P...p..p...p...pick up a penguin

My friends, it has been a while.

The reason I have not posted anything for some time is because not a lot has been going on to be honest. It has been a case of living a relatively normal existence except for the fact that it is on the other side of the world.
But do not worry bloggers, I have been working hard to save up and book some flights to embark upon new travelling adventures just so that I can keep you guys entertained!!
That is how selfless I am.

Before I list my travelling plan for the next 8 months and beyond I will fill you in on the past couple of months.

Obviously there has been the bore that is work. I do not need to go into it except to say that I have brought the end of my contract forward by 3 weeks and I will be leaving the world of the 9 to 5 as of November 3rd. Sweet!
Moggy, it wasn't The Enemy's 'Away From Here' that inspired me this time, just the lure of more travel.

There has also been the football. The season has now ended and I must say that I had a great time playing for the mighty Ashburton United. It wasn’t the most successful of seasons but we ended the season with a run of only 2 losses in the final 12 games to ensure that we finished in a respectable mid table position.
Last Friday was the Ashburton presentation night and it was a very civilised and all round nice night out. The club gives of a real family feel to way it conducts its business and if I ever move back to Melbourne (a possibility) I think I would play for the team again (depending on their league position and if another team higher up offers me cash to play for them!!)
One of our younger players actually has a trial for Melbourne Hart this week, which is the equivalent of a premiership team in England, although not the same standard of course.

If you would like to see some photos of me in action and a little 4 second clip of me looking pretty damn good on the pitch you can check out Ashburton on YouTube. Type in Ashburton Soccer 2011 and enjoy the ‘show’. My clip is precisely on 3 mins and 10 secs.

In the past couple of months you will not be surprised to read that I have done a lot of drinking and socialising, but also a lot of running, the reasons of which we will go into in a minute.
I did manage to get to a gig recently as The Kaiser Chiefs were in town, so a few of us went along and I don’t mind admitting that I got wasted. It was one of those days where it just hits you and I was ruined. ‘Nuff said.

A few weeks ago I went to see Cadel Evans – Australia’s first Tour De France winner – as he took a victory ride through Melbourne. I am not really into cycling but it is one of those things you need to go and see isn’t it.

What else have I been up to?

Oh, I went to my first Aussie Rules game. The game was part of the Finals series which culminates in the grand final this weekend, which is the same as the FA Cup final in England. Aussie Rules is a funny sport as it essentially dominates only one State in Australia; Victoria. It is absolutely huge here and is on multiple TV channels every day. There are about 20 teams of which only about 6 teams exist outside of Victoria and of those remaining 14 teams, most of them are solely in Melbourne. This is even crazier when you consider the sport has just signed an approx $1bn TV rights deal. That is a lot of money to have floating around in one city in Australia.
There was a 3 hour TV show on last night just to present the player of the season award and the first hour was taken up with the WAG’s on the blue carpet, which was some huge event in itself.

This Friday sees the Finals parade taking place. It seems odd that the city will come to a standstill so that the 2 teams to play in the grand final on Saturday can do an open-top bus tour before the actual game is played. I will go along and watch as you have to soak up everything that a place has to offer so that you can really take in the culture and vibe of the city.

Anyway, back to the game that I attended with a footy mate who is a fellow Englishman from Grimsby. He is a really good guy and definitely one of those people that you meet on your travels who you know you will stay mates with.
He has led an interesting life up to this point as well. He is a journalist, travelled all over the world as the writer for the Barmy Army, penned the official song for Graham Swann that was recorded and he is in the music video (very funny), has an ex whose mother left George Best for Frank Worthington (now that is class), and has just signed a contract to have a book published next year.
But best of all, he likes to have a scotch and coke with me for breakfast after we have had a night out.

Back to the match itself, Hawthorn Hawks vs Sydney Swans, the Hawks won, that’s all you need to know as it wouldn’t make any sense to you anyway. So it’s a big tick for going to an AFL game and another tick for going to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) to watch it.
The MCG is an awesome and iconic stadium in Australia. It holds approx 100,000 people but seems much larger than Wembley. I think this is because the Aussie rules pitch is an oval and covers a much larger surface area so the opposite side of the stadium is much further away. There was an attendance of 55,000 people at our game and due to its size it looked like there were only 20,000.
The only other thing to say about the MCG is that the beer is awful; flat and expensive, but at least you can drink in your seat.

Now back to why I have been doing a lot of running. October 9th will be my 1 year anniversary out of the UK (I can’t believe how quickly that has gone) and I couldn’t think of any better way to celebrate this fact (stupidly) than to run/walk/piggy back on an unsuspecting child’s back/crawl the Melbourne Marathon.
Why I decided to do this I do not know but I do have a constant desire to push myself to the limit. I echo this sentiment by letting you know that whilst most people give themselves about 6 months training for a marathon, I decided 5 weeks ago to do it! Ha ha!
Last Sunday I took part in a half marathon as part of my training and I won’t say that it was easy, but it wasn’t hard. As I finished I did wonder if I could run that entire thing again and that is when I got scared, really scared!

I did the half marathon with Arancha and Nadia. I am sure you are familiar with them by now – sexy twins that I met in Nepal and met up with them again once I moved to Melbourne.
I say that I did the race with them, but technically I didn’t. The reason for this is that Arancha and Nadia don’t always listen to instructions!!
If they were with me I would like to think that they would have started at the right time and place but I was lucky to start the race on time myself. Runners like to go for a poo before a race, a combination of nerves and getting rid of some extra weight, so I was stood in a big queue (for a poo) waiting to use the Chesney Hawkes (one and only) cubicle.
By the time I got to the start line the 5km and 10km runners had departed and the half marathon runners were getting ready to go. I couldn’t find the girls anywhere and I was never going to as they had already started, in the wrong race.
A few minutes into that race the girls realised that they were the only runners with a blue number and so had to stop and wait like a pair of identical divs for our race to begin and then jump over the barrier to join us.
The race website has a good photo of 2 blue numbers amongst a sea of yellow and green ones.

I finished the half marathon in 1hr42mins. I was happy with the time and if I can keep a consistent pace that is a 3hr20min marathon. Obviously that is not going to happen, but all I want to do is finish it in less than 4 hours.
One thing to aim for with the marathon is that the finish line is at the end of a lap of the MCG, which will be a pretty cool location to accept my medal.

I want to give a big up to the girls for their race times. They weren’t far behind me and given their couple of additional years on me it was a top effort.

If you would like to view some pictures of me looking like a pasty Leicester inbred who has just rocked up for a run in his vest and shorts then please follow the links below:
http://gallery.srichinmoyraces.org/australia/scc-melbourne_yarra-blvd2011-09-25/20110925_082802_768Px.jpg.html
http://gallery.srichinmoyraces.org/australia/scc-melbourne_yarra-blvd2011-09-25/20110925_082804_768Px.jpg.html

I promise you that I did have a tan when I got to Melbourne in April, but the winter has washed it all away.
I will have to try harder when I get back on my travels.

One other weekend that I do have to tell you all about was my trip to Philip Island.

Philip Island is on the southern coast of Victoria, about a 2 hour drive directly south of Melbourne and is home to Australia’s most famous wildlife attraction, the Penguin Parade. Every sunset, wild Little Penguins emerge from the sea from a days fishing and waddle across the beach to their sand dune burrows.
My self and Arancha headed to Philip Island after work on the Friday and by 7pm we were booked into our Inn in the island’s main town of Cowes.
As it was a Friday night we decided to hit the ‘town’. At dinner I asked about the nightly entertainment that was to be had on the island to be informed that the only pub in Cowes had recently burnt down! However, the local hotel had a bar / ‘club’ attached to it and that would be the best place to go.
I can’t say it was the best drinking establishment that I have been to and the crowd was rather eclectic, but after a few shots it looked like any other hole that I have managed to get tipsy in.

The next morning, still a little hazy, I drank drove to the Information Bureau to sort out what we were going to do with the day before the evening penguin bonanza. I thought I was fine to drive but it soon became apparent that this was not the case (it was my parking that was the give away). All good though my friends because the island is very small and I couldn’t cause too much damage.
After some much needed breakfast and a strong black coffee our day began in earnest.

Stop 1 – the chocolate factory. As with Tasmania I was to be disappointed; there was no sign of an Umpa Lumpa or even an enslaved penguin worker. In fact we took one look at the reception area and decided to give it a miss all together

Stop 2 – A Maze N Things. Now this place was worth the visit to the island alone.
It is an attraction that incorporates optical illusion rooms, puzzle rooms, a maze that covers of 2kms and mini golf.
Now it sounds rubbish doesn’t it, but it wasn’t! Let me explain why:
• A mirror maze – it was bloody good fun alright
• When you are in a room that if you stand at one end, someone at the other and the photo gives the illusion that one of you is a giant and the other is a midget, this is good. It is even better when you pretend that you are a monster, your bottle of pop is your penis and on the photo it is as big at your bird who is at the other end of it looking terrified
• There was one of those vertical slides. This was great once I had done it, but I did get scared at the top as you had to climb over the edge and hang in mid air before you let go. My hands were sweating and I couldn’t grip the bar but once did I still couldn’t let go when the guy told me too. It took me a few more seconds to build up the courage.
Now that is entertainment, is it not?
• The puzzles were pretty good too. For example, we had to work out how to get to pirate treasure through a number of rooms and gates. See, fun for the mind as well!
• The maze also kept us busy for about an hour. There were 4 flags that you had to get to, so it was decided by Arancha that we should race each other. Through sheer tenacity and scrambling over a couple of walls, I won!

After those fun and frolics the rest of the day was taken up with visiting various look out points over the Southern Ocean, visiting a shipwreck which we couldn’t see, visiting a vineyard and tasting some local wine, plus some bonus sightings of the local wildlife.
At one point Arancha went a little off road and found herself standing over the tail of a Copperhead snake.
This snake has no known anti-venom but the bites rarely kill humans. Still, if it had got her it wouldn’t have been nice as I would have probably had to go to the parade on my own!!
I wanted to venture into the bush to see it, but as I was only wearing shorts and flip-flops I decided to let this nature sighting pass me by.

By early evening it was time for the Penguin Parade.
The majority of the paying public go to the huge grandstand that overlooks the beach so that they can view the penguins coming in to shore and leaving the sea. We decided to upgrade to get access to another area that was just off of the beach and would provide much better views of the majority of the penguins when they make their way to their burrows.
We got there early so were able to place ourselves right at the front and we were rewarded with an amazing experience.
As darkness descended and the penguins started waddling up the beach, we were literally 30cms away from the nearest ones behind the barrier. It was really interesting to watch them as they herded themselves together and then in groups of 15 or so would make their way home in the safety of these little groups. Once one group got to the point at which we were sat, the next group would then set off, and this pattern continued for about an hour as over 1,500 penguins made their way home.
On the way back to the car park you walk for over 1km alongside the penguins as they head for their burrows that can be located as far at 2kms in land. You even have the check under the car before you leave to make sure none of them are taking a break.
It was a very cool experience.

