After a few delays and 2 hours on the plane before take off we eventually arrived in Melbourne at about 2 in the morning, luckily there was someone at the University to let us in. 
For all those who haven't heard the storey yet, Orla's great grand Uncle was a Chancellor of Melbourne University and Master of Ormond college, over the years was a generous benefactor and there is a library named in his honour, so when we asked for more information about his life and enquired about accomodation they very generously allowed us to stay as their guests in a wonderful apartment and offered to provide Orla some information on his life. We really felt like royalty arriving to a packed fridge with loads of cheese and some wine, especially good after not eating for 12 hours!!! Have to say this was prob the best start we had anywhere, the University is only a half hour walk to the city centre and it was great to have somewhere to dump our bags for yet another week.
It was great to see Deirdre and Danny again who as you can see from the photos haven't changed a bit and we got to enjoy some decent Melbourne pubs with them. We also met up with our NZ chauffeurs Philip & Helen, who roped us into a night of strangness at Dracula's Cabaret, but we really enjoyed it and only got the piss taken out of us a few times for being Irish!!!
The weather turned while we were in the middle of a picnic at the zoo and continued to rain for about 4 days, this was heaven for the locals who'd been having droughts for 4/5 years but us paddy's have seen enough rain at home that we don't need more on our holidays!! 
This was the start of Orla's birthday extravaganza and seeing the Kangaroos and 
Koalas was well worth the few quid. To avoid the rain we popped in to the biggest casino outside of Vegas we'
d ever seen, we only spent an hour or s
o there, it was jammed with drunken work partys betting their Christmas bonuses but we managed to leave with more money than we arrived with. Deirdre & Danny met us for some birthday Fajitas in the evening and managed to produce the worlds most annoying singing candle (thanks lads).
The next morning one of Orlas childhood ambitions was completed when we f
ound ourselves at 9 in the morning standing on the famous "Ramsay Street". We also vis
ited Erinsborough High and then headed on to Lassiters. You will see from the photographs Ronans lack of enthuasiasm (misspent youth watching sports programmes and transformers instead of Neighbours!!!). To make up for being dragged a
long on the Neighbours tour our net stop was the MCG for a cricket ground tour. The stadium was huge and the entire complex was very impress
ive, we even got a great view of the city.
Headed to a Christmas party in friends of Dee and Dannys which was great and put us in a proper Christmassey mood and they even had a real tree.
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