I've arrived at my final stop on tour, Sydney!! What a great city this is. I'll be here until Tuesday when I fly home to snowy England... Can planes land when it's snowing??? If not I might just have to stay here :-P

First let me cover off the last week or so...

On Tuesday night in Airlie beach I had a relatively quiet night. I went to the after party with the people I had just sailed around the Whitsunday Islands with but I got an early night as I had a bus to catch at 6.45am. We all know what happens when I don't get an early night in these situations...

Wednesday I travelled by bus to a mandatory stopover called Kroombit on the OzExperience backpacker bus I am travelling on. Kroombit is a Cattle Station (a big farm) in the Outback. However this farm has also turned to the tourist trade to supplement it's income and they have numerous wooden huts with dorm beds in. We arrived here in the evening and after some dinner and a few beers the real entertainment began. First up learning how to crack a whip. I was pretty decent at it and could create the sonic boom albeit not that loudly.

Next up was the mechanical bull riding contest. Well, I have discovered a new talent. I estimate the field of people in this competition consisted of circa 50. I was one of the last to go and at the time I stepped up to the bull the best was 15 'flips' of the bull. I blew the field away with a wopping 24 flips of the bull and won by a stretch. For my efforts a got a free beer. It was a glorious moment and the first time someone wearing a West Ham shirt has won a competition in a while!!

Thursday I spent the day travelling to Rainbow Beach, which would be my departure point for Frazer Island the following day. Spent pretty much the whole day on the coach and when I arrived it was dark and in the middle of a power cut caused by a bush fire. Given the lack of electricity, and the fact I had to get up at 5.30am to go to Frazer Island, an early night was had.

On Friday morning we commenced our self drive tour to Frazer Island. Basically after a 30 minute dvd and the briefest instructions anyone over 21 and with a driving licence is let lose behind the wheel of four wheel drive Toyota Land Cruiser with responsibility for upto 10 fellow passengers who you may or may not know. Oh and Frazer Island is the world's biggest sand Island. There are no roads as such just 'sand roads' inland or the beach. It's a challenge to say the least.

In the absence of anyone else stepping upto the plate I drove first (something I would continue doing for 90% of the next 3 days which was cool with me). The inland roads are absolutely insane to drive on, the sand is so soft in places and the car is rocking around all over the place. Cars were getting stuck and having to dig themselves out (including us) left, right and centre. It was good fun though!!

At one point we got beached big time and need the help a load of people to push us out, this delayed us significantly but it was all good fun. Another delay was one of the bags of boxed wine we had in the cool box in the roof splitting and going all over everyone's belongings. Woops...

Once we finally got to our main stop on day one, Lake McKenzie, it was nearly 5pm! It was worth the wait though. It was the clearest lake I have ever seen and really beautiful, naturally I jumped in for a swim. After this we made our way to our camp site to set up our tents and cook dinner etc. Sadly the veggie burgers packed for me didn't survive the journey and ended up mashed up in a plastic bag. In the spirit of waste not, want not I ate them anyway... cold.

The evening was spent drinking goon (cheap as chips boxed wine) and playing drinking games. Across the two cars that we took out we had some cool people who were up for a laugh. Myself, Andy, Emily, Hayley and Lauren made up Team GB. Jennifer and Jesicca made up Team Sweden. There was also a Team France whose names escape me. There was also a Team Germany, but quite frankly they might aswell not have been there as they completely detached themselves from the rest of the group (except when they needed driving somewhere) and didn't socialise hardly at all... not a lot else to say really other than I had fun and went to bed in the wee small hours...

The day after after packing up our camp we would make our way to some other lake via a town called Eurong (me driving again... I like to think I had sobered enough and am pretty sure I had). Driving along the inland roads was fun but all morning we could here a noise coming from somewhere on the car. We stopped a couple of times but could see nothing so in the absence of any other source of assistance proceeded to Eurong. When we got there we noticed what the problem was. All of the nuts of the rear left tyre had come really lose and the wheel was virtually hanging of. The threds on the wheels were absolutely knackered and I was pretty annoyed that we had been sent out with a wheel like that as if the journey to Eurong had been 30 minutes longer the wheel would have come off in my opinion. Baring in mind your can drive upto 80kph on the beach, we would have been in big trouble.

We called our hire company and they arranged to get a mechanic our to us. Unfortunately we ended up waiting around for about three hours which kind meant our plans for the day went out of the window. Due to the tide time restricting when you can drive on the beach we had no choice but to just head to our campsite for the night and amuse ourselves there. We did the usual - set up camp, ate food etc and then the drinking games commenced...

