July 11th (Saturday) - Day 132 - Melbourne
We got up and jumped on the free tram round to the Melbourne cricket ground (MCG). This is home to cricket (durr) but also AFL (Aussie rules). We were after some tickets for the afternoon game between Richmond and Carlton. However the ticket stand did not open for a few hours because there are normally spare tickets for a game so you get them when you arrive. Instead we got back on the tram and went to the markets we visited the first time we were in Melbourne. This time to buy things as we had chance to ship them home. I brought most of my presents for people, but don't get too excited as I am not buying for many people and what I did buy went in the post and wont arrive until October lol. We went and unloaded our stuff at the hostel and made our way round to the MCG. We managed to get a ticket really quickly and made our way into the stadium. The place could hold 100K people and the whole stand is completely oval. The game managed to half fill the stadium so the atmosphere was immense and the noise was loud at times. This made for a great game. They have 4 quarters which are 15 minutes of play, but not when the ball goes out or they swap subs so a quarter ends up lasting 30 minutes. It was a really good game and if anyone cares the final score was Carlton 119; Richmond 89. We were really frozen by the end of the match so walked quickly back to the hostel to warm up. We went out for dinner but it was not that nice and both of us ended up feeling a bit rubbish that night.

July 12th (Sunday) - Day 133 - Melbourne
We had arranged to meet our friend Tom who we met in Asia. However Sarah did not feel very well (I don't think it was from what we had eaten the night before) so was not up for coming. I spent the morning looking into New Zealand and met Tom at 2. It was good to catch up with him and tell him what we had been up to. We had a few beers in the casino and then jumped onto a tram down to St Kilda. We had a few more drinks and grabbed some dinner in a local café. He had to head off so I headed back to meet Sarah. We didn't get up to much that night.

July 13th (Monday) - Day 134 - Melbourne
We spent the morning planning New Zealand and finally after weeks of not knowing what to do we decided on the bus and booked the pass. It goes everywhere there is to go in New Zealand so I am now really looking forward to that. We brought a few more souvenirs then headed back to the hostel to grab everything else we wanted to send home and wandered over to the post office to pack it all and get it sent off. By this point it was pouring with rain and we didn't have a lot else we wanted to do in Melbourne so went to the cinema again. We watched Bruno which I have to say is the worst film ever! Ali G; funny, Borat; funny, Bruno; wrong!! Back at the hostel they had a free BBQ so we jumped in the already massive queue and grabbed some food then headed off to the casino as we had a couple of drinks vouchers left over from the other night. Didn't play any slots this time though!

July 14th (Tuesday) - Day 135 - Melbourne (Phillip Island)
As we had got a hire car back from Adelaide we had over a 1000km left on our bus pass; luckily you could cash this in for trips, so we picked the "penguin parade tour" over to Phillip Island. We had our normal mix of people in the group ie no one that wanted to talk to anybody else. Our tour guide (Bernie) was a right laugh. Not an drop of political correctness in his body. He was taking the mic out of us pomes and kiwis in no time. Our first stop was an animal reserve; seen so many of these now but it was part of the tour so we went along with it. We were greeted at the door by a python which was put around my neck before I knew it. The park had loads of different native animals and we got to see parrots, emus, a koala, a wombat, dingo's and we also got to feed some wallabies and kangaroos. Afterwards we had some 'lunch' and drove over to Phillip Island itself. Our first stop over there was a working sheep farm. We thought we were going to get to see a sheep being shorn but after sitting through a very long speech from the farmer with kids running around all over the place screaming, he decided not to do it! But he did offer to show us his sheep dog skills. He got a couple of dogs to round up some sheep and push them into a pen. He also got one of the dogs to do the same but with turkeys. And if that was not enough he then got out his miniature pony which did some tricks like rearing and playing football. In the gift shop I managed to get the perfect present for Dannii (you can have it if you read this :P hehe). Next on the list was a seal colony on the other side of the island. We arrived just as the shop was shutting but Bernie managed to break us in. As the seals are a mile off shore we needed to use their video camera from inside the shop. We soon got kicked out so instead we went for a walk around the coast and watched the sun set. Finally the highlight of the day we drove to a little beach to watch the penguin parade show. Hundreds of little penguins come up the beach just after night fall to rest in the sand dunes. It was a little like going to see a sporting event as so many people were there. Once at the beach we had to sit in stands. I don't have any pics as you were not allowed cameras. We got to see about 30 penguins waddle up the beach which was cute and funny at the same time! On the way back to Melbourne we stopped for (free) pizza and I almost fainted. The kiwi's in the group actually struck up a conversation with us over dinner!

July 15th (Wednesday) - Day 136 - Melbourne
Neighbours, everybody loves good Neighbours. Oh yes our last day in Australia and we had to go and ruin it with the Neighbours tour. I really was not looking forward to this and to make it worse the bus that picked us up had Neighbours logos all over it. There was no where to hide my face from the on lookers! However the first thing our driver said to us was "you're about to embark on the cheesiest tour of your life" and that made me relax a little and just take the day for what it was (which I am glad I did). My god was he right - cheesiest thing I have ever done! On the way we watched some classic episodes and the driver (who is officially crazy (well you would be after doing this tour twice a day for 10 months)) kept interjecting with random comments, spoilers on how they get made. For example it always looked like a hot summers day. Melbourne is not hot and sunny at all in the winter so the actors have to freeze while filming, especially shots when they are in the pool. They then add effects to brighten the surroundings up. Anyway our first stop was the high school, which in real life is a English language school (insert your own jokes here). Next we drove over to the studio and he showed us how they use anything they can find locally for the back drop when filming our doors. 90% of it is within the studio grounds! 10 seconds down the hill was an old shed that they turned into the news paper and police station and one of the stars came down to do a meet and greet. Seeing as I have not watched it in like 15 years I had no idea who this guy was but anyone who does watch it, his name is Lucas in the show. Finally the highlight; Ramsey Street (sorry I mean Pin Oak Crescent - the streets real name). It is a real street with real people living in it. The funniest thing is that there are only 6 houses in the street but the show changes the numbers out the front each time they film. Apparently if you look closely they forget to change the signs and number 28 becomes number 6 for no reason. Also if one of the residents changes anything the writers have to write it into the show. The main thing you notice is how small the street is. The camera makes it seem huge but the street is so short. Anyway enough about that. We fooled around and got some stupid pictures, then drove back to the city. We had a few hours to kill before we had to get to the airport but we did not fill it with anything productive. Our flight was booked through Qantas but it was a Jet Star flight. My heart nearly sank but for once everything went okay with them…