Melbourne and Canberra

The next morning I woke up feeling pretty groggy with a cold. We sorted out the parking and managed fix a space in the back garden so that was good. We had plans to go into the city and see various things, but we ended up lounging around most of the morning. We had to drive through the citylink toll tunnel on our way in so tried to sort that out, it's all done online now so I put all my details in and confirmed payment but got no email response. I left it at that for the time being. We took a little stroll into Richmond which was where we stayed, went to the supermarket and we were done really. We were both so tired and just took the day to rest up really. It was nice to be able to do that without being stuck in a hostel room. 

The next day I felt pretty ill but I dosed up and we had more motivation to go into the city. We still had a slow morning, and we took the dog out, as the guy we stayed with was at work. Around midday we walked down to the Melbourne Cricket Ground and then carried on into the city. We went over a bridge which had nice views of the skyline, it was a clear sunny day but there was a wind that was a bit chilly. We walked along the river for a bit and then got to Federation Square where various things go on, but a lot of things were closed as it was Sunday. There were Christmas trees everywhere and a childrens school choir on a stage singing Christmas songs, it was a bit surreal while it was a clear sky and blazing sun! We had a little wander, we walked up to Chinatown and past the Greek Precinct. Through 'Christmas Square' and up Swanston Street there were horse drawn carriages everywhere which was nice. We made it to Bourke Street and had a sit down for a while, it was taking it out of me with all the walking, it was fun to watch the world go by for a bit! We carried on up and and went through a few shops. Stopped for a McDonalds and then headed back to Federation Square to sit on the deck chairs they had put out. We sumbathed for a bit, there were lots of people about, some girls selling cupcakes which looked delicious, but I'd not long eaten, and then representatives of a smoothie company came round and were giving out free smoothies. We loved the city, there was a buzz about the place. We wandered back to the house by dinner time, and relaxed for the evening. 

Nice horse drawn carriages

Bit of a skyline and river

 In the morning we had plans once again, but ended up managing to lounge around all morning and took the dog out again. We wanted to go to St Kilda which was the beach out of town, and also get to the Queen Victoria market which closes by 2pm. We walked into the city again, on the way my nose just started pouring with blood. I had a few tissues on me but I looked like I had been punched in the nose the blood was just pouring down my arms so we had to get to a toilet quickly. We ended up spending a lot of time waiting for my nose to stop bleeding, which wasted more time! Eventually it stopped and we jumped on the free tram that did a loop round the city. It was 1.30pm at this point and by the time we reached the stop for the market it was way past 2pm, so we ended up missing it but never mind! The tram was good as it took you past lots of attractions and nice area of the city. It got pretty crowded though and I just felt so groggy so it wasn't the most pleasant experience for me. We did the full loop and went back to Federation Square again, and went into the AMCI exhibition of space and the moving image. That was a really impressive museum with lots of old techology, computer games, tv's, how animation comes together and everything. lots of hands on things and interesting information ,and all for free. We very much enjoyed looking round that, and then we headed back again. LA Galaxy were playing Melbourne Victory in football and there was mass hysteria about David Beckham being in Melbourne, so we thought we'd watch the game on the TV for the evening. I feel like I need to go to Melbourne again as we didn't do as much as I'd wanted to and spent most the time sleeping!

Railway station

We were up pretty early to get on our way to Canberra. We sorted all our stuff out, needed to make arrangements with Phil's Step Sister for Sydney again, get some Google maps and then go. Phil walked Tyson the dog while I jumped in a shower, and then I suddenly remembered about the toll road issue, I still had recieved no email confirmation. We'd have gone past the 3 days they give you to pay up after driving through, so we ran up. Phil spoke to a very grumpy lady who made us feel like idiots for not doing it right, she claimed it probably didn't go through if I got no email and should've rung straight away. Phil got grumpy back at her, and after we started to give our details to pay over the phone she suddenly seemed to know it all and ended up not even asking my name or anything, so we knew they had a record of an attempt to pay. Again, must have been a technical fault at their end, so she let us off the fine we would have got and that was sorted. We packed the car up for the last time, topped up on petrol and got on our way. It was a very long journey to Canberra, almost 8 hours. We got there about 7pm and checked into our last hostel, for the last night! It was a very lifeless place, no one was particularly friendly and they were all studenty types or adults. Which we didn't mind at all! We had our dinner and then went for a wonder round the city center as it was getting dark. Canberra is pretty boring but is nice enough, we got ourselves an ice lolly and walked down the 'City Walk' bit even though it was dead. We were approached by an old, pretty rotund guy, who was just standing in the middle of the path, and he asked us to help him out becuase he didn't get his pension for a while and was hungry. He was well dressed, and looked well fed. It was a bit creepy him hanging around there where no one was walking, and he looked a bit startled. Luckily we just said sorry and walked on with no problems. We went back to the hostel and pretty much hit the sack. There was a guy in our room who was a bit grumpy and had a go at a couple of people coming into the room who were talking. It was quite funny how uptight people were about the 'quiet time' rules in that hostel, in comparison to very other one we'd been in, but it was good. 

The same guy proceeded to whip the curtains open at the crack of dawn which probably woke everybody in the dorm because it was so bright, so a bit of a hypocrite there. Either way we didn't care and looked forward to checking out! We got up for breakfast, found the fridges apart from one had broken down in the night. All the hostel had done was stick signs up saying they were broken but left everybodies food in there to get warm. Lots of people weren't happy about it but the hostel didn't seem bothered. I moved our stuff to the working fridge, and then we witnessed a girl who either had milk that'd gone off, or just didn't have any, steal someone elses milk to make her breakfast with. Probably what that person did when they took my juice from the fridge in Wellington. I thought that was disgusting and wanted to go up and say it was mine to scare her, but I couldn't be bothered and again, just looked forward to checking out and not having to deal with that sort of thing again! We did so, and off we went to Sydney, via the Grand Pacific Drive.