Finally, the blog updates continue...

I spent a long weekend last weekend in Melbourne with Greg, Leyen and her sister Lisa. I wanted to see what all the hype was about the "2nd most liveable city on the planet", so what better weekend to go than Australian Grand Prix weekend?

We took an early flight from Sydney on Friday morning, and spent the day exploring the uber-chic suburbs, where we found lots of boutique shops, cafes, restaurants and bars. On Friday night we met with Scott's bro, Rob who lives in Melbourne and we headed off to the MCG for my first experience of Aussie, erm, rules, football. Basically there are no rules, other than the one where you get 6 points for getting it between the middle two posts, and 1 point for getting it through the posts either side. By any means - kick, throw, punt, run and tap it etc etc. To make it interesting, Greg and I decided to whack some money on the favourites, Geelong, to beat Essendon by 20-39 points. At half time it Geelong were 20 points down, so had an uphill battle to turn round a 40-59 point margin after the break. After sending a word to the dressing room about the English boys' bet, they came out like men possessed and eventually ran out comfortable winners - so we cleaned up and collected our $170. Woo hoo!!!

On Saturday, we hired a convertible and embarked on a 500km drive down the Great Ocean Road. The road follows the coastline around the bottom of Victoria. If you stay on it long enough, you'd end up in Adelaide, but we were aiming for the 12 Apostles, outcrops of rock in the sea, that have been eroded from the land over thousands of years. Despite the weather not being great, we kept the roof down as long as possible in true British style, and turned the heating up full blast. After arriving back in Melbourne in the evening, we hit the town and found various bars and clubs that kept us on the go until 430am. (By that time, Lewis Hamilton had had his Merc impounded for doing tyre burnouts in St.Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne. The Aussies were threatening to ban him from the race!)

Sunday - Grand Prix Day, with the circuit running around the lake in Albert Park in the centre of the city. What a stunning location and circuit. It was access all areas, so we got chance to walk right around the track, before finding the best vantage point to see Lewis and Jensen do some damage. Most of you won't have seen the race due to the time difference, but I can honestly say it was the best GP I've ever seen. Local boy Mark Webber goes from 2nd on the grid to 9th after trying to knock Lewis off. If that wasn't bad enough, the pommies cleaned up with Jensen cruising to victory. It would've been a GB 1-2 if McLaren hadn't decided to pull Lewis in for another tyre stop! All the overtaking and crash action happened right in front of us on the first corner, so we got to see it all. Amazing. Sunday night was a quiet one after the excesses of the previous couple of days.

I can see why there is such intense rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne. Sydney has the better weather and amazing beaches - the whole city is geared towards donning the board shorts and hitting the surf at the weekend. Melbourne can't claim the beach title and doesn't try to. It's much more sophisticated - a lot of it reminded me of Camden in London. Shabby-chic is coooool and the feeling runs everywhere in the city, allied to some amazing sporting venues and events. It's a tough call - for those who don't like spending time on the beach, then I reckon Melbourne takes it. But then again...why would you want to be in Oz if not for the weather? Honours even!

Monday evening - flight from Melbourne to Cairns. See you at the Great Barrier Reef.