For the rest of that evening we drank from the bottles of goodness that we purchased at the vineyard earlier that day.

The next morning we took in one more wildlife / lookout point before heading back to the city. The amusingly named Nobbies is an area at the south-western tip of Philip Island and is the home of some pretty dramatic landscape, an awesome blow hole, as well as home to more penguins and also some seals.

Overall it was a great weekend away and it was nice to get out of Melbourne and see some of the Victorian coastline.

So that is what I have been up to in the past couple of months, so now onto the exciting stuff of what is to come, and let me tell you it is gooooooood.

Oct 1st – BBQ (I hope there are shrimps on it) to watch ALF final, England vs Scotland at the rugby world cup, Merseyside Derby
Oct 9th – Melbourne Marathon – scared
Oct 29th – Derby Day – day at the races
Oct 31st – my first Aussie wedding
Nov 1st – bank holiday for the Melbourne Cup (Australia’s version of the Grand National)
Nov 3rd – work contract finishes
Nov 4th – fly to Port Lincoln.
For my birthday Arancha has bought me the best present I have ever or will ever receive. We are going to South Australia to the place where some of the Jaws movie was filmed to cage dive with Great White Sharks. This is the number one thing on my bucket list so let’s hope that irony doesn’t pay me a visit
Nov 7th – fly to Sydney
Nov 8th – 26th – Latner and Egg arrive down under. I am very much looking forward to hanging out with 2 of my best mates and exploring the east coast of Aus on our 3 week road trip that will include my 32nd birthday
Nov 28th – Dec 8th – fly back to Melbourne and then I will walk the Great Ocean Road with Winslow (Grimsby lad)
Dec 9th – attend Arancha’s work Xmas do / leaving do
Dec 17th – road trip with Arancha along the NSW coastline up to Sydney
Xmas day – dinner at Arancha’s mums!
Dec 26th – Dec 31st – fly to Tasmania to take in the Taste of Tasmania food and drink festival with my uncle, and then attend the Falls Music festival for 2 days camping to see the Arctic Monkeys amongst others
Dec 31st – fly back to Sydney for NYE at the Sydney Harbour Bridge to see the fireworks
Jan 1st – 5th – my self and Arancha fly to Alice Springs so that we can visit Uluru (Ayres Rock)
Jan 5th – Feb 16th – fly to Broome in Western Oz to begin a road trip around that part of the country
Feb 16th – drive back to Melbourne as part of the mammoth road trip as Arancha has an art exhibition. Whilst in Melbourne we will attend a friends 30th birthday and then it is a big birthday for Arancha and her sister the following week
March 3rd – May 10th – my 1 yr Australian visa expires so I fly off to China with Arancha and we will travel around and make our way down to Tibet
May 10th – back to the UK for Bob’s wedding on the 12th after 17 months away
May – Dec – take in the Euro’s, the Olympics, get a 6 month contract in London to get some more $
2013 – fly to Canada to ski for a month or 2 and then on to South America for however long we can afford to

That is the grand plan. Everything up to May 10th is organised and paid for, so that is definitely happening.
As for May onwards, that is still in draft.
Whatever happens, as of the November 4th the blog will once again get much more interesting.

You see Bloggers, I put myself through all of this just for you.

A poo machine and staring into the abyss

Hello all.
The past two weekends have seen my travels get back on track, even if it is only for the short term.
As for the rest of my time it has been the usual work, football and drinking, so no need for an update on that, except to say that I am still not getting on with the referees over here.
In my last match I received a couple of verbal assaults on the senses and an eventual booking for my attitude towards the ref. I was also informed after the match that some spectators thought that “it was about time that the he got booked as he has been mouthing off all game”.
My response is if they can’t control a match to the standard expected in England, then don’t do it at all!
Apart from that, I am still really enjoying playing the beautiful game, which I am determined not to ever call soccer!!!

Since my last post it has also been the birthdays of my mother, Suzy ‘The Suze’ Lambert, and my little sis, Beck ‘I can’t really call this a job can I?’ Lambert.
Once again, Happy Birthday to you both.
Beck, was that the best card ever, or what?

Did you know that on your birthday Skype declares your age for everyone to see with a sentence of ‘such and such is xx today!’
The Suze was not best pleased about this when I called her.
Don’t worry mum, you don’t look a day over retirement age.

Anyway, back to my past two weekends.

Weekend 1: Tasmania

I flew over to Tasmania on the Friday evening after work and landed at about 8pm after a very easy 1 hour flight.
I was met at the airport by my uncle John, who looked exactly the same at the last time I saw him 10 years previously, except for a few more grey hairs.
I mentioned previously that he owns an ice cream factory in Hobart that supplies ice cream to most of Tasmania and is currently breaking through into mainland Australia. If I had forgotten there was no getting away from this fact when I saw his car.
The number plate is ‘ICREAM’.
Yes it looks like ICE CREAM but to me it also tells me about his and every other bloke’s private habits!
I am not sure what he really thought about that.

From the airport we went into the centre of Hobart, to the Salamanca area of the city for some food.
Salamanca is one of the main restaurant and bar areas of Hobart and is based around the harbour. The architecture really gives off the impression of an old English town apart from the fact that it is on completely the opposite side of the world.
After eating a very, very good steak we retired to my uncle’s ‘humble’ abode for a few more drinks and a catch up.

I awoke early the next morning to a stunning view over the gardens of my uncle’s crib and down to the ocean on a sunny but seriously chilly Tasmanian Saturday.
John’s house is pretty sweet. It looks a combination of a church and a colonial style house from the past. The ceilings are high, the rooms are spacious, and the sun shining through the many stained glass windows gives the interior a feel of being inside a rainbow, which is quite disorientating when it’s early and you have had a few drinks the night before.
The gardens are also lovely, a nice lawn (I am English, so by default I love a lawn of grass), an area where a combination of fruit trees geow and a converted stone barn which gives extra living quarters. With the view of the ocean beyond, it makes for an amazing setting.

After watching some of the breaking news about the Norway attacks we ventured back down to Salamanca to take in the Saturday market and to get some breakfast.
In the bright sunshine and 0 degree morning, the harbour looked very picturesque apart from a vintage crane from yesteryear sitting by the dockside. Imagine my surprise when John showed me the plaque on the side of it that said it was all the way from Leicester, our home city!

After breakfast John took us on a road trip through the Tasmanian countryside to a little, and I mean little, village in the middle on nowhere. The village was called Campania and is allegedly the birthplace of my great grandfather and is as far back as we can trace the origins of our Lamberts.
I found it quite special to be there to pay homage to the ancestors. I had the obligatory photo taken under the Campania sign.
As we left I started to hum a song that it still in my head today and is driving me crazy. To the tune of Peter Andre’s classic ‘Insania’, ‘do do do do doooo, do do do do doooo, it’s Campania!’
Aaaaggggghhhhhh!

From there we headed back to Hobart through another small town called Richmond. Richmond is the sight of a famous sandstone bridge that was built by the convicts and was completed in 1825.
There’s nothing to say that after the completion of this bridge that it was then that the ancestors settled in Campania!! Who knows?
Richmond also houses one of my uncle’s best ice cream customers. He wanted to have a little look in the shop so we went in and I was there to witness him buy his first ever ice cream from his own company. I got a lemon and lime scoop with a cornet.
This was turning out to be a great day!

Once back in Hobart we went to check out one of the top footy teams who were playing. We timed our arrival perfectly, a goal straight away and then the final whistle 2 minutes later.

I then got my tour of the Valhalla Ice Cream factory.
As we entered through the minature door, my uncle sang ‘come with me and you’ll be, in a world of pure imagination’.
He didn’t really, but I so wish he had.
Listening to my uncle explain what goes on, what the business was like when he bought it, what investment he has had to make and where the business is now, left me a little awe struck. This is all the more impressive as even though he is a very successful business man he specialises in fashion and clothing, not making bloody ice cream. But then a business is a business I guess.
I have to admit that when he showed me around the freezer I could not take my eyes off of the door. It was baltic in there and I have seen too many films where it all ends badly in these situations.
The only disappointments about the tour were:
• no raspberry sauce waterfall,
• no trip on a flake canoe down a mint choc chip river,
• no ever lasting screwball ice cream, no fizzy lifting ice cream sodas,
• but worst of all, no Umpa Lumpas.
Still, as Charlie Bucket’s mother sang, ‘Cheer up Lamby…..’

After leaving the factory in the great glass ICREAM car we headed back to my uncle’s neighbourhood of Blackman’s Bay for a beer down by the beach.
After that, we got our gladrags on and went back to Salamanca to hit the town Lambert stylee.
I think John enjoyed his night out. He certainly drank like he did.
We spent most of our night in an Irish Bar, live music, good company and I don’t know about him, but I was smashed.
We headed home in the wee early hours and of course I chose the taxi with the crazy driver.
All I remember from the ride home was him telling me thatt he was former SAS and he could kill 6 men easily with his bare hands. The way he said it was so blasé, just sitting back in the chair and declaring “yeah, I was former SAS me”, “I can kill a man easy you know”.
You can easily kill a man because you are one of the fattest (not to mention ginger) men I have ever seen. Sit on them or eat them, you will kill them!
Nutter!!!

I awoke on Sunday in a very drunken state. John was up and about hammering a door – which wasn’t a welcome sound.
It was a sad start to the day as I found out that my hair doppelganger Winehouse had died.
Peace out to the Wino.

First order of the day was to get a fry up. We went to another beachside café and ate heartily. There I met some of John’s friends, including one guy who owns a 40ft yacht that they all go out on now and again and spend the day eating and drinking. I reckon that I will be returning in the summertime to have a day out on that!
The guy was also telling us about how his son was going to lose his virginity today and he wasn’t sure if he should drop some condoms around, just to be safe.
Apparently she was gagging for it!
I just ate my extra sausage, which I swapped with the mushrooms because I do not like them, and listened.

Sensing that I still wasn’t quite with it, John drove us up to the top of Mount Wellington. Wellington rises 1,271 metres above Hobart, which it built into its foothills. As it was another clear day the views were spectacular.
From up here you could see the shape of the land around the south of Tasmania, the waterways leading up into Hobart, the snowy capped mountains off to the north and oceans to the south.
I found it quite mesmerising knowing that the next land mass south of where I stood was Antarctica, the bottom of the world.
There was a lot of snow up there too, so much so that someone had built an igloo!

The only other thing worth mentioning about the mountain was that my stomach was in a bad way from the night before. We were in the observatory looking at the sights and I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I am sorry to say that I had to let one go and it even shocked me.
I quickly moved away from the spot and left John where he was. All of sudden he looked up at me, with a look of pain on his face and asked if that was me. I couldn’t stop laughing at this point as he suggested that we get out of this room, and we left the other visitors to it.
As we drove down the mountain he told me to warn him if that was going to happen again that he could stop the car and I get out. This would ensure that we didn’t drive over the edge!

