If you are reading this thinking. "Uh, Neighbours?" and "who is Dr Karl?" Then you are either a) American b) straight c) dead or d) all of the above. For those of you who are not familiar with Ramsey Street, Neighbours is a loooooonnng running Aussie soap that British students and dole scroungers are addicted to. It's set in a Melbourne suburb and the story lines are preposterous, but it is practically an institution. Anyway, time to meet the cast. We have much hilarity and dance to Karl Kennedy's band until the word 'shame' no longer exists in our vocabulary.
The following day we hit the beach. Not much you can say other than that really. Went to the beach, lay there for a bit, swam in the sea, got out, listened to Manuel from Fawlty Towers narrating Jerusalem for the 6th time, still haven't got a bloody clue what's going on, or even which century we're in. But I digress.
On our second night in Melbourne, we met up with a friend of mine, who I haven't seen since I was 9, when she moved back to Australia. It was lovely to catch up and see her photos and hear stories about her family, and we were particularly impressed with the restraining influence on her two eldest boys that is Bruce the Elf in the run up to Christmas. Aft dinner, we get gelato and wander down to the end of St Kilda pier, where tiny little penguins come out to feed at sunset. Cute!
Melbourne mainly involves eating a lot of good food, as recommended by my brother - Bar Lourinha, Radio Mexico and Mr Wolf being particularly singled out for fabulousness. We also do a lot of lazing around by the pool at our hotel. We do gird our loins to go to Melbourne zoo, where we stroke friendly kangaroos, see deadly native snakes, and have beautiful coloured butterflies landing on us. The meerkats also provide an opportunity to add to my burgeoning collection of animals pleasuring themselves:
Before we have time to blink, it's Christmas Day, and we've bought each other presents so we have something to open. We go to church (a promise I made to Vicky in London) then hit the aptly named Victoria sparkling wine and head to the beach, where I have a little swim.
Before we are ready, we have to leave Melbourne for our next destination Sydney. I've already been twice, and loved it, and I hope Vicky will too. We arrive at a very reasonable time and have a few beers on the quayside.
We spend the following day at a beautiful beach near Watson's Bay, before heading out in the evening to meet my friend Gemma and her boyfriend Ed, who have also come out here to escape the British winter.
A spot of culture after all this beaching and barring is called for, so we take the tour of Sydney Opera House. It's pretty cool inside and our tour guide Sue is hilarious.
We then go our separate ways; while Vicks heads off to meet friends, I go and have lunch with Cobber Joe's Aunt Marie, who is lovely. She recommends going to the Museum of Contemporary Art to see the Anish Kapoor exhibition, so with a free afternoon looming, that's what I do. It's just unfortunate that I've recently been watching the Absolutely Fabulous episode where Eddie goes to buy some art, as the line "it all looks like bollocks, so it must be worth something" keeps going through my head, although its actually quite impressive.
New Years Eve dawns and we climb the pylon of the Harbour Bridge to take some pictures and have a sushi picnic in the Botanic Gardens.
In the evening, we head to the rooftop of a hotel near ours, where we take full advantage of the free bar, eat pies as canapés (does this happen anywhere else in the world?), snog a cute Sydneysider (me, not Vicky - sorry Mum), admire the fireworks, have cross words as a result of the free bar (our first fight!!!), then head back to the hostel, where we sleep, make friends again (like we weren't going to) before Vicky, who had the stamina of an ox heads out for the day and I eventually get out of the ball gown and sandals I've slept in at 4pm.
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