Australia

Hi All,

Just thought I'd post a quick blog (if thats possible) to let you know the sporty side to our stay in Melbourne.

On our first proper day in Melbourne all three of us took in our first Aussie Rules Football experience, and what a different experience it is. Melbourne, like Sydney, has a Telstra Dome Stadium (Telstra is a sponsor by the way) which was the venue for the pre-season NAB Cup between the teams in the AFL (Aussie Football League) culminating in this cup final. Fortunately for Melbourne one of the many local sides Carlton had made the final along with Queensland's Brisbane Lions.

The game had all sorts of pre-match fun, plenty of banter, then the kick off which included running through team banners and team songs (very cheesy). The game itself is pretty difficult to explain in a brief blog, but there were four refs and two goal refs, lots of players and lots of posts (scoring between or outside them scores you different points). The game is faster flowing than British football, and was certainly more rough (high tackles!) and higher scoring (the difference between the two teams was about 30 by full-time). The whole occasion felt more like a American Football match really but without the padding and complicated defence/offence stuff.

The next day was Sunday - and in Melbourne that meant Formula 1. Both Chris and I decided to brave the high prices (for backpackers anyway, for any Silverstone regulars you'd probably be shocked!). The Australian GP is big news in Australia, and Melbourne is particularly proud to have it over Sydney! The build-up was all over Aussie TV, but once you get down to Albert Park and see the whole event for yourself you can see why it gets so much attention.

Once we got into the track, we found ourselves a position near a corner on a hill, so the cars would be going fairly slowly when they went past. Unfortunately we had a large gravel trap in front of where we were looking, as well as the debris fence, but it wasn't too bad. Before the actual race we had Australian Car Racing which is an up and coming sport over here. Then we had the Porsche Carrera racers having a non-points race to demonstrate their sport to the crowd.

After that I decided to explore the mass of extra events and displays going on at Albert Park which included all kinds of bars (one with live music) and food places, an F1 Expo (including PS3 F1 demo game), F1 shops and an alley of chav cars lined up away from one straight behind a hill (plenty of suped up Hondas and Hummers). The final pre-race was some Aussie celebs in BMW 3 series cars, and they did quite well to not crash, apart from one guy who clipped the wall on his final corner!

Before the race a Qantas Boeing-747 diverted from Melbourne Airport on its way to London to do a 1000 foot fly past, and a F-18 Jet did some stunts. Then the race began. The noise and speed of the cars eclipsed anything we'd seen prior to the start - we were half way round the track along way away from the start line but you could hear the cars start up over the other side of the park even with ear plugs on (which were necessary to avoid damage!).

The cars just zoomed past compared to what we'd seen before. You could just about tell the cars apart (drivers was slightly more difficult), the Ferrari's just stand out from the rest of the rich red colour, and it was Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari that led the way pretty much from start to finish, despite the best efforts of the Britain's Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso of McLaren.

After the GP had finished, we were shocked/surprised to be let onto the track, so we walked all the way round to the start/finish line and the pits which were crowded by the time we got there. There was also a free gig laid on, the band playing were New Zealand rockers Evermore who are taking Australia by storm currently.

On Monday we had a day of rest from sport and did some cultural things which unsurprisingly escape my simple brain. On Tuesday however, I managed to convince Chris to join me on a tour of Melbourne's Eiffel Tower/Statue of Liberty (according to a quote on the promo flyer) the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground). Despite being slightly anxious of some sledging after England's humiliating Ashes tour (slightly rectified by some one day wins following that) we made our way in.

If you've (assuming its only sports fans who are reading by this point!) been to places like the Nou Camp in Barcelona, or Wembley before it was knocked down, you can tell that a place has a certain history of sport and events. The MCG had a revamp a couple of years back but is still hugely impressive, capable of housing 100,000 people for either Cricket or Aussie rules.

We were given a tour by a Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) member who was very enthusiastic and really informative. We went out on the pitch, in the dressing rooms, up in the posh Member's areas, up in the highest seat and ended up in the MCC Cricket Museum, which catalogues important moments in Melbourne and Australian Cricket and the goings on at the MCG.