Our final sightseeing stop of this weekend was to MONA – the Museum of Old and New Art.
MONA is the largest private museum in the world and was built by some local mutli-millionaire professional gambler for $100m.
Apparently, the museum contains all of his own collection and he has so much that the exhibits change every 6 months.
The place is set in his own vineyard, has a shuttle boat that runs to and from Hobart, and is built into the rock, so you enter from the ceiling.
It also has an outdoor grass area that has a stage for concerts and Mick Jagger performed there for the grand opening.
It is an amazing place. As you enter, entry is free; you are given an i-phone which is your tour guide. So simple, yet so effective.
So to the exhibits, which were a wide ranging collection of oddities, artistic pieces and historical artifacts. My highlights were:
• A huge machine that drops water down from above to form words within the falling drops
• A wall containing 20 screens, each containing an individual dancing in silence before launching into the singing of Madonna’s greatest hits all at the same time
• A sarcophagus set in a private room that you have to walk over stepping stones to get to. Next to the sarcophagus is a replica of it where the image slowly clears to give you an x-ray of the skeleton of the Egyptian inside
Now the odd stuff:
• A video wall that showed various artistic visions of nudity – including one guy squatting over the camera and doing a poo!
• A painting of a 2 Aussie guys naked. One has his own castrated penis tied to his leg, the other is bloody and is being rimmed by a kangaroo – I have a photo of this to prove it
• A wall containing about 200 plaster casts of various vaginas – some of them were an absolute mess! Some needed a trim, some needed a trim in another way, and the one that was at an angle, well I think she is beyond help
• A machine that mimics the digestive system – it feeds at one end, goes through a series of pipes and processes and then does a poo at the back end. I couldn’t stay too long and study it as the smell in the room was horrendous

And that was my trip to Tasmania. It was a brilliantly diverse weekend and I will definitely be going back.
I have been invited back during the summer, which I would like to do, as I didn’t really see much of the rest of the island, which is supposed to be incredible.
Thanks a lot John, top weekend.

Weekend 2: Skiing at Mount Hotham

My second trip to the snow this Australian ski season saw me venture to Mount Hotham, one of Australia’s best ski resorts.
Myself, Arancha and Nadia (the sexy twins that I met in Nepal) drove up on the Thursday night to meet Natalie and her beau Stuey who had already travelled up earlier in the day.
Not much to say about the journey there except that when you are out in the countryside in Aus the stars just blow you away and we also had to stop halfway up the mountain to fit the wheel chains to the car as the ice was slip, slip, slippery!

We arrived at about 2am, so it was straight to bed to get some sleep before the ski action.

Friday morning saw me looking out of my window to see snow, snow and more snow. Over a metre of natural snowfall has been recorded so far this season on the mountain and it is one of the best seasons in years.
Our accommodation was based at the back of the best bar in Hotham, so this was ideal for breakfast and après ski beverages. The actual apartment itself was sweet as well. A 2 bedroom split level new build. All very plush.

We all got up, got ourselves sorted and headed over to the ski bus to take the 5 min ride into the centre of Hotham.
The conditions on both Friday and Saturday could not have been better. Clear blue skies, very sunny and great snow.
Hotham is a great resort, many different runs including some very challenging ones. The added bonus is that apart from the beginner and lower intermediate runs there is hardly anyone on them. At times over the weekend we found ourselves skiing on our own – bloody brilliant.

We all started off skiing / snow boarding together which was really good fun.
A little later on myself and Arancha went off on our own to tackle the advanced runs. In a previous post I stated what a good snowboarder Arancha is; she is fast and technically sound. I am fast and technically suicidal.
Both Nadia and Nat are technically good, but I do not think they will mind me saying that they are not as confident as Arancha, or as stupid as me.
So the rest of the day was spent on a number of black runs testing my nerve and thoroughly enjoying it.
I can’t say that I had any really bad falls on the first day, but Arancha was taken out hardcore by a fellow snowboarder. It is a good job that she recently invested in a helmet or else she would’ve been in trouble.
We managed to complete about 5 hours skiing on the Friday and I loved it. I will never tire of skiing down a mountain with those views. You feel like you are on the top of the world when you are stood there with the snowy peaks all around you, before launching yourself over the edge and down.

Obviously one of the best parts of skiing is the après ski. We all met up at about 4pm on the Friday and got on it.
The first bar was fine until the owner Dominic came to sit with us. He was nice enough, complimenting me on my hair (which was quite similar to his) and getting the shots in for us. However, he then got a little freaky and said he wanted to hug my hair and sleep top and tail with me so that we could then be cock to cock. No idea what that was all about? You have to at least get me drunk first my friend before you try it on.
The rest of the night was a boozy affair.

Saturday was a late start ski wise après le après ski of the night before. However, in terms of skiing, it was my best day technically. Like any sport, some days you are good, other days you just want to snap something in half through frustration.
Saturday was a good day. My skiing was sound and it all felt right. The only dark point was losing a race to Natalie.
I have no idea how I lost. I was ahead, I edged her out over towards the edge of the cliff and then she made some crazy maneuver and overtook me. From that point on we were on a relatively flat run and I couldn’t catch her.
I hold my head in shame, but to Natalie I say through gritted teeth, “Congrats Sister!”

Saturday also saw us all stick together for a fair while and follow Arancha – the mountain guide. Our guide took us off piste through trees and over mogul runs. I have to say that it was great fun and there is footage of me catching some air as I attempted a jump which I did manage to land!
To me it felt so high and the bang of the skis as I landed confirmed this. Watching it back on film I was broken to see that it was about 30cms off of the ground.
Myself and Arancha did still take the opportunity to get away and tackle some more of the demanding runs. I took a few falls, but the worst one was not actually falling but spinning 180 degrees and my legs splitting so wide that it felt as though I had torn my nut sack down the middle. Owwwww!

Saturday night was a quiet one so that we could rise early and get on the slopes for a good amount of time before we had to leave.

We awoke on Sunday to a whiteout ie. no visibility. I am not exaggerating when I say that we could only see about 5 metres in front of us.
As for the skiing, I loved it. It is very unnerving when someone sets off in front of you and within 2 seconds they have disappeared.
It’s even more unnerving when you are going down steep black runs with no idea if it is the right way and you have to just take it on faith that you are going the right way.
But most unnerving of all is leading your friends down the aptly named ‘Twilight Zone’ run and through the dense cloud realising that you are about to ski out into the abyss. On closer inspection it wasn’t quite a cliff edge, but a big enough drop to break me. It required a sharp left turn to get back on track.

However, I did take a very funny fall during my time in the cloudy wilderness. We were all going down a black run together and we slowed up to try and get our bearings. As I slowed to a halt I somehow managed to fall over onto my side and began to slide down the mountain. I would say that it was a good 30 seconds of sliding on my front, back, shoulders, doing 360’s, before I managed to dig my skis in and stop.
Arancha and Nadia found this hilarious.

By about 2:30pm it was time to leave the mountain and I had the honour driving us back down on the winding roads with zero visibility and back to Melbourne.

Overall, it was a fabulous weekend and I can’t wait to get onto the slopes again. I am thinking Canada.

So that’s all folks.
Next trip away is to Philip Island in about 4 weeks time to see the resident penguins.

Until then, cheerio and keep searching for those Valhalla golden tickets so you too can get the tour!

Who cares about the day of rapture? This time I survived an earthquake!

BLOGGERS! What’s up?

It’s been a while but you can put that down to my now relatively normal existence – booo!

The missions I had set myself in my last post were to find a place to live and a footy team to play for, both of which I have now achieved; but before we get onto that let’s recap on the past few weeks.

Whilst I was still residing at Natalie’s place she introduced me to a family institution – the St Andrew’s Market.

Intriguing, interesting and entertaining would be 3 words that I would use to describe this place. Essentially it is a hippy market - organic veg, gluton free cakes, hemp made clothing etc, but best of all are the people that attend.

Nat’s family meet there every Saturday afternoon to do their shopping and then once that is done they all sit down and have a cup of tea along with Pierre, a French national, and Ian, some old dude who essentially is an adopted member of the family, and everyone has a good old natter about this and that.

I was pleased that on my market debut I was able to bring some deep philosophical chat to the table:
Is it possible to go for a poo without doing a wee at the same time?

Have a think about it people. My firm stance is that it is not possible and having canvassed a lot of opinion on this subject and I’m happy with my conclusion.
Surprisingly, this sparked off a big debate around the afternoon tea table and endeared me to the family!

Being a hippy market there is also live music belting out and this is where I was introduced to Desire. He changed his name by deed-poll so that is actually his name.
Desire cannot be described, you need to see him in action to fully appreciate him. Whilst the band plays, Desire will stand there taking in the energy of the music before launching into a very expressive form of dance – a mix of Mr Soft (from the softmint commercials) and an eagle swooping in for the kill. An odd combination if ever there was one.
Once he has finished with his dancing he then moves onto the guitar and launches into some deep and dark lyrics about demons and devils.

I went to the market 3 times over the period that I lived with Nat, and Desire was in this form on every occasion – sometimes even when sporting purple jeans which I can’t say I have ever seen before, and once even playing a xylophone!
There is not enough xylophone playing in this world!
Another reason to go to this market is that Ross Noble (quality UK comedian) lives around the corner and attends regularly. This market definitely suits his personality but unfortunately for me I did not get to see him.

During this period of time I also started my new job. There is not too much to say on this subject is there? Work is work.
All I will say is that the company seems to be a good one to work for, my colleagues are nice, the work is easy and they are paying me a very, very good salary, so I cannot complain.
I have to keep reminding myself that this is a means to an end. I am skint so I have no choice but to work, therefore, I may as well earn as much cash as I can over the length of my 6 month contract, save as much as I can, and then continue with the travels (which I am missing incredibly)

Through my job I have also been on a course to learn about some Management Information system that I will need to use and become a relative expert in.
Do not worry I am not going to talk about the course, it was painful enough for me whilst I was there without thinking about it again; instead I am just going to mention the tutor.
He was a legend! A proper English toff who made anti-American jokes which only I laughed at and would guffaw, yes, guffaw, at his own little ditties and anecdotes.
They just don’t make English people like this any more – why not?
The most incredible thing about him though was his hair.
Being a toff, he had to have the standard floppy side parting / quiff. If you stood looking at him head on he looked like any other toff which his thick side parted fringe with short back and sides of blonde locks, but as soon as he put his head down it was all gone, and I mean all gone. Apart from the fringe and sides he was completely bald, it was just plain bizarre. I have never seen anything like it and I couldn’t stop staring, especially at the odd Bobby Charlton comb over strands.
And do you know what the dominant thought was that kept creeping into my head?
How come he is completely bald all over, but with regards to his fringe he is not receding as much as I am!!! It doesn’t make sense.

