We made the mistake in Melbourne of being lured into staying at a hostel by the fantastic price of $16 a night for our own room. But it was horrible. We didn’t have a heater in our room (and Melbourne at this time of year is very cold) and so it was damp and smelt like pee. The whole place was very run down and luckily we were on the first floor right by the entrance because the building was so creepy that I would not have walked around the upper floors in the dark – it was bad enough in the day. I wasn’t just being a wimp as even Rich didn’t like walking around by himself. We stayed in an area called St Kilda as Rich’s friends Chris and Mark were living near by. It’s a nice area – it’s by the beach and is close to the centre – but is a mix of new fancy bistros and bars, and tramps and prostitutes.
The centre of Melbourne is much like any other big city – lots of tall office buildings and a large pedestrian shopping area. There is a huge oriental influence with an area of shopping arcades that when you walk through them it feels like you could be in China or Japan as everything is written in Chinese/Japanese.
We met up with Chris and Mark for some food and a few drinks on the Monday night – needless to say it descended into a drunken mess with the help of all the duty free we had bought on the way into OZ (a litre of Smirnoff for £4!!). Once again as it was a Monday night there weren’t many bars open and there were few people out. I don’t remember much but a really nice square somewhere in the centre that had fancy architecture and reminded me of Barcelona, and meeting some random Aussie girls. It was really nice seeing some faces from home – even if I was outnumbered by Scousers!
Needless to say the next day was spent mainly in bed and I was sick all day. After not drinking for pretty much the whole time in New Zealand my body was not prepared for that night and took it badly.
On Wednesday we went to the Melbourne museum which was really nice and had some interesting exhibits. The most unusual part was a living forest display that showed Australia’s native forest that was left over from the time it was part of Gondwanaland and connected to NZ and Antarctica, and then moved into the type of forest that developed after this and so was unique to OZ. They also had some of the wildlife that is found in the forests in the display, such as birds, frogs, lizards and a snake (though it was safely in a display cage as it was a poisonous one and it was hibernating when we were there). I had fun posing with the stuffed kangaroos and even took a picture with two giant stuffed reticulated pythons. There were other displays on the aboriginal people, Melbourne’s history including some Neighbours set, the human body and evolution. The weirdest part had to be Phar Lap, a race horse from the 30s who had been really successful and so was on display in the museum in this little shrine as he had meant so much to Australia. People still come and cry when they see him because he means that much, its just crazy.
The highlight of Melbourne though and our main reason for going there (yes I am that sad) was the Neighbours tour. We went on a little tour bus to go see ‘Ramsey St’; I forget what it’s really called. It was really weird looking at the houses; you see them on TV every day so it’s weird to then have then there before you. We also went to see the school they use as Erinsborough High, but it could have been any school for all I could tell, and went to the studios where we saw the sets for Grease Monkeys and the garage. With the tour you get to meet one of the stars and ours was Fraser, otherwise known as Ben, who was really nice (and really good looking in real life). We all got to pose with him for photos and got autographs on our souvenir Neighbours postcards and felt like complete dorks. But hey, we got to learn lots of interesting Neighbours facts and the tour was definitely worth it.
