The Longest & Saddest Thursday Of My Life

So here we are back home, safe and sound.

Having left Melbourne at 11.50am their time, we then arrived in Auckland at about 5ish (NZ time), then boarded our next plane headed for LA at 11pm on Thursday, arriving in LA at around about 1.30pm (their time, still on the Thursday)... we travelled back in time!

From there we got to London this morning at about 10.15am, having circled the area several times (which made me feel very ill) due to the heavy fog. Basically, we managed to get back just over 22 hrs later than we left, even though we were on planes/in airports for about 34 hours - clever 'eh?! I'm very confused I have to say. I've had 3 dinners on Thursday 8th December, and 2 night times, it's all very bizzarre!

The flights were all fine, a bit long, but at least this time I had a personal TV unlike my flight out. Unfortunately I did manage to break the thing shortly before we were due to land in London!

Anyhow, having said hi to my folks, I am now ready to go back to Melbourne - could someone check the next flight for me please?! Sorry, obviously I have also missed all my other family & friends, but right now I am sat here with a hot water bottle as I write this - I miss Australia! I'm sure we could convince the Ozzie government to change the laws and allow us all to go live there... although the water shortage may not live up to it. Hmm.

Right then, apologies for babbling (nothing changes 'eh?), but this was mainly to let you all know I'm home. I'm sorry I never got round to emailing anyone more personally, but I figured it would only be duplication of this blog.

As this is probably going to be my last blog entry, I just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who's been reading the page and kept me amused with the various comments along the way - and thank you for keeping them reasonably clean too! I hope you will find something else to fill the void that I've no doubt will be left in your lives now that I am home and not writing any more entries.

Until the next big adventure, G'day, Goodbye and Goodnight.
Take care m'lovelies
Love, Peace & Jelly Babies
Wobblepop & Weezer
xXx

P... P... P... Pick Up A Penguin

Actually don't, because you'll scare the little blighters - they get scared by cameras and everything else it seems too.

It was difficult, but I do believe the Penguin Parade nearly beat Neighbours in the 'best trip' stakes. We headed out of Melbourne yesterday afternoon, via a wildlife sanctuary that primarily looks after Wombats. They're funny little creatures, I thought they were so cute, but they actually have a really mean side to them that I didn't know about (they only use it for defence though) - I'll explain when I get back if anyone's that interested, but I'm sure you'd much rather hear about Neighbours!

Anyhow, after the Wombat park, we went off to a beach on Phillip Island. Phillip Island apparently reminded the settlors of the Isle of Wight so it has many places named after there, such as Cowes & Ventnor. It was very strange seeing the road sign that had Melbourne and Cowes on the same sign! We ate dinner in Cowes but it reminded us more of Lepe Country Park. I have to say, I don't think the people who named it could have studied the IOW too closely as it didn't remind me much of the place, and they had no Chale or Wight Mouse Inn - what's that all about?!

Anyhow, onto the main event as I've just realised how little time I have. The penguins were soooooo cute. I thoroughlly reccomend them to anyone! We saw them making the little trek up the beach and getting so tired in the process. And yet it's mating season, so as soon as they've made it back home, they have to go to their 'business' - now that's dedication!

Right, I'm off now as nearly out of time. See you all in a couple of days.
Byeee
xXx

PS. If any of you come to Melbourne, you have to do the 'Go West' tours - they're definitely the best! Thanks Martin for your recommendation.

Excited by Erinsborough!

So we finally made it to Erinsborough!!!!

Poor Louisa, she pretends she's not interested, but I could tell she was gutted we didn't get to see the studios. I tried to explain it's because Neighbours is real life and therefore we see the real houses of Susan, Paul and 'The House of Trouser' etc, but she clearly wasn't impressed. I don't know why!?

So yep, we went off to Erinsborough High School (for some reason, the sign for the school was in our oh-so-cheesy-but-I-loved-it-anyway Neighbours Tour Bus, I'm not sure why - anyone would think it was just a prop), then we headed off to Ramsey Street - WOO HOO! Again, the street sign was in our bus and for some reason the name that appeared at the end of the quaint little cul-de-sac was not Ramsey Street, but rather Pin Oak - what's that all about?! I figured they must have to do that to protect Harold and co. from the constant harrassment they must get.

After the spectacular tour of Erinsborough and the surrounds, we then had the exciting Trivia evening which I can just tell Louisa was even more ecstatic about! We met Paul, Lilijana (who isn't in it here anymore - confused!) and Max. Unfortunately Doctor Karl and Toadie were both in England, but Karl will be back there this coming Monday - Ash, you don't mind if I come back to work a couple of days late do you??

