Oz

After a nice drive around Northland in the far north of New Zealand, we made our way to Auckland, to return Mandy our Spaceship and drop in for tea with Sally's mad Great Aunt. Auckland is a very small and quiet city, again abit like an English City, we took a trip up the sky tower and attempted to have another night out... Although it was Anzac day so that plan was foiled.

I had a nice 6 hour delay at Auckalnd airport (the airline kindly rang all the passengers to let them know not to come to the airport... apart from me and my new Swedish friend, who spent hours of fun working out how much food we could eat from the cafe with our 2, $12 food vouchers.

On arrival to Melbourne I frst thought it was very much like Manchester.... by now I have realised it is similar ..... but its 5 times better... even if it does rain just as much.
I took the free circular tram around the city, before meeting Brooke after work.

Brooke lives in Richmond, very close to the city and a very trendy area, abit like clapham in London. I had the best shower in the world and a nice double bed in my own room (it has been very hard to leave today.
It has been so nice to see the city from almost a living point of view rather than a tourists.

I took a day trip to the Great Ocean Road, stopping off at Bells Beac and various other stunning viewpoints. The highlight was the Koala alley place we stopped for lunch..... where there were cute little grey things in all the trees... some ever even quiet low down so I managed to get some good pictures.... I will put them on bugbitten soon.

After a walking tour of the city and a sneaky trip up the Sofitel for a free look at the views, Jess and Nat the other girls from Vietnam came meet me, and we managed to get free tickets to one of the comedy shows... as its the Melbourne comedy festival at the moment. We decided the show must be free for a reason so expectations were not too high. He was fairly funny if a little close to the mark, and the finale of taking his trousers off was a little strange!

On Saturday we had breakfast on the fashionable Brunswick street, before going up the Rialto towers to look at the view and then headed to the Italian area for dinner. Afterwards we went to the Crown Casino to watch the fire show and almost put the casino out of business.... taking away a full $7.50.

On Sunday we had a lazy morning and then saw Jess off back to Sydney, before heading to the Queen Victoria market to buy the ingredients to my creation for dinner (Mum's casserole) and then went for a hot chocolate to warm up.

Today I fly to Sydney... where apparently its sunny... time to dig the bikini out again!

Lots of love to all

Jen xxx