Melbourne is great

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Thursday 1st February

Arrived in Melbourne to much craziness with regards to the traffic flow and regulations. Firstly,we found ourselves arriving into the city from our drive from Lakes Entrance and ended up on a toll road for about 1 mile which cost us the equivalent of a fiver. We could though have drove on all Melbourne’s toll roads for 24 hours for this fiver, but we needed to drive on it to access Swanston Street where our hotel is. We have since found out we could have avoided this toll road, but as newcomers it was a costly mistake!
When it cooled down we took a cab to the Crown casino complex where we played the slot machines for a while and spent around $4 AUD ( about £1.75 ) which was cheap entertainment ! We then had a beer before returning back to the hotel and crashing out in our super room here at the Mercure Grand on Swanston street

Friday 2nd February

Today the temperature reached 36c and is hot. We had an appointment to meet the mayor of Wyndham council, Mr.Shane Bourke which went extremely well and he is one of the most genuinely nice people you can meet. We’ll tell you all more about it when we return home but it was great for Tracey to meet him. Mum…..Tracey gave the mayor her present of the glass tankard and he was chuffed to bits about it and said he was taking it home later on…no doubt to pour a beer into it !
After our meeting, we popped into the Werribee ( the town where Tracey was born near Melbourne ) mall which is an out of town shopping centre similar to the Trafford centre but smaller. All we did here was change out of our formal clothes ( from meeting the mayor ) into our casual shorts and t-shirt type clothing in the toilets !
We then drove about 2 miles to Tracey’s old home on Centenary crescent where Margaret and her husband live and who had so kindly invited us in to see her old home from 40 years ago. They were both lovely people and one of Margaret’s neighbour’s, Mary came around to see us as she had lived there when Tracey had done when she was born and was one of the original residents from all those years back. Unfortunately, she doesn’t remember Tracey, but after all she had only just been born before they moved on.
We took some photos of her old house and spent over an hour there and they really made us feel at home and they were telling us all about Werribee and the surrounding areas etc.
If you have a look at the two photos here on this page, you will see on the black and white photo, two little girls stood near the steps of the house. The smaller of the two girls is Tracey in 1967/1968 and then note the present day photo of the same house 40 years on, also with Tracey stood on the driveway…..also 40 years older !

After this, we then drove to a suburb of Melbourne called ‘Sunshine’ where Tracey’s family also lived. Julia, Tracey’s sister said they used to live in some flats near a railway crossing, so just going off this description, we think we found it and so took photos for Julia to see when we return home.


Saturday 3rd February “WINNIE’S DAY OUT”


We took the drive north-east today up to a very small town called Creswick, about 90 minutes drive from our hotel in the centre of Melbourne where a lady called Winnie lives. Winnie is my mum’s ( Doreen ) old friend from years gone by who emigrated out here in 1971 so we thought we’d go to see her for an hour or so. Upon arriving at her place, we were very surprised to find she had 5 acres of land with a very large house with its own private driveway leading up to it. She has two horses with its own stables and is a great place to live.
She greeted us like old friends and made us coffee while we chatted. A short time later Winnie suggested we go to a kind of theme park called ‘Sovereign Hill’ not too far away. About 300 meters before you arrive at Sovereign Hill, there is a great little restaurant where we had lunch. Service is great and they do a lunchtime special menu for $12 which includes a drink. This equates to just over a fiver in UK money so real value for money. The place is called 'Da Uday' and includes Italian, Indian ( superb curry ) and Thai. The address is 7 Wainwright street, Ballarat.

It is themed on the mid 1800’s gold rush where gold was discovered and the manic years that followed for digging for gold. Old timber buildings are here which you can go in and buy reasonably priced souvenirs and have a drink in the old saloon and also try your hand at going back to an 1850’s style school and try using the old ink-well !
It was very hot today again so it was taking its toll on us but we had a great informative afternoon here.
Afterwards, Winnie showed us around Ballarat Lake which had dried up in the drought and has not recovered and is unlikely to recover in the foreseeable future. The resident birds had to be removed for their own safety etc so there is no wildlife present which is sad to see.
Shortly after we took Winnie home, said our goodbyes and made our way back to our hotel for something to eat at KFC on the way. We soon crashed out again as we have yet another early morning the following day.


Sunday 4th February

Hmmmmm…interesting kind of day today as we had booked to go on the ‘Official Neighbours tour’ here in Melbourne. We got picked up along with several other fellow sad Brits ( and Irish and Aussies ) and soon made our way to the first stop…Erinsborough High school where we got told what it is used for when they aren’t filming ( a language school for overseas students who want to learn English ) and also got a good photo opportunity to be photographed with the sign…or at least Tracey did as I opted out of this one…for obvious reasons ( its sad enough being dragged along on the tour by your missus, let alone having my photo taken.
The next stop took us to the studios where they film most of the stuff, but disappointingly we weren’t allowed anywhere near the place so we didn’t get to see Lassiters hotel, bar or whatever you call it and so onward we went to our next stop…..Ramsay Street…whoopee. We got there to find a security guard permanently based whom they employ due to occasional vandalism in the people’s homes and gardens. Someone once took a pick-axe to Harold Bishops garden for whatever reason hence tight security!
Anyway, we got more time to have our photos taken, including with the Ramsay street sign.
A short time later we all hopped back on the tour bus to the Melbourne area of St.Kilda where one of the neighbour’s stars ‘Janelle’ was waiting for us to meet and once again have our photos taken if we wanted. Tracey opted for some more photos so that was good for her. A short time after we were dropped back off again in the centre of Melbourne. As an overview of the Neighbours tour, we spent most of the time on the tour bus and didn’t get to see some of the things we had hoped. Also, this is $40 AUD each which seems to be slightly overpriced so is up to you if you think it is worth good money or not. FELLOW TRAVELLERS...TAKE NOTE....THE TOUR IS ADVERTISED AT $30AUD AND WE WERE TOLD BY OUR HOTEL CONCIERGE THIS IS HOW MUCH IT IS, BUT HAD TO PAY $40AUD AFTER WE GOT PICKED UP.....NOT GOOD.

Later on we visited St.Kilda for a while which was much busier and much bigger than expected. It’s a great place to come and relax and wander around the area and we spent a couple of hours on the beach before heading back to get changed for the night which we’re planning on going to the Casino complex again for a bite to eat and also to get that $1 Million we’re going to get out of the machines…heehee

Oh, by the way Clive, hope you can see the photo of the scar on my leg from last year and how the sun is catching it…cheers mate.

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