melbourne: our first few days down under

fresh faced and raring to go, our first stop in melbourne was to catch up with jam's lovely friend erin who has been in australia for the last two years and is now a well seasoned local. jam, my brother jon and i went for a couple of beers with erin to, the rather appropriately named, local to catch up and get the low down on what is hip and happenin' in the melbourne area.

that evening (saturday night) we had dinner out in st kilda with family where we even got to sample some of the local st kilda beer.

the next day (sunday) the sun was shining and, in search of some native animals, we headed down to healesville animal sanctuary where we were not disappointed. we saw koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, fruit bats, duck billed platypi, dingos and emus to name a few. we even saw a baby koala on it's mummy's back which was was totally the cutest thing ever.

these pelicans were managing to keep their cool in the glaring midday sun.

on monday making our way into melbourne city we made our way to the shrine of remembrance where we learnt about the history of this impressive building and saw an example of the remembrance ceremony with the light moving across the plaque in the centre of the building.

the views from the top of the shrine where rather impressive too.

whilst spending some time in the city we used the opportunity to take in some views of the river where we even spotted this cool little boat shaped bar under a bridge which was packed with customers having a post working day drink in the sun.

we took in the many lanes enjoying looking around the shops and the masses of graffitti art hidden in these little secret treasure trove lanes. we wandered around these for ages stopping for coffee (a multi fruit drink for jam) and some, rather excellent, banana bread while we were there.

we also stopped in federation square and went to the ACMI (australian centre for the moving image) where jam rather amusingly asked for directions from directly across the road ("well i could draw you a map?" was the helpful response). we have a week more in melbourne now where we will also be shortly undertaking a great ocean road trip in the next few days.