Fine, I'll go to Palm Beach if I Must!

Spring is well on its way over in Sydney and every day that I'm able to wear my thongs (I'm not only learning the lingo over here but I'm also using it in day to day life) without my toes freezing off, I plan a trip to one of the many many beaches the New South Wales coastline has to offer.

I'm a sucker for a good beach day and I'm one of those crazy Brits that loves to run into the ocean as soon as the outside temperature gets past 20 degrees...which incidentally has been a regular occurrence throughout the "winter" here so I've already explored a lot of the coastline.

With this in mind, it was inevitable that at some point I would eventually swallow my pride and head on up to Palm Beach which is where The Other Soap is filmed. However, you'll be pleased to know that I dressed for the occasion and wore my Scott and Charlene for this outing as a very subtle protest.

Dancing on the beach in my Scott and Charlene t-shirt

Palm beach is actually a suburb about 40 km north of Sydney on a beautiful peninsular so I had to take a ferry (they are part of the public transport network here which is pretty damn cool) and then quite a lengthy bus journey up the coast afterwards to reach it but it was so worth it!

There are several different beaches dotted around the place and I made my way to all of them. As someone who hasn't watched Home and Away since it got axed from ITV (I know I know, I am the worst kind of hypocrite) I wasn't entirely sure what to look out for in terms of filming locations but I amused myself by being a rebel and writing rude things in the sand...

My dirty protest!

Beautiful views over looking one of the beaches

Because I'm such a huge fan of the show I originally thought the building pictured below might be Alf's Bait Shop...until I actually reached Alf's Bait Shop and realised how foolish I had been to think that!

I originally thought this might have been Alf's Bait Shop...

...until I found this sign further on...

...and then got to this television-ready building and felt like quite the fool!

After that I climbed up to the lighthouse which I assume must featured on the show. The panoramic views from up there are absolutely breathtaking and I really wish I had a better camera to do them justice.

One lighthouse

looking back onto the peninsula

So much ocean! 

After my decent I went to the beach on the eastern side of the peninsula which I think is where most of the beach scenes are filmed. The sand on that side is really red and sticky (it's an absolute bugger to wash off) as opposed to the western beaches where the sad is white and your feet sink ankle deep with every step you take.

This is the most Summer Bay shot I could possibly hope for

More filming locations...

...with more opportunities to take photos of me standing outside them wearing inappropriate clothing! 

All in all, despite the obvious massive flaw to this beautiful place, I utterly adored exploring Palm Beach (as a fan of beaches and ocean scenery, not as a fan of the rival soap) and I'm very glad I got over myself and made the effort to go.

The one thing that impressed me more than anything was the fact that you could actually buy quite an extensive range of Summer Bay related merchandise from inside Alf's Bait Shop, which then made me sad there is no Neighbours equivalent other than the very feeble attempt at merchandise Bunyip Tours has to offer...get onto it Erinsborough Council, we need official merchandise god damn it!

Shipping Container Exhibition (and other exciting things at the National Maritime Museum)

Darling Harbour is fast becoming one of my favourite places in Sydney. By far the most exciting part of the area is the Maritime Museum full of walk-on ships, submarines and I kid you not...a free shipping container exhibition comprised of six different themed shipping containers exploring the history of how containerisation changed the world...needless to say, I am now heavily clued up on the history of transporting goods on a global scale!

I can just picture Finn and Bea walking around here before they moved to Erinsborough with Finn coming up with his dastardly plan to get revenge on everybody on Ramsay Street and lock them all in that shipping container in the middle of the bush!

It turns out my Uncle Malcom is the founding father of the shipping container and is indirectly responsible for imprisoning of Susan, Elly and Bea!

Did someone say "pineapples"?

Not only are there shipping containers galore at the Maritime Museum, you can also have a guided tour around a replica of the Endeavour (the ship that Captain Cook sailed sailed away in on his Aussie adventures) AND far more excitingly...a cargo ship called the James Craig, which originally was called the Clan MacLeod.

I definitely think this would have been a much better boat for Hamish and Louise [McLeod] to steal than the broken piece of junk belonging to his ex lover's ex husband! Just think about it, there'd be no engine to restore, he wouldn't have had to come up with a ridiculous and convoluted plot to get his bastard son on side just for it to all backfire and ultimately piss him off so much that he decided to twat him over the head with a gnome AND Louise would have a bell WITH HER NAME ON!!! 