So what else have I been up to?

I went to a Lego exhibition which was pretty cool, although there were not enough exhibits in my opinion.
I have been to see Mark Seymour live in concert – no idea who he was but apparently he is a famous Aussie singer from the 80’s and it was yet another excuse to go out with the girls and get drunk.
I went to the Royal Australian Ballet last week with Arancha. Yes, yes, gay I know, and during the first 20mins I could not stop yawning. But after that, once I had got into it, it was ok actually.
One funny thing was this old dear who was sat next to me. She was on the edge of her seat throughout the performance, clapping her hands and getting really into it. At the end she donned her real fur coat (not something that I am a fan of) and exclaimed how it had been a real pleasure to share this time with us. She then reached over to Arancha and told her she is a real princess and would be a princess forever. I think the real reason for this is that she wanted to feel Arancha’s fur coat to see if it was real like hers. Considering it looks like a dead badger that has been run over by a truck I could’ve told her that it wasn’t real (Sorry AJ!)

There has also been the standard Friday and Saturday night out on the town exploring the different areas that Melbourne has to offer.
I also got confirmation of my Olympic Games tickets. Can’t say that I am overly impressed. I am going to 5 football matches, including the Women’s final and I am taking Pa Lambert to 2 of them, which will be good.
But apart from that the only other event that I am going to is the Handball final. What is handball you may ask? I am asking that question as well because I was convinced that I applied for the Basketball final!!!
So that is my Olympic programme – pretty standard really. Still, I will be in London for the full event to soak up all of the atmosphere before then hopefully sodding off again on more world adventures.

One bonus of starting my job when I did was that I was just in time to take advantage of a public holiday. It was for the Queen’s Birthday weekend; yes, there is a bank holiday here for our dear Liz’s birthday.
That weekend happened to coincide nicely with the opening of the Australian ski season, combine that with the fact that the weather was really cold and it was the best snow to an opening weekend in 11 years meant that there was only one thing that I was going to do.
I went with Arancha and we got up super early on the Saturday morning to drive from Melbourne to Mount Buller.
I love the fact that I live by the sea (and can see it from the bottom of the road of my new apartment) but within a 3.5 hour drive I am in the mountains and on the ski slopes.
Skiing was awesome. Arancha is a quality snowboarder and gets to the mountains about 5 times a year (the advantage of being a teacher at a school where they do a lot of ski trips and they pay you to go)
This was only my 11th day on the snow but I wasn’t going to let that hold me back. The girls had told me that there was no way that I would be able to keep up with Arancha because she is so good, and she bloody was, but being very competitive coupled with a low centre of gravity, I wanted to put that to the test.
I didn’t consistently beat her down the runs, but there were a few occasions where I did. In order to achieve this I had to be suicidal. Whereas Arancha glided down the slopes ever so gracefully, I had my skis pointed downhill, legs going all over the place and just let rip. After a couple of big falls I did get the fear for a while and I had to have a little word in my own earhole to stop being a big girl and get on with it – there was English pride at stake here!
On one of my suicidal downhill runs I must’ve looked out of control because the next thing I saw was one of the ski patrol guys waving both arms and yelling for me to ‘calm down’ as I flew past. I soon saw the reason why as there was a group of medics around a skier who had taken a bad fall and was having an IV line attached to him. Ooops.
As it was opening weekend the town was in a celebratory mood as well and there was live music and free mulled wine for everyone. It was a really fun atmosphere.

The plan was to ski on the Saturday, stay over, and then return to Melbourne on the Sunday to attend a house party. However, plans are there to be broken aren’t they?
We got up on the Sunday and decided to get back on the slopes.
This day was probably more fun because we decided to film each other attacking the slopes. One would ski / board halfway down and then film the other. There is one clip of each of us stacking it but unfortunately I didn’t press the right button to film the moment when Arancha tried to spray me with her board and ended up taking me out.
We eventually left the slopes at 2:30pm and got back to Melbourne in time to get drunk at the houseparty until the early hours.

The bank holiday Monday was to be my moving day!

I got the flat that I wanted in St Kilda, so on the Monday I moved. Being a traveller with just a backpack and couple of other bags it was all pretty straight forward.
I love living in St Kilda. The area is perfect for me; vibrant, lots of backpackers, lots of drunks, lots of characters, lots of bars, clubs and restaurants, it is by the sea, we have a beach, there is lots of open green spaces, lots of palm trees and it is also the red light district of Melbourne! Oh, and best of all, there are resident penguins, although I am yet to see them.
My flat mate is really nice as well. She is a 28yr old Queenslander who likes to party hard at the weekend and has a jet-ski in the garage. I need to get onto that bad boy in the summer.

My flat is located just off one of the main streets and as I mentioned earlier, I can see the bay from the bottom of my road.
I am also only a 20min tram ride from the City, or a 35 min run away. I have been running into work about 3 times per week and my route takes me past the bay and then through Albert Park, along the side of huge lake that takes 10mins to run the entire length of, and I am actually running along the track of the Australian Grand Prix course.
It is great.

As I stated at the top of this post I have also found myself a footy team. Sports teams in Oz put their counterparts in England to shame.
My team has 4 men’s teams and a ladies team. We train twice per week and there is a great turn out at every session meaning that we can do some proper training.
On one particular Tuesday we could train due to a waterlogged pitch so the club paid for us all to go to a local gym and attend a spin class. At home we would just have the night off.
After the Thursday training session we all get dinner from the club and on match days we have club wear to turn up in.
My team is fairly international, English, Irish, Scot, Dutch, Kiwi, Aus, Portuguese and Greek, and all of the lads are sound.
I have made pretty good mates with a lad from Grimsby and we had a good night out with the other lads a couple of weeks ago. So I finally have some lad mates to go out with, rather than just the girls (which hasn’t been a problem)

For my first game I was expecting to be a sub, but 10mins before the game I was told that I would be playing the full 90mins because of an injury. It was my first game in over a year and I played in centre midfield – knackered!

I have played 3 games so far and I have done ok.
So far I have given a goal away, scored one and hit the bar with a full on left footed volley from 16 yards out. I caught it so flush that when it hit the bar it ended up further out than where I struck it from – gutted.
There is a rumour that some guys in my league are getting up to $250 per game to play! I was offered a trial with a team that pays you to play but I had already joined this team by then. Oh well, I like the atmosphere of this club so I am staying.

And so to the earthquake!
I was sat at my work desk on Tuesday and all of a sudden I literally felt the earth move. Honestly, my first thought was ‘is this an earthquake?’, and then I told myself to stop being a div. The obvious reason for this shaking was that there was a fat person walking along the office floor, which would actually happen in my old workplace in London. So I actually looked around to see who it was, but there was nobody there.
I thought nothing more of it until 2 hours later when the news broke on the internet that yes, there was an earthquake, a mighty 4.4 on the richtor scale. I have to admit that I am happy it was a weak one – my desk is situated 16 floors up!
It was cool to say that I have been in an earthquake though and was aware of it (sort of)

So that is that. Quite boring eh?
Coming up in the near future:

1)2 do’s to attend tomorrow. A friend is having leaving drinks in the north of the city before she travels Europe, and from there I am back to St Kilda to go and see this crazy homo glam rock band that my flatmate is friends with. Their stage show is supposed to be brilliant. Afterwards they are having a party at some house with a roof terrace that overlooks Albert Park, so it should be a sweet gaff
2)I am going to Tasmania in 2 weeks time for the weekend to visit my uncle John. He owns an ice cream factory over there and I really hope my fantasy of it being an ice cream version of Willy Wonker’s Chocolate Factory with little Tassie umpa-lumpa workers is not shattered.
I was thinking about when was the last time that I saw him and I reckon it is about 10 years ago, so this will be a sort of reunion for us. I am looking forward to it a lot.
3)The weekend after Tassie I am going skiing again with 4 other people
4)Rachael is moving into my place this weekend for the week before she leaves for New Zealand. It will be nice to hang out with her before she departs considering we first met on a hot train in India back in November. It has been quite an adventure with her so far, and letting her live with me is a perfect mates favours for when I visit her in California!

That’s all I have to update you all on.
Hope everyone is well back in good old Blighty.

I survived the day of rapture

So I am happy to say that all of us non-believers are still here and that we are not doomed to walk for the rest of eternity as zombies on the face of the earth.
For those of you who were not aware of it, May 21st was the day of rapture and at 6pm local time a huge earthquake was supposed to start making its way around the world beginning in New Zealand. The only people to be given salvation would be those who believed in the almighty and would ascend to heaven whilst all of us fellow heathens would be left here and turn to zombies or something like that and would be doomed.
Of course this is all bullsh*t like the whole of religion is, fairy tales and scary stories to keep people in their place.
Apparently the guy who predicted has now said that he got it wrong and was 5 months out so beware of October 21st later this year!
If we survive that, then next we have the Mayan calendar that predicts that armageddon will be upon us on Dec 21st 2012, the day when we will have a planetary alignment within the solar system. I do believe that this could have some sort of effect on us (I have no idea what and I talking very minimal) but apocolypse it will not be.

So, my advice is let's continue to sin as much as we can before our impending doom.

With this is mind, what sinful activities have I been up to since I last updated you all?
Well not a lot actually, in fact I have been quite sensible in that I have gotten myself a job, and a serious one at that. How boring!
Yes, I am disappointed with myself at having done this, and I feel like I am letting myself down as I told myself that this trip would be endless fun and the jobs that I got should be exciting and random, but so often reality has a way of getting one over on us.
What I have to keep telling myself is that I do need a reality check ie. I have no more money and if I want to keep up my travels then I need to settle down and do this.
I have managed to attain a role as the Reporting Specialist within the Strategy and Planning Dept of Medibank, one of Australia's leading health / medical insurance providers. Just reading that back makes me want to slit my wrists, but do you know what? They are paying me more than I was on in London, it is only a 6mth contract and it will allow me to save a good amount of money to keep on travelling longer than I initially planned; so it isn't all bad. The only potential hiccup is that they have mentioned offering me a sponsorship after the 6 months has expired. Essentially, this means that I could stay in Australia and get my passport, an opportunity which I would have to think very seriously about because I could see myself living here.
However, it is all hypothetical at the minute so let's start the job and get some dollar in the sky rocket.
Afterall, I may be working in an office again, but it is in a new city, in a new country and I am on the other side of the world, so it is still an adventure to be experienced to the fullest.

Melbourne also gives me access to the ski fields of Australia which I fully intend to exploit over the coming winter months.

