SYDNEY

APRIL 11th-We arrived in Sydney on Friday at about 4.30 pm. We began our sight seeing the following day APRIL 12th-The weather here is much warmer than the south island of New Zealand but its just going into winter in Australia. Today we walked through Hyde Park, the botanical gardens which had loads of spiders just suspended mid walkway....a good introduction to Australia! Our walk took us to the Sydney harbour where we saw the Opera House and the harbour bridge, aka "the coat hanger". The Opera House is so huge, our first sighting just shocked us, it was so strange to see it in real life!

APRIL 13th/14th-The weather was awful on the unday hot but rainy, on monday we headed to Darling Harbour where we saw lots of boats-surprise! We also applied for our TFN...tax file number in order to work in Australia. In the evening we met up with Laura, a friend we met in NZ.

APRIL 15th-SYDNEY TO JINDABYNE-We headed to Sydney Aquarium today which was brilliant or BONZA as the aussie's say! It did rain a little again today but was still 20/21 degrees! APRIL 16th- Today we began our OZ EXPERIENCE tour. We left at 7.10am. We start a 3 day tour from Sydney to Melbourne. Our first stop was at Canberra the Capital of Australia and where you find the parliament houses with the prime minister. Firstly, we visied the National Museum of Australia....then at 2.30pm we had a guided tour around Parliament houses which was random. Our tour guide was incredibly excited about a door being open because apparently if all the doors in the building are open they follow a straight line from the prime ministers room and he can see from one end of the building to the front doors and then to the other side of the city from the fron tof the building! Apparently they never open all the doors or even many of them and tey had a door open they wouldn't normally open...riveting I know! After the tour we got on our last drive to Jindabyne. We watched a DVD about the power created from the snowy mountains of Jindabyne, a big energy project about Dams and snow. Next, we watched a film called ""The Man from Snowy River" the film is based on a famous Australian poem. We stayed in a dorm with about 9 people but this was a posh dorm we had towels provided, a fridge, kettle, tea and milk and a TV. We also had our free meal.

APRIL 17TH-JINDABYNE TO LAKES ENTRANCE-Day 2 of the tour began with a 6am start and a free fry up breakfast. Then we did a 3 hour hike....we'd got used to these in NZ, this was our first ozzy one. We did a hike up the snowy mountains in Kosciusko National park. Mount Kosciusko (cossy osko) is the highest point in Australia 2,230m. The walk was a good laugh, it was a really sunny morning and our driver "Bones" was getting us all soaked by stamping on the water we had to cross. We were all able to fill up our water bottles in this stream too. Later as our journey continued it became very bumpy as we were on a dirt track, we went past "Avalanche Rock" and drove through a town with 1 population "Suggen Buggen" We also crossed the border from New South Wales into Victoria. We saw our first Emu's and Kangaroo's since arriving in Australia, they just ran out in the road in front of us! On one of our stops that day we picked up a live cricket and our driver ate it!alive! We also stopped to collect fire wood for a bonfire on the beach later at Lakes Entrance. Again, we had free food in the eve. We had our own room tonight at YHA. We chilled at the beach and had marshmellows on the fire and drank some GOON! The dreaded goon....its the wine you get in a bag that comes in a box its $10 (5 pound) for 4 litres so all travellers buy it as its cheap. Its called Goon because goon means pillow in aborignal language and they refer to the bag as a pillow.

APRIL 18th-LAKES ENTRANCE TO MELBOURNE-Day 3-the final day of this sector of our full "Fair dinkum" pass tour (which takes us from Sydney to Sydney) Up at 5.30 am today to leave at 6.30am! We stopped at "Squeaky Beach" we did an hour hike here and it was so windy. We arrived at the beach at he end of our hike and had lunch while our driver went for a surf. The beach was named because as you walk on the sand it sqeaks under your feet-seriously it does! Later we stopped at Wilsons Promontory National park. Our driver took us onto an old airfield, we wern't meant to be there. Here we crept up and saw kangaroos up close....loads of them, they are so hilarious when they jump! Bones also shown us one of the most poisenous spiders up close...the red back. He turned over a tyre in the field and there were loads of them. Also, bus antics...we used the radio and spoke to truckdrivers nearby and it was funny when one drov past us and said "i think i just saw you, are you in the oz experience bus". We arrived in Melbourne at 6pm and stayed at Base (hostel) in St Kilda. That eve we caught the tram and went out in the city...to Joint bar, with some people off our bus.