The James Craig, formerly the Clan MacLeod...moored up right next to the [Lou] Carpentaria!

Ding ding, all aboard the Nurse McLeod!

However the actual most exciting thing in the whole museum wasn't remotely Neighbours related at all* (it may come as a shock to you but I do also have other interests) in the form of a temporary exhibition all about James Cameron's love of the ocean which included many props from Titanic! It was very very difficult to walk out of that place without buying my very own Heart of the Ocean in the museum shop but somehow my will power did not let me down which is a relief because the decent quality ones (ie the non plastic ones) were extremely expensive for something I would have eventually felt an overwhelming urge to fling into the ocean at some point in my life.

* I say it has nothing to do with Neighbours but I do know Toadie is quite partial to a bit of Titanic 

Dessine moi comme une de tes filles Françaises! (excuse my terrible Google translation)

Yes, that is the real Heart of the Ocean and other items from Rose's dressing table

There are obviously lots of other exciting things at the museum, both inside the main building and all around the harbour (which is utterly stunning) and I highly recommend checking it out if you're ever in the area. Go to their website for more info.

My Very Small Contribution to Neighbours Wedding History!

Just over three months ago on Neighbours there was an absolutely gorgeous scene between David and Aaron at the beach where they both proposed to each other with engagement watches. A week after that aired on our tellyboxes I received what will go down in history as the most exciting text message of my life...an invitation to come back to the Nunawading Studios to work as part of the Neighbours Art Department for a couple of days!

I was planning to head on over to Sydney that week but obviously I cancelled all my existing plans because this is what my whole entire life has been leading up to, an actual real opportunity to make a small contribution to the show that has given me so much joy and laughter for as far back as I can remember.

I rocked up at Reception where I was greeted by the lady who had looked after me so well the previous time I was there. She told me they had asked me in because they needed an extra pair of hands to help set up for a wedding...as in THE wedding...as in David and Aaron's wedding...as in the first EVER same sex marriage that was going to be broadcast on an Australian drama since their government finally got their shit together and legalised it!!!

To say I was absolutely over the moon to be a part of such a historic piece of Neighbours history was putting it mildly and I was soon putting up fairy lights and festoons around the Pavilion which was where the ceremony took place.

I also made up lots of little boxes of wedding favours which comprised of the most delicious datey ball things I've ever tasted (I may have tried one or two of them as there were far too many compared with the number of boxes available. FYI, this is without a doubt the best perk of working in the Art Department...on one film I worked on, the entire Art Department had many a sit down banquet made up entirely from the left over food props that had to be eaten up before they went off!)

Day two involved blowing up hundreds and hundreds of balloons...well technically there was a machine to do the blowing up part but my poor little fingers had very little skin left on them by the end of the day due to the fact that nobody has invented a balloon tying machine yet! We made two balloon walls that went either side of the alter and a rather extensive balloon arch to go across the front beams of the Pavilion. After we'd finished we all had a new found respect for why events companies charge so much for balloon art!

So that is my little story about the two greatest days of my life...blowing up balloons for Neighbours' and Australian television's first gay marriage and assembling boxes of wedding favours. I will never forget this job as long as I live and how welcoming and friendly the rest of the team were towards me.

Watching Aaron and David getting hitched on Monday was the proudest moment of my life and I just hope that in due course they'll bring out a Births, Deaths and Marriages vol 2 on DVD so I can whip it out on all family gatherings and bore everybody to death with it just like Hannah Martin did with Scott and Charlene's wedding video!

All images in this blog post are courtesy of Fremantle Media.

Lassiters Laneways Tours - Part Deux

Last week on Neighbours we saw Leo and Therese down a deserted alleyway discussing their plans to incorporate Laneway Tours in the Lassiters experience package. As luck would have it I was also back in Melbourne again for a couple of days last week to pick my boyfriend up from the airport.

Obviously in my excitement to see him again and need to impress him with all of my Melbourne knowledge, I took him straight down the laneway which featured in my last blog post, only to find the cute purple pug that was the main feature in the bonding scenes between Leo and Therese had already been sprayed over and the same wall now hosts a rather terrifying bull (or at least I think that's what it is but it may well be some kind of evil horned monster).

Not to be one to wallow in the disappointing reality that graffiti is a non permanent form of art work,   I then dragged my poor boyfriend along to Amphlett Lane, the place where Therese wanted to start the Laneway Tours from and where she suggested hosting a photo shoot with the Sharma-Rebecchis the day before she made the executive decision to drop them as the Face of Lassiters.