At what I guessed was about 1-2am the hardcore element (Team GB) went down to the beach to look at the stars. I saw my first shooting stars!! It was cool... After this we went back to the camping to drink some more. After a while only myself and Emily was left. A night of bizarre conversations, giggles and desperately trying to use up every last drop of goon ensued - it was great fun! Then midway through what I thought was the night... it got light!!! It was 4.30am. Having been told that the sunrise was cracking and still being wide awake/p*ssed we grabbed our sleeping bags and headed down the beach to watch.

Now as sunrises go I'm sure this was a good one but almost the second I got in that sleeping bag I was out for the count. Emily saw her first sunrise though which was nice! Woke up on the beach about 7.30am and thought we better head back to camp as no one would know where we were! I let someone else drive that morning - it was for the best...

The last day on Frazer we did bits a pieces, swam in another lake - nothing spectacular as we had to be back at the ferry for 2pm. When I took over the driving in the after the car didn't feel right to me. It felt like it was leaning to the right and the steering was hard to control. I didn't mention this to my fellow passengers (I felt I had it under control if I took it easy, plus we had just heard that someone had died on the island that day by flipping their car over - it happens a lot apparently :-I). Once on the ferry all became clear - our front right tyre was completely flat, it explained a lot. Anyway I nursed the car back to the hire company and headed back to the hostel...

The evening at the hostel was spent drinking (surprise!!) and guess who was left at the end? You guessed it the same to from the previous night. Loads more giggles ensued and I had a cracking drunken chat about architecture!! :) At some point got into a hammock and fell asleep. Woke up outside at about 4.30am with my body ravaged with bites... we decided it was time for bed at this point!!

Unfortunately I had to get up at 6.30am to go on a dolphin tour. Not only was this pretty pants but I was in a lot of pain from the night before. In hindsight I REALLY wished I had stayed in my bed... Unfortunately the rest of Team GB (except me and Andy) departed that morning. Due to the bloody dolphin thing running late I didn't get to say bye either, which did nothing to lift my mood...

The rest of the day was spent on the beach or mooching around and chilling the hell out. Taking a turn for the sensible (for once! Hooray!) I decided to have an early night. Unfortunately the rest of my dorm didn't assist with this plan and decided to have something of a party in and around my dorm. It wasn't the great night sleep I had been longing for!!

The morning after I caught the bus at 8am to Byron Bay. We got there at around 5pm. After some quick food I headed to a bar called Cheeky Monkey's where the OzExperience had arranged for some free booze. I quickly made friends with some randoms and a night of carnage ensued at both the bar and at the hostel. A couple of the highlights:

- Being unable to find any mugs for the goon in the hostel so getting a big saucepan and passing it round the table. Classy!!

- Once it was just me and the guy Ian left at Cheeky Monkey's watching Ian approach a woman and her saying (before he'd barely had a chance to speak) "not a chance"... it was hilarious and possibly the biggest act of arrogance i have ever seen. Anyway, we wanted some company and in the spirt of if at first you don't succeed try again we managed to make friends with a cool Swedish girl called Jenny...

- Ian trying to attract women by saying to them "would you like to talk to my Italian friend?"... the Italian friend being me! Minimal success of course.

- I stole some dude's dollar coin of the pool table and replaced it with change. Well he quickly informed me that the pool table didn't take change and I would have to get him a dollar, fair enough really. The bar looked busy and I had a brainwave. If I stuck a 10 dollar note in this duck shooting arcade machine in the bar and then requested change it would come out in coins. WHAT A RETARD. Of course it would not give change and I had 10 dollars worth of duck shooting...

The following day (Wednesday) was spent getting burnt at the beach. Another night of carnaged ensued that naturally envolved goon. Although I think it all rather caught up with me and I was falling asleep left, right and centre!! And for the second time in my life I got thrown out of a club for falling asleep - it's only rock and roll but I like it!!

On Thursday I caught the bus to Surf Camp to learn to surf. We had a three hour lesson and to say I sucked would be an understated. The less said about it the better to be honest!! In the evening I actually had an early night in preparation for Sydney...

Friday I caught the bus to Sydney. I knew Matt (mate from KPMG) was going to be in Sydney so naturally we had arranged a drinking session. This was bloody messy and my recollection of a lot of it (getting home in particular) is extremely sketchy... it was a quality night though and numerous Jager bombs were consumed!! There was a camera about and I can't wait to see what went on that night...

So hear we are, Saturday in Sydney... I think I'm about to go and meet my mate Ian at Bondi Beach. I fly home on Tuesday. Kind of a bit down that the journey is about to come to an end but at the same time it will be nice to see my family and friends. Fingers crossed for a white Christmas, that might just cushion the blow...

Oh and the girls from Team GB arrive in Sydney on my last night so I'm definitely getting 'on it' and going out in style... can't wait!!

Ciao ciao!!

John x