To Melbourne with Virgin Blue

Virgin Blue. No not the name of the latest book that I am reading but the low budget airline that has been operating in Australia for four years. It would take the same amount of time to fly from Sydney to Melbourne as it would Gatwick to Tenerife. However the difference was that unlike going from the cold of Gatwick to the sun of Tenerife , I was leaving the sun of Cairns to get a cold in Melbourne. It had been twenty seven degrees the day we left. It was fifteen when we landed. Virgin Blue is similar to Easy Jet or Ryan Air. Its no thrills. You appreciate this no thrills approach when you sit down and realise that you will have to pay for a cup of water. This has to be purchased from the 'extras' menu. The entertainment was six radio stations. Of course to enjoy the music you had to purchase a set of pink headphones for a cost of two dollars from the 'extras menu'. Whilst they were demonstrating the emergency procedures I was expecting them to say "And for those of you who have purchased the additional life jackets and oxygen masks from the 'extras menu' please pay attention, the other cheapskates can just die".

The airline did provide something for free. A screaming baby. As with most flights I always had the knack of sitting right in front of the adorable little creatures. And like with most flights I spent the entire journey bracing myself for a projectile of yellow vomit to come over seat 18b. I spent the rest of the flight with my pink headphones listening to to station six, 'the latest banging tunes from Europe' according to the leaflet. It was not by choice. The German hardcore techno seemed to be the best at volume setting 24 at countering the scream behind me.

The taxi driver at Melbourne airport looked at us as if we had just asked him to drive us to Perth two minutes before his shift was due to finish. Maybe that was understandable. All we knew was that we had booked a YHA in Melbourne without knowing which street it belonged to. It was one thirty in the morning so we asked him to drop us off in the middle of the city instead. The place was deserted. Using a crumpled map at the bottom of my bag we trundled off for the forty minute walk to the YHA on the outskirts of the city. The night porter quickly confirmed my ever increasing stereotype of hostel night porters. His face looked like we had just banged on his door in the middle of the night and asked for a mug of hot chocolate whilst putting our muddy trainers on his brand new cream carpet.

This YHA was the sort of place that reminded me of Geography field trips, the sort of place that was built in the seventies and never touched since. And just like my Geography field trips there were scores of fifteen year olds talking in the corridor in their pajamas.

It was two am and I needed to find a venue that screened the football. I spent the next six hours in a pub surrounded by strange people and sitting next to a foreign person. He had the amazing ability to speak perfect English when England were winning but would suddenly speak fluent Portuguese as soon as Portugal scored. Very talented.

Melbourne International Backpackers. The name itself was enough to put you off. The twenty dollars tariff was an even greater indication that this was'nt going to be the hilton of backpackers. This hostel was different than the others. It actually managed to be colder inside than outside. Remarkable. The four bedded dorm of 310 also managed something else different. It managed to be colder in the room than the corridor outside. I have learnt that the Aussies have a great sense of humour. This was demonstrated by the extra fan in the room in substitute for any kind of heating. The room smelt as if someone had put six pairs of damp pants on the bed and left them there for two weeks before our arrival. Actually their were four pairs of pants drying and two pairs of socks. They were laid out more in habit than effect. The room was so cold that the clothes never actually dried, if anything they got damper.

Melbourne is a grand and intelligent city. I could tell it was intelligent as people bumped into you on the street. They were thinking so hard as to try and avoid a collision that they forgot how to walk and would bump straight into you. The weather also made the people look more intelligent. Somehow the scarves, long over coats and mittens looked better than the torn shorts and vested people of the north. There were decent museums, art galleries, numerous outdoor cafes, grassy fields, riverside shops and streams of witty conversation flowing at the lights.

The intelligence of the city was questioned when I stopped and observed the local traffic. To turn right in Central Melbourne you have to get in the left hand lane and cross over the right lane traffic. This is called a 'hook' turn. The theory is this allows the trams to move more freely in the city but to it looks completely bizarre and dangerous. First of all you have to go against your instincts and get in the left hand land lane to turn right. Then you signal that you want to turn right. The next step is to look to the left for cars, straight on for trams and then over your shoulder for passing right hand lane traffic. Incredible. Incredibly stupid. The trams themselves are certainly an interesting aspect to the city. My first encounter with a tram was when I was not intending to board it. Melbourne consists of four lane roads, two lanes for each direction. In the middle of these lanes is a sizable gap where pedestrians can wait whilst attempting to cross the road. Or so I thought. In fact it is the tram lines. As I waiting for a gap in the traffic I was greeted by a large hooting sound - I was standing on the tram line with two of them advancing from opposite directions.

