22/5/08

Drove back to melbourne from Phillip Island, and found a sports centre where we parked our campervan then caught a tram into the city. Decided to see some less touristy spots and spent a hile wandering around Fitzroy - full of arty shops, coffee shops old bookshops and crazy clothes shops. In the evening we met up with Toby (another friend from the elephant park). He showed us a park where we could stay for the night without having to pay. Chatted to him for an hour or so before setting the van up for bed.

23/5/08

Woke up to find ourselves in what turned out to be a beautiful little park, full of people doing their morning exercise class or walking their dog. Found a little cafe where we got some breakfast. I read the guide book and decided to have a touristy day seeing all the sights of Melbourne. Drove to St Kilda where we found some free parking and took the tram into the city centre. Walked down Collins street, wandering around some very old fashioned malls with expensive looking chocolate shops and hairdressers! Past St. Paul's Cathederal and to federation Square where we found an exhibition called Game On. There were 125 different computer games from the last 20 years which we ended up spending about 1 hour playing on! Then went off to find some lunch in a Japanese restaurant before going back for another hour! Walked along the river to a little park where we got some nice views back towards the city then went to the Ian potter Art gallery. Walked up to the QV shopping centre and past the library before catching a tram back to the van. Drove back to the same park again, and cooked pasta with pesto for dinner!

24/5/08

Back to the same cafe for breakfast, then drove to Belgrave. I wasn't feeling very well so we decided to go to the cinema and see Indiana Jones! We then went to the football field to watch Luke Tucker (who we met in Cambodia) playing Aussie-Rules Football. He was playing for yarra Glen against Belgrave, but unfortunately he didn't win. We stayed to watch Luke's twin brother play for the 1st team as well, while Luke explained some of the rules to us. Also met Luke's girlfriend Emma. Then followed them back to Emma's house where we had a shower and got changed before heading out into the city to the MCG Stadium where we watched Essenden against Richmond. Unfortunately Essenden lost pretty badly (they are the team Luke supports!). We had a traditional Aussie dinner while we watched the game - a meat pie covered in tomato ketchup!! We met Nico Dudink at the game (who we also met in Cambodia) and their friend Katy. After the game we went to the Crown Casino where we met two more of Luke and Nico's friends - Fitzey and Ashley. Alex and I both spent $20 on roulette but didn't manage to win anything back really. Luke was more lucky as we managed to win $90! We thought this was amazing until we met Fitzey who had just won $360!!! We took the winnings and went to a club in the centre on melbourne where we spent the rest of the night. At one point the boys went to play pool but the people playing wouldn't let them on, saying that they should play winner stays on. So they ended up playing against the guy... being cheered on the whole time by all the girls! Nico won the second game with an amazing pot of the black ball and eveyone went crazy cheering him!!! Caught a taxi back to Emma's house, and eventually got into bed (in the van) at about 5.30 am.

25/5/08

Our intended early start to get onto the Great Ocean Road didn't really work out well as we were all pretty exhausted from the night before! Emma's parents cooked us some pancakes for breakfast and we ended up staying and chatting to them for a while. We then followed Luke's car to Nico's house where he picked up some stuff for our trip, and I cleared out the van a bit. Met his parents and twin brother and again ended up staying for a while chatting. Then we had to go to Luke's house which was about 1 hours drive away! They seemed to think that they lived quite close together and they even went to the same school - shows the different perspective of distance Australians have to English people! We also had to stop off to do some food shopping and get petrol. By the time we got to Luke's we were all pretty hungry so ended up sitting down for some lunch and a chat with Luke's parents. We only ended up leaving Luke's at 4.30!! By now it was too late to reach the Great Ocean Road, so we drove as far as Barwon Heads where we spent the night at Luke's Grandad's summer house. It had a huge living room with a massive snooker table! Spent the evening playing pool as well as going for a walk along the beach in the dark.

