Everybody needs good neighbours

It’s been four days since Rach retired from her job and she still hasn’t quite recovered. Back to sitting round the house, with only books and freezing temperatures to keep her company it’s been a hard few days. Thursday was her last day at work due to the incredibly annoying restrictions of the Australian Working Holiday Visa only allowing you to work for one company for a total of six months. It was a very busy day as it was her last day with her replacement, and her final chance to pass on as much knowledge as she could. Rach had already had her goodbye meal earlier in the week with everyone in the office but they had a few last surprises for her final day. There was a surprise afternoon tea where everyone gathered round for drinks and cake. The staff were really nice and got her some leaving presents; a USB stick (which she’d requested for her travels), a travel-guide to South-East Asia and best of all, tickets for the Neighbours tour! She was absolutely delighted as this was a set she had always wanted to visit as Neighbours was a favourite programme in her family household.

Today was the lucky day and it was everything that she hoped. We arrived in the city centre early as the tour started at 8.30am and we met our Irish tour guide called Jerry. It was a forty-five minute drive out to the set but he was the perfect host, regaling us with Neighbours stories all the way and we found out many secrets and funny facts. Our first stop was the outdoor sets where structures such as Grease-monkeys, the mechanics and the bus-stop are. He let us in on one of the filming techniques used to utlise the space by pointing out doors that had stickers on to represent the school, and the doors about ten metres to the left that had other stickers to represent the hospital. All of a sudden it hit us just how much TV shows trick us. It’s all lies!

Next stop was Ramsay Street itself. It is actually a lot smaller then it looks in real life but no less glorious. Rach excitedly ran from house to house saying “This is where the Sculley’s lived”, and “This is the Kennedy house.” Jerry provided us with Ramsay Street signs to pose with as surprisingly the real-life street isn’t actually called this. It took a while for Jerry to gather us all back in the mini-bus and he only managed it by dropping the name of the star we would be meeting today; Libby Kennedy!

We were driven back to the Neighbours tour base when Libby came walking through the door. In person she looks incredibly different from her character as she’s actually left the programme now so could finally cut off her Libby hair. She happily answered lots of questions, revealed quite a bit about her personal life (odd) and then posed for pics and gave us her autograph. Unfortunately despite all Rach’s wishing Karl Kennedy didn’t appear and so after saying goodbye to the lovely Libby we headed off for some souvenir shopping. Rach couldn’t have asked for a better goodbye gift.

Rex’s Rules of the Road

• That pesky Australian Working Holiday Visa means you’ll only be able to work for the same company for six months so don’t get too attached.

• For any neighbours fan doing a set tour is fantastic. There are two options; the first is to meet a star, the second is to go around the indoor sets. For us meeting the star was the preferable (and cheaper) option.

• The real Ramsay street now has twenty-four security following some streakers and some climbing enthusiasts who managed to get on top of Harold's house so don’t get any funny ideas.

• Read Rach's review of the Neighbours tour here.