Melbourne is absolutely full of graffiti clad laneways so I was a bit disheartened when I got to Amphlett Lane and discovered only one piece of street art and a small plaque in honour of Chrissy Amphlett which is nowhere near as impressive as AC/DC Lane (look it up, it's a real place and it's quite spectacular!) Sadly, as far as I'm aware, there isn't a Right Prescription Lane but I'm sure if enough people campaign for it, the Government of Victoria would be willing to rectify that!

Yes...I have had I Touch Myself permanently in my head since visiting this sight! 

The only other thing Amphlett Lane has to offer is a long line of bins which is where I assume Therese was thinking of holding the photo shoot with Dipi and family. Seeing as they'll obviously want a new person as the Face of Lassiters now that Shane has disgraced the family's good name, I think I'm in with a strong chance. 

Fiona McLean; the new Face of Lassiters???
I offer free dumpster diving for all the Daniel Robinsons of the world!

A bit further down Chinatown, I stumbled across this little street which I also think should definitely be included on the laneways tours, especially as the West Waratah Star readership numbers must be in serious decline as nobody has touched a newspaper since Dipi's football hooligan incident and there haven't been any new journalists taken on since Maddie Robinson was on the street.

West Waratah Place!

Read the original Lassiters Laneways Tours blog post here.

Lassiters Laneways Tours

It's really exciting when I watch Neighbours these days and they use locations that I've actually been to already. Yesterday's episode saw Terese and Leo on a "work date" scouting out laneways for Leo's Laneways Tours package idea that he pulled out of his arse in order to have an excuse to take Terese to a deserted alleyway. I recognised the place instantly due to the rather exciting street art in the background because I've also done my fair share of lurking around Melbourne's laneways.

Image courtesy of Fremantle Media 

I would also like to suggest these other little gems for Lassiters Laneway Tours...also if they're looking for someone to guide these tours I'm available until March 2019!

...is only a footstep away

one of Karl Kennedy's many alter egos!

Edit -  I decided later to follow this bog post up with a part II which you can read here.

English Lessons

I'm not entirely sure how this happened, but I seem to have become the resident English teacher at my hostel, being one of very few native English speakers currently staying there. It started off with my lovely Chinese friends asking me to test them on random words they had written in an exercise book, but now it includes day trips to the beach and other such fun activities with a wide variety of people from all over the world.

The other day I made them all watch The Lion King with the subtitles on and I was so proud to see them all busy tapping away on their phones looking up translations to words they didn't previously know the meaning of.

At the end of last week I finally figured out how to switch the monitor in the common room from PC  mode to TV mode, mainly because I was fed up of streaming Neighbours online, which was a huge personal achievement for me as I'm really not very technologically minded. After the Lion King success story at the weekend, I decided to up my game as an English teacher and figured what better way to teach the English language AND a bit about Australian culture at the same time than to sit my students down infront of the show that has made my own transition into Australian society pretty seamless.

So 15 minutes before Neighbours started on Monday I started fiddling around with the back of the TV (as we don't seem to have a working remote) and successfully managed to switch on the subtitles just in time for the main event, which means my weekday lessons will all start at 6:30pm from now on. Because of my new pedagogical approach to consuming Neighbours, I now completely appreciate the THREE ad breaks the Aussies have to endure whilst watching the 20 minute show. As a result of the bite sized portions of Neighbours over here, it means we can have regular Q&A sessions throughout the programme without disturbing my own viewing pleasure...because it turns out trying to explain the backstory behind the whole Dee/Andrea/Toadie/Sonya/Hugo mess to people who haven't been learning English all that long is incredibly difficult! 

My new improved curriculum looks like this!

I have also developed a new found understanding for Elly because after a good hour or so of correcting and explaining the complexities of English grammar yesterday evening, I definitely needed several glasses of wine to get me through the rest of the night!

Backstage Tour of Nunawading Studios

In the real world, when I'm not being a stereotypical Travel Wanker, I work as a Set Dresser/Art Department type for television and film productions.

The top most item on my life long bucket list has always been to work on Neighbours and a very big reason why I've put my life on hold for a year is to try and finally make this happen. A few weeks after I landed in Melbourne I managed to successfully get in touch with a couple of people who work within the Art Department on Neighbours and they very kindly invited me to their Nunawading Studios for an access all areas tour, which is the main reason why I haven't actually gone on the Official Neighbours Tour yet...although obviously I still might do that because you can never have too many Neighbours related things on your once in a life time trip to Australia!

