After two fantastic months in New Zealand we have now hopped over the water to sunny Australia - Melbourne!

There was a Comedy Festival on for the time we were there which was really good fun. They had things going on in the street everywhere.

We decided to go for a walk through the Botanic Gardens - mainly because its free! There were some really odd plants and trees there though. There was a tree that looked like it was wearing army camo gear. We are both going to wear our camo shorts one day and get a picture with one although you might not be able to see us!!! Some of the leaves on the plants were massive and there was a cactus called the golden barrel. I am going to have to get one of them one day!

We went to a museum called the Australia centre for the Moving Image - once again because it was free. This was actually really good though! It showed the progression of TV and games throughout the decades and had some new ideas for things that might be used in the future. There was a screen that you could stand in front of and make shadows on it with your hands. It used some kind of technology to add stuff to it to make it look like creatures and even added sounds. There was also a little room that you could go into that had cameras 360 degrees around you so you can walk in and do something stupid and it films you from all the different angles - Matrix style!

One thing that i have noticed about Melbourne is Neighbours - yes the TV soap! You see tours of it absolutely everywhere!!! It is filmed here and everyone seems to be a bit hooked on it here although i swear no one in England has watched it in about 15 years!!

We went to a pub in St Kilda called The Espy which was voted the best pub in Australia by the Lonely Planet guide. They had some really good bands playing all night. Every band i have seen in NZ and Oz have been exceptionally good which is rather surprising that you never get them in the charts. Fun as it was though we couldnt have a late night because we were doing a tour of the Great Ocean Road the next day......

On the tour we got to see some Koalas in the wild!! They were just hanging out eating there leaves or just sleeping - which is what they seem to do all the time. When we stopped there we were given some seeds and were told to go and stand by the trees. There were parrots everywhere that come down and land on you and eat out of your hand. I had three on me at one point! Its even better than seeing them in a zoo! We decided to split the trip up and do it on two days and stayed in a hostel in Apollo Bay. This was by far the best hostel i have ever stayed in and pretty sure nothing can ever beat it! It was literally like a 5* hotel and to top it off we were the only people there in the day. We got our room upgraded for free and had beautiful views from the balcony. Pure heaven!! As it was so great we asked if we could stay another day. The manager moved our tour for us and our next hostel booking back by a day and even kept us in the same room. We sat by the fire at night and on the sunbeds on the roof during the day and the beach was only about 200m away. To top it all off we actually had steak for 2 nights in a row!!! This might not seem like a big deal to most of you but when you have eaten nothing but pasta, eggs, beans and bread for the last 2 months its unbelievable! We really didnt want to leave..... But we carried on the tour the next day and did a walk through Cape Otway where some trees have been recorded at 137m tall!! We were told that the fern trees grow a foot a year and some of them were over 10 foot tall meaning they were over 100 years old. Also, they have carniverous snails in there which at first i was a little worried about. Would they be nibbling at my toes as i was walking through?? Apparently i had nothing to worry about because its only flies and little insects they eat. As Ben pointed out though.....who would want to go near my manky feet!?! Fair enough point really. We also found out that 98% of snakes in Victoria are poisonous which i didnt really want to know walking through a rainforest. Some things are just better left unsaid i think.
We got to see lots of landmarks this day.....
Lock Ard Gorge - a site where a ship sunk and some really cool caves were made
The 12 Apostles - sandstone formations out of the water.
London bridge - a rock formation that was named because it had the two arches like London Bridge. One has since fallen down though!

We went to see an Aussie rules footy game at the Etihad stadium - North Melbourne 133 - Port Adaleide 73. Who would have known you could score that many points in a game!

We went up the skydeck as well which is 300m high and you get to see Melbourne from up there. We also got suspended 300m above griound in a glass cube!!!! We were both kind of regretting our decision to do it once we had stepped in but it was really good!!

Off to Sydney......

Chow

xx