Today I got up early to chat to Karen at home, before meeting Zoe for a bit of breakfast at Red Orange cafe on Commercial Road off Chapel St. We had planned to watch Wog Boy with David (an example of Australia cinema) but he had to run off to his parents, so we sat and watched it without him before heading out to the Lucky Coq pub which serves $4 gourmet pizzas Sunday to Thursday. They were really great value and really delicious. After that we wandered around Chapel Street a bit more (spent a bit of time in the pet shop cooing over a tortoiseshell kitten we called Camu, short for Camouflage) before heading back to Zoe's hostel to pick up her stuff and I escorted her to Central Station so she could head off to the airport for her flight to Perth. I caught a tram from there to Albert Park to go and visit more friends from London, Bianca and Daniel. I hadn't seen them for 4 years or so, and they had just got two lovely kittens, which was ironic considering my afternoon. Bianca cooked a great salmon meal and we had loads of catching up to do. They also burned some Australian music CDs for me in my ongoing quest to get lots of Aussie music and film! Thankfully Daniel dropped me off as we finished up late, in his friend's indigo-coloured Ute! (Utility truck)

Today was the last day we could stay with Ant and co, as the flatmate whose room we'd been kipping in was returning to India, so we headed off to St Kilda to explore a different part of the city.

Owing to a few financial difficulties I've been having, I decided to try out a website I have been meaning to try out for a while - couchsurfing.com. To explain, Couch-surfing is when people round the world offer a bed/room/couch/floor space to travelers for a period of time for free. The idea is to promote community, and goodwill to all men I suppose, and travelers get to see a side of cities they might not otherwise have seen. It took some time to find people in South Yarra but thankfully a bloke there called David was happy to let me stay for 5 nights until I fly to Broome.

Zoe and I got a taxi for all our stuff and I met David at his place of work to pick up his key. I was pretty excited about my first couch-surfing experience, and after a brief meeting, we agreed to meet later at his place to chat. Zoe and I then headed over to St Kilda, where she stayed at a hostel and I got dropped at David's place.

After settling in, Zoe and I met on Chapel Street and hooked up with my friend Barry, who I met in New Zealand. We had a coffee and a wander round Prahan Market and the Jam Factory (old factory that now hosts a fresh produce market), before I went back to meet David.

David is a nice bloke; quietly spoken, band musician, film buff. He's not the kind of guy I would normally hang out with but we got on well, aside from a few nervous jitters. Zoe and I were meant to be seeing the Phillip Island penguins that evening, so David kindly dropped me at Chapel St where I was meeting Barry again for a quick drink, and stayed for a bit to chat. Barry had his reservations about the couch-surfing, but agreed David seems normal and I'm in no danger.

I cancelled the penguins when I realised we weren't actually going to Phillip Island, so I sent Zoe with Jason (Ant's flatmate) while I stayed with Barry and Jeff at Blue Bar where they got me royally blotto. Zoe returned later with Jo (Ant's other flatmate) around midnight and we continued the extended party. I finally got back to David's around 2.30am not realising in my drunken state what a heinously inconsiderate time to be getting in on my first night on someone's couch, but thankfully David was only just in himself and didn't seem at all worried!