So I think it was around about the 4th that we got back to Melbourne to drop off the car and spend a few days in the city. We got to the hostel, off the motor way and down into the city really easily. I threw Regina and the bags out of the car and headed into the city centre to drop the car off. If we had known before hand, there was actually a Budget car hire centre across the road from the hostel, but when we tried ringing and asked if we could drop it off there they said it would be an extra 200 dollars, oh well, into town I go. It was grand really, the only problems were the street I had planned to drive up wasnt marked as one way on my map, so I had to go around. Then I drove down a tram only street, got to some roadworks and had to make my way around them, and lastly in Melbourne it seems that if you want to turn right at a junction you pull over to the left hand side of the road and wait for the traffic to go, rather than waiting in the middle of the road like we do. I found that out the wrong way.... dont worry I just got beeped at..... Dropped off the car anyway and walked back to the hostel, looks like a nice city already

The weird thing is about melbourne, it rains a lot. It was quite cold the entire time we were there, except the last day when we had to walk to the airport with me in my travelling clothes (all the big stuff). We did a lot of walking around the city, and got the free bus a couple of times. Its a tourist route and takes you to all the main spots. The sports district with the MCG, the Rod Laver Tennis arena, the Olympic Park and the new Football and Rugby pitch that looked pretty class from the outside. It also goes round the city to all the sight seeing bits in there, out to the University, to the Harbour shopping district and the Botanical Gardens...... we did em all!!!!!

The archicture of some of the buildings here is a bit wacky!!! There are amazing old cathedrals and banks in gothic style and then beside them are borderline grotesque modern art buildings with green plastic mouldings that look like someone poured goo all over the building, green goo. Still its really nice to walk through the city. We went to the Museum on the last day, it was pretty cool, there was a button you could press in the science exhibit that made fart noises. Its beside the Exhibition Centre, a very old classical Exhibition centre building that is listed by Unesco. Tried to get in there too but the tickets were sold out the day we went (our last day naturally). Not sure you could see anything in there either. We took a walk around the botanical gardens, we are connessieurs at this stage and although it is supposedily the largest in Southern Hemisphere, it was pretty crap, more like a big park.... I did go for a run around the running track that goes all the way around, special built and lit for running around I think... nice! Eh, we also walked lots, I mentioned that though, struggling to remember much now, we went diving in Cairns yesterday in real life and that kind of filled up my recent memory space in my brain

The weird thing that happened was, on the last day, we were walking into town. Across the road a man was driving down the street and veered off the road and into a parked jeep that was on the curb. It looked like he had tried to hit him, and less like an accident. He just wanted off the road as quickly as possible and tried to go through the front of the jeep to get there. He got out of the car, and the man who owened the jeep came over to him with a seriously stunned look on his face, the man just leaned over on him coughing.... weird. On down the street we go, and some builders start telling us to get across to the other side of the street, we did as they said without knowing why, when suddenly a fire engine came storming around a corner and parked in front of a building we would have passed. An electrical junction box or something on the outside of the building was burning away with sparks flying out of it. The fire man very cleverly decided to spray water on it (I guess he is trained so knew what he was doing), even more sparks flew up and he got the fire out. We continued walking into town looking everywhere for the next dissaster to befall someone in our presence but alas it didnt happen.....

So that was Melbourne I guess, I havent mentioned the hostel, it was big and noisey and smelly and I didnt like it. I probably have forgotten lots of other thigns too, oh well...... Flight to Cairns next and the Great Barrier Reef.....