We arrived in Melbourne on 8th Jan to 18 degrees which was quite a shock from Perth's 40's! We'd had a brilliant flight with Qantas, and Steve kept saying that it felt like he was in the Truman Show because everyone was so friendly and smiley!!

We'd booked into a hostel in St Kilda, called the Ritz, which seemed nice enough... so we popped some washing on and went for a walk to scout the place out. Melbourne has a totally different feel to Perth. It's a much older city with alot of character to it. The trams, older buildings and cafe culture make it feel quite European, so we felt quite at home having been in London for so long. it's a really multi-cultural city too, which makes it feel very real and interesting.

We soon realised that our hostel, although well run, was party central...which in itself wasn't a problem, but after joining in on the first night and getting our first hangover, we didn't keep going like the rest of them and found ourselves spending more time away exploring the city rather than boozing it up at the hostel. We've become real bargain hunters and even Steve is asking for the cheapest deal in pubs!! I've never seen him question the price of a pint before but this is a whole new thing...

We love the city of Melbourne and the all the public artwork, and we spent alot of time taking it in - sitting in federation square, watching the street performers, visiting the gallery etc. We jumped on the free City Circle tram to rest our legs and saw the docklands area which is really nice too. We visited the Queen Victoria market which is huge and had a picnic with delicious fresh treats from the market. Steve spent alot of time checking out the fish and meat market. On Wednesday evenings there is a night market which we caught on our last evening. There is food from all around the world, really worth a visit.

We decided to head up up the Great Ocean Road for a few days, so we hired a car, and we were so glad to be leaving the hostel, especially when the others were all still drinking when we left at 11am 3 days later! The drive is amazing and we saw koalas and wallabies on the way. The views are fantastic, you just want to keep stopping at the lookouts to take it all in!! We stopped off in Apollo Bay and booked in at the backpackers there which was really cool - we got a double room in the adjoining cottage for the price of a dorm bed in melbourne which was a real treat, and we had access to the whole cottage - what luxury! There was a Chinese family that stayed in the other room and a lovely Brazilian couple next door, who gave us loads of tips about our trip up the coast. The hostel was run like a commune where you just put your money in the box for whatever you want, like internet or laundry, but it's all so chilled out with a real hippy vibe which was just what we needed after the party vibe in melbourne!!

We went for a drive in the evening and found a gorgeous spot called Shelley Beach/Elliot River where we spent the afternoon/evening on the rocks. There was nobody else around, and the walk down to the beach was amazing, through the forest, with views of the sea through the trees. When we came back to the car park we found a group of Germans setting up camp for the night - that will soon be us when we get our campervan!

We took a drive up to the 12 Apostles, which are spectacular, despite the flies!

There was a chilly wind coming off the sea, and the sea temperature was unfortunately pretty cold for the first 2 days, but by the last day, it was absolutely sweltering and we stopped for a gorgeous swim on a beautiful beach.

We got back into Melbourne in scorching heat - you could hardly even walk outside. The wind had changed direction, coming from the interior, and it was just about unbearable. We hadn't booked any accommodation, but were lucky to get the last room in a lovely hostel in St Kilda. We met some lovely people there, who were alot more like us, and so we spent a nice hot summer evening chatting over some more wine.

The next day we spent sorting out our onward travel and booked our overnight coach to Sydney as well as our campervan which we collect on Saturday to head up the coast in for 18 days. We left Melbourne having really enjoyed it, and it seemed like a great place to live and work. The beach doesn't live up to Perth's but Melbourne is such an interesting vibey city, it's definitely somewhere we could spend more time.

Next stop Sydney....