I was right - Melbourne is another nice city.

On Saturday, I was able to catch the last day of the Melbourne Cup Carnival at Flemington racecourse; Emirates Stakes Day. The "new hats" that I'd seen back at Bondi on Melbourne Cup Day were still present on the Saturday. Also, I backed a couple of winners ("Musical Hit" at 13 to 1 in the 3rd and "Vintedge" at 12 to 1 in the 7th), which more than made up for the costs. So for no money at all, a spent the day people watching and grazing on junk food. (By the way, Jam Doughnuts do count as 1 of your 5 a day right?) The other impressive thing was watching "Black Caviar" destroy a field of 7 horses over ¾ mile. I saw odds on her at 100 to 1 on (For ever £1 bet, you would get back just £1.01). That is some horse!

Although the hotel I am in is just on the edge of the Central Business District (CBD), it is sort of on the "far" edge from where most of the stuff is. I've spent quite a bit of time wandering in, out and around the city. However, I have to say that the trams in Melbourne are brilliant. There is a free tram that goes right around the outside of the CBD, or you can buy a Aus$7 (~£4.50) ticket that lets you use any tram(s) for the whole day.

Last night I meet up with fellow redundantee Mat Richardson and his partner Karen. Karen is from Adelaide, and Mat has now emigrated here. Their stuff is still in a shipping container, and they arrived themselves only last week. We meet up in town and wandered around looking for somewhere to eat (but that's not exactly hard here). We ended up in a Chinese restaurant (because it looked busy and included several oriental people eating), and got the waitress to help us order a selection of stuff. Afterwards I showed them around their new city, including the Myer department store Christmas Shop window at 9pm and still warm. A Hot Christmas is going to be really weird. My thanks to Mat and Karen for a very pleasant evening. I hope you find jobs soon - it gives me a lovely warm feeling knowing that everyone else is working while I'm on holiday.)

I've also:

• been to St Kilda by the sea;

• walked around Albert Park Lake, the venue for the Australia F1 Grand Prix;

• visited Federation Square with the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and National Gallery of Victoria;

• visited the "Waterfront City" (more dockland style development were there seems to be more shops than people right now - there may be a world recession, but it is not so obvious from here);

• Up and Down endless shopping streets with cafés on every corner.

However, after Sydney and Melbourne, I think I am "City'ed-out". I've had all the Kulture I can take for the moment, and couldn't face another chocolate éclair. (Life's tough). So tomorrow I'm flying to Cairns (in the North East corner) and picking up another camper-van to drive back to Sydney in 2 weeks time.