So off I trundled to Nunawading Studios with my glue stick (it's a reference from the wonderful song my friend wrote for me) and hoped that I wouldn't come across as too much of a fan girl whilst I was there.

Just hanging out at the Neighbours studio with my glue stick...as you do!

Because I was trying to make a good impression infront of the people I desperately hoped would invite me back to work for them in the future, I was trying to play it cool and didn't take any photos as I was being shown around but inside I was more excited than a kid going to Disneyland. I had a pretty extensive tour around all the exterior sets including the backyards and inside the police station and Lassiters and the Community Centre etc. And then they had organised for me to sit in the studio whilst they were filming so I could watch the last four scenes of the day being shot which was super amazing.

I have been sitting on the knowledge that Ned Willis comes back and Toadie gets sprung with a surprise baby as an offshoot from his one night stand with Fake Dee in London and also that Aaron and David have wedding dance lessons from Dipi for three months now and it was extremely exciting to see these scenes being played out on the show last week.

Despite my earlier reluctance to take any photos, I was forced to pose for photos inside the interior of Harold's and also the Brennan household . Also my claims to fame from that day were carrying the plant that lives by the front door of the Brennan house into the studio and also wheeling the buggy of Toadie and Fake Dee's lovechild from the studio back to the Art Department storage room at the end of the day...Baby's watermelon carrying has nothing on me!

I'll have a Fiji water please!

Rearranging the fruit bowl

This couch smells of Brennan

Washing up before Mark's OCD kicks in.

A photo of all three Brennan boys...all fully clothed at the same time!

I had such a wonderful day at the studios and I will be forever grateful to everyone in the Art Department who really looked after me and made a random Pom who is a bit too obsessed with their show feel extremely welcome!

Yer a Wizard Patrick!

On Tuesday night I managed to combine my love of Neighbours with my love of Harry Potter and the result involved hopping along to the Alex Theatre in St Kilda to see Puffs, a play about the Hufflepuffs that went to Hogwarts at the same time as Harry. But what does this have to do with Neighbours I hear you ask? Well the actor playing Cedric Diggory was infact none other than Rob Mills (or Millsy as everyone calls him round here) who plays Elly's ex, the dastardly Mr Finn Kelly who was so hell bent on becoming the Principal of Erinsborough High that he poisoned Susan by switching her meds with Piper's and then manipulated one of his student's, Xanthe, to fall in love with him so she could do all his dirty work. Then he had an aneurysm and went to jail but he's currently back and brought Elly's long lost sister with him and is pretending to be a paraplegic called Partick in an attempt to somehow win Elly back and I assume poison Susan all over again. Good old Neighbours and their ridiculous plots!

When I got to the theatre I was really impressed at how beautifully decorated the foyer was and at the range of merchandise that was on offer. As a proud Hufflepuff myself, I had to restrain myself from buying everything and I ended up walking away with just a t-shirt and a programme (although I very nearly bought a beanie as well). The auditorium was also vastly decorated with bunting, books, portraits all over the walls (without their subjects standing in them because they were obviously elsewhere or very shy) and two notice boards with amusing notes and posters plastered all over them.

The play itself was really well paced and hilarious and was taylored beautifully to the Australian audience. There were a lot of in jokes taken from both the Harry Potter books and films that they didn't waste time explaining. The overriding message of the play was that some people are destined to be the hero but a lot of people aren't and that you should embrace your mediocrity as long as you try your best which I think is a really lovely message to promote and it was such a perfect celebration of Harry Potter fandom.

As a Brit who has only seen Millsy in Neighbours up until now, I was eager to find out why the Aussies all love him so much (he was in Australian Idol and ever since has become a firm favourite on the telly and on the stage). He played Cedric so well and for the first time in my life I actually warmed to the character as I really can't stand Robert Pattinson...even before he became a shit vampire!

After the show, the whole cast mingled in the foyer afterwards and chatted merrily with the audience. Whilst I was waiting for my friend to come back from an urgent mission to find some abandoned knitting outside, I managed to catch Millsy briefly and gush at him about how much I loved Neighbours and Finn Kelly's dastardly ways.

Two specky gits!

I think everybody on Ramsay Street will concur that he is 100% a Snake!

Puffs is on at the Alex Theatre in St Kilda until the end of July. There is a lot of adult humour in this play but the weekend matinees are suitable for all ages. Go to the website for more details and ticket bookings.