Today is our last day in Melbourne and the morning was spent on a gloriously cheesy tour of some of the more famous sights of Neighbours.

We made our way to the official Neighbours office (yes, really, they do have one) where we piled onto a mini bus and made our way out of the city. On the way to our first stop the bus driver told us a few facts about the surrounding area before putting on a DVD of some of the cast's music videos. Obviously there was Kylie singing "Locomotion", Jason Donovan singing "Too Many Broken Hearts" and even Craig MacLauchlan with "Hey, Mona" but what we hadn't counted on was Paul Robinson singing his number 16 UK hit "I'm Gonna Make You Feel Good".

After half an hour or so we arrived at Pin Oak Court, or as it is otherwise known "Ramsay Street" and we were all shocked at just how small it really is, with only six houses in the street. The minibus even had trouble turning around and there were only a couple of cars parked along the side. It is also the most secure street in Melbourne as there is security staff there twenty-four hours a day to stop people coming and taking a souvenir from somebody's house or garden.

We jumped out of the bus and our guide took us first to Paul Robinson's house where he went through all of the past occupants that had lived in the house up to the present day and a little bit about the history of the house. This routine continued on to Harold Bishop's house, the Timmins' place, Karl and Susan Kennedy, the house of trouser and finally Steph's place and at each house he reminded us of just who had lived there at one time or another. He also showed us how the cameras make the place seem bigger and how they hide certain things, such as the telephone mast outside the Kennedy's house and the big house that can be seen behind the Timmins' place. Whenever cars are seen pulling out of the close they don't have their engines on as this makes the street seem longer as the car takes longer to disappear out of shot.

Once he had gone around all the houses our guide answered any questions that we had and we found that the people who live in the houses get given a monthly schedule telling them when there will be filming and that they have to move all of their cars from the street on these days. They are allowed to stay in their homes but they cannot come outside or even move their curtains while filming is going on and any house that is sold has it written into the contract that the new owners cannot refuse to comply with the regulations. They also have to give notice if they are planning to do any home renovations or decorating as one episode of Neighbours had Toady painting the guttering around the house all day because the new owners of the place changed the colour from white to blue. However, they do get paid a hefty sum for these inconveniences and only three houses have changed hands in the last twenty years, so they are obviously fairly happy with the deal.

We also found out that the people who live in the street in real life have a few issues of their own as the security personnel often report goings on, including one occasion when a woman that lives in one of the houses saw there was a tour taking place and tried to scare them by driving her car into her driveway far too quickly. Apparently she narrowly avoided hitting a couple of people on the tour but wasn't so lucky with the next door neighbour's son and her own brick wall. After crashing into the wall she got out and the kid she had knocked threw an orange at here and hit her square in the face! Needless to say, the rest of the surrounding streets in the area have very little to do with the residents of Pin Oak Court.

When we had all exhausted our questions we took some photos of the houses next to a Ramsay Street sign that he had brought along before heading back onto the bus to continue on. We passed the studio where all the filming is done for inside the houses and all other areas of the show, including the main studio doors that are used for the hospital doors and even the parking lot is used for whenever people catch a bus.

Our next stop was at Erinsbrough High, which is actually an English language school, where once again a sign came out as a prop for some photos. The name Erinsbrough was chosen as it is an anagram of Neighbours (try it, it works) and they film at the school while lessons are taking place as the school operates seven days a week. Despite the fact that there are hundreds of kids in class while they film, they still get professional extras in to act as children in the playground!

From here we headed back toward the city while watching Scott and Sharlene's wedding (that's Kylie and Jason for the uninitiated) where we were due to meet a star of Neighbours. Not surprisingly, this 'star' turned out to be the guy that used to play Connor. Come half way around the world to meet a guy from Belfast, but never mind. We had our photo taken anyway; even it was just to show everyone how much weight he has gained - the result of "doing nothing but watching DVD's for six months" since he left the show!

Once it was all over we headed back home for an afternoon of packing up ready to leave tomorrow, before Brent came over to say goodbye for another couple of years!

Tomorrow we are heading off along the Great Ocean Road as we begin the final part of our journey.