Everybody needs good Neighbours...
Trip Start
Nov 02, 2007
1
22
Trip End
??? ??, 2008
Melbourne,
Australia
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The wheels ...
. Stan preferred croaking out an old Take That tune (who'd have known he was a closet TT fan!!). Whoever said that karaoke at 7am on a cold winters morn is unacceptable has obviously never lived...We hit Melbourne and rocked up to David's house, a friend of a friend of a friend, whom we'd never met, but who had still left us a spare key for his house and told us to stay as long as we liked. That's how laid back the Aussie's are. Well after doing all our laundry and then doing it again just to nuke it clean, we settled into Melbourne for a week on Davids guest heated water bed. The first two nights Stan felt sea sick and I kept shouting "MAN OVERBOARD" every time I jumped on the bed and Stan was promptly flung across the room. Still it was like sleeping on a giant hot water bottle and was warmer than the van, and the novelty of it was too great an opportunity to pass up on.
Situated in West Brunswick, home to the Greeks, the Lebanese, the Syrians and anyone else for that matter and a real melting pot of a place, we decided we would take the time to get to know the area better on a marathon scoffathon. We gorged ourselves on kebabs, Baklava, biscuits, and Greek pastries and then Stan found himself in halal sausage heaven - a butchers selling every kind of middle eastern sausage variety known to man. Stan felt as though he'd hit the jackpot at Vegas - he was jubilated. It was as if all his Eids had come at once - so we bought enough sausage and mash to feed 5 thousand and thats all we ate for 3 days... Homer Simpson would've been proud! After 2 days though we were defeated - mash, gravy, even veg like broccoli couldn't help get those damn sausages down the cake hole - we were broken and destroyed and would detest even the thought of any spicy, meaty products encased in skin..
Freedom camping by the beach...
. With our bellies gorged and our middle names changed to 'heart attack', we decided that we better get off our lardy backsides and do some sightseeing. Past the culinary delights of West Brunswick we found Melbourne to be a great city, with a more mellow & hip vibe then the loud and outrageous vocals of Sydney. With art galleries and museums, and a free tram to take you round the city circle we explored the city for 2 days. Harmeet not being able to contain the deranged groupie in herself, demanded that a trip to Ramsey Street on the Official Neighbours Tour was order of the day and was hoping she could have her photo taken with Paul Robinson or even the Godfather of Neighbours - Harold Bishop. Alas her hopes were scuppered as Harold had left the show to go travelling around Oz, and even though you do get to meet someone from the cast of Neighbours, they cant tell you who it will be as it all depends on filming schedules. Well we couldn't risk spending all those dollars on not getting to see Paul Robinson (and his peg leg), so we rocked up to Ramsey Street by ourselves in our white van and settled on posing for 5 million pics or so outside Paul Robinson's house instead. You can do the Official Neighbours Tour if you want to, but with not even two cents two rub together, taking those pics ourselves was just as good as being outside Number 10 Downing St, or Buckingham Palace..
Baywatch eat your heart out...
.2 hours later, after Stan had insulted the director by asking him if he was the local gardener and that maybe the front gardens needed attending to as they were a bit scruffy(!), we headed down towards Philip Island to see the spectacle of a thousand or so fairy penguins come in from sea back to their nests. Well we had no idea what a touristy place it would be. Having arrived at about 6pm we were eventually allowed out to the 'stadium', an area decked with rows of seating facing the beach with huge flood lights on either side. It was akin to Wembly Stadium! We were told that no one was allowed to photograph the penguins as the flashlight scares them - never mind the 5000 watt flood lights that beamed down onto the beach, like we were about to watch the premier league championship on the sand before us. Well we sat there with loads of others shivering our butts off waiting for the little bleeders and then at dusk around about 7.45pm, hundreds of tiny little fairy penguins no bigger than 41cm in height started waddling in to shore in little gangs of 40 or 50. You could see them waiting for their mates while they were probably wondering what the hell we were all doing watching them. They waited and waited and then would make a break for it and start waddling as fast as those tiny little penguin feet could take them
Stan tries to get away from the wife...
. There was always one fat little penguin right at the back desperately trying to keep up, but who would end up falling splat on his face - it was most entertaining for me - but Harmeet, as blind as a bat couldn't see a damn thing in the dark till they got really close (advice to others who plan to go there - start munching on those carrots!). The best thing about the whole night though, was that when you head back to the centre, many of the walking tracks for the penguins to get to their burrows run parallel to the boardwalks, so you end up literally a few feet away from them with nothing more than a wire fence separating you. They're also noisy little buggers!! About 800 came in that night and it is well worth the effort to go there even despite how touristy it was.Well getting back to the warmth and comfort of David's house was a welcome relief and as all the Aussies rave about AFL - the Australian Football League, David had done us the honour of buying us a couple of tickets to see an AFL footy match. Well its about as similar to British football, as a nun to a strip joint! AFL is an amalgamation of footy, rugby, basketball and kabaddi!!!! The game is totally loco dudes!! Its like no other sport I've seen - they kick the rugby shaped ball, throw it, bounce it - hell anything goes! And the most bizarre thing about it all? Well the fans aren't separated like in football, seating is not allocated to each team, meaning that you are most likely to be sitting next to your opposition! And no-one riots or has a scrap - its all very civilised. Can you imagine a Villa fan sitting next to a Chelsea supporter? They'd both be head butting and uppercutting each other before the match even started...
Well after a great match and a great week in Melbourne we felt it was time to move on and actually start moving towards the outback. David had already gone on holiday and so we decided to up and leave town spending a day down the Great Ocean Road. The drive down the south west along the winding coast and past these great ocean views looking out to some sort of rock formation not far from the coast was spectacular. We had clear skies and sunny weather and so these big ole lumps of rock (The 12 apostles, London Bridge, The Grotto etc) looked even more amazing! And so onwards and upwards we travelled trying to hurry up a little, so we could start warming our bones and our cold tootsies in the blazing heat of the red centre...
