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...

Day 25 - 11th Mar 2009

Today we had a slow start today. We finished off our packet of biscuits as breakfast! Then we went to the computer room to put some photos onto the website. We also checked our bank account and work have paid us so all is good on that front. Thanks for everyones offer of help regarding the money, it helped us stop worrying about it, so thanks.

Then we headed off to the Victoria Market, only to find it's shut on Wednesday! So we found another food court in a shopping centre for lunch, Adam had some sushi, which looked really nice, and he said was nice.

We then headed to a book shop we had seen the day before. We'd asked and they would trade our old books. So we took our books in and they said they'd give us $12 trade in for them, so it was just a case of finding a book we wanted from the hundreds they had. Surprisingly it wasn't too hard and we ended up with 3 books. Obviously this came to more than $12 but we got one of them for free. Anyway at least we have some new stuff to read now. I'm quite liking this book trading, it's a bit like recycling but you get something back for it.

We decided to head out of the city and go to St Kilda for the afternoon. It's a seaside suburb of Melbourne with a beach. I think we were hoping it would be a bit like Manly but it wasn't really. The beach was pretty narrow and quite busy. Anyway we had a sit down by the sea and wrote a few postcards. We had a meander round the shops before getting the tram back to our hostel.

We had a microwave lasagne for dinner and smuggled a couple of beers into our room to drink.

Photos!

For those of you who think we might be hiding out in Sherwood Forest (You know who you are Mr Fracareta)... There are now a few pictures posted. Enjoy, Adam and Liz

Day 24 - 10th Mar 2009

I guess the day started at about midnight when the greyhound coach arrived at Canberra. Here we had a quick stop to change drivers and drop up off and pick up passengers. This gave me chance to strech my legs as I was already feeling cramped! Only another 8 hours to go! As everyone started getting on board it become apparent that there was 1 too many people for the number of seats. It turned out that the driver had sold a guy a ticket from Sydney to Melbourne thinking there was a spare seat but there wasn't. It ended up that this poor chap had to spend the rest of the journey sat on the step near the driver! Rather him than me...

Next we stopped at 3am for a meal break. It's surprising how many people wanted food at 3am and I'm equally surprised that given the chance to get food I turned it down. Adam just carried on sleeping.

Eventually we made it to Melbourne slightly earlier than scheduled. We then got a tram out of the city to our hostel. This wasn't great as it was rush hour and we had huge bags to contend with. Anyway we managed and got to the hostel which was further out of the city than I had hoped. Anyway it seemed nice but we had to wait to get our room. This gave us chance to have a rest and try to make plans for the next few days. We decided to either do a couple of day trips from Melbourne or hire car and drive ourselves to Adelaide.

After getting our room and doing some washing and resting we headed off into town. We got some lunch from a food court and then went to the YHA travel centre. The lady was really helpful but the car plan was ended up quite expensive so after some umming and erring we decided to book two 3 day trips. This also turned out to be quite expensive! Oh well we're only here once... I'm just hoping neither of the trips are like the Fraser Island trip I did last I was in Oz. I'm sure the people will be much more sensible then the ones on that trip... Anyway we get to see loads of great things so should be awesome.

We then walked around the city a bit and went to see the river. The city seems pretty busy most of the time, much busier than Sydney. Decided to go a cinema so went the Crown complex which turned out to be trying to compete with Vegas. It had nice shops and restaurants and then a huge casino but kinda Vegas like, just there next to a restaurant. Eventually we found the cinema through the maze of shops and casino. Decided to see 'He's just not that into you' as it shouldn't require too much brain power. I had a slight disagreement with an usher as they had blocked off loads of the cinema because of some film premier or something, this included blocking off all the toilets except one disabled for the use of our screen. 1 toilet for the whole screen, very unreasonable, I'm a paying customer too! Anyway really enjoyed the film, light hearted and funny. Caught a tram back to the hostel and slept like logs.

