Jack Bauer gave me a piggy back from Bangkok to Sydney. Arrival was basically an information overload. I got an airport pick up and was thrushed straight to the work and travel company. Whils waiting to receive our YHA membership cards i met my first aussie when i was having a cig, he was an ex convict turned monk with no teeth, and apparently he used to be pretty big in the Camden music scene. The guy was pretty freaky and he had more quotes for me than Damos facebook page.

I met a Finnish guy called Simo at our orientation. He is a nice guy but his Enslish leaves a litlle to be desired. For example, i asked him for the piece of paper with instructions on how to register your sim and he proceeded to draw me a map of Finland to show me where he is from. My first night was spent drinking with him, the majority of it in either silence or confusion.

My first few days in general were a bit of a admin hastle. Having set up an Oz bank account i needed to transfer money from my HSBC account. The "worlds local bank" turned out to be aboout as local as Man Utd supporters. (Hypercrit i Know) They wouldnt let me use their phone, transfer money from a branch over here or anything i needed to do because my account is english.

My first proper night out was an organised pub crawl with 75 people. A bus took us to bars in different parts of the city. The majority of the people on it were German so i took the opportunity to put my GCSE grade D German to the test. I am pretty sure that they were laughing at me as oppose to with me but i defiantely made some pity friends. My German was appalling and i basically could only remember to say my name is michael and that i like swimming. Real interesting stuff!!

There was this proper crazy Canadian guy in my hostel. The first time i saw him he was being rejected from numerous night clubs, the next night he went on a rant about aussie cops being corrupt and thats why he got arrested, turns out he knocked two of them out!!Then i saw him on the balcony getting 1 leg shaved, when i said hello he replied, "alright mate, im proper dumb i am." The last time i saw him he had lost his passport and was down to his last $10. He was considering begging so he could get enough money to make it to the embassy. (I was tempted to give him Emmas email to get some tips)

They say that travelling is about new experience so i pushed the boat and got a call centre job. I managed to stick it out for a week but it was so dull that i was close to tears on numerous occassions.Despite the job being tedious i managed to make some good friends there and we had many messy nights out (in the Scubar in particular) drowning our sorrows at how crap the job was. My continued spreading of granny rave has spawned new alternatives. My peronal favourite is grocery shopping rave. This can involve pushing the trolley, picking up items and putting them in the trolley, 2 for 1 bargains and even shop lifting, the options are endless. This will seem bizzarre to most but there is an inferior Burton that will love this dance. (simple minds eh)

After quitting my job in record time i went into the blue Mountains for a few days. The first day i went on a organised tour. We We went to see some kangaroos and then took a 3 hour trek through a canyon. My camera broke so i missed out on loads of photo opportunties, some of the scenery is amazing. Our guide was really good, and had facts coming out of his ears. There was only 6 of us and because of this he decided to take us up orphan rock. He had never taken anyone there before because the steps are too dangerous. (the lack of steps may have been the real problem) That was the best view of the day and it is always a cool feeling to do something that not many other tourists get to do. The day finished with a ride on the scenic railway, which i think is the steepest railway in the world.

The next day, armed with a new camera i decided to go into the mountains on my own. I played it safe at first, sticking to the edge and taking loads of photos. My snap happiness ended when i decided to go onto one of the many walkpaths. The one that i chose was meant to be an easy 1.5 stroll that doesnt take you too far into the mountains. The hostel in nearby village Katoomba had given me a map (which turned out to be as much use as giving stevie wonder contact lenses) and it looked really easy. During the walk you come up to crossroads, or crosspaths i suppose, and you just follow the sign gor your path. It was easy at first.

I dont know what went wrong but i came acroos a crossroads without any signs for my path on it. I followed my instincts and walked for another hour or so, which was mainly filled with head scratching, panic, confusion and cigarrettes. Eventually i saw a couple, and they informed me that i was on a 3 day walkpath to centre rock. Not fancying a spot of sleeping rough in the mountains, and with a 3 o'clock pick up time to get me back to Sydneyi began to backtrack. Turns out that i had been paying no attention to where i was going so the backtrack was filled with more head scratching, panic, confusion, cigarrettes and by now an overwheliming desire to scream at the top of my vioce. My Burton drama queen mode kicked in and i begun to have visions of me being the next jungle book, living in the mountains forever.

Just as life as i knew seemed destined to end i found a saviour in some aussie walker. The crocodile dundee wannabe pointed me in the right direction, although not before he had turned red faced with laughter. He said something like "an english fella going walking in the mountains on his own, streauth!!" and then laughed in my face for a bit. Turns out i wasnt that far from my path and i actually made the bus with time to spare.

After the mountains i had weekend surf camp. We got picked a Friday night and drove up the coast to Seal rocks. It was a 5 hour journey so we stopped of at the bottle shop and got drunk. My group had 20 people plus 4 instructors. The bus journey was great fun, filled with singalongs, and harrassing innocent people in other cars on the freeway. The only problem was the limited toilet stops. There were quite a few of us like Damns ready to burst when we finally made it to camp. The instructors are all nutjobs, who are great fun and really nice guys, although id quess the average IQ cant be much above 80.

The next day the suring begun. They took us to a gorgeous beach and spent the first half hour teaching us on the sand. Just as we were about to go into the water we spotted a Tiger Shark. Luckily the instructors are ultimate proffessionals and knew how to protect our safety. We waited 5 minutes, moved a massive 50 metres down the beach and proceeded to go into the water. After our session finished, filled mainly with falling over, we saw the shark was still out there. Apparently you cant see sharks as easily when in the water so there is a chance we may have been swimming with him.

Later on that day we also saw a whale and some dolphins. The instructors were "stoked" as apparently were really lucky to be seeing this stuff. That night we joinded up with other groupd andf played loads of drinkin games and stuff. Our team, the shark tamers, were last in just about everything but we proved our resilience by being the last to go to bed.

The next day we went to another gorgeous beach. This time the waves were a lot harder to handle. Surfing is a great addrenaline rush and when you get to stand up it feels amazing. There is also the bit when you have decided your going to go for a wave and its coming up behind you, thats also a rush. The only problem is that that part is uaually followed by falling over, going under and then not knowing where you are, getting hit over your head with your board and general panic!! im not so keen on that bit.

with there 20 of us we were often flying into eachother and at one point on the second day about 8 of us got taken by this monster wave (about 4ft) and washed up on the beach at the same time, all lying on top of eachother it looked like D Day.Surf camp was awesome but also bruising, the waves are so strong they actually drew blood from my knees at one point!! Oh we saw dolphins again on the second day. This time a whole famile riding a wave. It was amazing!!

Im currently staying in a hostel caled the westend. I love it here. I have been staying in the church, with 28 beds. Because there are so many people everyone is surprisingly respectful and its pretty easy to sleep although there is the occassional drunken fort building, cross dressing and games of musical beds to distract you. It has a free pool table so ove wasted many hours in the lounge. Im off to Darwin on Wednesday for 3 weeks mango picking. Its meant to be like the tropics up there so it could be interesting.