Upsidedown Backwards Land

---

"It'll be cold" they said. "It's their bloody winter!" said others. "You are an idiot" said one. "I hate you" - he didn't really say that. As we walked out of Melbourne airport in flip flops and board shorts we began to realise that people had been trying to tell us something. What, we didn't know, but we found out when we were told it was the coldest day in Melbourne in years.
We spent the flight giggling at stuff the Aussie people were saying, to be honest we haven't stopped. We heard a lady actually use the word "streuth." They're easy to make fun of but we are soon realising their country, and particularly Melbourne, is better than ours.
We met up with our good pals Phil, Neil, Gareth and his Mrs. Colette. The price of beer was quite a shock, but then we discovered the Goon - that's a box of cheap wine to you and me. Melbourne bars all seem to try and out-do each other in novelty and coolness so there's a great selection of places with a great selection of beverages.
We've been to an Aussie Rules Football match. It's a cross between rugby, basketball, cricket and boxing. It's pretty stupid and simple to follow, but heaps of fun. The crowd are as Aussie as you can get and we had a lot of fun listening to their banter, unfortunately most of which is unrepeatable.
We've also been wine tasting in the Yarra Valley. Wine always tastes better when it's free and in steady flow. The owners really know their stuff - obviously - and we did our best to act sophisticated and debonair - which is hard when you don't have to spit out the wine as we had previously thought.
The highlight so far, for me and Phil at least, was the 1 day road trip we did on the Great Ocean Road. As the name suggests, it's Great and it winds along the Ocean, and it's a road... And the dizzying curves are best done in a V6 Holden! Emma also enjoyed sliding around on the back seat, really she did. On our trip we saw the 12 apostles, which was kind of cool - Phil loves rock formations so he was in a world of his own. We also saw a Koala in the wild. To find them takes great tracking skills - you have to look for the dung on the ground, find the right kind of Eucalyptus tree's and keep an eye out for the coach load of Chinese tourists taking photos of them by the side of the road. Not easy I can tell you.
Currently we are staying in my good buddy Nick's house. I haven't seen him in 7 years since hanging out in Austria. He lives in an unbelievable house in the countryside on 30 acres of land with a lake, tractors, wildlife and all. It's a stunning area and we are both extremely jealous but also extremely grateful to him for putting up 1 hairy traveller and his non-hairy partner for a few days.
We're off to Sydney next to be proud, upstanding British tourists. Then we are cutting our Aussie trip short and heading to New Zealand. Unfortunately we can't make it to Cairns due to crazy travel prices. You live and you learn.

---