Melbourne

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Melbourne 19TH August 2010

We visited Melbourne on Monday 16th until wed 18th of August 2010. After getting 4tram’s, a bus, a plane, 2 trains and a taxi, all in one day I think we can officially call ourselves TRAVELLERS again, and it feels good!! I’ve missed this life style. Unfortunately I have to say goodbye to my gold bag that I “borrowed” from Olivia in Perth, the strap is too unstable, but it has carried an unbelievable amount of stuff, its like a marry poppin’s bag and its small enough to carry onto the plane, but yes it is slowing deteriorating, I have to let it go and possibly by something with wheels!!!
So Melbourne is somewhere I decided I wanted to go when me and ste heard we have to leave Australia within a few weeks. I’ve heard mixed reviews about the place, but what excites me most is that Neighbours is filmed there and I really wanted to go to see the set. Ok Ill admit i’m not a die hard fan, BUT I do have plenty of memories watching it at home after dinner, or it was also on at lunch time!! So we set a date to go to Melbourne, we booked a lovely 4.5 star hotel Lindrum and went on our merry way!!

First impressions of Melbourne, its cold, especially at night. It was very mixed weather, we got a bit of everything but the coldness was always there! Its a nice small city and easy to get around. There are bikes you can rent at the side of the road, you can walk around, get a free bus, but the free tram was just so inviting and right outside our door step! I didn’t find there was a whole lot to do in Melbourne except for one thing and that is shop your ass off!! Everywhere you turn there is shops, and then we found a massive DFO (direct factory outlets), oh my god it was in heaven. The shops are on every street, ranging from Louis vuttion, guccui, channel, tiffany’s, to the less expensive little boutique shops. I definitely added a few new members to my wardrobe! We did do other things, like go to st. Kilda (a popular beach destination), but I think everyone was in hibernation, including luna park which homes the oldest rollercoaster in the world, it was closed! We had some lunch, a short walk on a very average beach and continued on with our shopping, haha!! We also had dinner in a Teppinyaki restaurant, we sat around the the table and had our own chef who cooked our food infront of us, it was such a great experience! Only thing was it was very posh and felt like everyone was watching us, I was never so grateful I learned how to use chop sticks in Thailand, otherwise I would of just looked at the food cause there wasn’t a knife or fork in sight!!

On our last day, I was super excited as we were going to visit the neighbours studio. I did forget to book it (typical everyday I walked by the visitors centre I said oh I must book it!!) So this morning, I dont know why I was surprised when the tour lady said “sorry its all booked out”! I couldn’t believe it I was so mad! I tried to explain my rage to ste by saying imagine you went to scotland to watch the PGA tour and when you got there the tickets were sold out and you couldn’t see it, oh I was so annoyed, 90% with myself for not booking them and 10% with ste cause I had no one else to be mad at. So we went for lunch and superman came to my rescue as usual! Ste decided we’re get the tram and go to ramsey street (which is actually called pin oak street) ourselves, we dont need a guided tour! So thats what we did, we got a map and marked the street and jumped on the tram for a little trip to ramsey street. Well thats what we thought, 15minutes into the trip we noticed the tram took a turn that we didn’t want to take, we jumped off at the next stop, crossed the road and got a tram back to the street we wanted to stay on. We jumped off that tram and realised the first tram was just doing a little detour and it does rejoin the street we want to be on so we waited to get back on the first tram we were on. While we waited for the tram ste thought we should try buy tram tickets in a newsagent, we had been travelling without a ticket so far cause we had no change for the machine on the tram. Anyway we got back onto the tram that we were on originally and right behind us came 3 ticket inspectors, well wasn’t I glad ste had the brainwave idea to go and try get some tickets! SO a lot of rain and long 45minutes later we finally reach our stop off, we walk for about 20mintues, through a housing estate, until we found pin oak (ramsey) street. A happy relief you would think! But they had barriers up and you couldn’t access the street because they were filming, well im sure in the future on an episode of neighbours you’ll hear me scream in rage!! After going that far a security gaurd wouldn’t let us onto the street. So I took a picture, squinted a bit and through the rain watched them film, then the security gaurd said ok good luck now, ste suggested she was poiletly trying to get rid of us. So we left and took the hour tram ride back to the city. Ok it wasn’t as good as im sure the guided tour was but I still got to see it and got to see alot of Melbourne suburbs, and it was a bit of an adventure and thats what holidays are all about!!

Melbourne tips;
For other travellers going to Melbourne, I’d recommend visiting st.kilda in the summer months from what I heard that’s when there’s an atmosphere there.
We stayed in hotel Lindrum, its was expensive and luxurious, but as a backpacker there’s lots of hostel, habitat and base seemed to have the best reviews.
Id advise you book your tours as early as possible to avoid disappointment.
Transport is cheap and easy to access, makes getting around the city and even further out of the city easy.
Shopping is amazing, if your not into it, I don’t think Melbourne has much to offer other than this. But I must say the shopping is AMAZING!!

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Photos

Luna park
Holds the oldest rollercoaster in the world!