Melbourne (Wed 21st Jan - Sun 1st Feb)

Arrived in Melbourne after a 3 hour Virgin Blue flight from Cairns. We were picked up at the airport by Dave Hair an old friend from Edinburgh who has now moved to Australia. We have spent the past 12 days staying in his house in the SE suburb of Glen Waverly a 30 minute train ride from the city centre. It's been good to have a base again for a few days to relax, knowing there is no pressure to do anything you don't feel like doing.

The past 12 days for us have been dominated by the Australian Tennis Open held at Melbourne Park. In the first week we visited the Park on 3 consecutive days seeing quite a few matches and stars including Nadal and Andy Murray. 2 of the days we had tickets for the main stadiums called the Rod Laver Arena (saw Nadal) and the Hisense Arena ( Andy Murray ) but we also spent a lot of time wandering round the other courts including the Margaret Court court !. If we were not in the stadium we were at home most evenings watching it on TV. Melbourne Park (Jacobs Creek Wine bar) was also the venue for meeting up with Bill Mcqueen who had come over from Edinburgh to see some tennis and cricket and for re-uniting with Bob and Lorraine, Susan and Col from Newcastle NSW, who were holidaying for a few days in Victoria.

The other dominating feature over the past few days has been the heat. Melbourne has been suffering its worst heat-waves for over 100 hundred years. This week we had 4 consecutive days with temperatures over 40 degrees reaching 44.5 degrees on Friday. Some nights the temperature did not drop below 32 degrees but somehow despite this we managed to get a decent sleep. The power in some parts of Melbourne gave up and the train service has suffered with some lines buckling and air conditioning breaking down because it can't cope with temperatures in the 40s. I was interviewed by a rather attractive ABC television journalist on Wednesday at Flinders St Station in the city centre asking my opinion on the rail chaos. I told her that I had been quite impressed until today. I'm not sure if the interview was ever shown. (Apparently it was - some friends from Newcastle spotted us on TV that evening)

The only way of coping with the heat is to go anywhere that had air conditioning. So this week we have been to the aquarium (worth a visit for the penguins alone), the Immigration Museum, the enormous Crown Casino (where Laura worked 2 years ago), one of the biggest in the southern hemisphere (spent a few minutes playing roulette ) and the cinema to see the film "Australia". We wanted to see it in Australia but most cinemas have moved on to other films. However we managed to find a cinema with a 3pm slot. There is something rather seedy about going to the cinema in the middle of the afternoon but in this weather it was a perfect solution. We also went to see the musical "Wicked" one evening at the Regent Theatre. A good evenings entertainment and again a good if expensive way of avoiding the heat.

On Laura's recommendation! we did the "Neighbours" tour. The show started 23 years ago and is still going strong in 60 different countries. Our Irish guide said it would be the cheesiest tour we were ever likely to go on and he wasn't wrong. The tour leaves from the "Neighbours" office in Flinders St. and takes you (in 40 + degree temperature) first to the film studios and then to "Ramsey Street" (or Pin Oak Court to give its real name) - see photos. It seems a lot smaller in real life and there are only 6 houses. The bizarre thing is that Ramsay St is in the suburb of Vermont South which is only 1 minute by car away from where we are staying. So we had spent 90 minutes getting to the office only to find ourselves an hour later back where we started. The third stop on the tour was to meet up with one of the so called "stars" of the show. It turned out to be someone who left the series a year ago and played the part of "Ned Parker" ?! There were a few keen "Neighbours" fans on our tour bus all from the UK but I'm not sure if any of them recognised the actor. I was hoping to meet up with Harold as that is the only person I would recognise and some say I look like. All in all a rather disappointing experience.

As far as eating is concerned, one of the many advantages of staying with friends is that you don't have to go out for a meal every night. May sound strange but you get fed up having to find a restaurant every day - apart from the obvious expense and the calorie count (both of us have put on weight this trip) it can also become tedious and stops being a pleasure. .So I have had a chance to do a bit of cooking and Dave has had a couple of excellent barbecues in his backyard. Bill rejoined us after a few days away and last night we all went to a Chinese restaurant. Again not a particularly successful experience. One theory is that if a place is busy then it should be good.I have an opposite theory which states that if a Chinese restaurant is full of Chinese customers then beware because the menu is full of weird dishes catering towards Chinese/Asian tastes which are different from our own. In general however the standard of cuisine in Australia is very good and in most places you are guaranteed a good meal at reasonable prices. Only thing that disappointed me was the lack of Greek restaurants. I read somewhere that there are more Greeks living in Melbourne than any other city in the world outside Athens. This does not seem to be reflected by the number of restaurants.

We also paid a visit this week to the Indian Consulate to apply for tourist visas for our 3 week visit in March. We eventually tracked it down after initially going to the wrong part of town. The bad news is that it takes about 10 working days to process the paperwork. It was getting a bit complicated because we will not be in Melbourne by then and have no forwarding addresses. At one point we considered abandoning the whole idea but after much discussion I hope we have come up with a solution. The passports and visa will be couriered to our friends Bob and Lorraine in Newcastle who will then courier them to somewhere in Perth when we have found accommodation.I hope it all works out. Our only consolation is that it could not be in safer hands than B & L.

On Bill's last day the 3 of us did a bit more sightseeing going up to the top of the Eureka Tower for the usual views of the city. It claims to be the highest residential building in the world. ?!.We then took one of the famous Melbourne trams to the large Victorian fruit and veg market before finishing up via another tram to the popular sea-side resort of St Kilda just a few miles south of the city centre.

Finally I would like to thank Dave for letting us stay here for the past 12 days and being a generous and considerate host. It has been appreciated by us both and we are now refreshed and ready to move on.

PS

After 5 weeks I think I have mastered the Ozzie accent which I must admit is not one of my favourites. For example if you are inviting someone to take a photograph, it would sound like this. Q. "If I stend he-ah cen you tike my phoi-toi" A. "Yis I cen/ noi I kent" Dont forget to raise your voice on the last syllable of each sentence as if you were asking a question and not making a statement.