as we'd been up for about 20 hours!

Tues 26th - today we did a penguin tour to Phillip Island. Left Melbourne at lunchtime and were out all day, stopping at various places on the way to Phillip Island and the 'Penguin Parade' in the evening. Our first stop was a winery where we got to try 6 different wines - most of which i didnt like! especially the red ones! *shudder* had a couple of drinkable ones though but wasnt tempted enough to buy any! After that we stopped at a wildlife park where we saw all the typical Australian animals at once! Got to stroke a sleepy wombat, saw kookaburas, koalas (also sleeping but so cute!), and fed kangaroos and wallabies!! they were adorable - at out of your hand which they held on to! the baby ones were the cutest - couldnt believe how tame they were! we wanted to take one with us! next we stopped at a typical Ozzie surfer dude beach - blue sea and white sand as well as a few surfers! very pretty! After a takeaway pizza dinner sitting looking out to Phillip Island we went to a place called 'The Nobbies' (big rocks broken off in the sea!) where there were supposed to be penguins. We only saw a few as they were all sleeping in their nesting boxes! But it was really nice there especially as the sun was setting - pretty piccys! Then we drove to the place where the actual 'Penguin Parade' would be happening. We got to sit in a special area overlooking the beach to see the little penguins swimming in to shore and waddling up the beach to their homes in the hillside (as they do every evening as it gets dark). They came up the beach in huge groups at a time and then made their way home passing right by next to us. There was a bit of congestion at the top of the beach as there were so many of them - over 1000! We got to walk alongside them and watch all their funny behaviour - chasing each other, some getting left behind, others getting confused about where they were going, falling in holes! they were really cute and we watched them for ages before it was time for the bus back to Melbourne. The journey passed pretty quickly as we watched 'The Wedding Singer' on dvd and we arrived back about midnight after what we thought had been a very Australian day!