It was a totally british night. Held in a traditional British pub and full of british backpackers. I think there was one australian in the audience! But we met 3 of the cast members: Irish Connor, Dr Karl and Ringo. I was surprised I recognised 2 out of the 3 as one was very old from when I used to watch it, and Dr karl Kennedy has been in the show for ever so of course I knew him! We had a little Q&A session with the stars, they came round and we got our pictures taken with them and everything, then we had a quiz which was fun, but frustrating that everyone has their iphones and everything so you can't tell who won fairly as everyone was googling the answers :( cheats. Then Dr Karl's band came on and played a set for us. All british indie songs - Dr Karl put on a very dodgy London accent while singing them which was quite funny. It was a very fun night though - a good laugh.Tuesday night I went to a free comedy night in North Melbourne close to where my hostel is - I understand now why it was free. Wednesday, I went to a yoga class for the first time since being in Melbourne - the teacher was crazy. A bit like doing yoga with Mystic Meg... he got us all to lie down on the floor and started waffling on to us about what the month will bring now the moon is entering Taurus - I had to fight to keep a straight face :)
This weekend I went out on both days with my friends Catherine, who I worked with at Warwick back in the UK, her husband Chris and her friend Lucy. They hired a car which was a lovely bit of luxury for me! On the Saturday we headed out to Mornington peninsular, which is south of Melbourne. We went to the tip of the peninsular first to a place called Sorrento (first passing by Hastings and Rye!) where we had a lovely morning coffee and cake break with delicious cakes and vanilla slices! Then we had a walk along the beach and played on the kiddies playground. I really dont understand why swings and slides are just for children, they're so much fun! From there we bought some lunch and took it to Portsea a few kms away to eat lunch on the seafront.
After that, we headed to Cape Schnack lighthouse and had a walk along the coastline there, from there we headed onto a nature reserve with kangaroos. It was the first time I've seen kangaroos since I've been in Australia, I was beginning to think it was a lie that they're here at all... but I got to see lots of them so I was happy. They were in a field with bracken and some clear patches and we could wander along the path right through the middle of the reserve and watch them. There were loads of them there, it was nice to see. Towards the end, they got spooked and all hopped off together which was quite a sight to see. They're very well hidden amongst teh bracken and you can only see them when they're in a clearing or have their heads poking up, but it was amazing to see them all hopping over the bracken together!After that, we felt like we deserved some wine, so we went to one of the many vineyards in the area. we went to one called Darling Park that was very nicely situated. it was nice to see the vineyards at this time of year as all the leaves are changing colour and it looks very autumnal with lovely colours. We managed to wangle free tastings of all their wines :)
On the sunday we headed out towards the Yarra Valley to Healesville Animal Sanctuary which has all native Australian Wildlife. This was a really nice day and we got to see loads of animals and went to a few 'meet the keeper' sessions. I got to stroke lots of reptiles including a dragony-type lizard thing with spikes on his back, a python and a goanna :) I was very excited to see a Platypus! They're smaller than I was expecting, but very cute and move in the water in a similar way to otters. Interesting fact of the day: the females don't have nipples to feed their young, but instead secreet it out of their skin in a similar way to how we sweat - wierd huh?
We saw Lucifer the tasmanian devil being fed - I didn't realise they looked like that, similar to cats in shape, size and tail, but with a different face. We also went to the birds of prey and parrot show where they flew buzzards, a wedge tailed eagle and lots of parrots. The Wallabe was asleep when we went to see him which was a shame, but we saw pretty much all the other animals. We got really close to the koalas and one was feeling very active so we watched him for a while. And we watched some people feeding the kangaroos which was nice. There was also an animal hospital there that we could look round and we had a talk by a vet about a turtle who was run over by a car and who was recovering from a broken shell - poor thing. 
But perhaps the highlight of the day was not seeing all these amazing animals, but meeting the superhero of Healesville santuary. He was dressed up in a superhero suit with a toilet roll embroidered on his cape. On his utility belt, he had a roll of toilet paper and a sink plunger. On his front was the slogan 'wipe for wildlife' and the letters CM. Yes, I had met Crapman! His mission: to promote the usage of recycled toilet paper. Crapman was wondering around the sanctuary all day and there was even a picture of him with a hole for your face so you could pretend to be Crapman. And if that wasn't enough, you could treat yourself with a Crapman t-shirt in the shop on the way out! It was hilarious! After the excitement of meeting Crapman, we had to go for a beer to recover, so we went to the White Rabbit Brewery in Healesville to sample their stuff. A very nice way to end a lovely weekend :)
ps don't forget to wipe for wildlife!!
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