Melbourne is a pile of w***..........
We arrived in Melbourne on Wednesday and Matt picked us up from the airport. We went back to his and he showed us to our rooms. My own private room with a double bed. Who could complain? We had some dinner and headed to the pub where we met up with a few of Matt's mates and Steve and Dan. After a catch up and a few beers we called it an early night because we had a big day ahead of us the next day.
6.45am and the alarm goes off. We had to get up early as we were driving the great ocean road. At this point i kindly told my alarm to "f*** off" and pushed a button. Sadly this button was snooze and 3 minutes later it was back. By we had to drive I mean Matt drove and Pete and I sat in the car for 8 hours with a copy of Zoo each and a gameboy. We drove along the coast and got some amazing views. After about 5 hours of driving we arrived at the twelve apostles (there's actually only three now) we spent about 15 minutes there getting a few pictures and then headed straight back. 8 hours in a car to stop and get a picture of three rocks? Yeah that's right but they were pretty cool rocks.
After getting back to Matt's at about 5pm we got ready for what was meant to be a big night out in Melbourne. We had a few predrinks and then headed in on the train. We arrived at a club called Factory where we were pretty
much told the girls could go in but the guys couldn't. w***ers. That wasn't going to ruin our night though. We headed straight on to a backup bar called 161. As we were all climbing out of a taxi a lady with a clipboard (think this gives them a lot of power in Melbourne) came up to us and just said "guestlist only". We couldn't even be bothered to argue so headed to our third club of the evening, called 7. Here some were let in and the rest of us were told "regulars and guestlist only". Dan was then told he was "too old". The bouncers were fine with us until Dan started a long rant about how "Britain owned Australia" and so we moved on. By this point I was with Steve, Dan, and Sam (Tess's mate) and Sam recommended a fourth club. We jumped on a tram but Steve and Dan didn't have tickets or change to buy one from the machine. Just as we are about to get off The Tram Police get on. We played the "we're English tourists" card and it worked. We got off the next stop and ended up in Chinatown. Perfect as this was where the club was but not so perfect because that club had "too many guys in already". Four clubs down and three charming English guys were still not allowed in. We headed to the final club of the night called Cookie and by this point we had pretty much sobered up. We were let in but only on the condition that we drink a glass of water when we order our first drink. Anyway from here Pete, Matt, and a few others came and joined us and we just had a couple of drinks and a dance before heading home.
The next day was a catch up on sleep and laundry day before I headed to meet up with Hannah and her boyfriend Dan. We went for a couple of drinks before I went to meet up with Steve and Dan (Pete was watching Harry Potter at the cinema). When I arrived at their hostel it was obvious that drinks had been flowing for a while. A room full of people dressed as super heros so I decided to start playing catch up. A couple of glasses of goon and the drinking games stopped. Dan had disappeared and so we went to look for him. We sat outside and then I looked up and saw Dan standing up holding on to one of the girls. As she walked away he then attempted to grab onto someone else. He missed and went flying into the bush. Maybe the funniest thing I have seen in 7 weeks. I grabbed the last train back and crashed out in bed.
Yesterday Pete and I went into town for about 11 and met Steve and Dan at the Rod Laver Arena - where the Australian Tennis Open is held. We did a tour and then in the afternoon headed to the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) to watch our first Aussie rules football match. It was Carlton vs Collingwood which is apparently the equivalent of Man Utd vs Chelsea being played at Wembley. We decided two would support one team and two the other. Pete and I backed Collingwood and the others Carlton. We got some team scarves too. Collingwood came out on top by 19 points which meant that Dan was still happy because he bet on Collingwood winning by less than 20 points. There was 86000 people at the ground and the atmosphere was really great. At the end of the game we split ways and Pete and I headed back to Matts before heading out on another night out. It was alright but nothing special.
This morning we were up early to catch our flight and meet up with the others in Cairns. Once there we will be picking up a car and driving down to Sydney.
Hope everyone's all good
Josh x