Thunderstorms, Heatwaves and Apostles!

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We spent many days chilling out on the beach, swimming and shopping. The life of a backpacker is a hard one! We did make the mistake of having haircuts however, both of us stated that we didn't want much off, just the ends but both of us ended up missing a lot of hair! Hopefully it will all grow back!

On Monday the 17th of December we attended Melbourne's Neighbours Night! And what a night it was I tell you! When we arrived we heard the devestating rumour that the Doc would not be attending, the crowd started to stir but we were then informed that he would be there but unformunatly the band would not! However we could still see the band free on Christmas eve now so all was not lost.
We were all seated and luckily we had a table right at the front with our friend Viki who we met on the Kiwi Experience. Also seated on our table was the self proclaimed "Number 1 Neighbours fan" He had been to 49 Neighbours nights and carried a book with his full of cut outs, pic's and autographs! (Can anyone say STALKER....)

The evening started out with some question and answers from the cast, a few marrage purposals for Karl and Bouncer the dog bounding in! After they had finished with the questions the cast members made their way through the crowd in different directions to have pictures taken, there were 350 people on our night and it was little Zeke's first night so he was a bit overwhelmed! Ahh bless!

Next on the agenda was the start of the games and quiz. It was a general knowlegde quiz with a mix of neighbours related questions. Now there was one question about a particular episode and the "number 1 neighbours fan" turned to Kim and stated "I have this episode on my ipod, hold on a min I'll find it"! Viki then started sliding in the opposite direction with a very scared look on her face....
There were 3 rounds to the quiz with random dancing and singing compititions inbetween. After the quiz was over and the stars had returned home we were left to dance the night away before leaving to find our bus, getting lost and having to flag down a taxi!

The rest of that week was actually quite uneventful really. We've made several trips to the Queen Victoria Market since we've been here as the fresh fruit and veg is so cheap and you're surrounded by the market stall owners screaming "1 dollar!! 1 dollar!!". There are also loads of souvenier stalls, including one guy who had a picture of him giving a didgeridoo to 50 Cent.

We've had a lot of nice weather since arriving in Melbourne but the week before Christmas there was a huge thunder storm that lasted 3 days! Now what else is there to do in the rain but jump in the puddles! There has been a really bad drought in Victoria and when the storm hit we had more rain in 1 hour than had fallen in the whole of the last winter. There was flash floods, gale force winds, thunder, lightening.... for 3 days! The Aussie's loved the rain though. We'd walk into shops and hear "Isn't this rain great!" Unfortunately we don't agree... One of the trams on the way to the city was hit by lightning, luckily we took an early one! It was a great storm to watch but not to try and get anywhere in.

We had a job interview for a Marketing company a few days before Christmas. Now, we didnt really know what to expect but thought it would be answering phones or cold calling etc. We turned up and it was a lot more interactive! It wasn't really much of an interview either but an induction on how to drive around on a Segway, 2 wheeled pod thing, to hand outleaflets. Now if you didn't want to drive the pod you could choose between the Hummer, the coffee van or a fleet of smart cars. The pods were extremely good fun so we signed up for a campaign in Sydney to give out hats and leflets for a week. $20 an hour baby! We were a bit disapointed that we had spent money on smart clothes though which are now taking up valuble space in our already rather full bags!

The weekend before Christmas we ventured into the city to do our Christmas shopping, which included the good old market which is so much better than the Australian supermarkets. We split up so we could buy each other something to put under our mini Christmas tree and get something for our flatmates. Now if you can cast your minds back through the alcoholic, drunken blur of New Years Eve and Christmas you might remember from the last blog that our flatmates are German. In Germany they open their presents and celebrate Christmas more on Christmas eve, so on Christmas eve we had a few beers with them and headed down to the beach to check out the sunset. A few days earlier we also baked a mountain of cookies with them as Simone wanted a German Christmas in Australia! Our dreams of a hot Australian christmas on the beach didn't seem to promising as it was pretty chilly, but it felt more like a normal Christmas to us!

Finally Christmas day arrived and Santa brought some sunshine with him to Melbourne! Wasn't that hot though, so no sunbathing on Christmas day. We took a walk along the beach and enjoyed the views of the bay at Christmas. Simone and Guiseppe left us on Christmas day to go to Tasmania for the week, so we had the flat to ourselves and cooked up a mighty veggie roast that evening. We'd picked up a few tips on cooking the best roast potatoes from watching Jamie Oliver on TV during the rain filled previous week, and thanks Jamie, they tasted goooood. We couldn't find any cheap Christmas crackers so Joe made some Christmas cracker style hats from an old TV guide to get us in the spirit.

The week after Christmas the sun was back in full force. We hit the beach with the temperatures in the high 30's and enjoyed the sun, sea and sand. This was also good for our wallets as the beach is free! The Sunday before New Years eve we decided to be all touristy and packed a day pack, got the cheap "Sunday Saver" bus ticket and headed to the city. Our main priority was to visit the State Library of Victoria where there are free exhibitions including Ned Kelly's armour. Being the smart people we are we had the map the wrong way around and ended up walking the wrong way, but this was actually a good move as we stumbled across "the Shrine" which is a building and monument to all the Australian soliders who have ever fought in conflict around the world, which is set by the Melbourne Botanical Gardens.

