It was a slightly different cultural experience in the evening.

As I have mentioned, Melbourne is a very civilised city - the entertainment on offer is of the highest order. Just while we have been here, Paul Weller and Brian McFadden have been here recycling their back catalogues. Although what back catalogue Brian McFadden has I'd be interested to know. (Actually, I wouldn't.)

They weren't appearing together, I hasten to add. Tony Hadley (ex of Spandau Ballet) and Paul Young are around sometime next week and they are appearing on the same bill, this time recycling and reliving the 80s. I bill Tony Hadley (ex of Spandau Ballet) as ex of Spandau Ballet, not because I think you won't know who he is, but because that's how he is billed on the poster, just in case no-one else does. I notice Paul Young isn't billed as "ex Streetband, who did Toast, you know, a little bit of TOAST..."

Oh, and we just missed Sinead O'Connor. One can be thankful for small mercies.

In the musical theatre genre, they were holding casting sessions for Billy Elliot and the previously mentioned Shane Warne - The Musical opens soon. (Thanks to Tina and Chris who suggested its fictional similarity to "Shayne Ward - The Musical" which I guess, if it existed, would tell the embellished story of poor northern boy made X-Factor-Good. And would still be more entertaining than Brian McFadden.)

So we went to see Wicked...



...which was excellent on Broadway and was excellent here too.

In addition, here (because they're not Broadway, and the alternative was Brian McFadden) they had "Wickeded-up" the whole street with spectral green lighting in all the trees. Best of all was the "Ozmopolitan" - a sort of fluorescent green alcoholic slush puppie in a light-up plastic glass.

Of course I had one! I'm on holiday!

It's Saturday afternoon and it must be sport!

For some reason, this brings back memories of the Grandstand theme music (after Swap Shop) and Egg and Chips dinner.

Anyway, it's football, but not as we know it. First of all, it's played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (or MCG, not to be confused with McG, the film director).



This is explained away by the fact that the game of Aussie Rules Football arose out of an exercise routine for the cricket team, hence it still being played on a cricket oval.

It's quite good to go to your first match not having any idea of the rules, such that they are. This means you really have to pay attention to what's happening to work out what's going on, how the scoring works etc...



Not that this strategy works because, after watching, I still have only a remote idea of what it was all about, beyond the fairly obvious bits involving two opposing teams wanting to get the ball between posts.

In normal invasion games, the teams start at different ends of the field, but in AFL, they can start where they like. The ball gets chucked up in the middle and then it's shifted around fairly randomly, some of it involving violence and tackling - even if the player doesn't have the ball. You can kick it, chuck it at other people and catch it and run with it (so long as you bounce it every so often).

It seems if you catch it when you're inside the arc markings near the posts, you can keep it and have a kick at the goal. Knowledgeable crowds wearing appropriately coloured scarves cheered when someone did this, so it must have been good.

Here is my action shot...



...which, if you've seen my ice hockey photos, you'll know is about as good as it gets.

We won (allying himself with Melbourne and adopting Mitchell and Webb "We won the football" phraseology) even though we weren't expected to, and that's another cultural opportunity ticked off the list.

Time for a bit of a lie-in today and then spent the morning in and around Melbourne.

In a recent poll, it is apparently Australia's most "liveable" city and it's easy to see why. There are lots of parks, wide streets and quite a bit of regeneration going on. The riverside is particularly nice, even though the Yarra River is very polluted and they are trying to clean it up.

At Federation Square, they have built some new piece of tessellation masquerading as an arts centre...



...and a steady stream of visitors was ambling through to (not) spend hours looking at the Danish Book Fair (or whatever it was - something akin...)

There is the obligatory bizarre pedestrian bridge (viz Gateshead, Berlin and, Kevin McCloud, Castleford)...



...and some big, non-descript sculptures...



We had time to take the tram to St Kilda...