Now that I have some financial stability I have begun my search for a place to live. The last you knew I was staying with my friend's Josie and Cossie. After hanging out there for about 5 weeks (enough for anyone to put up with me) I was offered a new refuge living with Natalie, one of Nadia's workmates. I have to say that I like hanging out at Nat's gaff; it is a sweet pad, the conversation can be really random and funny (which I love) and to add to that the views out of the windows are really nice - relative wilderness (required when you are not working). Just this morning I stood there watching 2 rabbits running around and jumping over each other on the grass. Even Nat would admit though that her place to just too far out of central Melbourne. On the train it takes about an hour to get into the City, too far for me as I need to be living in the thick of it.

Josie and Cossie - thanks so much again for giving me a bed and some work as well. You really saved my ass and I am so so grateful.

I have been viewing flatshares in the St Kilda area of Melbourne. St Kilda is traveller central, hooker central, the nightlife is buzzing, the live music scene is good, it is by the ocean, there are lots of open spaces and palm trees (I like palm trees) and it is a 20 - 30 minute tram ride into the City.
So far I have been to look at 6 places and I have found the one that I want, I just have to hope that the girl I would be sharing with liked me and thinks she would be able to live with me. The place immediately felt homely and location is perfect, so fingers crossed, I will find out at the weekend.
Some of the other places that I saw were pretty ropey and in one of them my bedroom would've looked down onto a hooker hang out area where the curb-crawler traffic can get quite busy in the night. That might be entertaining at first but I am sure that after a while it would p*ss me off.

I went to view a room last night that was out of this world. It was located on the 14th floor of this uber-modern appartment block and the balcony and the bedroom had fantastic views out over the city skyline. As it was after dark, it just added to the image.
Living there would also give me access to the block's 2 private swimming pools (indoor and outdoor), tennis court and gymnasium; and the rent was very reasonable as well.
If the appartment was facing the other way (over the bay) it would be a very tough decision to turn it down, but here is why I did turn it down:
1) I walked into the appartment to be given a tour by Gordon (current tenant who will is going back to the UK next week) and all that was in the front room was 1 sofa and a grand piano! I asked who the paino belonged to and Gordon replied that it was his. Obviously you do not see a piano up on the 14th floor of an appartment block often so I couldn't resist asking him to play for me. So there I was looking out over the skyline of Melbourne listening to my own little concert pianist tapping away on the keys. Surreal, would be the word.
Still, there was the issue of why there was only 1 sofa and a paino (which would soon be leaving with Gordon) in the front room.
It turns out that the other flatmate, who is rarely there, has deemed that front rooms should not contain a TV, or any other way to socialise it seems. I do not mind if there isn't a TV in the front room, but there should at least be enough furniture in the place to sit down and have a chat, or have guests over.
2) As I said, the other flat mate is rarely there and can just turn up at any time of the night after being missing for a few days. Apparently if asked what his movements may be over the next week, that is an invasion of his privacy and he gets moody. Seems like a dick!
3) I was shown around this other flatmates room and the first thing I saw was a carrier bag full of used tissues next to his laptop. Now we all do it, it's natural, but you have to tidy up after yourself!
4) Most importantly, the flat had no soul, no life to it. I would end up living there, most of the time on my own, passing my flatmate in the night. That isn't for me, no matter how wonderful it was.

So hopefully I will find the right place soon and then the next mission is to find a football team, so I have some lads to hang out with.

Just a random thing. I was on the train the other day and I overheard a conversation between 2 teenage lads and a girl:
Girl - "Yeah, your boobs get bigger when you are pregnant"
Boy - "Really? Well I am going to get a girl pregnant then, enjoy her titties and the 2 weeks before she gives birth I will tell her it isn't working out"

I love the youth of today!!!

So what else have I been up to? I guess just the usual stuff, drinking and socialising and visiting the odd attraction, like wildlife parks.
One great thing from the wildlife park I went to was that they had a reptile touch and feel session for the kids (and me). Can you imagine my reaction when I got to stroke a lizard and the handler announced that it is commonly nicknamed a double-ender?
I looked around for someone to share my laughter with and saw one guy trying to cover his mouth so his wife couldn't see.
Another great feature was the huge bouncy area where you could jump up and down on a combination of bouncy-castle / trampoline thing to be a kangaroo. It was great fun jumping hard so that little kids and a 50-something year old old man kept falling over on it.
Karma did get me back though when I was trying to put my shoes back on and someone jumped near to me catapulting me forward, off of the side into the wet sand with just my socks on.

It seems my drinking has been getting a little crazy though and potentially could get me into trouble. For example, a few weeks ago I attended Arancha's art exhibition and the wine was free. I do not need to tell you that I got stuck into it, someone had to drink it.
By early evening, (the exhibition started at 4pm) myself and a few others were well on our way. During this time, of which I have no recollection and was only informed of it the next day and I still do not believe it was me that said it, was chatting to one of Arancha's teacher colleagues, then asked her if she fancied getting it on, she told me she had a boyfriend (who was there), so I asked her if she fancied a threesome!! WTF?
Mum - I am not proud of myself and this does not sound like something I would say, but who knows? Ha ha.
More distressing, I do not know if I meant a threesome with her bloke or some other girl (I hope it was another girl)

Apart from this the only other things that I have done is attend the Melbourne Arts Festival and viewed some great pieces of art for sale and been to the Melbourne Museum. Dinosaur bones, watched a 3D cinema piece on the how the earth was formed and viewed lots of stuffed animals from around the world. I know, I know, not full on adventures but there has been a recent scientific report published that claims attending the theatre, creating art and visiting museums can actually reduce anxiety and stress (not that I am suffering in any way), so it's all good.
With that I will bid you all a fond farewell. Normal life is what lies ahead for me over the coming months, although I still want to get to Indonesia soon, and the lads trip in November is taking shape. We have decided on which camper van we will take up the east coast to celebrate my 32nd birthday, so I look forward to my reunion with Bert and Lats with great anticipation.
Hopefully my next post will be a little more exciting, although I cannot promise anything, but I will do my best.

Chao.

On top of the world (well, the highest point in Australia) and back down to earth with a bump! (as I get a job)

Bloggers, apologies that it has taken me so long to get this latest post up. Unfortunately for me I have had to settle into the old routine of normal life ie. get a job so that I can fund my future escapades, which means that I have been left with little time to write.
However, today is an unexpected day off, so I thought I would take the opportunity to update you all with my goings on over the past month.

So, I left Wollongong and Dave Walsh's walk and continued south to a sleepy little town called Bateman's Bay. My reasons for heading here was that one of my Aussie 'girlfriends' would be passing through on her way to Sydney, so that weekend we had planned to hang out together at the coast.
I arrived mid-afternoon on the Friday and had the rest of the day to kill until Arancha's arrival on Saturday. I checked into the local YHA and at reception I was warned that there was a strange person staying in my dorm, so beware! I enquired as to what they meant about him and they just said that he was "a wierd Asian person, from India or something". I took this to be small town mentality and told them thanks and that I would make my own mind up.
I walked into the dorm and there was the 'strange' person in front of me, so I casually said "How is it going?" He turned around and just walked straight past me without even an acknowledgement. I called after him that he was a little rude (I may has chosen some harsher words than that) but he just kept on walking. What is wrong with some people? It doesn't take a lot to say 'Hello', and I could tell he was English as well so he definitely understood me. Oh well, not my problem.
I popped out for some dinner and went to the local chippy which the owners of the YHA insisted was the best on the east coast; "We have travelled all over and been to a lot of fish and chip shops, but we always come home as this is the best!!!". I have to admit that it was really nice and the calamari was lovely; all of the fish is caught in the bay at the back of the chippy so it is as fresh as it can be.
The bloke serving me was also a pretty nice guy and he gave me a quick run down of the town, places to go out etc.
After eating my food outside with a view of the sunset over the bay I headed back to the YHA wondering what I was going to do with my evening as clearly one person in particular was not going to speak to me.
I placed myself in the communal room to watch some TV and to see who was about in the hostel. Batemans Bay is a small place so there were only a handful of people staying there.
Oh, on the TV I watched the Aussie version of 'Countdown'. Guess what it is called here? 'Letters and Numbers', talk about a literal translation. They do not have the same music for the 'countdown' and the numbers girl is no Rachael Riley I can tell you.

As I was settling into what looked like being a boring evening a guy came into the communal room to say that he was going to go out to have a beer and would anyone like to come.
I was up before he had even finished his sentence.
As expected nobody else even acknowledged his offer, so myself and Thomas, a Dutch computer science doctorate on a 3 month sabatical from Grenoble to Canberra 'hit the town'; and it was a really funny evening.
It helped that Thomas was a really cool lad and we got on very well from the start.
We headed to the Batemans Bay Hotel, which seemed to be the epicentre of the whole town (it is a small place remember).
In the bar lounge you had the sports on for all of the old boys, and out the back was an open air nightclub for all of the youth. A place to satisfy everyone.
I have to say that I was excited about the prospect of a little town nightclub until I saw the genetics on offer. We are honestly talking about dodgy teeth, lazy eyes and the sort of place where a local guy and girl will meet and then that will be it forever. She will get knocked up around the back of the pub, she will pump out a few babies and they will never leave the bay. As they get older, they will retire to the sports room and their kids will attend the open air nightclub and so the vicious cycle will continue until Armageddon.

Still, myself and Thomas had a great time. We 'manned up' and watched the rugby whilst we waited for the club to get going. Whilst in the bar 3 pretty decent looking girls walked in and sat down. It was pretty obvious by the way everyone looked at them that they were not local. They were actually 3 French au-pairs on a weekend trip from Sydney and we had the advantage of being fellow travellers so invited ourselves to sit with them, much to the annoyance of some of the local boys.
Later on after the au-pairs had retired for the evening it was time for Thomas and I to moved out to the club. It was like a school disco, boys on one side, girls on the other, apart from 3 girls who were smashed and owned the dancefloor.
At one point, one of the very drunken dancing girls walked around every table and said "at 10pm everyone must come onto the dancefloor so that we can get the party started". To be fair, at the strike of 10pm a lot of people did get up and dance. For some reason she took exception to the fact that we hadn't got up and she came over and had a go at me for thinking I was too good to dance with them!! Ha ha, if only she knew she was correct. She was a minger!

Then, all of a sudden the dancefloor parted like Moses and the Red Sea as in walked a group of 7 girls that were hot, hot, hot. You have to try and imagine the image. You have a dancefloor of inbreds and then a light shines down from up high as the crowd parts and in slow motion the girls glide across the dancefloor, hair blowing gently in the breeze as they head over and stand right beside myself and Thomas. I have to say that every one of them was beuatiful and obviously not from Batemans Bay.
It was at this point that the wolves descended; the pikey men were in a lather, climbing over each other to get their attention. It was very amusing to watch.
However, with the advantage of our accents we were able to infiltrate the group and spent the rest of the evening dancing and chatting with the girls. It was a good night even though there was the inevitable inbred fight near to the end. The best thing about the fight was that one of the original dancers from earlier in the evening got into the middle of it and had one of her blonde extensions torn out (it was only on a clip). Can I ask a question? If you had black hair, would you wear clipped in blonde extensions on each side of your temple; and if it had been pulled out and trampled on, on a booze ridden floor, would you then accept it back and put it straight back onto your head? Well she did.
So that was that, a funny evening in 'the Bay'.

