Melbourne did not disappoint. We have felt really at home here. It's another big city but somehow very easy to cope with. As ever there has been a big Australian Welcome starting with free bus and tram rides around the main sites.

Yesterday we hopped on the bus passing up avenues of colonial style houses, through an emerging, docklands and around many sports venues ( the Olympics was here in about 1956). Melbourne is the home of Australian Rules Football a totally crazy game with no apparent "rules". The league games are played in all the cricket grounds through the winter months with the finals coming up at The Oval here in Melbourne in a few weeks time. We disembarked our bus at the Melbourne Museum. We walked through a bit of rain forest learning about the fragile ecology then through a replica early Melbourne and onto an underwater world of the Great Barrier reef all the while mingling with crocodiles of excited and engaged school children. There was much more but we were museumed out by then so got back on our bus to be dropped by the river for a pleasant stroll along the bank to our hotel.

At night we headed for theatre land and Australia's very own version of The Mousetrap. Sorry not allowed to tell you whodunit.

Today started with a visit to Eureka Tower, the building that literally towers over our hotel and is the tallest residential building in the world. There is a public lounge on the 88th floor affording panoramic views of the city where we had coffee as the room swayed in the wind, wow!

After a stroll around the city we popped onto Melbourne's Art Gallery which was great but we were disappointed to find no aboriginal art section.

Tomorrow we pick up a hire car and head for The Great Ocean Road and then possibly up into The Grampian National Park and on to Adelaide.

The Walkabout continues....
P.s decided to cough up the 10 dollars for 1 hours Internet connection. Day light robbery!