Meeting The Neighbours

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Also before I left Melbourne, I had to check out the street where Neighbours is filmed. It would almost be criminal to leave Melbourne not having seen it. Unlike Eastenders, Neighbours is filmed in a real street where real people live. This street's identity is supposed to be a closely guarded secret as the people who lived there were starting to get fed up with coach loads of people turning up to gorp at their houses. It’s called "Pin Oak Court" by the way.

The problem is that it's the most widely known secret in Melbourne and we were even able to get printed directions at the hostel.

Pin Oak Court, or Ramsey Street as it is otherwise known, is located in a suburb called Nunawadding on the eastern edge of Melbourne. We needed to catch a train to Glen Waverly and then catch a bus. When we arrived there, we were lucky, as it was one of the days that they were filming. We were able to get pictures of ourselves standing outside of all the houses and then we even managed to get our pictures taken with the actors who played Mike and Des (remember them).

It was all very sad, but it had to be done.

We had been watching Neighbours for most of the time that we were in Australia. They were about 18 months ahead of England so when I returned to England, Neighbours was back in a time prior to what I was watching in Australia. It was all very confusing but not too much of a problem as Neighbours is not exactly something you take too seriously.

Sometimes when I was on the phone to my parents, a significant amount of time was spent bringing my Mum up to speed on what was going on and she would then tell all her mates. As I said, it was all very sad.

Australian TV took a lot of getting used to, particularly due to the volume of adverts that were inflicted on you. Neighbours, for example had three sets of adverts during the actual programme itself. You would only just get through the opening credits and the recap of the previous episode and you would be into the first set. The TV did have its highlights however with programmes like "Hey Hey It's Saturday!" on a Saturday evening. This was an adults' kids'-programme, a bit like "Live and Kicking, and was hosted by a comedian and a pink duck. Pure class!

The TV did have its down-side, for example even on that side of the planet you still got to see Margaret Thatcher's hideous face regularly and that dull South London tennis tournament got even more coverage down under than it did back in England.

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Photos

Mike and Des
Meeting the actors who played Mike and Des in Neighbours