Melbourne's Fitzroy Gardens to the east of the city contain an eclectic mix of stuff. There's James Cook's cottage: the oldest building in Australia. There's also an ancient tree from which the Aboriginies once used the wood to carve out canoes. There's also a rather odd miniature Tudor village. During the war the people of Victoria sent food aid to the people of Lambeth, London. After the war, Lambeth sent Victoria a miniature Tudor village - and we all thought that Cadbury's Roses were the perfect way to say thank you.

Melbourne Gaol was founded when Victoria became independent of New South Wales and Melbourne could no longer send its criminals to convict central: Sydney. Pretty soon the Gaol was busy piling up the prisoners and executing a fair few of them. There are dozens of death masks, which are casts of executed prisoner's heads. The scientific theory at the time was that particular areas of the brain caused criminal behaviour, so it could be judged from the shape of your head whether or not you'd live your life on the straight and narrow. The death masks were cast in order to further the evidence for this 'science'.

The most infamous mask amongst them belongs to one Ned Kelly, of the Kelly Gang, executed in the Gaol aged 28 in 1880. The gallows from which he was hung are still visible within the prison today, they sit on the first floor, with a trapdoor opening down to the ground floor, in full view of all the cells.

In Carlton Gardens lie the impressive World Heritage listed Royal Exhibition, and the modern Melbourne Museum. The museum contains plenty of nature and human body information, although the stand-out exhibit is an actual forest growing in the museum's courtyard. It is complete with glass tunnels allowing you to walk amongst the roots to check out the animals living in the unique ecosystem. There is also an interesting section debating what should be done with sacred Aboriginal artefacts 'collected' in the 19th Century and now lying in various museums across the world.