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On location

Posted by Catherine Deshayes on Wednesday, July 22, 2009

I grew up on a diet of Australia - or Home & Away and Neighbours at any rate - and my English schoolgirl existence - nice as it was - paled in comparison to the sun, sand and sea in Summer Bay and the escapades of Ramsay Street - so lets take a look at those soaps ‘on location...'

Closer each day...

Home & Away - that small-town sun-bleached beach paradise was to me the epitome of Australia. Bikini clad locals, board shorts, barbies, Alf Stewart- all the ingredients were there.

In reality, ‘Summer Bay' where the soap was set is a (SPOILER ALERT!) fictional township. Exterior scenes are shot on Palm Beach, an exclusive neighbourhood 45 minutes north of Sydney.

The beachside suburb of Palm Beach backs on to Pittwater, a large southern inlet of Broken Bay, making the locality about as surrounded by water as is possible, without actually being an island.

The peninsula is home to many of Sydney's wealthiest inhabitants, who appreciate the tranquil atmosphere and ‘convenient' isolation.

The exterior of the H&A ‘surf club' is close to the beach on the main path that leads through the nearby park, often used as a backdrop to blazing rows or assignations. In order to avoid the tourists, filming takes place at night or just after dawn.

The nearby caravan park was burnt down in a bush fire in 2004 after many years of service as a central location for the show. Interior scenes are filmed at Channel 7's Epping Studios in Sydney.

Home & Away premiered on 17th January 1988 and is now one of the longest-running series on Australian television.

Everybody needs...

Good old Neighbours.

Ramsay Street isn't called Ramsay Street atall, in fact it's called Pinoak Court and lies in Vermont South, one of Melbourne's sprawling suburbs.

Traditionally, the street begins on the opposite side of the main road, fictionally dubbed  Wentworth Avenue, but is, in reality, Weeden Drive.

Thus, the houses seen on screen are actually the tail end of a much longer street, though this is almost never referred to in the story and the cul-de-sac conclusion of Ramsay Street is treated very much as its own entity.

This location is the focal point of the show, and generally characters are included in the storyline by their living in one of the six houses located at the closed end of the cul-de-sac. In the story, Ramsay Street is named after the Ramsay family, who were a prominent family in the area historically and when the show began.

Having grown up on a diet of neighbours, ‘Ramsay Street' in the fictional suburb of Erinsborough was on my hit list when I moved over to Melbourne a few years back.

It's bizarre standing on a street - a real street - not a set - and imagining all those well known faces behind the curtains. But of course they're not. Real people live on this street and the interior shots are filmed in a studio in Melbourne, so there are occasionally discrepancies between the appearance of the inside and outside of the houses

You can get closer to the action on a ‘Neighbours' tour, which take fans to the street and lets them meet and greet some of the stars.

The tours start at £25 each for midweek bookings and £32 for weekend bookings. You get to ‘reminisce on those great moments and contemplate plot lines,' whilst driving past some of the famous sites, including Erinsborough High School and of course Ramsay Street.

You can even visit the Neighbours Centre to purchase ‘exclusive merchandise.' But the best bit of the tour is that you get to drive around town in a bus with ‘The Neighbours Tour' emblazoned on the side - a absolute must for any Brit down under...

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