Melbourne - Little Italy

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Well it was about 34 degres all night last night - thank g** for air con! There wasn't much we could do today as it was so hot. We chatted with Harry, one of the guys staying at the house, until about 2.30pm and then went into town - on the FREE public transport! Due to the heat none of the trains were working, over 200 services had been cancelled the day before, so they gave everyone a day of free transport to keep us sweet! We decided to make the most of it so went to the Botanic Gardens. It was really hard walking around in such heat, felt worse than yesterday...maybe this wasn;t such a good idea afterall! But we did get to see the wild parrots, they are everywhere in the trees here, and we also got to see some massive wild bats in the gardens too! Spent acouple of hours walking around the gardens before heading back home. When we got off to change trams they were handing out free fans to try and keep people cool!
We got back, read our books for a bit then got ready to go out. We were meeting Annie and Lee, who we first stayed with, for a meal on Lygon Street ( or little Italy ! )
At 7.30pm we realised the electric had cut out, that would explain the constant beeping noise we could here from the train station. The power cables were getting too hot around the city and were shorting out! We walked onto Syndey Street and realised all the traffic lights were out too and so were the trams - so much for the free public transport! By this time all the trains were cancelled too as the rails were buckling under the heat - people were having to go and water them to cool them off! It was an interesting walk down to Lygon Street, Luckly the trams were working that side of town so we weren't too late! And we could get a cooked meal!
It was really quite amusing watching the chaoes on a friday night!
Lygon Street is a wide Street with hundred of Italian restaurants lining it, a really buzzing atmosphere - a must do.
We met Annie and Lee at the University Hotel, they introduced us to 2 more friends, Gemma and Chris who were over for a year working. We had a couple of drinks then went down the road for some food. I had Smoked salmon fettutini and Chris had a sea food risotto - the food was delicious!
had a few more drinks and got home around 1.15am!

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Photos

At the Italian restaurant
From L - R: Gemma, Annie, Chris, Lee and Chris