Everybody needs good neighbours…

If you don’t know every word to the following video don’t bother reading on.

Day one in Australia and what do you do? Hit the Official Neighbours Tour of course! I have to admit that I haven’t watched the show for a few years, but I still wanted to see where all the classic moments had happened and get the inside track on how they make that TV magic. My mum is still an avid watcher though and was keen to meet some of her Australian TV heroes.

We waited at the pick up point in central Melbourne on the look out for the tour bus that would be taking us around. It was really hard to spot.

Soon we were being whisked out of the centre of the city with our Belfast(?) tour guide. He was soon explaining all about the history of neighbours and how the producers portray drugs sex and violence. “How do babies come about in Neighbours? A man and a women go in to a room and shut a door to the camera.” “Ever seen someone die due to loss of blood in Neighbours? Nope, those gun shot wounds are normally pretty tiny.”

Soon enough we were in Erinsborough at Grease Monkeys and the garage.

And then this little known Neighbours character turned up all smiles.

Soon it was a free for all with autographs, photos and plugs for Alan Fletcher’s superb band. This guy is intuitive too, he managed to guess out of the 15 people on the tour that my Dad was the one that didn’t watch Neighbours. What a legend!

Fair play to Dr K, he must do hundreds of these fan meetings but he was absolutely charming. I can see why Susan can never quite give him the boot.

Next it was on to Ramsey Street itself. We were under strict instructions not to take photos of the genuine street residents, take a wee on the street or strip naked and climb on one top of the Carpenter’s residence as previous fans have. Tough rules but we just about managed to follow them.

I started with the obligatory selfie and went from there.

Soon it was time to leave and on the way back in town we were treated to a special, Andi Peters hosted show, looking at the “Neighbours at 20 years” celebration.

If you’re ever in Melbourne I can’t recommend this tour highly enough. Is it cheesy, lacking content and a bit of a tourist honeypot? Absolutely, but it’s still class.