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*WARNING - VERY LONG BLOG - NOT ONE FOR A QUICK READ!!* defo one for during work hours!
Well, here we are in Melbourne!
On leaving Sydney we had a couple of stops before reaching here. Most notably of these was Lake's Entrance! We stopped for two nights and having been pining for a round for a while, I finally got a game of golf in! It wasn't the best course, but then I didn't play the best golf! Nuff said!
Perhaps more interestingly (note: only 'perhaps'), was that we ventured onto 90 Mile Beach...in the cold wind and with only two escape routes which seemed 90 miles apart we agreed that this was yet another nice Aussie beach! But maybe better in the summer!
We arrived in Melbourne and made a beeline for the YHA, where we stopped for nearly a week initially. During this time we ventured into the 'culture capital' of Australia...now, we've seen our fair share of Aquariums, and Melbourne would have probably the most disappointing one we've seen so far, if it hadn't been for their 'Antarctic Exhibit' on currently, displaying PENGUINS!!! "Excellent!" We(I) thought and hence spent a good deal of time and memory on the camera watching the penguins waddling around their ice enclosure and swimming in the pool provided for them...for ungainly walkers they more than make up for it in the water!
After peeling ourselves away from the fun little birds we wandered on to Australia's holiest of holies...the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground to heathens!) We were taken on a tour of the ground and visited the National Sports Museum inside. The ground itself is very impressive! The museum...err...not so much! Maybe if we cared more for the unknown Australian heroes of netball and swimming it would've been better!
Now, we'd done the touristy stuff, the aquarium, the museum etc...but we felt it was essential to really experience the essence of Melbourne. That basically means we walked around all day looking at shops and stopping in bars and cafe's when we felt like it! Very cosmopolitan thank you very much!
During the brief time we'd spent so far we'd uncovered a lovely sounding trip to Phillip Island (just south of Melbourne) which would include a visit to a wildlife sanctuary - more kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, wombats etc then a brief stop at a coast whose seas flow all the way in from Antarctica - chilly! Finally then the piece-de-resistance, a penguin parade at dusk!
We duly signed up and did all of the above, we finally saw Emus and we temporarily froze on the beach, but the penguins were by far the best! Now I don't want to make 'penguins' the new 'diving', but to elaborate a little, the Little Penguins (so called as they are the world's smallest and grow to just 33cm) swim up to the beach at dusk (the safest time of the day for them to avoid predators) then in true penguin style, waddle across the beach and up into the bushes to return to their nest (which they may not have seen in a month!) The area is set up so that a boardwalk follows the likely paths that the penguins take, so we followed a few of them back to their place! A very exciting experience for Cooper and I, but can you imagine how The Skipper felt?!?!
It was dead good, as with all the tours and trips etc we've done in Oz, they've been expertly compiled and conducted and we've yet to feel hard done by on any adventure we've been on since we've been here!
Okay...so by now we were beginning to exhaust our stay at the hostel and we'd yet to do much job-hunting, so we decide to go on one final road trip...along the Great Ocean Road. So, with our final night in Melbourne for a day or so, we booked ourselves a seat at 'Neighbours Night'!
It's basically the epitomy of cheese...but not just a bog standard cheddar or edam...this is the stilton of cheesey nights! Firstly, we're picked up by the Neighbours Tours Bus, which duly plays 'classic episode' dvds for our entertainment on the way to the pub where the main entertainment is held. On arrival we buy a drink or two, join a table of four or five other saddos and wait for the night to begin! We have a couple more drinks while we wait.
Please note: the following is not suitable for anyone who believes either of us to have an ounce of 'cool' left.
We're given pieces of paper to write our questions on for the stars who'll be on stage later. We're informed there'll be (I'll use their charater names): Dr Karl Kennedy, Paul Robinson and Janelle Timmons! Very exciting, we write our questions, hand them in, drink some more and wait!
Once out on stage, the questions begin and it's apparent someone has picked up on my name...the MC loves it and so do the soapstars! They ask my question and as far as I'm concerned essentially invite me to be on the show!