Day 23 - 9th Mar 2009

Today is our last day in Sydney, which to be honest we found a bit sad. We both really like the city. After such a busy day yesterday we had a relaxing start to the day. We were able to leave our big bags at the hotel till later before setting off for the day. We decided to go to Manly on ferry and have a look round there. So we walked to Circular Quay to catch the ferry. I was hoping to find somewhere to get rid of my coat, like a charity shop or something but no luck so ended up carrying it around all day. Which wasn't too bad as it rained a fair bit but unfortunately it wasn't very cold so although I was dry also slightly too warm! The ferry ride over to Manly was really nice, you get to see some of the Sydney suburbs and it was sunny, so we sat outside and enjoyed the view. When we arrived we had lunch at the harbour then headed aacross to the beach. There were loads of surfers and people learning to surf. I guess the recent shark activities haven't put anybody off. We had a meander around the shops, Adam was searching for a hat. Eventually we found one he was happy with, and having looked round all the other shops we knew there wasn't anything better! We then headed back to Sydney. We walked back to our hotel through the botanical gardens, having said our goodbyes to the opera house and harbour bridge. We saw all the bats in the trees again and climbed the steps up to our hotel one more time. Although the hotel was really nice and the room was great with a nice view, I won't miss the steps you have to walk up to get to the area where the hotel is. It's at the top of a hill and there must be about 100 steps to climb to get up the hill! I guess that's the price of having a nice view! We decided to get a taxi over to the bus station as neither of us had the energy to walk to the nearest train station. The taxi was pretty cheap so we decided it was money well spent. We had a Hungry Jack's, same a Burger King, dinner before getting on our bus to Melbourne. A 12 hour journey leaving at 8pm. So we settled in our seats and tried to sleep!

Day 22 - 8th Mar 2009

Today we had booked a tour to go and see the Blue Mountains. So it was an early breakfast before walking to the tour pickup point for 7:30. While we waited for the bus to pick us up we saw people who were just heading home from the partying the night before! Met a nice British couple who were also on the same tour as us. The bus picked us up and we headed towards the Blue Mountains. There was only 16 of us on the tour which was a nice number and not too crowded, the bus driver was very friendly and told us that she had been on the last float of the Mardi Gras parade the night before! We hoped that she wasn't too late to bed!

First stop was the Featherdale wildlife park just outside of Sydney. We got to stroke a koala bear and kangaroos and also saw a crocodile and lots of different types of birds.

Then it was back on the bus and onwards towards the mounains. We stopped off at a lookout point which looked over a huge canyon which was filled with rainforest, which was very pretty. Then we continued on to our final destination the three sisters, which is a rock formation which local legend says was 3 sisters who were turned into stone. Here we went on a cable car which had a glass bottom and had some lunch.

After lunch we drove a short way to were we could walk to a waterfall and then it was time for tea and biscuits!

Then it was time to head back towards the city and our final destination: the Sydney Olympic village. From there we got a ferry back to the city centre. Which would have been quite a nice journey except that it was throwing it down with rain...

On getting back to the city we went round the Sydney aquarium which was brilliant. We saw a platypus, sharks and lots of different fish. They had tunnels you could walk through where you felt you were in the tank with the sharks!

Had a pie for dinner from Harry's before getting home feeling very tired.

Day 21 - 7th Mar 2009

Started the day with a breakfast cooked in our kitchen, before heading off towards the Sydney YHA. We got some information about tours in Aldelaide then headed on towards Darling Harbour. Walked around the harbourside, which was a nice outdoor space. Had lunch at a food court in the centre of town then headed to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Returned to our hotel room where we had a quick dinner of pasta and cheese.

What we hadn't realised when we were planning our trip is that we had actually managed to be in Sydney at the time that the Mardi Gras parade was going on, we only realised when we saw a 'What's On' magazine at the airport when we landed. So we figured as we were here we had to go and see it. Headed over to Hyde Park which is where the parade starts and managed to get a good place to watch. All the floats and costumes were very colourful and impressive.