Day 26 - 12th Mar 2009

Woke up to rain today. Which I guess people will be pleased about as there is a drought at the moment. We decided to walk to the other YHA hostel as we will be leaving from there tomorrow so we wanted to know how long it would take to walk. As we waited to cross a road, already fairly wet from the rain, a car drove past at speed and covered us in water in the process. Now we were soaked, well when I say we it turned out to really just be me, Adam had cleverly stood slightly further back than me so had missed most of the water. I on the other hand was drenched, but only on my front, the back of my trousers were one colour, the colour they were supposed to be and the front was a distinctly darker, damper shade. Adam decided the best thing to do would be to laugh and make a joke of the situation, I decided it wouldn't. I guess looking back now I can see a slightly humourous side but when you walking along soaking wet it doesn't seem so funny!

Finally we made it to the hostel and then carried on to Victoria Market. The market is huge and sells a lot of tourist stuff as well as clothes, fruit, veg and jewellery. There were quite a few Ugg boots, I'm pretty sure they weren't all the real article though. We bought a new padlock to help keep our stuff secure whilst in the dorm rooms we're staying in for the next couple of nights. I definately feel too old for staying in dorm rooms, but never mind, we're on a budget!

We then decided to spend the afternoon going to Ramsey Street. Well to be precise Pineoak Court, but we all know it as Ramsey Street. (In case anyone is pretending not to know, this is where everyone in Neighbours lives, a long running Australian soap opera which has been showing in the UK for years). So we got the train out of town and headed for Glen Waverley, which I was pleaseantly surprised didn't take too long to get to, even though it was the end of the line. We then had to get a bus and walk a short distance. Thankfully we had managed to get some instructions off the internet on how to find Ramsey Street. As we were boarding the bus, the driver asked me if I was sure I had the right bus, I said I think so and Adam asked if he went to Vision Drive, the stop we needed. The bus driver looked and said oh are you going to Neighbours. I reckon he can spot the tourists a mile off! Anyway he was very nice and told us where to get off and where to walk and to be careful when crossing the road. So we started our walk, I was getting very excited and then there it was, Ramsey Street. It's actually a lot smaller than I expected it to be. I don't understand how they manage to play cricket in the road on the TV show! Anyway we walked round the cul de sac and took some pictures, they seemed to be some security guy there, I guess making sure you don't start walking into the houses or anything crazy. Then we got an ice cream from the local shop which sadly isn't the general store as per the show. We caught the bus back to the train station and met our friendly driver again, he checked if we'd got on ok.

Once we arrived back into the centre of Melbourne we had a look round the art gallery. The ground floor had some 'interesting' indigenous work, but the upstairs had some nice stuff, 20th century Australian paintings and some contemporary furniture.

Then we headed into China Town to have a look around and found a Target store, I didn't realise Australia had them as well as America, when will it arrive in England?

Then got the tram back to North Melbourne and had a fish and chip dinner before going back to the hostel for an early night. P.S. There's no Cod or Haddock here...