Our final sporting moment was taking in some swimming at the FINA World Swimming Championships at the Rod Laver Arena (where the Australian Open Tennis happens). Despite not knowing much about how swimming events work (other that lengths happen), it was a bit of a shock when Laura and Chris said it was a Synchronised Swimming Final, which I know even less about. Laura and I tried to outguess the judges, failing miserably - and in the end the event was won by Russia (who apparently win everything), followed by Japan and Spain.

I hope this blog gives you an insight into how busy you can make yourself in Melbourne. If you enjoy any kind of social activity, sport, theatre, music, drinking, Melbourne can cater for you. For a sports idiot like me, Melbourne more than catered for the sport deficiency left by not watching football back home (probably for the best). Australia even has an up-and-coming soccer league so they'll soon have the full set!

Assuming no-one else does another blog in the next few days, we've arrived in New Zealand. The Kiwi Experience bus tour has kept us insanely busy!! We're currently in a place called Wanaka and hopefully one of us will bring you up to speed soon! For those who have been made aware, my bungy jump is in the next couple of days!!!

Hi to all!
Rich

So we're in Melbourne...it had to happen...here is the review of Neighbours night and the tour:

Since we decided to put our flights back to New Zealand, so that we could have a bit more in time in Melbourne, we thought we would take full advantage of our extra time, and fill it with a bit of Neighbours mania (thanks to a bit of nagging by myself!)

On the monday night we all headed down to the Elephant and Wheelbarrow, paid our slightly expensive admittance fee ($40) and waited for our 'Neighbours Night' experience to start!

On the poster in our hostel it said that the special guests that night would be Ryan Maloney (Toadie), Carla Bonner (Steph), Kyal Marsh (Boyd), and Dr Karl's band 'Waiting Room' would be playing afterwards. To be quite honest, we were a bit gutted as we had seen the line-up for the week before which was Toadie, Harold and Skye (much better) and I had already met Steph before in England. But to give the stars their credit - they were really worth the money!

At first everyone was just waiting around, with the dj stringing us along every few minutes, saying that they would be out in a minute. But eventually the time came, and we were all made to do a roudy rendition of the Neighbours theme tune. As we were at the back of the room, when Toadie, Steph and Boyd actually made it to the front we couldn't see a thing anyway! But there was no need to worry as we were all told quite firmly to sit down at our tables while the Trivia Quiz was in progress, and the stars would come round to us.

To be fair to the organisers, it was all planned very well and as the quiz was going on, sure enough Ryan Maloney got to our table and we all got a bit of a chat with him and all the photos we wanted. All I can say about him is - what a legend!! He was awesome and really up for a laugh.

Next up came Carla Bonner. I was slightly less impressed with her I have to say, although we still got loads of time to take photos, and the lads got a lovely picture of her in the middle of the two of them! But she seemed pretty dazed when I tried to talk to her. Maybe she was drunk, or just uncomfortable being in the public eye.

But the real star of the night, had to be Boyd! He really suprised me as at first I wasn't really bothered to see him - lets face it, his character isn't really the most interesting. But in real life he was a really sound guy. He even made the effort to introduce himself to everyone and find out their names and have a bit of a chat, which was very sweet. Plus he is WAY hotter in real life than on TV, which had to count for something!

Then after the trivia quiz, "Fletch" aka Karl Kennedy took the stage with his band, who were actually suprisingly good! Although I did sometimes feel like cringing as it was a bit like watching your dad dance at the disco (sorry Dad - you know I love your dancing! ;o) ). But you had to give it to him - he really put everything he had into the performance and the atmosphere was great!

After such a great night out, we decided we couldn't leave Melbourne without going on the famous 'Neighbours Tour'. So on the wednesday morning we were all picked up and taken first to the studios (originally called Grundy but I can't remember their new name) where they film the show. This was pretty cool as we got to see the set of grease monkeys and Lou's mechanics shop, and the famous bus stop where everyone seems to leave Neighbours from! Then as we were snapping away, who should walk around the corner but Alan Fletcher (Dr Karl) from the other night! We all got to take some photos with him and get an autograph or two and then we had a chat about the studios, the show, and any gossip we wanted to know about the coming months. I won't mention anything here as I know how annoying it is when people tell you gossip that is going to happen, before you watch it (Louise & Smolla!) but we found out A LOT!! And suffice to say Neighbours is still keeping up their tradition of ridiculously ludicrous storylines - awesome!