If I can'y beat the trams I thought, I will join them. The tram queue is in the middle of the street. The trams have numbers but's that's all. How anybody could tell the difference between the 63 and the 82 was beyond me. There is nowhere to pay so you just jump on. Then you realise there is no guard. The only way you can pay your fair is via the ticket machine located in the centre of the tram. Which is fine as long as you are not standing down the end with thirty two people squeezed in between. So you fight your conscious. 'I could not pay even if I wanted to' I thought. Despite this inability to pay I still felt guilty. It was the sort of guilt I had when I was standing in the express '12 items or less queue' only to discover that I had 13 items. I would debate with myself 'Do two bananas count as one item or two if they are attached together?' whilst I knew Mrs Brown behind me had already found me guilty of have one item too many. And just like standing in the express queue I decided to do nothing and keep quiet, just get off at the next stop. That's because that's what you have to do on a tram. There are no signs telling you where you were. You got off where most people get off and got on where most people got on. Maybe I was just being dumb in this intelligent city.

"What's did you say your name was mate?" said the driver as he peered towards the back of the coach. "Err Jamie" came the reply. "No I mean Paul, Simon rather". Unbelievable. We had been on this coach for only ten minutes and already people were jumping on to take the piss. Maybe because the bus was bright blue and yellow in colour. Or maybe and more likely it was because it had 'Neighbours' splashed across the side in huge letters. We had found ourselves on the official Neigbours tour bus. By accident of course.

As the bus creeped around the busy commuter streets of Melbourne at 9am that morning I could'nt help but feel we were on a special bus for special people. Stare they did. Some people laughed, other pointed and giggled. The cars that drew up beside us at the multiple traffic light stops peered in and laughed even more. For on the monitor was the 'Locomotion' song performed so admirably by the then curly haired Kylie Minogue. We were watching the Neighbours DVD soundtrack - along with Marg in the tram opposite and Stevie in his suped up Holden. I knew how goldfish felt now. I only wish I had their two second memory. We arrived at
Ramsay St. This was the reason that we had paid the thirty five dollars after all. "Na, can't go down there, they are filming today" said the orange jacketed security guard sat at the end of the road.

We could barely make out a microphone and a coated lady who the girl at the front enthusiastically said was Lyn Scully. So we stood there for the next thirty minutes at the end of
Ramsay streetand watched people drink cups of coffee. It was as frustrating as waiting thirty minutes in a Tesco supermarket queue only for the the lady in front to suddenly start looking for her purse and taking her over filled handbag apart (Whilst the men start to guess the amount and prepare for the bill with a combination of notes and coins the woman who has been staring into space for the last twenty minutes then proceeds to look as shocked as if the teenager scanning the food is asking for her phone number, not the bill). Things were looking a little better.

The bus was going to the studios where all the inside filming was done! Well actually this included a drive by of the large concrete building in question, no-one was allowed inside. As the bus drove away we did manage to catch a glimpse of the tip of fur tree actually outside Lou's place! And when we thought it could'nt get any better the coach driver slowed down so we could see the actual bench used in filming the park scenes! With the excitement of the morning nearly over we trundled back on the coach watching the episode when Todd got run over crossing the road. What a better way to finish the tour but watch Todd go into cardiac arrest after saying "You're so beautiful" to Phoebe. A classic comical moment in soap history.

When the excitement of the day was beginning to fade we suddenly remembered. We were going to 'Meet the Neigbours' night. Four years previously a man called George Josevski decided if you squeezed two hundred and fifty people in a pub and brought along a couple of people from Neigbours you could make a quick buck. And making a buck he is. At thirty dollars a go you don't have to be Stephen Hawkins to work out that this is a money spinner. As well as purchasing the over inflated priced drinks from the overly tacky bar staff you can also purchase a 'Neighbours' pen, a 'Neighbours' cap or a 'Neighbours' t-shirt. Even if people were interested in purchasing one of these special items, the pub would have to be empty before anyone would part with their cash with nobody looking. Lyn Scully and Toadie held a question and answer question. And the the final duty for the 'stars'. They had to pose for two hundred and fifty photos. And so we left. Early. I staggered into the fresh air, feeling suddenly queasy and largely incapable. If only Lyn Scully knew that my tongue was in her ear whilst the camera flashed.