Hello from melbourne!

After a week and a half in the southern hemisphere i thought i should pop on here and tell u a bit more of what we have been up to!

I left u last saying we were staying with the anderson family, friends of ours from when we lived in cambridge with an even bigger family than ours!! and also with the eager anticipation of emilys birthday, which didnt disappoint. after a trip to churhc in the morning with margery and eddie(the anderson parents) we shared a fantastic roast dinner with the anderson family- im a fan of asian food, but u cant beat a good roast dinner- especially those roast potatoes!! mmm! and with the massive crowd around the table it definitely felt like home! we then headed into town and caught a boat out into the harbour and round to darling harbour. Sydney is a beautiful city, but must be viewed from the water as well, it becomes even more spectacular. after celebratory glasses of wine in darling harbor we headed back round to the rocks and a lovely dinner and more wine and to generally soak up the atmosphere of sydney harbour, which on Anzac day was particularly buzzing! we had a really lovely day, which i hope emily enjoyed despite being so far from home!

the next day we headed with margery up the north coast of sydney to explore all the northern beaches, which are beautiful! the surf was awesome, the sand was beautiful and clean! and the weather was beautifully warm, it was australia is supposed to be-a properly picture perfect day!we ended the day chilling out and watching jeeves and wooster-it just got better!! :) on tuesday we headed to chatswood and the big shopping malls, we wandered around admiring, but not buying as we have no cash, but we did manage to find cheap toiletries-woop! from there we headed down to new town, to sydney uni and to see christian the last anderson on aussie soil that we hadnt yet caught up with. he showed us round the wannabe oxbridge uni and took us for coffee in the very trendy student area. that evening we headed into town, guided by marcus (an other anderson child) to experience sydney nightlife, only to workout that apparently the poeple of sydney dont really venture out on a tuesday night! we managed to entertain ourselves however and had a good night exploring the bars up and down george street. wednesday was our last in sydney so we hit town again, walked the length of george street to egt some reprinted tickets for s.america only to findout that the sta there didnt have them-doh! then walked accross the bridge and and round the opera house, and most importantly of all went to max brenner for hot chocolate and chocolate in many forms-incredible-why do we not have max brenner chocolate houses!!! that night we headed over to imogens house, another of the anderson children, who has recently got married an just moved into a new place, a lovely little flat and perfect first home! then headed out with them and margery and eddie for a drink a lovely way to spend our last evening in sydney.

It was then another early morning flight down to melbourne, with a much appreciated life to the airport from marcus at 4.30am (i note after he had finally finished his assignment-woop!) we arrived at melbourne airport at 8am unfortunately emilys bag didnt, it had decided to go on its own adventure to brisbane. so we headed into town with our fingers crossed that the bag would shortly follow! after checking into our hostel we headed straight for a famous melbourne breakfast, and then onto the neighbours centre to book our neighours tour- the most important stop in melbourne! :) we then failed to sort our transport down the great ocean road so rang our friend ashlea (one of the people we met on our delhi-kathmandu tour) who was putting us up the following week and she took pity on us and said we could come stay earlier than expected. and not only that she herself took us down that weekend to wilsons prom,east of melbourne and the southern most point of australia and an absolutely beautiful place! it was a lovely drive down passing field of cows in pasture and tiny little towns, it felt like very english scenery, but a little off, with different trees and different style houses- but i suppose we can forgive it these few failings:) in truth it was actually more spectacular than the english country side, with the hills rolling for miles and miles and the hills becoming more rugged and disappearing into wild bush land. i had always wondered why it was called 'bush' and would u ever believe that its because the land is covered in bushes- well i never! over grown bushes to be fair, but none the less miles and miles off thick and intertwined bushes, not a tree in sight! we hit wilsons prom and set up our tents as we were to spend the weekend camping! then we headed out to walk over the headland to speaky beach- a beach that when dry squeaks under ur feet due to the high level of fine quartz in the sand, unfortunately the sand was quite wet so we only heard a few little squeeks emitted, but we difinitely did hear it! again it was a stunning beach- the sand was pure white and with the beautiful blue sky reflecting on the cristal clear water on the basically deserted beach we thought we were in paradise! we stayed there to watch the sun go down then headed back for a bbq-true aussie style!! after my first taste of beef sausages-ashles was quite suprised to hear that our normal sausages were pork-u just cant find a proper british style sausage out of the u.k., but the beef ones were a suprisingly good alternative, we headed back to our camp only to find that one or our tents had blown away!! it had not blown far fortunately, the handily placed toilet unit had acted as a block and we found it pinned against its side. so we decided a change of cap to a more shltered area was necessary as the winds did not look like they were stopping, so we picked up the tents and moved- carrying an already errect tent in gusty winds is not the easiest of tasks but is avery funny thing to attemp to do, and we did eventually succeed in doing it! the new site was moderately more sheltered, but the tents did survive the night so all was well! the next day we awoke to more wind this time witht he addition of rain and we felt right at home! after a lovely cup of tea we heaeded off on another walk, not the planned one up mount oberon, as we figured with it being covered in cloud it would be a fairly pointless exercise, but on a lovely walk oput onto oneof the headlands with a beautiful view over the different bays. we then headed home with a little detour onto philip islanf for some fish and chips on the beach-a poor comparison to british fish and chips, but tasty all the same. we explored around and did see a penguin on philip island! we didnt stay to watch then parade in that night as we headed back to join ashleas family for a roast dinner! i could get used to this!! s. america is going to be a shock to the system after this!!

on monday we headed into melbourne and to meet up with Shiv!! one of the girls i used to work with in shared earth, who is actually from down under! she showed us round the little laneways and out into the arty suburb of fitzroy, it was soo lovely to see her and catch up!! that evening we headed down to st kilda and to the neighbours night! seeing stu parker, elle robinson and the legend that is paul robinson performing with his band- something he only jsut gets away with because he is paul robinson!! it was an awesome night :D!! and prepared us for our trip the next day to ramsey street itself! after slightly calculating the bus and traintime tables wrong, but just catching the train in time we made it to the neighbours bus and out to erinsbourgh! we were taken round the school and carpenters mechanics and greese monkeys and then to the street intelf, which is a lot smaller than it looks!! then we headed back to town and met ashlea who showed us round melbourne uni and took us to a very cool bar, madame brussels which looks like something strainght out of alice in wonderland!! love it!! we drank pimms and pretended we were in sunny wonderland!

so far we are loving melbourne, it is a great city with a firendly, bustling and slightly alternative feel to it, and with its weather it reminds us distinctly of home!!

I will try not to leave it so long next time before being in touch so there wont be such a mamoth blog, im sorry!! but i hope its not bored u too much!! we r certainly enjoying everything and cant wait to see more of melbourne, and the great ocean road this weekend and then onto n.z.- cant wait!!!

hope alls well at home!!! keep in touch!

much love!! x x x