Melbourne, one of several cities claiming to be Australia's most liveable city. For us though, it should be renamed Neighbours City. The official neighbours tour (there didn't seem to be unofficial ones and they wouldn't be worth it anyway) took us to Ramsay Street, Lassiters, the car garage etc. First shock : Ramsey St is tiny; there's no way you could have a game of cricket there on the road. Some of the houses look just like on TV, but others don't and have massive sunken driveways. Then the tour bus took us inside the film studios to see the Lassiters set, Grease Monkeys, Lou's car garage etc. The car garage is the actual garage where the studio work on their cars. Lassiters is just shop front with no inner components (apart from reception). And as for the Lassiters bridge over the pond, that has been removed because it is too old. The park with the pagoda where characters have 'deep and meaningfuls' is about the size of my back garden and is the other side of the fake Lassiters coffee shop. Suffice to say, the TV cameras and the lighting must do a lot to make the set look good.

The next day we went to the infamous 'Meet the neighbours cast' night in a local Melbourne pub. We met the wonderful Dr Carl Kennedy, Zak and his sister who seemed to be worringly close to each other all night long, the Chinese looking girl who left a few months ago, the fella who used to be in Hollyoaks and then moved to neighbours, and a new cast member who hasn't appeared on the British version yet. As 99% ( I kid you not) of the people there were from Britain, no-one really knew who he was, but we were nice all the same. Normally, Dr Carl's band plays but by 11pm we just shattered and weren't gonna wait any longer.

The following day we hired a car and hit the Great Ocean Road. Lots of beaches, surfer dudes,rock formations etc. One night was spent in a hostel double room with some sort of rodent running around the roof. Nice!