Insanely lazy day today, anyone would think I drank too much the day before… in fact I will blame it on work requirements.

What I did do though was plan lots of stuff for the final two days I was in Aus. And I got Pizza…

Plan of action for today, Grampians, annoyingly every tour was full so it was a no go. Instead, it seemed fitting to meet up with Hastinio who I lived with at Uni. Lunch and a quick pint as ever turned into a couple of pints, then a couple of pints and a bottle of wine, then a couple of pints and a couple bottles of wine, then the gin started. Messy afternoon and evening, but brilliant fun!

Lunch was courtesy of Pugg Mahones, then we moved onto the Melbourne Rooftop Bar / Cinema before hitting Softbelly again.

Big thank you to him and his t’other half Duffinio.

Sorry for quitting out and splitting this post into two, fatigue kicked in and no more blogging was upon me. No I would like to follow on and continue after lunch. For the record lunch was Chicken Schnitzel (it’s a favourite over there so you have to try), it wasn’t bad and it was free with the tour package I had purchased so can’t complain.

Moving on from Apollo Bay we took a good hours drive to, and this is where it starts to get very good, the 12 Apostles. Now this was an incredible place, the views are breathtaking, simple enough this is a formation of rocks sticking out of the sea (one of which recently fell over). I will leave the pictures to do the talking…

Up bright and early thanks to some calls from the UK, thought about going back to sleep but instead went down to reception and asked if they could get me on a tour which started verrrryyyy soon. Basically I went to reception at 7:30 to get me on a tour starting at 7:45 from a few blocks away. Somehow they managed it.

And the tour, as I guess you have already twigged was the Great Ocean Road tour courtesy of ATP Tours. Twas pretty busy, which was a shame because it meant I had to sit on the right hand side of the bus, and for the entire day the Ocean was on the left. Ah well.

Let me start at the beginning…

How random is it the ways in which you find things to do… Went down to reception this morning to buy some more internet time and found a leaflet on the counter advertising the Melbourne Motorshow and today was the last day. I thought why the devil not!

So I went to the Motorshow at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, to be honest it was a little bit of a let down. It was set up more as one big car showroom for selling purposes rather than a hall with lots of crazy concept cars and prototypes etc. There were some highlights though, the F1 car (obviously as the first GP of the season is a couple of weeks away in Melbourne), there were also a lot of very attractive models fashioning the cars. Never have I come up with so many pointless questions to ask…

What a strike of luck! Had been planning on heading over to the MCG today for a look around, when looking into the tour I read something about not getting a full tour on event days so hoped that today wasn’t an event day… But it was, and that’s the luck, Victoria vs Queensland in the final game in the Sheffield Shield. The play was terrible, final day of a four dayer and Victoria were still batting in their first innings, got themselves up to 800 (no idea why) before declaring 500 runs ahead leaving no reason for Queensland to do anything but block out for 60 overs.

Photo show, as I realised I haven’t put many pretty pictures up for a while, here’s the view and excitement on approach:

Yay breakfast.

For lunch we went over to The Celtic Club, which appeared more like a members club or British legion than a bar but anyway they did good burgers.

The afternoon was dedicated to the MTUB (Melbourne Twitter Underground Brigade) meet-up in honour of STA Travel and Earn Your Stripes. We all met up at Softbelly (as mentioned here) and it was a great chance to share a few beers with some great locals.

After which we went for Chinese, got fed a lot of VERY strange stuff I had little idea about. I think there were prawn dumplings (where the dumpling had the texture of skin) along with custard puddings (as a starter). Some of it was brilliant, some less so.

A slight change to normal morning today, work then breakfast before a bit more work. Then went to meet Martin for lunch, we went down to the Mitre Tavern. As described its popular, took a good half hour to get a seat. However once we did, got the food ordered and it literally raced me, I hadn’t got back to the table before the food had arrived.

I had dinner, 4 chips…

Oh, and for those worried, no I didn’t die in the earthquake (being called an earthtremor here), did I even know it happened? No! Not like the UK one last year.

Similar start, breakfast then work…

In the evening I decided that Watchmen at the Melbourne Imax was a good idea, and I was right. It was a great idea! Shame there is no Imax experience footage for the film but the awesome screen made it worth it. I wont start posting spoilers for those that haven’t seen it don’t worry.

No dinner again… getting even weirder!

Good to see I am already falling behind in terms of write-up days. Day 1 I am counting as Wednesday, Tuesday was still travelling…

So what did I do? Got up as ever a good start, got breakfast at the hotel, not brilliant but adequate. Couple hours work, and then went to check out the Malls on Bourke Street before meeting Caroline at a funky little coffee bar called Pellegrini’s. Not at all strange, until she mentioned that the head of the Melbourne Mafia hangs around there all the time. I watched my back to say the least.

We wondered down to Softbelly, which you will be hearing more about on Saturday, popped in for a quick beer. Random chat with Lloyd who runs the place, just happens to have spent many years in the UK, Millwall fan!

Back to hotel and a bit more work before sleeping. No dinner, weird for me.