...which is a bit seasidey: it has those shops where you can buy flip-flops (thongs), a jaunty hat with a slogan, kangaroo scrotum cigarette lighter...



...and it has Luna Park, which contains one of those rickety wooden rollercoasters which looks like it was bolted together in the late forties by prisoners of war and has maybe been checked over for safety purposes at least once every ten years since then.

Lots of excellent places for lunch though! (Of which we only had time, and the stomach, for one...)

It was now about 4pm and I may have given up listening to the iPod by now, but I imagine it had reached something along the lines of "The Wreck of the Sloop John B".

For this was Shipwreck Coast (®) and there are three major things to see here. For now, anyway. This is because the coastline is as it is because of massive erosion of the sandstone by the relentless Southern Ocean on a big exposed bit that doesn't have the luck to be protected by Tasmania.

And so you get these massive stack formations where bit of land have been left as the cliff had tumbled into the sea around them.

The most famous is The Twelve Apostles...



...and you can guess what's coming - there are now only eleven because one of them had the temerity to fall into the sea. But hey, they only changed the name from "The Sow and her Piglets" a few years ago so that they didn't have a tourist attraction named after farm animals and now they've had the sings done, the maps printed, the helicopters painted...

It can only be a matter of time before another huge chunk of cliff disappears, probably taking a few hundred tourists with it, and they can have twelve again...

Next westward is Loch Ard Gorge...



...two inlets, one of which is protected by this (near to collapse, I should guess) lump of red rock. Apparently it looks like a question mark from the air. There are two ways to check this. One is to pay $$$ and make Jeff another small percentage by going on the ludicrously short helicopter flight. And the other is Google Maps...



Handily, the Google Maps high resolution photography extends just shy of the question mark in question, so it's either the helicopter of take Jeff's word for it... It's the bit where the shipwreck was anyway. The most famous one anyway - there were 85 over something like 60 years. (It was definitely that way round 'cos he said "that's more than one a year...") This one had a Titanic style rich boy/poor girl/other way round possibly love story attached to it where one saved the other and wanted to get married but the other one went back to Ireland and they never saw each other again. I'm inclined not to believe some of the stories told by tour guides.

Finally, and the most south and west I'm going in Australia, is London Bridge - another rock formation which looks like this:



However, prior to 1990, it looked like this...



A couple had just walked over onto the right hand bit when the first arch collapsed. Someone telephoned the police to say that "London Bridge had fallen down" and understandably, the police thought they were hoaxers and took ages getting there. In the meantime, the TV network helicopters had picked up the information on short wave radio and there was a big race to get out there. Several arrived to get the first interview, but none of them could rescue them because they wouldn't have been covered for insurance purposes - the married couple had to wait for the official rescue helicopter.

Unfortunately, it transpired that the married couple weren't actually married to each other. They were away on a little illicit getaway - and they had also pulled sickies from work. Not good when you have the helicopters from several TV networks hovering above you...

This was Jeff's story, so it could have had embellishment, although he did say that several weeks earlier, BMW had hired the land and their new range was lined up along London Bridge and shot from the air for a new advertising campaign. Trucks and cars and support vehicles had been driven over, parked, driven back again. Three weeks later, the arch collapsed...

As you head up into the trees, it's a quick stop to see where the koala (not bears) are causing environmental havoc by killing all of them. Apparently there are 537 types of Eucalyptus tree but koalas only eat three of them. (Or something like that, Jeff and Norm argued the point earlier...)

We saw plenty of koalas, but most of them had the good sense to keep just far enough back from the track so that tourists had to use the dodgy zoom feature of their digital cameras. Which is why what you see below might actually be a koala and might actually be a cuddly toy which someone put on a branch to fool Americans...



No, it seriously is a real life living koala and you can see more of my portfolio collection for the BBC HD Natural History Unit on flickr.

They had kookaburras and parrots too, but nobody was much bothered by them...



