Melbourne & Ballarat

We arrived into Melbourne at night and my Uncle, Pete and Cousin, Philip greeted us at the arrivals. It was really cold in comparison to Fiji!!Pete drove us back to their house in Mount Waverley, in South East Melbourne.

We stayed at their house in Maureen Street for the next 10 days.During that time we went into Melbourne City a few times.We went to the Queen Victoria Market, which is on most days; we had to buy an umbrella because it started raining heavily.It rained a lot for the first couple of days, apparently the most rain they have had at this time of year for decades, great!!

The other times we went into the city we visited St Kilda and sat on the famous Acland Street enjoying lunch and a coffee in the many cafes Melbourne has to offer.On the way back from St Kilda we wandered across the Crown casino, had a little flutter but swiftly lost our money.

We went into the city one night to go back to the casino and have a better shot at the gambling.We went out for dinner at this place called the Golden Tower on Swanson Street, which Chris loves after having a really good lunch there a couple of days before.Then we went to the cinema to see 'Four Holidays', which I really enjoyed, don't know if Trav did though, because it is a proper girlie film.We went to the casino again after the film and again lost a lot of our money very quickly but then managed to get back on top, after I stopped giving my input, apparently I have the worse luck!

We visited Chadstone, a large shopping centre and got very lost in there, it is a really big shopping centre and it was a Saturday just before Christmas so it was extremely busy.

We also took Pete's car to Ballarat and visited Sovereign Hill and the Gold Museum, which was quite interesting.The most impressive part was the gold pour where they melt down a 3kg gold bar (worth $120,000) and then show you the technique of purifying and pouring it, as they did in the gold rush.

On another occasion we went into the city to visit Trav's friend, Spry, who is currently living in Melbourne and working in a restaurant.We met up with Spry, got some beers and went to his apartment.After several beers we made our way into the centre and went to PJ O'Brien's, an Irish bar (if you didn't guess!) in a complex on the side of the Yarra River.We then went to another bar, under a backpacker's accommodation, and had a few more beers there.We very nearly missed our last tram back to Mount Waverley and had to run (in a drunken state) all the way down Elizabeth Street to Flinders Street.

We borrowed the car again to explore Eastern Victoria and drove through the Dandenong National Park, it was a great sunny day and we got some amazing views from the viewing points over Victoria.We also visited Healesville Sanctuary and saw a variety of wildlife.