G'day!

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G'day!

I am now in Australia! Perhaps unsurprisingly it is a tad warmer than NZ was when we left. From Christchurch we had a relatively short hop across the Tasman to Melbourne, our first stop in convict land.

We actually landed at normal sort of hour this time, 5pm. Crazy huh?
Melbourne itself is really nice place. Despite being a city of over 4 million people it has a very liveable feel to it. Our activities around Melbourne included much general wandering, a trip up the Rialto Tower for some cool views of Melbourne by day and night. Amusingly a new observation deck has opened on a bigger building so the old tallest, Rialto, are doing 2-for-1 and let you go up twice, anyone think they're feeling threatened?
We also went for a tour of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) which was really cool and then went into the National Sports Museum which again was good fun. We returned to the MCG the next day to take in our first Aussie Rules game. It was quite entertaining despite not having a clue what was going on for most of the slightly excessive 2 hours. I reckon we had most of the rules fathomed by the end though.
Speaking of tours, we also went on a free tour of Victoria's parliament building which was surprisingly interesting and entertaining.
Last but not least we visited Ramsay Street (or Pinoak Court to give it it's proper name). After taking a short tram ride (cough.....1 hour......cough) we managed to find the correct street and walk down the hallowed street. Very sad, I know.
Moving on from Melbourne we hopped on a Greyhound night bus to Sydney. In a word, horrendous. I don't think I slept more than a couple of hours on the whole 8-8 trip. Still it gave us a full Monday in Sydney.
Sydney has a more capital feel to it, everyone seems in more of a rush. It is still a great place though. We spent the Monday generally exploring and took in the obvious sights of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. We have also been out to Bondi Beach (where it rained) and to Manly which is really nice area. Today we took a trip well outside Sydney to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas and unless you're particularly interested in low lying cloud there wasn't much viewing to be had. Ah well you win some, you lose some I guess.
We have 1 more day left in Sydeny before we move on up the coast to Coffs Harbour, taking the bus at the very civil hour of 7am.

Righto that is your lot for now,
Mike

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Photos

Aussie Rules
AFL at the MCG, Melbourne vs Western Bulldogs

Sydeny Opera House
Taken from the Manly ferry.