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Hi all!
Now in the land of kangaroos and koalas! Our first stop was Melbourne. Some family friends of mine were lovely enough to pick us up from the airport at 1am after a 3 hour delay and let us stay with them for a couple of days. It was a bit unnerving as I wasn't sure if I would recognise them having only seen a video of the family from 9 years ago. But, in fact Despo (our host) was the first to spot me using 2 photos of myself and my sister when I was 14, and not knowing which one of us was visiting! We had a lovely time, and it was great staying in a house and having home cooked dinners AND hot, powerful showers after 3 months away! I caught up with all my favourite meals - roast chicken and potatoes and of course souvla (kebab) that I missed out on at Easter time!
We had a great time being chauffeured around town by Poppy (her daughter) and visiting Victoria market, which is a huge market that sells everything and anything, and a camera museum above a shop. Eric practised his Greek by reading
all the Greek signs on shop windows - Melbourne has the highest number of Greeks in any city outside of Greece. He was also pleasantly surprised to find that they all follow English football and was able to watch the Champions League on TV. Did I mention we were staying in a lovely house?
On the Sunday Despo took us to Melbourne zoo which was fun, as always! We saw the brain-bum babboons again, kangaroos, koalas, monkeys.... but the highlight had to be feeding the elephant! We were given some nuts and we popped them into his trunk and then he would feed himself. His nose was a bit yucky but it was cool!
We were then invited to stay with Claire and Will (friends from Folkestone) in their apartment in Melbourne. It was fantastic meeting up with people from home and being relaxed. We organised a tour on the Great Ocean Road (run by a guy from Reading!) and didn't find out we had to be ready at 7.10am until after we booked it! It takes about 3 hours to get to the main site but we had stops along the way. We saw a hellava lot
of rocks that day! The highlights were the 12 Apostles, a gorge and a walk in the rainforest where we got to stand in a something-something-something tree (can't remember).
Our last day in Melbourne was beautiful - it was the first time we saw some sun in Australia, and we spent the day wandering around town looking for an internet cafe and sitting on a tram that takes you around town. Melbourne is a lovely city, very multi-cultural and Federation Square was really cool and modern. We were all keen to hit the town that evening, so after a delicious vegetarian lasagne we all dressed up to hit the town. Unfortunately, it was a Tuesday night so not many places were open or busy. We went to Hotel Esplanade, which we thought would be a hotel but was a 'dive' (Lonely Planet's words) and to some bar in St Kilda's. It was a cool night and it felt like we were in England again. It ended with Eric going to sleep at the tram stop (see picture). And that was our last night in Melbourne, before we headed to Sydney!
A massive thank you to Despo and Poppy,
and of course Claire and Will, for making our time in Melbourne fantastic and memorable! THANK-YOU!!!! xxxx
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Tash
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The Twelve Apostles ...
brings back lovely memories. Sounds like you both had a wonderful time in Melbourne. Eleni, you'll have to tell me which you prefer: Melbourne or Sydney :-) Later, Tashweka.