After we said goodbye to Fletch (he got called away to filming) we had a look at the school they use for Erinsborough High, and then headed down to Pin Oak road - otherwise known as Ramsey Street. We all got photos outside the different houses whilst the residents came and went (very strange) and the tour guide gave some background on the houses and who lived where etc. This guy was awesome and really knew his stuff. Unfortunately we were travelling on the second bus and so inbetween stops we got an extremely vague commentary from our driver - who I think had only heard of Neighbours that day - which consisted of phrases like "Yeh, that road was used in a scene where a dog got run over by that dude who was married to that blonde girl...err...don't you remember?".

Anyway despite the appalling bus driver, the tour was really good and it was pretty cool to actually be standing outside the houses that you had been watching on TV since you were a kid. Plus we got tonnes of information about what is going to happen in the future, and were able to reminisce about the good old days of Brad and Todd, with the guide who actually had watched the show at least twice in his life!

Anyway, I had better stop rambling about it, as I do get a bit excited about the whole Neighbours experience and you are probably all bored out of your minds! But a great day was had by all :o)

Take care, and I promise not to mention Neighbours again until I get back!

Laura x

There were two options for us when leaving Sydney to go to Melbourne. There was the slower ocean road sticking to the East and then the South Coast or the "short cut" down the main road via Canberra. We chose the latter, mainly because having left Sydney we decided on a trip west up to the Blue Mountains. The Blue Mountains is another national park offering bush walks, amazing views and limestone caves to explore. We stopped off at Wentworth Falls and took a 2 1/2hr walk from the top of the waterfall down to the bottom and back up again. It involved a lot of very steep steps in rather warm temperatures. The major attraction for the blue mountains is the Jenolan caves which is deep inside the national park. The caves are a series of huge limestone caves. Only a tiny fraction are open to the public and there are thought to be many more that haven't been explored yet by anybody. We took one of the organised tours into one of the cave systems and had a 1 1/2 tour underground getting to see some very impressive underground caverns.

Half way between Sydney and Melbourne is Canberra, an interesting place in that there isn't much to see or do there and there seems very little point for the place other than it was a purpose built capital when nobody could agree on either Melbourne or Sydney. We did actually find something worth going to see. The Museum of Australia which had very interesting exhibits about the Australian land and it's people. Other than that there is nothing too complimentary I can say about Canberra, it's just full of parks and confusing road systems.

We bypassed Melbourne when we reached it and headed out onto the Great Ocean Road which I have to describe as one of the most challenging drives i've ever done. I have never seen so many tight corners on steep hills on a small stretch of road as I did there. I think for about an hour and a half driving I managed 45km! The views are spectacular however and the sea is perfectly clear and blue (freezing too by the way). We managed to drive almost the entire length of the road stopping along the way to view some of the more interesting natural features along the way. The 12 apostles is probably the best known of these, twelve sandstone pillars jutting out of the sea.

I'm going to stop here and let somebody else have a go with blog writing. You can expect another blog from Laura on the parts of Melbourne that she went to see without me and Rich and you'll get a sporting update from Rich about the week of sport that we've just been to see. Aussie Rules Football, Formula 1, a tour round the MCG and yes World Championship Syncronised swimming!! I bet you didn't guess the last one!!

Chris

Well firstly I should apologise for the length of time it has taken for an update to the blog. We are now firmly in place in Melbourne but it has been a manic few days and now is the first time that I've had a chance to sit down and write a few words down. (The others are still asleep at this point).

I guess I should start back with Sydney. That seems such a long time ago now but it was only a week! Rich started things off pretty well with telling you what was going on but i'll finnish things off with the highlights of the rest of our stay there. After a couple of days living in the van in a national park in the outskirts we moved into a hostel for a couple of days to be closer to the city at night. That in itself was a challange as although the hostel had offered free parking the van was too tall to get into the carpark so we pretty much had to empty it and park it down a side street a 3km away and hope it was going to be there when we came back to it.

