Melbourne

"We haven't got a plan, so nothing can go wrong" - Spike Milligan on TV last night.

Visited Melbourne today, via train for $AU6.70 - approx 3 quid. What a bargain! All day train/tram/bus transport for mot much more than a simple return in the UK on a dilapidated Delaine bus.

There's quite a lot of graffiti in melbourne, and not all of it is that bubble tag spray stuff, theres some pretty good stuff that makes you (well, me) go 'wow' a bit. Its a very arty place, with a strange mix of 80s skyscraping monolithic corporate headquarters, 18th century town houses and super modern artistic buildings made totally from tesselating triangles. Its much more interesting to look at than 95% of UK cities.

I arrived to a downpour, making me feel right at home and reminding me of ill-fated school trips to London in rain. I hid in a small gallery across the River Yarra (which 'flows upside down' on account of it's muddy content) about an Australian music icon Nick Cave, I think. Never heard of the guy, but he seemed to be a typical 80s punk icon who probably would have killed himself through sex, drugs and rock n roll. Either way, his stuff sounded like early Joy Division stuff.

The rains accended, I set about exploring and getting lost in a grid system full of roads called by very similar names. Stumbled upon a Chinatown, as you do, and laughed heartily at the mistranslations on some of the the shop signs.

Bit more window licking and I headed for the Old Melbourne Gaol, where the infamous Ned Kelly was incarcerated and later hung - to death!!! A lot of reading signs in cells, but interesting stuff, none the less. All 134 people hung there had a cast of their heads created after death; their eerie faces looming at you through the cell doors. On closer inspection, most of them had collapsed windpipes. Nice.

Guided tour of an old prison, including 'immersive' experience with you going through the place as a prisoner, which has been left exactly as the day it was decommissioned in 1994, including inventive graffiti and brown stains on holding cell walls. Good stuff, but just talking to an assistant about ghost stories was more interesting.

Going back there tomorrow, I'll hopefully get some pix from the highest place in the city...

PS Its been bloody cold and windy, and I was wearing shorts. And thanks for the replies to these blogs, I hope they're not too long and winding and long, but I keep on thinking of things before I stop writing...