This place is definatley a breath of fresh air after being stuck in Cairns for what seemed like an eternity. I may be exaggerating a little bit but for those who have been to Cairns and stayed there for more than about 2 days let alone the 7ish weeks that we were there you have to agree that the town/city does not have very much to offer. We did get out for a day to Green Island where we could relax on a real beach, go snorkelling and generally escape the monotony of the town. The snorkelling was good a lot better than i expected although at the time we decided to go in the tide was out which made it a little difficult as there was less than a foot of water over bits of the reef, definately not comfortable for us or the coral. We saw some pretty impressive big fish including one grouper type thing which myst have been around 4 foot long with a huge big mouth that looked capable of swallowing small children! It is a shame that it did not swallow some of them especially the one who kept swimming up behind me right into my flippers forcing me into the coral on one side and Sam on the other, he would have been a tasty treat for the fish! We also took the glass bottom boat tour, it was actually really good something worth doing. And we did not get sea sick despite the 'captain's' warnings and the numerous sick bag dispensers located at easy reach intervals. The coral around the island is so shallow, it is not the most colourful but there were a lot of fish, big mouthed fish, weird sucker mouth fish, little multi-coloured fish, in fact there were all sorts but unfortunately no turtles, i think because it was the wrong time of year. We did see some whales though, not when we were snorkelling! but a little bit away (well quite a long way away but they were there all the same!) while we were sitting catching the sun on the deck on the way home. This day was really the only exciting thing we did while we were in the far north. That is unless you count washing cars or washing dishes and cleaning bathrooms fun!
We that is enough about Cairns now because we are not there anymore we are free, back on the road (well just about) yippee. Melbourne is brilliant. I think that it might just have bumped Sydney off the Australia top spot! We are staying right in the city centre here next to Flinders street station. It is cheap and the beds are comfortable but it has to be said it is really noisy. On our first night sleep was impeeded by someone who could probably be a top contender for loudest and most unusually irritating snorer on earth, probably the worst i have ever heard (well maybe i have heard some pretty bad snoring i won't mention any names!!). It is probably something to do with the fact that the rooms only have partition walls that do not reach the ceiling. It is however not a bad place despite the noise. And there is one good thing (at least in my opinion) about the weather being a bit colder and that is we get duvets again instead of horrid sheets.
So far we have had a good wander around up the little laneways with their pavement cafe's and chic little shops selling everything from cupcakes to jewelery and shoes. We went to the botanic gardens and along the south bank stopping to have a look at an interactive modern art exhibition and to the craft market along the river where we saw some ''circus dogs'' and some hulahooping!. In St.Kilda we had a good wander around through Luna park and along the pier before going to the espy where we had a good few drinks and listened to some live music played by a band of ageing rockers, they definately looked like they had been around to see some interesting things as did there accompanying man on the air-guitar, a very good night all in all. Lygon Street was another place we liked a lot with all those italian restaurants and shops who could't like it so we stayed for pizza and pasta after a few pints in the not so Italian, Irish pub down the road, mmmmmmmmmmm. That was not the end of pizza eating either with a visit to Fitzroy's brunswick street and the attraction of $4 pizza with yummy toppings we could not resist in fact we ended up sharing 3 in one night (they were just baby ones though so it is not as bad as it sounds), we had a bit of a pub/food crawl which resulted in this mass of pizza_it was something we had to do though to check out a few of the streets establishments. We did go back the next day too, to another place for more food though this time we resisted the pizza going for good old pasta also very good and for less than $10 with a glass of wine it tasted even better. Another good food experience was prahan market, it was soooo good, lots of nice fresh food, fruit and veg, meat and fish and olives and cheese etc. I think the bit we enjoyed most was the tasters though, so many olives and cheese and dips and sausages and for sam and oyster too. We ended up getting 3 tubs full of olives which were all gone by the end of the day, that would have never happened if Sam had not had a change of taste and decided olives were as amazing as i had said! thank god.
Not everything we have done so far in Melbourne has revolved around food/bars/shops though we have seen some other stuff. We went to the melbourne museum where we looked at some dinosaurs, watched some 3-D films, made faces in the fun-fair mirrors, i beat sam in the reaction time test!! haha, and we had a look at an old neighbours set the old skully kitchen. It was a lot better than i thought and i am glad that we got over out indecision and went in. We are off to go to the neighbours studio tomorrow to see the real ramsey street, a bit of tv culture! just what we came to melbourne for, it is going to be a good day!
