Canberra was a bit of a ghost stop for us really as we didn't actually see any of it! This 100 year old 'planned city' (that is basically the result of Melbourne and Sydney not being able to decide who should be capital) was our base for catching up on blog postings, booking somewhere to stay in Fiji and LA and doing our tax rebates...exciting stuff!! Some people go to the National Library to look around, we went for the free internet and cheap printing. It was about as cold as it had been the whole time we were in Australia. For reference, 4ºc with an Antarctic wind is about as fresh as you can go in a camper van holiday and still class it as "fun". Our box of wine and watching some downloaded 24:Live Another Day and Game of Thrones wrapped up in our sleeping bags kept us entertained.

We were relieved that it seemed to get a little bit warmer as we got into Victoria. We stopped an hour outside of Melbourne in the Yarra Valley at a nice enough trailer park/caravan site. The order of the day was beer. The area is a well known wine region, but had lately had developed a bit of a reputation for its "Ale Trail". We stopped at a couple places including Coldstream Brewery to do some taster paddles to sample the local wares. But neither actually brewed on-site anymore, so it felt like a bit of a sham, even if the pale ale and cider were tasty indeed. Last stop that day was at the drinking-in-grandma's-1985-lounge-surrounded-by-an-actual-brewery set up at White Rabbit. Odd sort of retro look but a nice place to catch some afrenoon sunshine while supping down a locally made Belgian style brew.

We survived a wet and windy night (including a blustery and brief BBQ) and made our way to a site a bit closer to Melbourne, this time a bit more of a rough and ready trailer park, but what do you expect for $25 a night on the edge of a major city?! We didn't want to head all the way into Melbourne so thought we'd go see some Aussie cinema just down the road, as there was new Guy Peirce film out...wished we hadn't have bothered, especially as it cost AUD$20 each!! Don't know unless you try I guess. One highlight of the night was that we ended up looking like total arsholes when we tried to hold the loft to the carpark for a couple a few feet away from the doors. However once they got within pitting distance the doors closed and we couldn't hold them no matter what we did. It wasn't our fault but we looked like arsholes and laughed about it all the way home. The look on their faces. Hahaha! Anyway. The next day we crossed our fingers and parked our van in a dodgy suburb and got the tube into town to do another city walking tour. The guide was a bit better than in Sydney and Melbourne deinitely seemed to have a more character and quirkieness down its lanes, arcades and alleyways than Sydney. We saw a street performer in the main square doing a handstand trick on collapsing wooden blocks. Brett filmed it, sadistically hoping it would go wrong, but unfortunately the performer kept all of his teeth and was fine; so Brett had to cough up some change for the chap.

Sunday opened with forcing Stace out of bed at 6.00am to come find a certain italian cafe to watch the England game. Except for one other bloke (with his Aussie wife and kids) we were the only non-italians in there. Brett of course made up for that by shouting the house down for England on their equaliser (and every replay of it). We all know how that game finished up however, so the Azzuri were in good voice at the end with a few clearly having stayed up all night. The rest of the day was spent on retail therapy with Stace treating herself to a new handbag so she could look like "a real person" (as she puts it) while Brett sat outside McDonalds and caught up on some emails. Dinner at Nandos and few stiff gin and tonics (to use up the last of the Duty Free we'd been lugging around) and our Aussie trip was almost at a close. Driving around that day, Brett was day dreaming about how lucky they had been to not have any real problems with the van (accidents etc.) apart from the door getting stuck. Less than 10 minutes later, Brett almost runs a no-right-on-red light, and sets the camera off!! We are still crossing our fingers that as the second image should show the van in the place as the first that they might not charge. But lets face it, that's highly unlikely and a $300 fine is probably coming our way.

Dropping our van back at the Hippie Camper office in the morning brought our 28 day, 5275km trip to it's end and after a couple night's pit-stop in Auckland (only highligh was another brewery as we were so lazy) we were onto Fiji for some R&R.