26/5/08

Finally made it to the Great Ocean Road!! Drove to Lorne where we went for a walk along the beach and went to the bakery for some breakfast. Also drove up to Erskine falls where the 3 boys spent ages climbing around on the boulders at the bottom of the falls and taking photos! Then to teddy's lookout for a view out over the sea and part of the Great Ocean Road before setting off again for Apollo Bay. Had lunch in the van by the beach before going up a huge hill for another nice view. It began to get dark so we drove to Port Campbell where we checked into a campsite (just making it there before running out of petrol!!). Went to the local pub for some dinner - Luke made us try the Chicken Parmagiana, his favourite! Then we went into the main bar and played some pool against the locals. Alex and I managed to win every game for about 2 hours, until we got bored with it!! Back to the campsite where Nico and Luke slept outside in their swags while Alex and I slept in the van.

27/5/08

Woke up to find it sunny with bright blue skies. We set off for the 12 Apostles, stopping off on the way at a beautiful gorge, with some amazing arches. The 12 Apostles looked stunning in the morning sun and we stayed there for ages taking in the view. We then left the Great Ocean Road and drove to Colac where we had some lunch and walked around the town. Went to Luke's house for the evening where we met his 4 brothers (one of them his twin), and his parents cooked us all a huge dinner steak with potato bake! We spent the rest of the evening telling Luke's parents about England (they had never been there) and watching English TV like Gorden Ramsey!! We drove Nico back to his house and slept in the van on his driveway.

28/5/08

Had a shower at Nico's house and some breakfast then drove to the small town of Healsville where we had a coffee and a wander around before finding a park where we stayed for about 4 hours while we cleaned out the whole van and packed up all our belongings back into our rucksacks. Had some pies for lunch and found some free internet in the library. Then drove to the Rasaratnam's house. The Rasaratnams are a Sri Lankan family who have been very close to our family since my aunty Brigit went on an exchange to Sri Lanka when she was 18! Part of the family emigrated to Melbourne about 20 years ago because of the problems in Sri Lanka at the time. It was great to meet them as I have heard so much about them before. We all went out for dinner at a local food hall where I tried some Sri Lankan food - hoppers. It was great fun as there was a whole group of us - Lakshmi, Nirmalini & Chelvarayan, their 2 daughters and one of their husbands. After dinner we went back to Lakshmi's house for some homemade deserts and tea! Alex and I slept on the floor in Lakshmi's lounge as it was so cold outside!

29/5/08

After some breakfast, we went and did a very touristy thing - visited Ramsey Street (from Neighbours) although in real life it's actually called Pinoak Close and was just around the corner from the Rasaratnams. We arrived just at the same time as a tour bus and we cheekily borrowed their 'Ramsey Street' sign and took a photo! We then caught a train into the city where we met up with Mike (another friend from the elephant park) for some lunch. We found some free internet at the library then caught the train back out, said goodbye to the Rasaratnams and drove to Luke's house. Spent the evening with Luke Nico and Katy and slept in the lounge at Luke's house.

30/5/08

Got up early and finished packing up our van, unloading all our extra food onto Luke's parents! We drove to Ringwood where we said goodbye to our van and set off with our rucksacks towards the station. The man at the camper place said it was a 10 min walk, but it took us half an hour - we had forgotten how heavy our bags were! In town we checked our bags in at the station then got some lunch. When we were in SE Asia, we met a girl called Narelle on a flight from Hanoi to Bangkok. It turned out she was an Environmental Scientist working for an engineering firm called URS. She described her job to us and it was Alex's perfect job! We got her details and she said we should call her when we got to melbourne. So having only met her for 45 mins, she had now organised for Alex to have an interview with the top Hydrogeologist at URS!!! So off he went, trying to look as smart as possible in the clothes he had! The interview seemed to go very well and Alex is now sending them his CV for a possible job!!! They also have offices all over England so he could also find out about working there. After his interview we went to meet a couple we met in Thailand - Paris and Lara. Had a few drinks with them and relived our few days on Koh Lanta Island. Then we had to run to meet Narelle (who had set up Alex's interview) for another brief 45 mins in which we managed to squeeze in a Chinese meal, before rushing to catch a bus to get onto our overnight train to Sydney.

31/5/08

After a very bad and interrupted sleep we arrived in Sydney. Checked into a hostel and got a bit more sleep. We then spent the rest of the day in an internet cafe updating the blog and adding all of our photos!! Hopefully this evening we will meet up with Claire, a girl we met on our rafting trip near Cairns, then tomorrow morning we fly to New Zealand!

Heather xx