Melbourne, Australia, February 2014

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After a connecting flight via Sydney we finally landed in Melbourne from Christchurch. We got a taxi to Discovery Hostel as two girls from the Kiwi bus in New Zealand (Leanne and Tayla) were there and said it was much better than the other hostels they had stayed in. We checked in and popped up to say hello to the girls but it was quite late so a couple in their room asked us if we could go to our room and talk. Instead we just said goodnight as we were also tired and went and got in bed. The room was ridiculously hot and all the lights were off so I climbed up to my top bunk and dived onto the bed. It killed my arms as there was loads of stuff on my bed so I was wiping it off in the dark when I realised it started cutting me. I turned the light on and my bed was covered in glass! A couple then told us a lightbulb had smashed, but they had watched me come in and not said anything, spanners (I want to say something much worse here)! I changed beds and the mattress was horrible but I managed to get a little bit of sleep.

In the morning we were woken by both the heat and then a huge construction site about 5m from our open window! We were not happy with this situation. We went for a walk around the city and ended up at Federation Square which was nice with a mixture of old and new buildings. We met Tayla and Leanne back at the hostel at 1, popped to Aldi to get some snacks and took the free tram to meet Natalie (another girl from the Kiwi bus) for a picnic at one of the parks. We sat there for a couple of hours in the sun chatting away and munching, it was red hot! We then had to head back to the hostel to shower and get ready as Tommy and Taegan, an Australian couple we met on the Inca Trail in Peru, were taking us out for dinner that evening. Tommy picked us up on his Ford Focus ST and drove us down to St Kilda. On the way he drove us around the Formula One street circuit which was being prepped for the opening race of the 2014 season. We had to wait for a table at a Mexican restaurant so we went for a few beers and compared stories from the rest of our travels, I loved these guys! We finally got a table at the Mexican and ordered loads of stuff off the menu to get a bit of everything. The food was really nice and Tommy and Taegan paid the bill, absolute legends! We then drove around the city for a bit and they showed us some of the stadiums etc before dropping us off at a bar to meet the girls. Unfortunately they both had work the next day so couldn't come out with us. We went up to the rooftop bar but only had one beer with the girls as we were so full then all walked home, me and Leanne had a singalong all the way back. A lovely evening with great company!

In the morning we looked out the window and it was another beautiful day so we walked around the city with Leanne and Tayla. We had a Nandos near Federation Square (not as good as England but still nice) and then walked through the Royal Botanical Gardens. It was strange to be walking around such beautiful gardens but then look up and see skyscrapers in the background. We were going to watch the Twenty20 match between Australia and England that evening so we left the girls and walked past the Olympic Park to meet another friend from back home, Buckle, and a couple of his mates at a pub. There were so many stadiums in such a small area! We met Buckle and had a few beers before walking down to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). I couldn't believe how many people there were for a game of cricket. The stadium can hold 100,000! It even had a takeaway nandos stand outside the ground! We had seats really high up and weren't sat together so instead we just stood on level one in the concourse near the bar. We had a much better view from here and easy access to the bar, where we had another 10 pints! There was a Mexican wave around the 65,000 crowd which was good fun but that's about as fun as it got for England as they reached just 130 runs and were trounced by the Aussies who won by 8 wickets! We had already spent close to $100 so we decided not to go out after the game, instead we walked back to the hostel via McDonalds.

The next day we would be starting our 2 day tour of the Great Ocean Road.

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