Marvellous Melbourne (Reasons to be Cheerful Part 2)

We are off on our Hidden Secrets tour and meet Melinda at the Time Out cafe in Federation Square. For the next 3 hours, we wander the streets of Melbourne with a small group comprising a Canadian couple, a German couple and an Australian couple, although they were of Chinese descent. The tour was really interesting, as Melinda took us down alleys that we would never think of walking along, into buildings that looked ordinary from the outside, but were really historical inside and showed us more graffiti that we had missed the day before. We learnt that the best and most exclusive restuarants were the ones down the darkest alleys; that ACDC have an alley named after themselves and that Melbourne was originally going to be named Batmania, after one of its founding fathers, John Batman. We finish the tour at a Peruvian restaurant, giving us a preview of the food we will have when we visit that country as part of this adventure.

In the afternoon, Diane has a 2.5 hour spa at the Savoy - she loved it, of course! Keith pops off to the MCG on a tour of the stadium. It's really interesting; the guide was a cricket enthusiast who had seen Sir Don Bradman bat in the 1940's. The ground holds 100k and is a really amazing stadium. And it was nice to see Sir Alastair Cook's name in bold letters as the overseas batsman with the highest test score of 244.

We meet up in the Savoy for a drink following Diane's spa and then head back to our new 'home', going by bus again. The motorhome is still there, feeling lonely without us we think, so we have a quiet evening in the van, cooking beans on toast and washing it down with a bottle of excellent Australian Sauvignon Blanc.