Melbourne

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After a good time in Canberra, we left for the not-so-snowy, snowy mountains but not before we went to the parliment house for question time. We were given one route to get there as roads were closed due to flooding and it was obvious to see the effects the huge rains have had in australia with locals telling us of new rivers and lakes that just wern't there before. We arrived in Jindabyne and parked up next to the obviously over flowing lake with picnic penches and the kids play park in the water. it had been nice weather recently so we wern't worried about us getting washed away in the night.

The next day we took advantage of the low winds, bright sun and a full lake by hiring some canoes for a couple of hours. good fun but defiently realised i hadn't done any exercise with my arms for a while.

that evening we headed to a campsite that was closer for us to climb the mountain the next day. As we were driving to the mountain the next day (with all our climbing gear on) we saw there was a charge to get in to the park and we had paid lots of money to get into national parks recently so we thought we wouldnt climb the mountain but drive on to Melbourne. After a long drive we eventually got to melbourne to find extortionate parking fees of abkout $15/ hour for the first 2 hour and the $10 and hour there after... no thank you. i then asked an old chappy who, in his effort to tell me where backpackers stayed for free but that he didnt like them doing that, gave us the road name for the perfect place for us to park just on the outscurts of the cbd for free... thank you.



We went to some markets , experienced melbournes equivelent to bristols glouster road (brunswick street) and saw some banksy graffiti on the streets of melbourne. really we decided the grand prix was too expensive and that the city was actually a bit grungy so we left for the easten suburbs to go to a mini festival with music and ending with fireworks. we went to a cool church on sunday morning where they invited us out for lunch on which we readily excepted and enjoyed.



after a day of going back into melbourne to the zoo we left the city again to head south to phillip island where penguins come in each evening. we are currently sat outside on a campsitye after an amazing shower (after we hadnt for 5 days previous), charging up all our electricals and washing most of our clothes. hopefully tonight we will go and see some penguins.



After phillip island we will start our accent to Sydney, up the coast, where we will fly out of on the 1st of april. the afl season hasnt started yet but hopefully we will be able to catch a game of ozzie rules in sydney the day before we leave.



for now though we will continue to enjoy our last couple of weeks in oz.

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