G'day Everyone,

Spent the week exploring Melbourne, and loving every second of it.

On Wednesday we went to the Australia Open for day 10. The sun shone all day which was a bonus. We watched several matches. The first we saw was Pat Cash/John Fitzgerald (AUS) vs. Wayne Ferreire (RSA)/Wally Masur (AUS), it was quite a commical match because it was just a legends game. The Aussie's won so we heard some Aussie chants. We then watched a couple of womens double matches on the Margaret Arena Court. The match between Victoria Azarenka (BIR)/Shahar Peer (ISR) vs. Zi Yan/Jie Zheg (CHN) was really close. We ended the day with a burger and beer ($6.60 a sconner) watching Roger Federer (SUI) beat James Blake (USA) on the big screen, as we didn't have tickets for the arena. Was a throughly enjoyable day but by 10pm we were all tennised out.

Thursday we had a lie in! There was no hurry to get up because it was cloudy. After lunch at the hostel we did a couple of walking tours of Melbourne. The first took us down lanes, alleyways, little streets, arcades, cafe streets and through the shops. It was a really good way to get a feel for Melbourne. We found a whole side street full of graffiti which pleased Hayley! You see a lot more good graff out her because it isn't frowned upon, it means you don't get vast spaces of dull colour, particularly along the railway lines, all the maintenance buildings are covered in it.

The second walk we did was through Fitzroy Gardens where we saw Cook's cottage - which was shipped from Great Ayton in Yorkshire and re-erected in the gardens in 1934 as a Victorian Centenary gift! We also walked around St Patrick's (Catholic) Cathedral. We ended the walk along the Yarra River with views of the Melbourne skyline. After all that 'exercies' we went back to Red Nine a cafe we found on the first day that does gorgeous toasted banana bread with butter and hot chocolate - mocha for Rose for $5!

Today we caught the free bus to St Kilda and spent the day on the beach. The beach wasn't as nice as the ones in Syndey but at least it meant we could catch a few rays. Met up for a cake with one of the girls, Laura who we met on the bus down here. The culture is very much to go for coffee and cake all the time, suits us!

Looking forward to Australia Day tomorrow.

Love Hayley and Rose x

PS. feel free to put in any news stories in your messages - we haven't got a clue whats going on back home!