4th - 12th Dec - Melbourne Oz

Melbourne is great and not just because my best friend Michael lives there, let us take over his house and disrupt his life totally. Pauline and I arrived both knackered but that didn't stop us going out with Michael and Barb to his local the GB (yes the Great Britain) and drink copious quantities of beer. We had an excuse for drinking the beer - the local beer being served in the GB is called Piss and in Victoria (the region Melbourne is in) you ask for a Pot (instead of a pint or half pint). So we went to the bar and orders a few Pots of Piss and weren't thrown out of the establishment - infact the bar man gave us a rather palitable light alcoholic beverage. We each had to have a shot of asking for a Pot of Piss - it would have been unfair anyother way. Ofcourse we didn't really need to each have three or four shots I suppose but I did have a smile on my face and a wee chuckle to myself each time I asked for a Pot of Piss.

My time in Melbourne was spent in various and sundry bars and restaurants - there are just so many to choose from it's difficult not to. Brunswick road is full of nice little places as is Richmond where Michael lives.

We did venture out of Melbourne to The Great Ocean Road with it's stretches of white beaches full of surf dudes and the giant limestone cliffs and rock outcrops which litter the coast line. It would ahve been really nice but nobody tolod us how cold Australia is around Christmas time - I've always been told this is the land of sunshine and drought - they had massive big signs saying preserve water, reservoirs are down to 60% - but it was freezing - therefore no chance of evapouration and it rained - a lot. Through the rain and fog we did see a couple of the Twelve Appostles but none of the Otway forrest. I'm sure Pauline and Michael want me to tell of the part where I almost killed us all trying to swat a kamikaze killer fly as I drove but I was always in control of the car - really.

Our only moment of heat was from Pauline face as a moustace clad, tarten lumberjacet wearing, ancient local got his mate to tell her 'she was hot', while he flexed his muscles in the background. Micahel and I haven't laughed so much in years and although Pauline is in a running club I doubt she has ran so fast ever.

Back in Melbourne, we went up the Tower to watch a massive thunder and lightning storm and went to the Old Melbourne Goal where Ned Kelly and various and sundry members of his family were once incarcerated. His body armour and the gallows which killed him sat side by side. The most interesting part of the jail was the death masks made after hanging the prisioners - back then Doctors believed in Phrenology, so made total head moulds of the dead which are now on diaplay - not ghoulish at all.

Michael would be devestated if I didn't mention the weather cos it's about all we talked about while we were there. Seems like Melbournes weather is more like Scotland than the rest of Australia i.e. totally unpredictable and crap - if you don't like the weather wait 10 minutes. Sorry (on behalf of Pauline) to have gone on so much - but then she was only there to develop her tan.

On our last day we took a tour to Philip Island to see the Penguin Parade. Basically thousands of tiny fairy penguins wait till sunset then run up the beach to their burrows. I've said before that penguins aren't graceful out of the water and these are no exceptions. It's hilarious watching a crowd of them in the water waiting for a signal and darting up the beach for the long grass. They are so scared of predators (never mind the hordes of tourists sitting on the beach) if one thinks theres a problem they all run (or rather waddle baddly) back to the safety of the surf. They are always in a group totally believing in safety in numbers. One seems to be the leader keeping them all together and raising the alarm if anything is amiss.

Once on dry land you can follow them on purpose built platforms to their nests hidden in the scrub. They are no more than 10 inches high and really cute, we had to frisk Pauline at the exit to make sure she hadn't taken one as a pet.