The next day I said my goodbyes to Thomas and sunbathed whilst I waited for Arancha.

As I mentioned earlier, Arancha was passing through on her way to Sydney but she had booked a place for us to stay for a few days in the nearby village of Nelligen. When we arrived at the place I have to say that I was taken aback. I am not sure that many backpackers would get to experience such luxurious surroundings as those that I found myself in and I appreciated it all the more after 6 months on the road residing in the sorts of places I found myself in India, or sharing 10 man dorm rooms in Thailand.
I found myself staying at the Nelligen Gallery Bed and Breakfast, except that it was like no B&B that I have stayed in before, like those found along Blackpool sea front (although if you do find yourself in Blackpool, please stay at Mick The Braces B&B - amazing. All you need to know about that gaff is that we were not aloud to bring girls back as the last time he did it he was accused of rape).
The Nelligen Gallery B&B was an actual gallery and a self contained appartment all in one. It was quite fantastic. To describe it I am going to copy and paste the description from its website as who better to describe the setting than the owners?

- The Nelligen Gallery and Bed & Breakfast is located in a secluded, historic area of the picturesque village of Nelligen overlooking the beautiful Clyde River - minutes from Batemans Bay on the Nature Coast of Southern NSW, Australia.
- The Gallery and Guest Suite are hidden treasures beyond the cottage garden of the Old Watch-house which dates back to 1860.
- Beyond the gallery, the private guest apartment overlooks this magnificent river. (the whole back wall overlooking the river was one big glass wall)
- Whether enjoying the lofty river views from the bedrooms or mezzanine deck, nestled by the fire or just lazing in the sun drenched lounge the river will captivate you. (yeah, it had actual open fire, but no rocking chair which was a shame)
- You may choose to linger over a special breakfast on the verandah overlooking the river with the companionable wildlife (beautiful tropical birds which would not eat out of my hand no matter how patiently I stood there)
- or choose the dining room or sun drenched lounge
- An internal courtyard connects the bedrooms with the bathroom and its original claw foot bath
So for the next few days I made sure that I took in every moment of this experience and savoured the tastes of the good wine and fine cheese which Arancha had also kindly thought to bring along. As a little hobo traveller I just rocked up with my backpack and nothing else, I didn't have to pay for a thing, which I still feel quite bad about. Although now that I have a job I shall be repaying the debt in some way soon.
We didn't really get up to a lot on those days apart from relaxing, listening to music and catching up. However, on one of the days I did drag Arancha to the zoo (I do like a good zoo). It wasn't a bad one to be honest, lots of big cats, but the highlight was watching 2 otters go at it hardcore for quite a long time. The female was a bit kinky too, she kept turning around to watch what was going on, the dirty minx! I filmed it!

When it came for the time for Arancha to leave I found myself back at the Batemans Bay YHA minus Thomas and the wierd dude. There was no fun to be had on this occasion so I had an early night in preparation for my trip to the capital, Canberra, on the following day.

Arancha, I would like to say thank you again for the Nelligen experience. It was a real treat, especially when I think about where I found myself sleeping in the following few days. (We will get to that soon)

One last thing to add about Batemans Bay. As I walked to the bus stop I saw a man pulling up his pants and trousers, as this was an odd thing I obviously stared at him. When he saw me staring, he dropped them again and wiggled his hips at me! Very funny indeed. The best thing about this was the location - on a ledge next to a big window at the Batemans Bay Courthouse.
Every town needs a fellow like this.

So onto Canberra. The fact that it is the only legal place in Australia to purchase porn and it is legal to grow your own marajuana plants, this is the world's crappiest capital city. It is so boring. There is absolutely nothing to it, and I arrived mid-week which meant everything closed at 6pm. How can stuff close at 6pm in a capital city? I will tell you how, because Canberra is crap, that's why.
Apparently it was built because there was a constant argument between Sydney and Melbourne as to which city should be the capital. Because no agreement could be reached Canberra was built in the middle and all of the politicians were planted there. I think it is the energy of the politicians that radiates out to make Canberra what it is - sh*t.

I wasn't too concerned though. Everybody had told me to avoid Canberra and I only travelled there so that I could get some transport to Thredbo in the Snowy Mountains, the village at the foot of Mount Kosciuszko, the tallest peak on the Australian continent.
After establishing that there was no direct route to Thredbo as it wasn't the ski season and that it would take me the best part of a day to get there, I decided that the best course of action was to hire a car and drive there myself, which would only take 3 hours.
That evening I watched some crap tv, went to bed early, got up really early to watch Spurs lose in the Champions League and then made my way to the hire shop.
I hired a Mitsubishi Lancer and enjoyed the nice drive through the outback followed by the amazing scenery of the Snowy Mountains before arriving at Thredbo.
Thredbo is a ski resort. I have to say that:
1) the idea alone of being in a ski resort in Australia is odd
2) being at a ski resort when there is no snow and people are using the pistes as a mountain biking course is even more odd

Still, it was what it was and I was there to reach the peak of Kosciuszko, a mere 2,228 metres high. Nothing compared to Nepal (or so I thought).
Even though there was no snow, it was still chilly, especially when the sun went down. As I had hired a car and my funds were now getting quite low (so low that I do not currently have enough money to fly home - bothered?) it meant that my accomodation for the next 2 nights was the back of the Lancer!
Not quite Nelligen and the open fire!!!
I had all of my gear from Nepal on me, but no sleeping bag. No fear I thought, there is a YHA in Thredbo, I shall scavenge what I can.
So off I popped to the near deserted YHA, walked into a bedroom, saw a thick blanket and took it back to the car. Lovely jubilee.
I needed to use the internet to Skype mum, so I quickly changed into a new outfit (just in case I was spotted) and went back to the YHA a mere 10 minutes after leaving the first time and used their internet.
The evening was a non-event. I had my evening meal, read in the warmth of the restaurant for another 2 hours before retiring to the Lancer for a cold night. As cold as it was, and it was cold, I still managed to get 10 hours sleep in the back of a car. Amazing really, although I am not sure that it was because I had hypothermia and I was slipping in and out of consciousness!
I was up bright and early and started the day as every good mountaineer should - with an egg and bacon roll.

Off to tackle the mountain. From the bottom of Thredbo there was a chairlift that took you to the top of the piste (about 3kms to get to the top) and from there it was a 13km round trip to the top of Koscuszko and back. They said that the 13km round trip should take 3 hours to complete. As I had the whole day and because I am a little daft, I chose to climb from the very bottom. I had designs to run to the top and back, but as soon as I hit the piste I realised that to run would be folly, so I scrambled up instead.
It took me a little under an hour to get to the top of the piste, just avoiding a collision with a mountain biker on the way. (He told me off)
From there I attempted to run again, but the air was thin and very cold, and with the slight incline I had to choose a fast paced walk instead.
Once at the top of the piste and on my way to the peak it was a strange, desolate place. Every few metres it got colder, it was misty so you could not see much, the wind was strong, and the snow on the ground was getting thicker and thicker. By the time I reached the peak the wind was so strong that I was in no doubt that with the wind-chill it was far colder than anything I had experienced in Nepal (which is mental). I stayed at the top to take 2 pictures and then got my arse out of there. Still, I can now add to the list of this travel experience that I have stood on the highest point of the Australian continent; shame it was so misty.
I ran all of the way back down to Thredo in just over an hour. As I said, the round trip should take 3 hours from the chairlifts, I climbed from the bottom and completed an extra 6 kms and it took me 3hrs 15mins. I am not sure where they get their timeframes from.
When I got back down I wanted to know how far I had climbed up and down the piste because there were no signs, as I wanted to measure my distance vs time taken (I am a stats geek remember). When I explained to a woman in the info centre why I wanted to know and what I had just done she seemed quite impressed. However, I heard the guy behind her mutter, "well it is all downhill one way isn't it".
The woman turned around and asked him if he was prepared to do it, he sheepishly said no.
Thanks for defending me info centre woman.

Now that I was at the bottom I needed a shower. Where better to take the p*ss than the YHA?
I got to the front door and it was locked, this was not good news. I was sweating, dirty and it was bloody cold outside. I decided that I would check the place out and look for an open window. I believe that the technical term for this would be 'tresspassing' or even 'breaking and entering', I prefer to call it being an opportunist.
When I got the lower level and saw an open window near the laundry room I came face to face with the owner. He recognised me from the day before (for internet use only, fortunately) and I managed to get him to let me in to again 'use the internet'. He left me alone and said to let myself out. Result! I quickly hopped into the showers and got out of there asap.

After a long lunch and some more reading in the warm, I took my now massively aching legs back to the car and set off back towards Canberra. The car did not have to be back until the next morning which meant that I could take a slow drive back through the country and stop off in the odd town. By early evening I reached the town of Coomba and decided to watch the sunset at the Mount Gladstone lookout. I was the only person up there so decided that I would sleep up here as well as it would be dark and quiet.
Whilst it was still dusk I went to do a little exploring and was stopped in my tracks by a thudding sound. I sh*t myself as the sound got closer to me and the bushes were rustling. Then from nowhere a wallaby hopped across the path in front of me. As soon as I saw one, I noticed that there were quite a few around me, really well camouflaged. I spent the next 30 minutes trying to get as closely as I could to them to take some good photos.
I would always get to the same distance before they would hop off a little further.

In the end I went back to the lookout. I found a rocky outcrop to climb upon and as I did so I heard a big rip. I looked down to see that my trousers had decided that enough was enough, they were too old and too tired to hang onto the seams any longer and had given up. I am not joking, even as I moved my leg to view the damage, they continued to undo themselves further and further down.
To add to the scene of me standing on a rock, hands on my hips, big rip in my trousers from the crotch to my knee (looking quite camp) and the sun setting in a sky of fantastic colours, a motorbiker rolls up. He climbs off his bike in his homoerotic leathers, takes a big bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk out of his satchel, climbs up onto the rock next to me and offers me a square!!! Only when you are travelling does this sh*t happen to you.
We got talking (and that was all we did) as we watched the sunset together. He was a German schoolteacher travelling around the south east of Oz on his bike after dropping off some exchange students.

As darkness fell, Mr Dairy Milk descended from the lookout heading to Thredbo, where I had just come from, and so I was left alone in the darkness. Just me and the noises outside.
I lasted about 30 minutes in the pitch black, reading by torchlight, before I had scared myself so much that I was to be murdered out here or attacked by rabid wallabies, that I decided I was going to drive into town and sleep there.
I am such a div, I daren't even get out of the car to get into the front seat. I clambered over from the back seats and wheelspinned out of there!
Just to make sure that I was safe from nothing but my own imagination I parked up outside of the police station and had the fire brigade on the other side of the road from me. Safe enough I thought.