On the way back in the correct direction we thought it would be a good idea to cross the road and see some sights from the other side and found the National Gallery of Victoria. It was worth a peek behind the door and when the security guard told us entry was free we were more than happy to go in! There was an exhibit on "Modern Britain" which you had to pay to view, but being as we left modern Britain behind to come on this trip we gave it a miss. There were some interesting exhibitions on Ancient Greece and Egypt, as well as 80's Fashion, Photography and a room of chairs! It was also air conditioned! Woo hoo!

It was another beautiful day in Melbourne so we grabbed our lunch from Subway and sat down by the Yarra River and enjoyed the views of the City and the Melbourne Cricket Ground in the distance. After a quick look around Federation Square we eventually made it to the Library. The displays were really interesting with a collection of old and rare books from around the world, ranging from Hebrew Scrolls, early drafts of English laws and a midget library (no joke), to modern day books and comics. The Ned Kelly display was really informative and gave a good description of his life as well as loads of artifacts, letters that he wrote and his body armour.

The last day of 2007 in Melbourne was the hottest day of the year, the hottest new years eve on record and was followed by the hottest new years day on record. We spent the day down on the beach again, lying in the sea for most of the day cooling off in the water. Temperatures peaked at 42 degrees! Hot! Guiseppe and Simone came back from Tasmania that evening and we headed out to see in 2008. We were invited to Simone and Guiseppe's old flatmates party which they were told was a 20 minute tram ride away. So after a 40 minute tram ride and 5 minutes in a taxi we finally got there and decided after 20 minutes that we were going to head back into St Kilda to watch the fireworks. We got on the tram just in time and there were so many delays and stops that when the clock struck midnight we were actually still on the tram just outside of the station! So we celebrated with the people on the tram and got out just in time to catch the end of the fireworks on the beach. It was packed with thousands of people and was one huge party. Everyone was running in the sea, so Joe and Guiseppe waded in and we had some Champagne to celebrate the new year! There was a VIP party down the beach which Kim and Simone tryed their best to get us in, and were told that we could come in..... if we each bought a ticket that was $200... so we went to a bar in town instead!

After finally making it home and having New Years noodles Kim fell asleep on the sofa and Guiseppe on the floor. The temperature stayed above 30 degrees the whole night, without even a breeze to cool the room it was hot! New years day was spent hiding from the sun as it was just too hot to go out for very long. That night it was much cooler so we walked to St Kilda Pier and saw the Penguins coming in at sunset. Our run in's with the Japanese tourists has showed no sign of ending, this time they were climbing over the barriers onto the rocks, trying to put their hands in the penguin nests!

With only a couple of days left in Melbourne we hired a car and headed down The Great Ocean Road. This 243 kilometer road starts in Torquay (where surfing was invented) and continutes along the South Eastern coast of Australia to Warrnambool is one of Australia's great scenic coastline drives and was built by 3000 returned servicemen as a war memorial for fellow servicemen who had been killed in the First World War. We stopped in Torquay for an hour or so to visit the surf outlet centre as Simone and Guiseppe wanted to pick up a few things and this was a great chance. We are on a tight budget so were good and didn't spend any money.

We then hit the start of The Great Ocean road. There are so many spectacular views, you could stop every five minutes and take an endless amount of photos. We stopped on a beautiful beach but the water was freezing so no swimming! A particular highlight of the trip for us was seeing the lighthouse used in "Round the Twist". There were plenty of renditions of "Have you ever, ever felt like this...." (unless you know the theme tune you'll probably think we're mad), but it was great to see. We stopped for lunch in Lorne where Guiseppe and Simone waited 45 minutes for their fish and chips and then got attacked by flies when they tried to eat them. There are lots of lookouts along the way to stop and we got some really good photos of the ocean and rock formations.

As we were going round one bend there were suddenly a load of people in the road and cars parked on the side, with people pointing into the trees. This could only mean one thing. Koalas! We quickly pulled in and had a look and took some pictures as they slept up in the trees.

Back on the road again we headed inland through the forest and found a hostel for the night in Port Campbell before heading to the 12 Apostles at sunset. The views of them were simply amazing, and the sun setting in the sky was the perfect backdrop. We stayed and watched the sun go down and could see more little penguins coming home from the ocean. It took them about 20 minutes to be brave enough to walk up the beach as they kept diving back into the sea!

The next day we headed to a few more lookouts in the morning, including one called "London Bridge" (a section of which had fallen down, fallen down, fallen down.....) and the Bay of Martyrs. We took the inland highway back to Melbourne. We stopped at Colac (home of the Timmins family for all you Neighbours fan's out there) to see the lake, but it was a bit dried up and not that pretty to look at! We finally got back to Melbourne after driving over 600km over the 2 days and had to get the car back and pack for tomorrows coach trip to the capital city of Canberra! Another 5.30am wake up call bekons.....

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Comments

[Sally Hawkins]

Happy New Year
Seems like you are having a ball. I love all the photos. I feel like I am there with you.( I wish) Love the xmas hat!! Heres to 2008. Take care and catch up soon. Lots of love. Sally xx