The night goes on with more questions for and pictures with the stars, then a quiz for us, more drinking and occasional games etc then Dylan Timmons comes on stage! He does a bit of dancing and then he's off again...the night's great fun as they end the quiz and the stars get round everybody for photos (except Paul Robinson - he never got to us! Very sad!)
Next thing you know, the MC is offering prizes of a trip to Fraser Island - one of the few attractions we've missed and hoped to get back to. So...what do we have to do to win this prize?! I didn't wait to find out and headed up to the stage, I got Cooper up too so that of the five volunteers we'd have a pretty good shot at a win! We have to dance! Uh Oh! So I go first and after waltzing and foxtrotting my way around the stage (or something like that) it's someone else's go...they're not good! Then it's Cooper's go and she shimmys and shakes and the crowd go wild (I assume with enthusiasm!) then contestant number four goes, and she's clearly done this before...oh no...still all's not lost, the crowd could go in our favour...then the final guy gets up, he's a bit geeky looking and the music starts...he moves and 'Oh No!!' He's good! Clearly bats for the other team and he robots his way to Fraser Island glory relegating Cooper and I to being losers! Not a feeling I enjoy! Oh well, the evening continues and we're having fun, then...
Paul Robinson gets up on stage..he's going to sing! Hurray! He's not as bad as you imagine! He's singing Oasis...this sould be sacrilege! But it's not! It's brilliant! He sings some more hits, then Dr Karl comes on stage! He to sings, he does Foo Fighters and Kaiser Chiefs and we dance and love it! It could so easily be terrible, but it's not and then it's time to go home and things get a bit blurry......
Ouch! Oh! and Um! Why do we feel so unwell? In fact Katie is certain she won't live through the day! Have we been poisoned? Has swine flu got the better of us? No...it was ALL Neighbours fault! Hideous hangovers! Just hideous and we had to check out at 10am!
I would now like to thank Burger King, or Hungry Jack's as it's known here, for seeing us through a particularly dark period on Tuesday morning...we owe you one! We couldn't have picked a worse day to head off down the Great Ocean Road!
We didn't venture too far till we got to Torquay (get used to English place names) that was just down the road from Anglesea. We stopped the night in an amazing B&B and recovered.
The next day, much fresher from our rest, we continued on. We briefly stopped at Bell's Beach - home of Rip Curl and at this time of year has some apparently 'totally bodacious waves man!' "Narly," we thought! We watched as some surfers got eaten by a Great White Shark...oh no wait...no, they just 'caught some waves'. They were pretty good, we admitted to each other that as horrible as it would also be, it'd be pretty cool to see a Great White. It wouldn't have to kill any surfers...maybe just take a hand or foot or something! Aaaaanyway!
We shifted a gear and got to Port Campbell, a nothingy town really, but along the nearby coast are what's known as the Twelve Apostles. They are enormous limestone pillars rising out of the sea causes by years of erosion, and while it sounds a bit dull, they're pretty impressive!
We pootled on past Peterborough (it's no better than the one at home!) and on to Lorne where we could watch Whales from the cliffs and apparently it's their 'giving birth' season...I don't know if we saw any childbirth as they were quite far out! (Thank God!) We eventually headed on to our final destination on this trip down the fabulously picturesque Great Ocean Road to Portland. It was the most civilisation since Melbourne and had some character. If we'd had more time I'm sure we'd have stayed a little longer.
We arrived back in Melbourne today and have seven nights booked in our hostel while we look for work and we'll do the Neighbours Tour one day (when you go to the street and stuff rather than just getting drunk!)
In completely non-travelling news, we're still waiting for a Wright/Unwin baby to pop out! Very Happy Birthday to Nan Power, Happy Hols to Ma & Pa Nixon, Col, Nick and Jacob Broomhead and Many Happy Returns for the day to the Birthday Coopers in the next ten days or so!
Love to you all
Nick and Katie
xxx
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