Back in the bus, we learned that for tourism and branding purposes, the Great Ocean Road is divided into three parts:

• Surf Coast
  
• Green Coast and
  
• Shipwreck Coast

By the time the iPod had reached "Weather with You", the rain had started on cue to remind us that we were high up in the rainforest. It was at this point that Jeff turned into one of those enthusiastic people off "Lost Land of the Jaguar" - sort of a cross between Steve Irwin (in fleece'n'shorts appearance...) and Scrappy Doo (in relentless enthusiasm...)

So, down the track at Mait's Rest...



Lots of ferns and unidentified noises, sunlight peering through high trees and things dripping on you. A babbling stream threaded its way downhill, unseen under the undergrowth. Many of the trees are 700 years old and the rainforest in this gully has only survived because a major forest fire jumped the gully many years ago.

It's like The Eden Project...



...but real.

If ever you're in Melbourne and you have a day spare, you should Go West and tour the Great Ocean Road...



The road is long... 243km and so is the tour. We were picked up at 7.25am and dropped off 14 hours later, so it's very good value. The first stop is the aforementioned Aboriginal Cultural Centre, then straight onto the Surf Coast...



At this point you begin to realise that the iPod linked up to the coach PA system is going to do more than play light background music. "Let's have some surfing songs!!!" enthuses Jeff, our driver. I will leave you guess what came next...

Anyway, onto the memorial for the men who built the road. It's apparently the world's largest war memorial, built in memory of the Australians who died in WWI.



In the photo below, you can see exactly how the road clings to the cliffside on this part of the road. Jeff seemed not to worry about operating the playlist on his iPod at the same time as (not) keeping his eyes on the road in order to play us...



...well, you would think "The Long and Winding Road", but Jeff is not that obvious... Any guesses?

First stop on the Great Ocean Road tour was before we even got onto the Great Ocean Road, near the very industrial city of Geelong.

The Narana Creations Cultural Centre is a shop by any other name. Yes, you can have a demo of a digeridoo. Ditto Boomerang and spears and emu callers. Then you get ushered through the shop and it's heavily suggested that you might take any/all of these things back home as souvenirs.



The fact that there's probably some percentage deal going on between the shop and the tour company to process a certain number of customers per day doesn't make me want to buy anything. Although didn't feel as pressurised as in the jewellery factory in HK. You could get Norm's CD if you wanted...



His obvious talent with the instrument cannot disguise the fact that there is no tune...

This is just in case you had forgotten...



May need to do a print out for when we hire the car...

(Although as it's the same as the UK, it might not be too much of a problem. Confess to being slightly worried by the "stay left to turn right" rule...)

Advance, Australia Fair!



If you can spot what's odd about the photo of the flag, you win a kangaroo.

Yes, I'm finally here and - Damn! - four months early to see this cultural spectacle...



Never mind, just have to make do with the views from the Rialto Melbourne 360° Viewing Deck...



Not quite the tallest building in Melbourne anymore - that's the Eureka Tower which you can see in the photo above - but still best for all-round views of the city and as far out as Port Philip and the sea one way and the Great Dividing Range the other. As always when I have my camera and I'm up a tall building, I took what seemed to be hundreds of photos, so if you have half an hour, they are on flickr.

Spent the day exploring the city, riding the free tram...



...looking at the modern buildings and arty street sculptures down in the regenerated Docklands area...



...getting locked up (by an actor, not a real policeman) at the Old Melbourne Gaol (spelled in ye olde way)...

...and drinking coffee.

I have only been here 24 hours and I love Melbourne.

It's a really modern, vibrant city, which still feels provincial. It has an easily walkable city centre grid of streets, great facilities, lots of places to eat and drink, fantastic public transport. It's clean and seems very safe (even after dark, which it is by 6.30pm).

People have said Sydney is slightly tacky by comparison. Will let you know.

By the way, if you get a postcard, it was posted here...



...55 floors up.

Northern coast, somewhere near Darwin.



Another four hours flying yet.

Yes.

It's that big.

14p well spent - went over on the Star Ferry from the island to Kowloon.



Actually, 28p, because we pushed the boat out and came back too. The ferries are very well designed, front-to-back symmetrical so there's no turning round necessary. They just plough back and forth across the harbour 16 hours a day, every few minutes.

Very touristy as soon as you get off, and the reminder that you are in the Olympic host country is ever present. Small cutesy characters advertise everything everywhere - so much so that it's likely that Hello Kitty is now the official emblem of Hong Kong...



Just a little further up is Nathan Road...



If you want a fake Rolex or sunglasses or luggage or anything with expensive branding but done on the cheap, this is your place. Much more Chinese, much less western. Fewer tourists, so those few get the full treatment, with traders virtually cutting your way off and chasing you down the street every few yards trying to get you to buy something.

If you wanted a fake Rolex as a present, you're going to be disappointed...

(Postscript: Didn't get Jackie Burton's recommendation of the Peking Restaurant at No. 227 until I was in Australia, so missed it. Will have Chinese takeaway in Oz to make up for it...)

Double-decker buses...



...everywhere.

When you only have a day to get your head around a city, it's best to let someone else take the strain of making sure you don't miss the best bits. OK, it would have been simple to attack a street map with a highlighter pen and dash round ticking things off, but this would have involved effort, and the advantage of the "Do Hong Kong in a Day" tour was that it came with built-in air-conditioned bus and a ten-to-the-dozen talky tour guide, Doris. (Actually, she may not have been called that, but for the purposes of writing about anything she did or said, it will do...)

First stop, up the Peak on the scary, almost vertical tram...



...which I was going to call "funicular", but it isn't, on the basis of there only being one. (You learn something every day...)



This is the other iconic view of Hong Kong...



...high up looking down, rather than low down looking up.

Both ways, you get confirmation of the way everything is packed in behind the water's edge and then clinging increasingly precariously up the mountain side.

Looking the other way, you get to see a bit of natural hillside that was too steep to build on and a snatch of the South China Sea...



(That shore line is also packed with high rise buildings - the tiny section you can see here is really the only bit which isn't...)

Anyway, not long here - over the hill to Aberdeen, which is another harbour surrounded by high rise government housing. You either live in one of those or you live on your boat...



...and then you go to work either fishing, or in the jewellery factory - part of the tour only so ludicrous Americans Canadians (see Twitter) can buy over-priced jade...



...or you try to flog fake handbags and Rolexes at Stanley market...



And that was just the morning...

This is what you get for carrying two tonnes of adapters around the world...



Yes, Hong Kong, you may be Chinese now, but some things are still reassuringly British.

Actually, I suppose we did. You can't really blame the Chinese.

Up on The Peak, some guy was hawking old black and white photos alongside a modern day colour one so you could play Hong Kong Spot the Difference. Quite developed in the fifties, but no real high-rise buildings... Now every square inch is packed with skyscrapers - office blocks...



...and apartment blocks (what the tour guide called "kissing apartments" - so close to each other, you could kiss the person in the neighbouring block...)



Before any buildings, you could imagine what the harbour looked like, sailing in, between the islands, it would have been steep, rocky hillsides, covered in forest. A real paradise. But now it's so dense...

On the plus side, you can walk between adjacent buildings and through their (thankfully air-conditioned) lobbies via covered, elevated walkways. You can get round most of the central business district like this - no-one seems to walk at street level.

After walking, the main way of getting around seems to be ferries across the harbour. The Star Ferries between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island cost HK$2 - the equivalent of about 14p. And as well as a public transport route, the harbour is a big tourist attraction. An evening cruise on a Chinese-Style Junk (pushing it, that description, really - it was a motorised, split-level boat with bar) means you can see what the city looks like as it lights up...



(*Note to self... consider travel plans more carefully when opting to go somewhere where it's hotter at 9pm than it ever gets during the summer in the UK...)

---

Lots more photos on