I think the highlight for us was our first night staying in the middle of Sydney. We decided on a trip to the opera!! For me this was the first time i've ever seen an opera and I guess there is no better place than to see it at the Sydney Opera House. We had heard there was a student offer of top price seats for cheap prices if you turned up half an hour before the performance. So off we went in our best t-shirts and cargo trousers (I felt so out of place!!!) and managed to pick up 3 top price tickets bang in the middle in the 3rd row of the circle for $50 each. The full value of each ticket was $250 and that is certainly what the very well dressed people next to me had paid. The opera was a tad long at 4 hours but very enjoyable. The set was amazing and the drama was very well done too.

We of course ticked all the boxes for tourist activities in Sydney. We took a trip up the Sydney tower wich does as promised offer some spectacular views over the city. The ticket comes with a rather random simulator tour of Australia with it. We also took a trip down to Darling Harbour which is the location of the Sydney Aquarium. I have been to a few aquariums, and this was certainly one of the better ones. It had huge oceanariums moored in the harbour which contained a huge number of sharks and other sea life which you could see from seabed level by walking through glass tunnels. After the Aquarium darling harbour is a perfect place to have some dinner on the promenade round the harbour which offers a perfect view of central Sydney lit up at night.

Well there is obviously more I could say about the place but I think i'll keep this one short. We realise we're a little behind on the photo front at the moment but we've come up against computers that don't allow you to upload anything so that'll have to wait until we get to New Zealand. Apologies for that!!

Chris

On the way down from Brisbane we decided to stop off somewhere on the Gold Coast for some wholesome australian fun, and after receiving some advice that Surfers Paradise was way more commercialised, we ended up at Byron Bay.

I think I fell in love with this place at first sight. It is the complete aussie version of our english sea-side town, but without the tacky promenade, the falling down pier and row after row of chip shop, candy floss stand, ice cream van... plus it is on the east coast of Australia so it is hot, sunny and the surf is good!

Obviously the first thing you notice here is the beautiful beach and rather large waves! But then you look back to the shore and realise that something is missing from this picture - where are the skyscraper hilton hotels that we are used to, and the many other unsightly features of a beach resort? Byron has none of them. It is more or less untouched by tourism apart from the odd 'bucket and spade' type shops flogging a bit of Byron merchandise. As you walk down the main street the other thing that strikes you is how laid back the place is. It is a magnet for surfer dudes and beach babes, everyone is really friendly, and it is the perfect place to totally chill out.

As we drove down the main streets of Byron, I realised that this was the place to splash out in the shopping department, so first thing Saturday morning (after a hearty breakfast at a local cafe) I left the guys to more manly things, and hit the abundance of surfer and hippy shops lining the high street.

In the afternoon, after I had exhausted my bank account for the day, me and Chris decided to hire body boards for an hour while Rich took a walk up to the lighthouse.

Body boarding to my delight was a lot of fun - you could spend ages getting frustrated waiting for the right wave to catch, and not going anywhere, when suddenly you are on your board and being rushed all the way to (and sometimes up!) the beach at what feels like a phenomenal speed. Suddenly you forget your earlier struggles and frustrations and jump straight back in the water to do it again!

Unfortunately, the sights of Sydney were calling us and we had to leave on Sunday morning, but not before we took a short trip to the famous Byron market. I had a browse of the stalls for a while, and then stumbled upon a crowd of people watching a one-man-band, a guy calling himself Juzzie Smith. This guy was amazing. Not only was he playing the guitar, harmonica, and vocals, but he also had a digerido to his right, a drum between his knees, some bells, and weird drum synthesiser thingy (i'm sure Rich could give me the real name but he is not here at the moment) that he kept hitting his left foot with!! Having not bought anything at the other stalls, I decided to splash out and buy his album, as apparently he was raising money to help his friend who was trying to save the Tasmanian forest. It was definitely worth the money. If only we had a cd player in our campervan and then I could actually play it!

From a very chiiiiiiillled out...

Laura x x x