Melbourne

Day 1 - Our plane was delayed, so we arrived in Melbourne later than planned, and went straight to bed for the hours before going off to explore Melbourne. !st impressions - very cold and wet, but lots of awesome sights - huge sky scrapers, and lots of cool shops to explore. We had our first flat white - a coffee basically, but very nice, and later in afternoon we both tried a choconana... even tastier! Hot chocolate and banana drink.

Day 2 - morning city tour of Melbourne, including Cook's house which was brought from England, although he never actually lived in it, his dad did, west gate bridge - standing over 200ft abouve the river yarra, fitsroy gardens, the shrine of remembrance, botanical gardens and the MCC (cricket ground which we overlook from our hotel) amongst many other sights. A great guide too. We then had an hour for lunch so went to a sandwich bar and made up our own sandwiches. Then in the afternoon we set off for the penguin parade on Philip Island. On our way there, we stopped off at numerous places, including Warrook Homestead to see kangaroos... which I fed... soooo cool!!! a wombat, and emu's. We then moved on to a koala conservation center, in the bush. We saw the Koala's and took plenty of photo's! Finally we stopped off to see the Nobbies (Rocks out to sea) before our final destination.. the penguins. Freezing cold, we waited for the penguins to make their journey from the sea to their burrows. It took them several attempts to build up the courage to make the journey and when they finally did they were so small and cute. Much smaller than you imaging, hence, 'Little Penguins' because they are the smallest in the world. A great day.

Day 3 - Wow, even better! After an early start we set off on our 330 mile round trip of the Great Ocean Road. On our way we passed through a number of towns including Geelong and Torquay. They were very different to the city where everything was very spread out. We then stopped for a tea break at the famous Bell's beachj - surfer's spot! Had Billy tea, crackers and vegemite and lamingtons cake - 2 layers of sponge with jam inbetween, coated in cocoa and finally a layer of coconut. Yum! A welcome break before setting off again. Plenty of photo stops and beautiful scenery and seascape. We stopped for lunch at Apollo bay - a very small town where we stopped and had fish and chips for lunch. Next a break from the beautiful coastline into Australian sub tropical rainforest and unexpectedly... seeing wild koalas - who needs mini spotting when you can koala spot! Nickers was very good at it... myself not so! All along the coastline we drove along werer houses with amazing vies... more commonly known as Millionaires playground. Some of them even had train tracks up the hill to carry their groceries and bits and pieces up to their house! We passed through the surf resort of Lorne - talked about in Rudyard Kiplings poetry. A very surreal day, where just trying to take everything in was difficult. Heeps of rainbows randomly out to sea, wildlife to spot... but nothing prepared us for our unexpected helicopter ride overlooking the 12 apostles and Loch Ard Gorge! Unbelievable and only $80... about 40 pounds. Finally we drove on to see the remains of London Bridge and a tea stop at Port campbell before hitting the road for home. An awesome day, with so much more to come.

Day 4 - our final day in Melbourne and a free one. We headed in to town. 1st stop was to the internet in the big state library - it was free! Particularly good because the hotel tired to charge us $14! We were then fairly close to the Victoria marckets so walked there. As the saying goes 'if you can't find it in the victoria markets, you won't find it anywhere!' Quite true - they were huge - everything you could want. We then caught the free tram to the Docklands, a nice place, very tranquil but no shops or anything, just restaurants. We then headed on to Federation square and booked dinner. From here we went to St Kilda, had a coffee and cake and then walked back along the seafront. We caught the tram back and then went for dinner. We also saw people practicing for the Harry Potter book launch on wiggly stilts of some sort.

Day 5 - enjoyed the last morning in Melbourne with a wak to federation square to buy the new Harry potter! Released at a civilzed 9.01am as opposed to midnight in England. We were then picked up and taken to airport for our flight to Canberra.