Ramsay St, Ice Ice Baby and the Great Ocean Road!

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Our last blog from Australia!

In the last two weeks in the land of Oz, I had to drag Ben along to the Neighbours Tour in Melbourne. I felt I owed it to my inner 12 year old, to go and see the infamous Ramsay Street whilst we were in Melbourne. We had a tour of the studios where they film, and all the sets like Lou Carpenter's Mechanics etc, then we saw the school where the outside view is used for Erinsborough High. Then we went to Ramsay Street, which is a normal residential street, where normal people live their everyday lives, but get compensated by Grundy television for letting them film the outside of their houses.

Finally we got to meet a star of the show, present of former...but unfortunately it was someone we didn't know, which isn't that much of a surprise when we haven't watched it since school! So that was a bit disappointing as we wanted a legend like Karl Kennedy or Lou Carpenter or Harold! But hey, it was good to see the street anyway.

Another thing we wanted to squeeze in before we left was a visit to the Chill On Ice Lounge in Melbourne City. We know there's an ice bar in London, but we've never been....and besides, it just sounds a bit more interesting to say we've been to the Melbourne one! It was really cool (ha!) in there, but you were only allowed to spend 30 minutes in the ice bar as it's -10c, but we left after about 25 mins anyway as it was so cold! Just drank our cocktail and shot that were included in the price, then left!

Finally, we spent the final few days exploring the Great Ocean Road in Victoria which goes on for about 300k's and hugs the coastline most of the way. It's very picturesque and there are a few nice coastal towns to spend the night in and there are lots of cliff formations that over the years have created good photo opportunites for tourists ie The Twelve Apostles, The Arch etc (see pics!). It was a good few days, and a nice change from spending 6 weeks in a big city like Melbourne. On the second day, it was 37c though (!!!) so we'd hop out of the car to see one of the sights, but then quickly take some pics and run back into the car and turn the air conditioning on...it was just too much!

We hired a camper van for 3 nights to do the trip and found life in the campervan better than we thought! Which bodes well because we've booked a campervan for 25 days to tour New Zealand!

We've had a really good time in Australia, but we're both looking forward to New Zealand now, and checking out a new country.

Until then...

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