Unfortunately, the trivia quiz wasn't solely based on Neighbours, so I was a bit unprepared! But we were on a table with 4 Australians (dragged along by 1 British girl!) who were quite relieved to be able to answer the general knowledge questions. Sadly, they put our local knowledge to shame by knowing more about our country than us! However, we did ok, we came 2nd out of the whole pub and lost out on $200 by 1 point - not bad methinks (Claire & Mark, don't get too excited, I did my usual contribution of answering about 2 questions).

So today we're off to see the Cutsie Wootsie Ickle Penguins. I'm not sure how they'll compare to yesterday, but I guess I'll have to go take a look anyhow. Another tough day ahead!

Oh, but I forgot to mention - it was sunny ALL day yesterday - it never rains in Erinsborough. However, it's back to the rain today and we've got to go spend the afternoon/evening out in it waiting for the penguins. I'm sure it'll be worth it... hehe!

Can't believe I leave in less than 2 days now. :'(
Hey ho, see you all very soon
Take care
xXx

The Long and Winding Road

Well, we've finally made it to Melbourne, the last city in our trip :(

So, since I left you last, we have been to the Home & Away beach and Summer Bay and were lucky enough to see some filming... unfortunately I don't watch it and England are quite behind Oz, so poor Louisa and myself weren't too sure what was going on, but we did recognise one of the characters, Kim. No Alf though, how dissapointing! Palm Beach was a very windy place, but at least it stayed reasonably sunny for a short while!

We also took a trip to Manly (which was on the way, but we took another trip later in the week to meet up with Louisa's family), took a wander down Manly Beach and just had a chilled out evening around the area. It's a hard life but someone's gotta do it.

The day after Home & Away we took a trip to the Blue Mountains. Wow, what fantastic scenery... well, I'm sure it would have been had we been able to see much of it! Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy and rainy, so we didn't get to see the 3 Sisters, it was more like 1/4 of them, but hey, it was worth the journey anyway. We had a very traditionaly Ozzie tour - about 2 Ozzies on it, nearly everyone else was from the UK, including the driver! Although he had been in the area for 23 years so we let him off. Due to the weather, we didn't get to see the 'blue' thing going on, but that didn't spoil it. We even went on the world's steepest train, that was a bit of a strange experience.

On our last day in Sydney, as well as Manly we also took a trip to the Botanical Gardens to see the lovely Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge. They look much better side by side - it's pretty difficult to get them both in the picture from the city, so we took the 10-15 minute stroll through the gardens to get the proper feel of Sydney. Unfortunately I did witness a savage attack on the way through... 3 cockatoo's going after a bloke!! I'm guessing he had food or something that they wanted. As well as those, we saw some other exotic birds, plus some bats in the trees (hope you're reading this Martin!).

So on Friday we headed for Melbourne. We decided to fly so we could make the most of our time in Melbourne. Friday was a bit of a non-event due to the very early morning! But we did take a little look around the (wet) city. We then booked our tour for the Great Ocean Road yesterday. As the title suggests, it was a pretty long and windy road, but it was well worth it. We left at 7.40 in the morning and returned about 9.30 in the evening. In that time we saw Bell's Beach, the Round the Twist Lighthouse, the 12 Apostles (although one fell down recently so now there's only 13 - go figure!), plus London Bridge and much, much more. London Bridge didn't look quite like the one we know and love, but it was much better (although not as practical seeing as half of it had fallen down). We also saw loads of other little bits along the way, including KOALA's IN THE WILD!!!! We'd not seen these in the wild yet so that was VERY exciting. We were even privelledged enough to see a baby koala. Unfortunately the pictures are running out on my camera (again) so I didn't get as many photo's as I'd have liked.

Tomorrow we are headed for NEIGHBOURS BABY! The highlight I've been looking forward to all this time... let's hope there's some people I recognise still as I believe half of them have been killed off or left recently, and probably the other half are in England in Panto!!! We'll see. Then it's off to the Penguin Parade on Phillip Island on Tuesday, I'm looking forward to that. Sadly our adventure ends on Thursday, but I'm sure I'll be in touch before then to gloat about all the Neighbours stars I've made friends with! Although I've been advised to steer clear of Jelly Belly (sorry Nic).

Hope you're all well and looking forward to Christmas.
See you very soon, take care
Love, Peace & Jelly Babies
Me
xXx