Our train from Geelong pulled into Southern Cross Station in rainy Melbourne a little after lunchtime on Friday 22 June. We were kinda getting used to the rain now, so we just whipped out our umbrellas and carried on walking to our hostel. After checking in, we decided to explore a bit while it was still light. We walked away from the river towards a police station to get some documents certified and then saw a sign for The Block (remember the TV series where people renovate houses a room at a time... its still quite big there.) We had seen a few episodes during our time in Aus, so we went to check it out :-) On the way home we stopped at an Aldi to pick up a few groceries and then went back to the hostel for dinner. Afterwards, we walked down to the river at Southbank and took in the view of the city at night. It's really pretty, but also really cold, so we took shelter inside a food court that had wifi and did a bit of admin stuff. We walked back to the hostel shivering and went to bed.

Saturday we were up pretty early to do some sight-seeing. We had a quick free freakfast and then walked down to the river at Southbank again. Melbourne is cool in that it has a free tourist bus that does a loop between all the popular attractions in the city, with audio comentary to tell you what's what - super useful! So we got on and rode to the stop with the War Memorial and the Botanical Gardens. The war memorial is dedicated to all Australians who have fought and died in all conflicts around the world. Its quite big, and from the top you can get a pretty cool view of the city. Across the road are the Botanical Gardens, which are also huge and also free :-) They were clean and well kept, but they were doing some Winter maintainance so there were some parts where some excavation work was going on. I'm sure they are very cool in Summer though.

After the Gardens we hopped back on the bus and got off at the Federation Square stop, which is the main square in Melbourne. It is pretty cool and it looks like the space is well utilised - we saw lots of pamphlets advertising upcomming events. The main building is quite cool - very modern looking. We went to the ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) which is a free exhibition on everything to do with film and TV. They were having a huge gaming exhibit from the following week, so we got to play a few of games that were setup. On the way out of Federation Square, we visited the Information Centre and found it to be the best one we've seen so far (and we've been to a few.) We wandered around the alleys of the city, looking at all the cool little coffee shops and restaurants... there are some very cool spots there - wish we had more time! We did some quick printing at a library before catching the free tourist tram back towards our hostel. We made some pasta for dinner and then went in search of a nearby restaurant with a fireplace. We couldn't find it, so we ended up just walking along the Southbank river again. We got home pretty tired that night and went straight to bed.

Sunday we woke up in time for the free breakfast and then finished packing up our things. Our flight was only in the afternoon, so we hung out in the McDonalds across the road after we'd checked out - they are one of the few places in Australia with free wifi. We hopped in the shuttle when it arrived and were at the airport about 20 minutes later. The security went smoothly and we had plenty of time before we had to board. The departures lounge is very cool there, so waiting wasn't an issue for us at all. Soon we were called, and joined the throng of people (clearly also tourists) on our way to the first stop in our SE Asia leg - Bangkok, Thailand!