It was very wierd having a place that we'd be staying for more than a few days and meant we could unpack for the first time in about 4 months - although after seeing some of the mouldy treats at the bottom of our bags it probably wasnt such a good thing. The flat was really cool, 2 minutes walk from the busiest beach on earth and a bbq in the garden - what else could you want in Australia?!

Our flatmates seemed cool as well; there was Jonny, a backpacker from Carlisle who had been sidetracked in Australia for a few years, Trinny, a Chilean girl who was extremely friendly, Sergio, another Chilean who was brought up in America and is without a doubt one of the smoothest guys ive ever met, and finally there was Rod. Rod is a 44 year old who still thinks he's 21 and 'living the dream' with the countless projects that he genuinely believed would bring him fame and fortune, for example the movie he was directing or the abseiling company he was planning to start which he bored us all with on many occassions. In actual fact he lived in the garage and his film was awful but despite all that he was a decent guy.

Joanne had a fairly big room with a double bed where as I opted to stay in what became known as the 'glass cage of hell,' 1/2 a sunroom divided from Joanne's with only a sliding glass door and divided from Trinny's room, which was the other 1/2 of the sunroom with 2 wardrobes. It may sound pretty bad but living in Bondi I was hardly there anyway. After a few days of settling in and flat bonding it was straight to the job hunt. Fortunately for my wallet I found one after only 1 day of searching. It was a job fundraising for charity which pretty much meant I got paid for hanging around the street 8 hours a dayspeaking to people and grinding them down until they signed up for charity. For me it was the perfect job, I was doing something worthwhile, its the perferct way to meet people and we got to go on week-long trips which was a great way to see a lot of the country.

We soon settled into our work and flat and really felt like we were living there and not just travelling through. I quickly got into the rugby league, (Sydney Roosters forever!) and it also gave us the right to complain about backpackers crowding up the beach and taking up 2 seats on the bus with their massive bags...darn travellers!

We were fast becoming veterans in our flat as people moved in and out. Trinny was first to go, replaced briefly by Liana (a scottish girl we'd met in Malaysia) and then by Paul, another scottish backpacker. Jonny also moved on and was replaced by Tia, a New Zealander, and finally Sergio left leaving room for Meewah, a Korean student to join our family. Luckily all the newbies were as cool as our original flat buddies who we managed to keep in touch with anyway.

I started to move up in the working world too getting a promotion which gave me a free phone and a car and petrol card after they gave it to me for a week and forgot to ask for it back for 2 months. The car meant i was able to drive down and visit 'The Australians' in Wollongong which was really cool, although think Uncle Tucker was a tad upset i didnt bring any apple crumble - or maybe it was more due to the result in the old firm the week before which it seemed everyone in Wollongong was aware of.

We were having such a great time and meeting so many friends that we kind of forgot about having to leave and do the rest of our travels. In fact it was only by chance I realized our round the world tickets had been cancelled. Alison, like the legend she is, managed to fix it all out for us but I couldnt help being a little disappointed since I was starting to get used to the idea of staying away longer that the year we'd planned. It was then we both decided we should stay longer and finish our year-long visa in Australia and then buy a new ticket for the way back.

By October we were thinking of moving on from Sydney. We were still loving it but there is so much of Australia to see and we wanted to do a bit travelling before trying our luck in Melbourne. It may well have been fate then that as we were considering this Rod told us the flats owners were doing renovations so we'd need to move out. We were only planning on staying a few more weeks anyway so we both moved in with my boss abd his girlfriend. The best thing about living with my boss was that to get me out of the flat he sent me on 2 trips for my last 2 weeks working which was awesome. My final week working I was sent up to tweedheads (on the Queensland border) so quit on wednesday which gave me 3 days to drive around Byron bay, surfers paradise and mount warning which are all cool touristy places, and relax in our swanky appartment which had a jaccuzi, pool, spa and gym...this whole working thing really is tough!!

Around this time too Joanne's dad made the trip downunder with Moya to visit. It was great to see them both and even better to see Moya when we werent looking like tramps like we did when we'd first got to Australia. And only a week or so after they had left it was time for us to pack up too. It was strange having all our possessions in 1 bag again but after a lot of emotional goodbyes we flew up to the sunshine coast where we were having a break (not that the last 6 months hadnt felt like a holiday anyway) before hitting the work again in Melbourne. It was sad to say bye to a lot of people but quite a few will be coming down to Melbourne too and definitely keep in touch with everyone else anyway

James

When we arrived in Bondi we had mixed emotions - James was still wiping the tears from his eyes after saying farewell to Jan (or according to him,wiping a bit of dirt from his eyes) but we were stoked (yeah we're down with the aussie lingo) about settling into Bondi. On the phone Rod (our live-in landlord) had sold our room to us as a "sun room" which later was termed as "the glass cage of hell".
separated by sliding glass divide. So on the rare occasion that james felt for some privacy he'd come home with a couple rolls of wrapping paper and turn his room into a giant present.

It didn't take long to realise that we were both a little light in the old cash department so there was only one thing to do - we took a rare shower, spruced ourselfves up a bit (i think i even pulled a brush through my hair) and headed out in search of employment. Unfortunately for us our apartment was right next to a pub... a couple scooners later we were feeling a lot more positive about things, we had made absolutely NO progress whatsoever on the job front but hell we had discovered the heavenly taste of Tooheys. Priceless.


Luckily the next day we both had a little more will power and I managed to bag myself a job in a cute little restaurant on campbell parade that looks onto Bondi Beach called 'Sahnia'. It was perfect, the scenery was beautiful and the staff are the best bunch of buddies a girl could ask for. Working there was always a laugh, whether I was being chased around the restaurant by charlie,making The Perfect coffee with Marto or just having some first class gossip sessions with sharon it was a blast. Every weekend there were fun filled antics - the jungle party, the city to surf celebrations, the Represent your Country shinanagins... all were nights i wish i could never forget but unfortunately that darned Tooheys had other plans. We even made it to the very prestigeous Wentworth Courier awards where were were nominated for 6 restaurant awards of which we won none however i managed to blag myself a seat next to the owners of the 'british lollipop shop' and reminisced about vimto bonbons and tizer all night so who was the real winner eh?!

However, despite all this top quality work escapades, the unrivalled highlight of my travels to date, the piece de resistance, the cherry on my metaphorical cake was the vision of Dad sauntering into Sahnia looking as suave as always (obviously.. he is a Milne after all!) I'll never forget how happy I was to see him and even smile to myself just remembering that moment. It really was perfect timing - we'd just received texts from rod that we were going to be homeless in a mere 2 weeks and i had yet another Button removal on the cards so seeing Old Man Milne was really the best thing i couldve asked for.

We did the coastal walk to Tamarama and dad showed off his push-up skills by doing 200 (you should always add '00' for man points), we went on a cheeky road trip down through Wolonga we passed through Kangaroo Valley (no Kangaroos to be seen though - very disappointing!), we must have taken a serious detour too as we found ourselves in Scotland at one point! One little gift shop even boasted to have "the best shortbread in australia"... chances are it had the only shortbread in australia but that's beside the point.

By the end of the week I had to say farewell to 3 very important things - my flat, my neck button and slightly more significant.. my dad. As predicted my very mature plan of holding it all together and having a poignant adult farewell went catapulting out the window and I fell apart like a little hysterical kid in tears. (1-1 James!)

We stayed with James' boss for a couple weeks which made it a little more tricky for James to try blag random days off but even so it was great fun and before we knew it it was time to say farewell to Bondi. We had initially planned to live a the beach for 2 months; we stayed for 7 and that, i believe, says it all.

Joanne