We arrived in Melbourne and the sun was shining and we waited for the shuttle bus to pick us up from the airport. The shuttle arrived and we were greeted by a very grumpy bus driver who spoke to us all as if we were stupid, he was a bus driver on a serious power trip. Hopefully this wasn't gong to be the attitude of all the Aussies!!

We arrived at our hostel and were relieved that we had picked a nice hostel to spend Christmas, we got an early night and watched our plasma screen TV in our room, this really was a "flashpacker" hostel!

The next day was Christmas Eve and we went in to the city centre and met "Aussie Dave" for a few drinks, we spent the afternoon soaking up the sun and drinking lots of beer whilst we caught up! After leaving Dave we watched the "Carols by Candlelight" in the city centre and Lisa forced Ben to sing along to Jingle Bells and Silent Night! On the evening we went to see the famous Christmas window display at Myer where we had to queue up to see the brilliant display of Santa's Grotto, reindeer and elves at work preparing for the festive season, Lisa loved the display and took far too many photos. Melbourne calls itself the "City of Christmas" so there were plenty of Christmas events taking place around the city centre, we went to see a Christmas light and music show at The Crown Hotel and celebrated in Federation Square at 12am with the opening of the number 25 on the giant advent calendar where there were acrobats and Christmas Carols.

On Christmas Day we had a lazy morning opening our pressies and cooked bacon sarnies, we put on our swimmers and headed in to the garden for festive drinks and a $15 three-course BBQ with the rest of the people in our hostel. We had nibbles for starters, lots of meat for main course and haribo and chocolate cake for dessert yum yum. The afternoon consisted of drinking lots of free wine and playing party games where Ben won Lisa the Neighbours annual woo hoo (I'll let you borrow it Mel!)! At 3pm Dave came to pick us up and took us over to his Aunty's house to spend the rest of the day. It was brilliant to be around a family for Christmas, we drank champagne with hibiscus and ate lots and lots of lovely food! We were spoilt by the Kosnars and got some lovely pressies including, amazing homemade shortbread, stubbies, an Emu stick (yuk), a wine holder, chocolates, wine and a Melbourne photo book. The most controversial present we got was from Ron (aka..the lovely Mr Kirkham), a book called "The wit of racism" which went down well with the family especially Nana!! Our first Christmas away from home was very different and we missed everyone lots but we had a fantastic and very memorable day!

On Boxing Day with slight hangovers we thought we would head in to the city to have a look around the shops to see if there were any bargains. After an hour we were very stressed out and about confused what country we were in due to the amount of Chinese & Korean there were in the city and how they just pushed everyone around so we headed home! On the evening we went out for a "Chicken Parmigiana" which is a very popular meal in Oz, its not exactly like the real north eastern 'parmo' but it comes pretty close, yum yum! Dave picked us up and we went to meet Brad and some of is mates to get our Parma.Iit was great to catch up with Brad (Lisa used to live with him and his girlfriend Katie in Brum) a shame that Katie wasn't there though. After our parma's we went to the Italian area of the city and got some lovely ice cream (gelato)! On the way home Ben insisted on going to "Bojangles" which is an old nightclub where "Chopper" killed "Sammy The Turk" and Ben and Dave re-enacted the scene from the film!

The next day the three of us went to The Great Ocean road, we stopped of on the way at some factory outlets for Billabong and Rip Curl etc and Lisa bought some new shorts ($10). Then we carried on down the Great Ocean Road which runs right along the coast for about 4 hours passing numerous beaches, bays and small villages. We stopped at Koala cafe where there is a small road with lots of Koalas in the trees (recommended by Brad) and got some "awesome" photos before we stopped to have fish and chips on the beach. We carried on all the way to the 12 Apostles, of which only 9 remain (these are rock formations which have been left out at sea due to erosion from the tide they look quite impressive and the journey was worth it)! On the evening we were invited to the Kosnars again for a BBQ (they fed us very very well) where we had kangaroo steaks and lots of other delicious food. Lisa was impressed as Jackie gave her some more shortbread as she had eaten the first tub full already!

The next day Ben went to the third day of the Boxing day test with Aussie Dave and his mates to watch Oz v South Africa. If SA won, it would be the first time in 15 years that the aussies had a lost a test match series on their own turf, so it was big. The MCG is the biggest cricket ground in the world, it was brilliant, huge. Dave had sorted us out with members tickets also. On entrance we immediately headed to the bar and got our first scooner! Not quite a pint, 500ml we think. Maybe aussies can't handle full pints?? We ended up having about 5 or 6 before we even went out into the stand to watch the cricket. It seems in Oz, they just get drunk and watch the game on TV in the concourse area. Ben kept thinking to himself, that they might as well all go down the local pub, but then realised all the blokes wouldn't get away from their wives for the day then! After a lot of beer and the end of the cricket, which the aussies lost, we headed to Melbourne's biggest beer garden, where there were probably 500 people drinking at 6pm and listening to a live jazz band, it was a good atmopshere! Then after another pub, we then eventually staggered into Melbourne's famous Crown Casino, said to be the biggest casino in the Southern hemisphere. It was huge! Then he stumbled home in the early hours of the morning.

Whilst Ben was at the cricket Lisa spent the day sightseeing around Melbourne. Captain Cook's house from Great Ayton (which the aussies pronounce Great Eye-ton - I corrected them) was shipped across to Melbourne many moons ago and rebuilt in Fitzroy Park I went to visit the house and it still looks pretty good! In the afternoon i went on the Neighbours tour which was absolutely amazing! I went to see Erinsborough High School and we did the studio tour where i saw Lou's Mechanics, Lassiters Complex, Charlie's nightclub, Lassiters Lake, Harold's Store and best of all Ramsey Street and it looks exactly like it does on the TV! All of the houses are lived in although some of them are rentals where people can live in the Robinson's house - "Mel" this could be yours and Pete's next holiday haha!! I loved the tour and took lots and lots of photos of random people's houses!

Next stop Sydney!!