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December 1st 2006

Published: August 6th 2007

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Will and Alex

With a little understa-aaan-ding

We're back in Melbourne for a couple of nights. Just enough time to do two things.

First to go back to Fitzroy, Melbourne's answer to Soho, full of cafés and independent shops. We find it impossible not to pay a visit to a fantastic little place on Brunswick Street, the Chocolatería San Churro, which does plates of delicious fresh Spanish churros served hot with a big bowl of melted chocolate. Heaven ! Well, we need something to fuel all our walking...

The second is something so natural, so obvious for any visitor to Melbourne that I hardly need to even say what it is. Which of Melbourne's cultural sights is so magnetic that it would be anathema not to visit it ? Which attraction draws all but the most philistine of visitors ? Of course, it's the Neighbours set. Where else ?

Alex has never had any interest in Neighbours (philistines indeed) so I am on my own as I embark on one of Melbourne's most famous tours. The Neighbours tour. To be entirely honest, I haven't seen an episode of Neighbours in at least seven years, but my recollections of Scott and Charlene's wedding is far too

The cruel, crushing reality

Ramsay Street is not real. Shocking.

vivid for me to miss the opportunity to visit Ramsay Street. The bus (a tour bus ! the shame...) picks me up outside Flinders Street Station. Colourfully painted with the naff "Neighbours" logo, the bus takes the group of twelve or so - mainly Brits as you may have guessed - out of Melbourne and into deepest suburbia. Much to everyone's disappointment, we are informed that Erinsborough and Ramsay Street are not real places. We are shattered. Not real places ! Erinsborough is actually Vermont South - and Ramsay Street is actually Pin Oak Court, a minuscule cul-de-sac in a quiet neighbourhood. It's quite amusing as we step off the bus and everyone starts getting excited: "Look it's Mrs Mangel's house !" (someone actually did say that) or "There's the window Charlene climbed through in that episode when...". It does actually feel quite strange to be somewhere that is so familiar but I've never been to before. Our tour guide is, as you would expect, a Neighbours aficionada and regales us with "insider gossip" as to what is going to happen in the storyline. This is all a bit lost on me, since all the characters I remember - with

The school - apparently

I have no recollection of this. Do you ?

the notable, venerable exception of Harold Bishop - are long gone.

Pin Oak Court is guarded twenty-four hours a day by a private security firm - a vaguely menacing bloke paces up and down the street in the intense midday heat. Hmmmm..."What's your job ?" "I'm the Ramsay Street Bouncer" (wink wink, little Neighbours in-joke there, geddit ?). Apparently some years ago, some British tourists (no ! British you say ?) got overexcited, clambered all over the houses, trampled the lawns and mooned the residents (I say it again: British ? Never !) - they forgot that Ramsay Street (all right, Pin Oak Court) is actually a private street with real residents. The street is only used for exterior shots - the inside of the houses is actually a studio just down the road. Everyone takes a turn holding up a fake "Ramsay Street" sign for the camera. It's all of the highest cultural calibre.

On the way back to Melbourne we make a short stop at "Erinsborough High", which is actually a school where the children of new immigrants to Australia (those few the government lets in) learn English. We're warned to be careful taking pictures for

Another fake sign

So satisfy the photo-takers. Like me. They even took the trouble to think up a fake motto.

fear that we Neighbours enthusiasts might be mistaken for dodgy old men. The (anti)climax of the afternoon comes when we get the chance to "meet one of the stars" - that's stretching the world a little bit...Most of the people on the tour are not - unlike myself - of the old school, and get very excited about the possibility of meeting "Izzy" or "Twizzy" or "Fizzy", who is apparently one of Neighbours biggest "stars". There's little chance of meeting anyone I remember from my Neighbours-watching school days. As expected the star is "Max", who is - I'm told - "Izzy's" (or Twizzy's, or Fizzy's) husband. A star indeed...We all say hello and shake Max's hand (not the foggiest what his real name was). "Who are you ?" was all I could think of saying..."I'm Max, of course". Of course.

There are better ways to spend forty dollars.

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