I settled down for another early night and awoke the next morning to find that my legs were stuck in their bent position. Ow!
I drove back to Canberra, dropped off the car and walked straight to the bus station determined that today would be the day that I would finally get to Melbourne and catch up with various mates, and more importantly, find a job.

It would take me a good few hours to get to Melbourne via coach and then train; so it was a good job that I met some interesting people along the way.

I decided to sit near to the back of the coach because there was nobody there and maybe I could read in peace. Just as we were to depart a rough looking young gangster couple got on and sat near me, as did some youth who sat right behind me.
As we reversed out of the bus park the lad behind me exclaimed that "that girl is fit" (she was walking down the path), I laughed and our 'friendship' was formed.
The self proclaimed ADHD sufferer then talked for a long time and the gangster couple got involved as well.
The coach journey was 4 hours long, these are the verbal highlights that came out of ADHD's and Gangster's mouth:

ADHD:
) This country is letting too many foreingers in. The Indians all smell of curry, but you can stay Adam as you talk English (thanks, it means a lot coming from you)
) In Melbourne if you want to find some hot chicks you really should hang out at the such and such shopping centre (what am I, 14 years old again?)

Gangster: (who is a career criminal - been in jail 4 times and only 21 years old)
) Yeah, my first time in jail was for stabbing someone in the head with a screwdriver and stealing their jewellery
) Solitary confinement is ok except they only give you a sandwhich to eat. It is not like in the main prison where you can make your own stir fry
) Just last week my mate was tripping on acid, he dragged one of my friends into the bathtub and went to work on his face with a hammer
) I was tripping on acid once and this girl kept accusing me of touching her up, so I went into the kitchen and got a massive knife. My mate tried to stop me so I slashed him across the stomach
) About the reason for the last time he was banged up - I was at the cash point and someone tried to rob me. I said "do you know who I am?" and turned around and stabbed him in the hip with my swiss army knife. I got bail for that but then I broke it by shoplifting diapers and food in Safeway to feed my nephew (something is wrong with the Oz legal system here)

Here is my top 3 gangster quotes in no particular order:
) ADHD asked him about a notorious prison - yeah man it is f*cked, the decor is all 1970's looking (I'm sorry, did you just slate a prison because of the style?)
) I was running away from the police by jumping through peoples' gardens. In the end I had to spend a night in someones chicken coup
) Prison is easy and there isn't much trouble. It only really kicks off when we are watching TV and a KFC commercial comes on. Then we lose it. It seems that they bring out a new Tower burger every time I go inside, it is f*cked. (Erm, I don't think that is the only thing that is f*cked mate).

So for 4 hours I had to contend with this. To be honest, it was all quite funny except for the racism stuff. They were just 2 young pikeys trying to impress with their stories - whether they are true or not I do not know, but it wouldn't surprise me.
From the coach we boarded a train and we were all still in the same carriage. The lads were still talking in this manner and I could see a number of females getting quite aggitated with their conversation.
My ticket placed me next to a very nice (and attractive) woman called Kylie - a nice typical Aussie name.
She was really cool and we ended up talking for most of the 4 hour train ride into Melbourne. Her way of introducing herself to me was to drop a luminous orange marker pen onto me; and from that moment on I had made a new friend.
Once into Melbourne it was time to say good bye to Kylie and of course my homeboys, the gangster who gave a typical gangster handshake ie. the one we all learn in the playground at school, and I headed to my current place of residence.
I was to be staying at Josie's house (one of the girls from Nepal), and oddly enough, Rachael who I met all those months earlier on a train in India and introduced to the girls in Kathmandu would be staying in the room next door, having arrived a day earlier.
As soon as I arrived, it was a quick shower and then out with Josie, Rach and Cossie (Josie's husband).

That was 3 weeks ago and I am still at Josie's place. It is nice here and it has been nice to live in a home for a few weeks, eat dinner in front of the TV etc. The only annoying thing is Aztec, one of the resident dogs. I have never met such an affectionate dog and it is huge! So far I have awoken to a lick on the face in the pitch black (yes it did scare me), awoken to find her climbing into the spare side of the double bed, and just this morning I ate the remainder of my honey a oat bar and found it to be a little mushy. I think she had a little lick and I have felt sick ever since. 
I really do have itchy feet though and as nice as it has been to have a small reminder of domestic life I want to get back to more exotic places, but that is on hold for now. I need money!
So what have I been up to in Melbourne?
Well I have been out a lot, surpirse surprise. Melbourne is an excellent city, like London in many ways. It has lots of little suburbs each with their own distinct character. There is St Kilda, by the sea, wide open spaces and full of English and Irish travellers. Fitzroy is a little like Camden, funky shops and cafes and great bars; you can wear what you like and nobody cares. The CBD (city business district) is as you would expect, but some nice bars. One bar is a converted mental asylum and you drink out of beakers and test tubes. I had an absinthe there one night and do not remember anything else after that. Richmond is another great area and close to the all of the sports. Melbourne is a massive sports city and it has a number of quality stadiums. At one part of the city there is the MCG, footy stadium, tennis stadium and some other things as well, all in one place. It is great.
I have been to BBQ's, met a lot of the girls' friends, all of whom have been really nice.
I arrived in the middle of the Melbourne Comedy festival and went to watch a show called the 'Dirty Bits' ie. all of the horrible stuff that they cannot usually discuss. Incest and beastiality were high up on the agenda - it was pretty funny stuff.
Just this week I went to see Melbourne Victory play in the Asian Champions League. The standard of football was poor though and the crowd was only 7,500 in a 55,000 capacity stadium; so I doubt I will go to watch any more football.
Aussie Rules Football is the dominant sport here. I have watched a few games now and I am getting into it. I think I am going to my first game at the MCG (capacity 90,000 people) in a couple of weeks.

I have been over to St Kilda to catch up with Nick, an ex-colleague from my last job in London, who is from Melbourne. He has just bought a magnificent place with a view over the main drinking street which also has views of the bay. Great place and I hope to spend some good afternoons drinking there.

Last week, myself and Rachael had a reunion with some Melbourne people that we met in Thailand. All in all it is a good place for me to stay and work, which I need to do.

I have been fortunate enough to get some labouring work with Cossie. He is a plasterer and although it is dirty work it is all good and I am getting paid!
I have applied for a few jobs and have an interview next week. Yes, I am going back into an office but I need to money and the aim is to earn enough here before I go back to Asia and Indonesia in August. I can then hopefully return to Oz and have no further need to work from the rest of my travels.
Once I do get a job I will also move out and into a rented appartment and I am thinking that the St Kilda area of the city is the place for me to reside.

So that brings you up to date. Not sure how exciting my life will be over the next couple of months whilst I am working (which I hate already, not the work, just the whole concept) but I will try my best to get up to some mischief so that you guys have something decent to read.
I think my time will be more cultured here. Tomorrow I am attending an art exhibition and Arancha's work will be some of the pieces up for sale. She specialises in abstract art and I have to say that her art is pretty good, and I do mean that. After the exhibition (free booze by the way) we are all off to an indie club so I am quite excited.
Arancha has also invited me to attend the Melbourne Arts Festival with her, so I am looking forward to attending such an event with an actual artist, who will maybe be able to open my eyes to view some artworks in a completely different way.

Let us see what the next few weeks brings. It will not be the crazy, random stuff experienced so far, but I think it will be a good time to form strong bonds with some good friends as well as ensuring that I do not lose sight of how special it is to get back onto the road and see where I will wake up in the morning. That is what I now live for.



































 

Only I would head south towards the Australian winter

Bloggers, what's up?

Thought I would update my blog now as I have some spare time and as I am now in serious job hunting mode ie. applying for the odd thing online, I may not have too much spare time over the next few weeks - yeah right!

As the title to this post would suggest I am now heading towards the south of Australia. Every other traveller is heading north to chase the sun, but as I like to do things a little differently I am heading in the opposite direction. It is not without good reason though, I really want to check out Melbourne and catch up with some friends, plus there is more that I want to see in this direction eg. the tallest mountain in Oz and Great White Sharks in Port Lincoln. Another reason is that I have decided that the most lucrative form of employment for me is to go and work in the mining industry. I feel have the stature to be one of the 7 dwarfs hunting for jewels or gold, however, coal will do if the pay is right.
I am desperate for a job for 2 reasons:
1) I am skint
2) once I have enough $ I have decided that the call of a return to SE Asia is too strong to ignore. In July I am heading back that way to spend a couple of months in Indonesia and will also hopefully meet up with my Norwegian friend in the process

After my last post I did as I said I would and went to sit with Anthony and had a beer (still in Byron Bay). My plan wasn't to go out that night but you know how it is. Myself, Thilo and Nils went out for some Pad Thai and then decided to check out The Railway pub which is renowned for its live music. We got there at 10:05pm, the live music finished at 10pm sharp.
We had one drink and thought we would join Anthony at his 'local' as we had not graced the place with our presence yet. As we approached there was a notice up for a silent disco next door. Undecided as to what we should do we let ourselves get talked into paying the entrance fee (quite hefty for a traveller but as it was going towards the earthquake victims of Christchurch and Japan it made me feel slightly, only slightly, better about paying it) and joined the party.
For those of you who do not know what a silent disco entails, it is quite simple. You enter the room and there is no music, however, everyone in the room is going for it on the dance floor. At the front of the room there were 2 dj's giving it large. The genius of the silent disco is that you are given a pair of headphones and then you can chose which dj you prefer to listen to. I do not use the word 'genius' lightly, the reason being is that at one particular moment, 1 dj was playing some hardcore house music and the other Right Said Fred, 'I'm too sexy'. Watching people dance together who were obviously listening to different channels was quite entertaining. For a quiet night, a 4am finish was quite nice.

The next couple of days passed without incident and then it was time for me to depart.
As always, I decide on the day what I am going to do. This didn't always go down too well with my dorm mates as at 10am every day the owner of the hostel would knock on our door, open it, wake everyone up and ask 'Adam, are you staying again today?', to which I would always respond with a sleepy 'Yes'.
So on the day I was to actually leave I found myself in a bit of a quandary. I knew I wanted to travel south, but did not know how, where I should visit on my way down and how I could best save some money in the process.
I was talking this over with the lads when a couple of Dutch girls I met in Nimbin suggested looking at relocating a vehicle. Lots of travellers hire camper vans (as I did with the Hooters a couple of years ago), travel up the east coast and then leave the van at their final destination. Unbeknown to me the hire companies will then charge minimal hire costs for someone to then relocate the van back to its original depot.
I got online and saw that there was a van that needed relocating from Brisbane to Sydney for a hire cost of $1 per day and I would just need to pay the fuel.
The only problem was that I was 165km south of Brisbane. No need to worry, my German homeboys were heading to Brisbane and I jumped into the car with them for a final road trip.
With a final goodbye to Anthony we were off.

