We should be so lucky
Melbourne was a breath of fresh air following our outback adventure.

Our first night was spent in a really plush hotel, real champagne lifestyle on beer money stuff. Turns out we were the last guests to stay there, it closed at midday on the day we checked out, we helped in our own way by clearing the breakfast buffet. Very close to the cliche "will the last guests please switch off the lights and close the doors behind them" - reminded us of being at work!

Arranged a rental car for our Great Ocean Road trip, then wandered around the city. Melbourne is a really pleasant place, wide streets, multicultural foods and lots of open spaces and parks. An unexpected bonus for us was the Australian Open tennis. After buying some black-market tickets from a couple of despondent Swedes we took in a couple of games with the intention of returning in the evening to watch Tim Henman play (it was the first round, so he was still playing).

To kill some time Susie twisted my arm into visiting the Kylie exhibition. Miss M has donated all of the outfits she wore in her pop videos, including those gold hotpants and the white robe she tried to wear. Constant pop video playback and being surrounded by lifesize Kylie manikins was more than enough excitement for me for one day, so back to the tennis.

To my suprise Tim actually won. So not only can we count ourselves lucky for watching him play, but we have a much bigger claim to fame, we've watched him win. Perhaps some of Kylie's lucky, lucky, lucky charms had rubbed off on him.

After Melbourne we toured the Great Ocean road. The claimed best drive in the world had a lot to live up to, it has to be said it certainly comes close. Highlight of the GOR was undoubtedly the fish and chip supper devoured on the cliff tops overlooking the enormous waves at Bells beach. Minimum chips, sounds small, trust me it feeds two.

After the GOR we drove inalnd to the Grampians national park, staying in a really modern hostel in a red-neck village. Again the views demonstrated the sheer enormity of Australia, here we are in the middle of their high season and the place is deserted, a couple of other tourists at most. A couple of long hikes allowed us to really soak up the atmosphere. By the end of our road trip we'd seen wild emu, koala, echinda, kangaroo, wallabies and literally thousand of brightly coloured birds.

To finish off our trip we visited some friends we made on the Trans Siberian, spent a relaxing day in Melbourne's leafy suburbs. On Sunday we flew to New Zealand, or Middle Earth to LOR fans.

- posted by Adrian @ 8:30:00 AM