Melbourne continued – Great Ocean rd, Ramsay st & Dr Karl

Neighbours

On our fourth day in Melbourne, we got up, had the free breakfast in the nunnery and then headed out for our Neighbours tour that we had booked ourselves onto. During childhood, we were both obsessed with Neighbours and couldn't wait to see the real Ramsay Street in the Flesh. We went to the Neighbours office where they had all sorts of memorabilia, videos and photos of the old cast members and episodes. We then got on the Neighbours bus, with about 12 other Brits (no other nationalities watch Neighbours. Apparently, at its peak, there were more people in the UK who watched Neighbours than there were people living in Australia! ) and the guide told us all about the tour, how we would visit Ramsay st and then meet a Neighbours star at the end. We both hoped it wouldn't be somebody we didn't know as neither of us had watched Neighbours for about 12 years. There were only a handful of cast members remaining who we would stand a chance of recognising, namely Karl, Susan and Harold. The tour guide drove the bus to Ramsay st and on the way we watched dvds of old episodes. It was such a trip down memory lane and took me back to my childhood. When we stepped off the bus in actual Ramsay street, even more childhood emotions came flooding back and I felt like I was visiting and old familiar place that I hadn't been to for years! Some of my earliest memories are connected with watching Neighbours when I was 4 so it was quite a strange sensation to visit the road that it is all filmed on! We had pictures taken on the street and with the sign and then we continued on to a few other locations that they used for filming, including Erinsborough high school and Lou's mechanics. After this, we returned back to the Neighbours shop on the bus, where the surprise guest was waiting to greet us. To our absolute delight, it was none other than Dr Karl Kennedy!

With Alan Fletcher - Dr Karl

Apparently he had been drafted in last minute and we were meant to meet a different cast member who we had never heard of, but luckily they couldn't make it and Karl came to the rescue. It was happy smiles, photographs and autographs all around! 

Later that afternoon, we spent a bit of time just wandering around the city and then in the evening we went out to meet a friend of mine who I met on a contiki tour of the USA three years ago. I had kept in touch with Ruth through facebook and we met her outside federation square which is the main square in Melbourne. She generously offered to 'shout' us for dinner and took us to a lovely (posher than we're used to) restaurant by the Yarra river, overlooking all of the skyscrapers. It was a fantastic place to eat, with great views of the city and we sat and chatted and caught up on memories of our holiday over a meal and wine. We all had chicken parma because apparently that is the typical dish in Melbourne and everyone raves over it. After dinner we wandered along the river and she gave us a guided tour. We then went to an ice cream parlour that she raved about and again she treat us and bought us both ice creams! It was so nice of her. It was absolutely lovely to meet up with Ruth again and we told her that she must come to Cardiff the next time she's in the UK. We left Ruth at about 10.30 because we had an early start the next morning. We walked along through the cosmopolitan city all lit up and Jemma had a go on one of those electronic dance mats.

With my friend Ruth

The next day we got up at 6.00 and snuck out of the the nunnery to catch our bus to the Great Ocean road. We booked a day tour as we didn't have much time to play with and it took us from 7am to 9.30pm to complete the whole thing. We drove along the Great Ocean road stopping at various places on the way, including: the light house from 'Round the Twist' and the Twelve Apostles. We also stopped at a place that had lots of trees with parrots and koalas in them! We were delighted to see koalas in the wild, and so many of them! They were so cute – mostly asleep, perched in between two branches, or hanging from a branch with their babies! Jemma got some bird seed and we had the parrots all over us on our hands and heads and we also saw some kangaroos and an echidna all in the wild! At lunch, we stopped at a lighthouse and had a BBQ. It was a long, action packed day and when we got back to Melbourne, we were just in time to catch the Wednesday night hawker international food markets. We saw some inca cola and it reminded us of South America. We didnt find any food that seemed value for money so we ended up going to a little Chinese dumpling house that our tour guide had recommended.

The 12 Apostles

On our final day in Melbourne, we spent a bit of time on the internet trying to book flights to Japan but had no success and were frustrated that we had wasted the whole morning doing it. In the evening we met Louise one last time with another friend of hers for tea and went to the casino where we got a free $5 credit to gamble and both lost. We both agreed that we would have like to have spent a lot longer in Melbourne but we are on a strict time scale in Australia and have now moved on to Sydney! I have decided that I would definitely like to come back to Oz one day (not as a backpacker on a budget) and do the middle of Australia, i.e. the outback. So far, Australia knocks the socks off New Zealand.