Melbourne, Australia

10 days in Melbourne have been an absolute ball! Christmas was spent with Nadia's family which was nice to spend the festive season with a family. For those of you thinking that Christmas day would be spent on the beach in front of a barbecue would be wrong. This year was the coldest Christmas on record for Melbourne, which for me pretty much felt like home! The day was spent like any other Christmas eating until your belly is about to burst, drinking and chatting. On Christmas Eve we even got a special treat when Santa came to deliver our Kris Kingle pressies!

Boxing Day in some ways was similar to home for the few times that I headed to Upton Park for a West Ham United boxing day treat. This year, we headed to The MCG to watch the 4th test of The Ashes. Kitted out in red and white & an inflatable hammer for any Australian that dared give me any abuse about the Poms being rubbish, I went along to the test match with an army of Australians in their patriotic green and gold outfits. The day was so much fun, and mainly consisted of drinking and chatting to all the friendly people sitting around us. The MCG holds 90,000 people, and Boxing Day being the most popular day was full to the brim with cricket and non cricket fans who were there just for a laugh and day of having fun.

By now, we are all aware of Australia's mighty thrashing and so the inflatable hammer came in quite handy! It was quite momentous to see cricket history with Shane Warne getting his 700th wicket, but apart from that my cricket watching only consisted of checking the score board every now and then, and then off to the bar for another drink! A great day had by all, despite the result!

The rest of my time in Melbourne was spent catching up with friends. Rebecca, Carly and Paul all took the time out to catch up and look after me. It felt like being back in London with them again.

For New Years some of us took off to Torquay, an hour away from Melbourne at the start of the Great Ocean Road. We spent the weekend chilling out, cooking up barbecues, cruisng a long the Great Ocean Riad to take in some sights and generally having a good time. We saw in the new year in a beer garden in town and managed to roll home around 3am. The best news of the night was a phone call from Rich and Kel in Thailand to say that I was gaining a sister in law! Yep, Rich popped the question on Phi Phi Island and from what I could tell Kelly was grinning from ear to ear! Congratulations bro' and Kell, I am so excited the whole of Melbourne knows...! I will definitely be celebrating for a long time whilst I am in OZ!

Off to Sydney tonight on and overnight bus where I will hopefully meet up with Caroline and Kelly, 2 Irish friends that we met in Brazil. I will come back to Melbourne in March after travelling the East Coast and the Northern Territory.