Hello again to you all!

Hope that you thoroughly enjoyed Christmas! I can't believe that it's all over now, it feels like it never really happened here!

We're currently in Melbourne and have been for a little while (absolutely loving it!) but just wanted to update you on Adelaide first.

After hearing that the city was a bit of a non-starter in terms of things to do/see we weren't expecting to enjoy it quite as much as we did; quite a lovely place.

Matt's first full day in Australia was cloudy, windy and about 20 degrees (this felt FREEZING to me!) but we spent the day wandering around Rundle Street, window-shopping and Gelato-eating along the way. Matt kept saying that he couldn't get over how much of a cross between England and America Australia felt like to him; the wide open spaces of America coupled with colonial buildings and very English-looking leafy suburbs. We were staying in North Adelaide which was quite a walk into the city centre but we didn't really mind as we passed massive open parks and the River Torrens on the way. We spent a few evenings in North Adelaide; like the rest of Adelaide - a very clean, open and modern area.

Over the next few days we visited South Australia's National Museum, the Botanic Gardens and the famous Central Markets followed by a few trips across the Festival Centre and down to the river.

We got ourselves onto a tram to Glenelg beach or 'The Bay' on the Monday as the weather had picked itself up. We briefly visited the Bay Discovery Centre within the Town Hall and had a go on some of the old penny sideshow machines. We had a very hot hour or so on the beach (that was all that Matt could endure seeing as he was fresh off the boat from England) followed by a wander around the quirky little surfer shops in the afternoon.

We caught the train to Port Adelaide on the Tuesday; very strange little place, we were supposed to take a quick cruise around and go dolphin-spotting but only 2 hour -long lunch cruises were available and we didn't much like the look of the boats so we went to the Aviation Museum instead (and Matt secretly loves anything to do with planes). We had only planned on taking a quick look around but a bored tour-guide found us and decided to give us an in-depth tour of the entire museum including commentary on every single aeroplane, ha. He was actually very interesting and looked so pleased to talk to somebody who looked vaguely interested in the power of the engines etc (Matt) that we were happy to oblige.

We took the Greyhound bus from Adelaide to Melbourne on Tuesday night; ten and half hours! It wasn't actually too terrible as we basically slept through most of it. As soon as we drove out of the city and its suburbs all we could see was…nothing on both sides, no streetlamps just darkness either side. We are ALWAYS seated behind those people who recline their seats back (as far as they can go!) as soon as they get onto the coach/plane. It was no surprise when this happened again. Fun!

Luckily we were able to check into our accommodation in Melbourne early so we slept all morning to recover.

Will update with Melbourne stuff asap.

Love to you all, thanks for the messages and emails xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx