Welcome to the Zoo

The Australian winter had taken a savage turn for the worse, the temperature last night dropped to a biting 11 degrees and some days it was only just reaching 23 degrees. Here's me enduring another inhospitable winters day over here. Hows the rain guys?



By the way that wasn't the ice cream I ordered but I didn't really mind. I was looking at that one when I ordered thinking what the hell kind of flavour is that.

Today I was going to Australia Zoo, it was set up and run by Steve Irwin's family. In death Steve had transformed from national embarrassment to the Australian answer to John Lennon. For those of you unfamiliar with his work here is him doing a very tame show (for him) at the zoo.



It was by far the best Zoo I had ever been to, but the tour left us there for 6 hours which is a very long time to stay at the zoo, here are my photos. I'm all proud of myself now, having actually done a tourist thing.

Australia Zoo

I have been offered the job, but have decided not to take it, I really preferred Melbourne so as the worst traveller in the world ever I am going to return next week to the only other place in Australia that I have been to. I've given myself a week here to tie up a few lose ends and maximise my return on dating time invested.

By the way I'm in Melbourne Australia

D'oh not quite sure how I had made it to the 5th entry of my travel blog without mentioning where I actually was.

I guess I'm more self absorbed that I realized ... I haven't started actually looking for work yet but I've had a shave and opened a bank account which where two good steps on the ... sorry started again, enough about me here's the low down on Melbourne Australia.

You can see all my photos at http://www.mbain.net/

Melbourne was founded on the 30th August 1835, it has a population of about 3.7 Million people and takes up about 7700 km² giving it a population density of 480 people per square kilometer (London has 3172 per square kilometer). What this basically means is that there is a lot of people here but its not very crowded. The main upshots of that being that being that's its easier to move around as your not constantly bumping into people and its a lot quicker to get a drink in a bar (about 6.60833 time quicker)!

Now being English I have no choice but to talk other than to talk about the weather. Australian Winter here is pretty much like English Spring/early Summer. Also in Australia as a backpacker you can adjust your temperature by just moving up or down the country.

Australia seems to have good relations with the Irish, you can tell by the large number of Irish pubs and that there are still lots of rubbish bins littered throughout the city even in the train stations.

Another thing that seemed odd to me, was that in the super market nearly all the produce was from Australia. It looked very slightly more beaten up here than produce you would see in a UK super market but it tasted better.

I'm sure if I was a better travel writer I would tell you about how I had travelled off the beaten track and discovered the real Melbourne. But I'm not. I'm me ... all I've done is wonder around a bit find a few bars and talk to people. If any of you guys know stuff I should be doing seeing here please let me know. I'm here as a social experiment more then a travelling trip and really appreciate any tips.