As it turns out we were also giving the 2 Dutch girls mentioned above a lift to Surfers Paradise, about halfway between Byron and Brisbane. The journey was quite fun, playing driving games such as 'Who am I' and 'Name that tune'.
For 'Who am I' I was Patrick Swayze. I got the answer quite quickly due to the fact that a few days before when we went for a swim by the waterfall after camping, Thilo said that when I jumped into the water and came up all wet I looked like a young Swayze!!! No idea how he came to that conclusion, but it helped me in the game and made me laugh a lot.

When we arrived in Surfers (which I do not like as it is an Australian version of Benidorm) we had a walk around and decided, against my better judgement, that we should stay the night and get on it. I made an emergency call to the hire company and told them that I would be a day late and off we went to party.
It was a decent night. A lot of people from Byron Bay were also there as were the girls who we camped with in the National Park, along with Tom and Jacko who I have so far seen in Malaysia / Singapore / Byron and now Surfers.

Next day we set off for Brisbane. Only one thing to talk about on our journey and that was passing through Southport. I remember this town as I stayed here with Hoots and the thing I liked best about it was the sign as you come into Southport:
'Welcome to Souhthport - we do not tolerate sexual or domestic abuse'.
So I assume that if you stand on the other side of the sign and smack the b*tch up it is ok?

We checked into the YHA late afternoon, invited a girl who was eating Coco Pops alone to join us (who was from Nottingham and really nice) and we went for a few drinks.

Next day I was up early to get the van. With that it meant and end to my time with Thilo and Nils. I am not upset though as I am sure I will bump into Thilo again, and even if I do not I will definitely stay in contact with them both and once back in Europe will go to Germany to see them. When you are travelling you realise that distances in Europe are trivial.

The van I was to relocate was a 'Hippy Camper'. A small van, covered in flowers, with a built in cooking area. I have to say that it was great to be out on the open road, radio on, and the freedom to stop wherever I liked, driving down the very romantically named 'Pacific Highway'.
The only catch with the relocation was that the van had to be back in 3 days to maintain the $1 per day rental. Only 950km to cover in 3 days - no problem!!

My first stop was in a small surf town called Yamba. I parked up by the beach and had the place to myself.
The first thing I had to do was get onto Skype, it was Mothering Sunday afterall and I would've been in big trouble if I had not called home. Not that it was a chore mum, you know I always want to talk to you and dad, and Beck, if she is up, which is rare!
After the call I went for a run along the near deserted beach, apart from 2 homosexual men who were drawing out a huge 'Leigh hearts Kevin' on the beach.
As I only had the van for accommodation I had to take a shower under one of the showers at the beach. In my briefs (you have to wear briefs for sport to keep yourself all tucked in) I had a very quick shower ever mindful that Leigh and Kevin were out there somewhere!

Nighttime was dark and very quiet except for the sounds of the ocean but under a sky full of stars I cooked for the first time in 6 months. I say cooked, I had pasta with sauce.
This should've been simple enough to do but:
1) it took me ages to get the portable stove to work
2) the lid on the sauce jar was really stiff. When I did manage to open it, it undid with such force that the jar slid sideways and two thirds of it emptied out onto the van and my legs. Fortunately, most of it was on the van but my legs did look like I had been subjected to another, but more vicious leech attack

Still, I tasted good and in my double bed I slept very very well.

By the way, the girl next to me in the internet cafe has just let one go and is looking all innocent. It stinks so bad.

Back on the open road and my next destination was Port Macquarie. I arrived at Lighthouse Beach at approximately 1pm. By 1:10pm I had applied my lotion and settled on the beach for some well earned r&r. By 1:15pm there were some serious black clouds overhead.
It was obvious that there would be no more sun so I went for another run on another deserted beach. I was looking out for Leigh and Kevin, but to no avail.
With a stormy sky I decided to make up some more time and got back into the van. Looking through my Oz guide I saw that the town of Forster had resident dolphins. I had immediate images of them actually living and working in Forster, walking down the street, squeaking and clicking a 'hello' to their fellow residents.
No need to look for another place to camp, resident dolphins it was.

By late afternoon I was in Forster, and guess what? Yep, no dolphins.
Instead I parked up on a clifftop and had a greasy Chinese takeaway (which gave me the sh*ts - 2 months in India and barely a fart, a Chinese takeaway here and I am in trouble - typical) and settled down for an early night with my book.

And so it was back to Sydney. I was hoping that my approach from the north would mean a drive over the Sydney Harbour Bridge but as you would expect my route took me through a tunnel and under the harbour - no view at all.
I arrived at the depot with time to spare but also very aware that I had not completely filled up the tank to the required level. I am skint remember.
The woman who took receipt of the van pointed this out straight away. I had the option of either go and fill it up or let them charge me. She then said to wait and she would ask her boss.
I had already said hello to the boss when I got there and I could tell that he was gay.
When he came over I am not ashamed to say that I looked him straight (no pun intended) in the eye, fluttered my eyelashes and smiled at him.
I know an ex-colleague that used her sex to secure a big business deal - so sod it, why shouldn't I as I seem to be attractive to a number of gay men?
Anyway, it worked, he told me they would charge it back to the Brisbane office - result!

I left the office, checking over my shoulder that the boss wasn't following me, and went into central Sydney. I checked into a hostel and then was at a loose end as to what to do.
No fear, Greenall is always up for a drink. Until she had finished work I had to amuse myself and did so by going to play with the new i-pad2. The good thing about this was that my i-phone was low on battery so whilst I surfed the net for free for about 2 hours, I unplugged the i-pad and charged up my phone.
I met Greenall at The Rocks area and we had a nice drink with a view of the Opera House.
I was planning on an early night as I needed to be up at 4am to watch Spurs vs Real Madrid in the Champs Lge but then I got a text message from Sarah Ruddick, one of my best mates from uni, who had just landed in Sydney that evening. Therefore, I knew it would be a long night.
I knew Rudd and Rich (her partner) were coming to Oz (we left on our travels at the same time but went in different directions around the globe) but I didn't think that I would be in Sydney at this particular time. So I asked Greenall if she wanted to come for a beer in Kings Cross and off we went for an unexpected but very welcome reunion.
It was really nice to catch up with Rudd and Rich and to trade travelling stories. I do not see my uni mates as much as I should. You know how it is with work and life, but when I am back in the UK I will make a point of seeing them more - afterall uni was a massive part of my life.
So we chatted and drank and I do feel guilty that I kept Greenall out until 3am as she had to be up at 7am for work, but she likes a party, so it is all good.
In that strange way it turns out that Rudd and Greenall will both be in Bali at the same time later this month and will probably meet up. As I have said before and will no doubt say again, it is a small small world.

By the time we said our goodbyes it was nearly time for the footy so I headed straight to the pub. Not much to say here, we got hammered on the pitch, I was hammered in the bar, and there was a really annoying old bird in the pub who was cheering for everyone and she was the most hammered of all of us.
After the game I decided that I had had enough of Sydney so I picked up my bags (from the room that I had stepped out of 16 hours earlier and not even slept in) and went to the train station and bought a ticket for Wollongong. You have to love Aussie town names.
For breakfast I had a Burger King and someone pushed in front of me in the queue. I hate queue jumpers, especially when it turns out to be that annoying woman from the pub!
You can wear your dark spy style sunglasses and try to be incognito love, but I know it is you!

And off I went to Wollongong, feeling a little jaded as I had already been up for 24 hours. I arrived at 9:30am with no idea where to go. It amazing that in fairly small town, even employees of a travel centre do not know of any hostels.
My only option was to go to the library and get online. This would've have been brilliant if I didn't have to wait for 50 mins to get onto a computer. By this time I was seriously flagging but I found a place online and made my way straight over there.
I do not know if it was the sleep deprivation or something else but I found the owner of the hostel really attractive. She was about 60 years old for god's sake and I my beer goggles had long since worn off.
(I actually know my beer goggle limit as I did an experiment of myself once to find out at what point I would find a certain girl attractive who I didn't really fancy when I was sober. Cruel and immature I know, but I was interested to find out that I am anyone's for 4 beers).
I checked again today, and there is still something about the owner - I do not know what is wrong with me.

Anyway, after 30 hours awake I finally got some sleep and it was lovely. I got up, ate some food and then went back to bed and slept for another 12 hours.
That brings us to today.
I got up feeling bright and breezy and went for a hike up to the summit of Mt Keira. It is called a mountain but it is not very tall - only about 500 metres.
The walk up itself was really nice. The trek has been created using stones for steps that fit perfectly into the surrounding environment and give it a sort of ancient Inca trail feeling. I was working up a sweat, getting into the walk and had to fight my way through some foliage near to the summit to then come face to face with a road. Talk about disappointing, and to compound it, as I emerged from the trees an old couple in a 4x4 pulling a caravan slowly drove up the road past me!
Still, I got to the top and went over to the lookout overlooking Wollongong and the ocean.

Next to me at the lookout were the caravan couple. My conversation went as follows:
The man, "G'day...mmmmm"
Me, "Hello, how are you?"
The man, "Good thanks....mmmmm"
The man to his wife, "Look there is the hospital down there...mmmmm"
This 'mmmmm' business is starting to annoy me a little. It is a deep set 'mmmmm' like he has a habit and can't shake it off. As someone who used to have a lot of habits when I was younger I can notice them quite quickly.
The wife to the man, "Yes that nice, come on let's go, I have seen enough"
The man to his wife, "Well I haven't.....mmmmm"
The man to me, "This was all flooded a few weeks ago...mmmmm"
Me, "Oh really?"
The man, "Yes....mmmmm"
His wife, "Right, I am going" and off she walks
The man, "I will catch you up....mmmmm"
He then turned around and left and without saying another word let out a "mmmmm" as walked away.
Ha ha.

On my way down I took the trail with the best name ever. I crossed Thorung La Pass in Nepal, took a boat down the Mekong River in Laos, but none will beat 'Dave Walsh's walk'. No idea who Dave Walsh is, but I like him.
At the beginning of the Dave Walsh walk there was a picture of a tribute to the 'Six sisters of the west winds', a set of monuments that I could view along the way. On the photo they looked huge and quite impressive, but in real life they were anything but. The tallest went up to my hip and the smallest just below my knee, and given my height, that is small.
The funny thing was that just along from the 'tribute' (I was would be p*ssed if I was one of the 6 sisters) was a termite mound in the exactly the same shape and about twice as high as the largest monument.
I really hope that at the unveiling ceremony in December 2007 the termites sat there watching and said 'Lads, this is b*ll*cks, let's show Dave Walsh and his cronies what a real tribute to the sisters is'.

And so that is that, you are once again up to date.
I will continue to head south and try to find a job! Wish me luck.

Oh, Moggy, can you please check this post for spelling and grammar. That is not sarcasm, I mean it. Love you!