The final days in Melbourne

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Hello everyone

We have now finished our time in Melbourne and have begun two months of travel before we stop again, in Sydney. We are currently in Albany on the south coast of WA, but more of that in the next blog. As we haven't updated the blog for a while, we wanted to update you all on the last few bits and pieces in melbourne first, in an attempt to keep the entries from getting too long and boring.

So what have we been up to recently? Well, we finished working on 17th August (and not a minute too soon I might add). Helen had well and truly had enough of call centre work and I was ready to get on the move again, so as you can imagine the last week or so dragged on and on.

To brighten the last couple of weeks up a bit, we did make it to see another game of Auzzie Rules (I still can't bring myself to call it football), this time to see St Kilda (my team) play. It ended up 85 each, and we had a great time joining in with all the locals cheering on the Saints (well Helen was cheering for the opposition, but never mind). Telstra dome is another awesome stadium, I think the UK should take note. Both stadia in Melbourne are in the city centre and both are world class facilities.

Once work was out of the way, and the hangover from the obligatory leaving drinks, we still had quite a few bits and pieces left on the list that we wanted to see in Melbourne, so we donned our walking shoes and spent the next 5 days on our feet.

We got lucky with the weather, with bright sunshine for the vast majority of the last week, which made walking everywhere a lot more bearable. We covered Melbourne from North to South, East to West and the highlights included Victoria Market (you can buy absolutely everything there and it covers the size of about 4 football pitches). We spent a really great couple of hours in the Botanic Gardens, ate more cake from the Acland St shops in St Kilda and took loads of photos of the major landmarks.

All in all we have both really enjoyed our time in Melbourne, it has treated us very well indeed and we have both met some great people, both at work and socially. We will hopefully try to get back at some point in the summer, as I don't think we have seen it at its best, but after a few months living there, we would recommend it to anyone. It has a really friendly vibe and the social life is as varied as you want it to be. It has a great bar culture (most of the best ones tucked away down the dodgiest looking alleyways) and fantastic restaurants.

Now we are in WA and have have reached Albany after a 5 hour drive yesterday. We lost radio signal about 2 hours, which meant that Helen was required to keep me entertained by singing the rest of the way, but she has a stinking cold, so that didn't happen either. I think we will invest in some CDs for the rest of the drive.

We will post again soon, once we have finished in WA to keep you all updated, but that's all for now! We hope everyone is well and that the sun is shining!!

Loads of love
Rich & Helen

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Photos

Cakes
Gotta love the Acland St cake shops!

Helen in St Kilda
Cross the road from our flat and this is the view

Melbourne Sky Line
Melbourne taken from the end of St Kilda Pier