Today is my last evening in Canberra. Tomorrow I'm catching the Greyhound to Sydney and I should be there by 8pm. While I still have access to free internet, I may as well fill you all in about my last few days in the ACT! Thursday 27/06/06 I didn't really do much. I drove to a place called Gold Creek Village and had a look around the shops and also the Reptile centre. Friday Again it was Emma's day off so we had a few things to do in the morning then I went off to the National Zoo and Aquarium. After having a quick look around I met up with Emma and we did the Zooventure tour. The tour lasts for two hours and you get a behind the scenes look at the zoo. During the tour we got to handfeed a Tiger, Lion, Eland, Giraffe and a Cougar. We went into the Dingo enclosure to meet them and also had European brown bears licking food from our fingers. The last part of the tour involved holding a Boa Consrictor which not many people did (I did coz I'm not scared of snakes!). In the evening Dave, Emma and I went to Matt and Rose's house for drinks, food and a bit of pole dancing!! Don't worry, I'm not considreing a career change. Emma and Rose do pole dancing classes to keep fit so Rose has a pole fitted in her lounge. We all decided to give it a go (the boys were quite good, plenty of upper body strength), I was rubbish!! Saturday I woke up covered in bruises from my pole dancing attempts, muscles aching like mad!! Dave had a hockey match in the afternoon and there was a local rugby game that I wanted to watch so I drove him to hockey then went looking for the rugby. Matt Giteau ( aussie international) was making his comeback from an injury and was trying to get back into the Wallabies so was playing for a local team, Queanbeyan. He only lasted 35 mins before he dislocated his thumb and had to leave the game. I enjoyed the game even though I had gone on my own. In the evening we went to a trivia night. There was Emma, Dave, me and another English lady on our team. We were totally hopeless!! We came last in all three rounds!! Loads of the questions were Aussie related and our only Aussie was too drunk to be of any use (his hockey team had won). Sunday As Sunday is traditionally a day of rest we all decided to do exactly that! We did get up and go to the opening of the new runway at Canberra airport. People were allowed to walk up and down the extended part of the runway while planes were coming in to land over our heads. After a quick stop at Dave's parents house it was off to get pizza and dvds so we could sit on our bums and do nothing for the rest of the day!! Monday Didn't do much at all!! I did go to Civic to try and change my flight to NZ but the airline was fully booked so I couldn't make the changes I wanted. I did some food shopping and that was about it. Tuesday I went to the new Parliament and took one of the free guided tours. I had lunch in Manuka and then went to the National Museum of Australia to have a look at a temporay exhibit that hadn't been there the first time I went. The exhibit consited of artefacts collected by Cook on his Pacific explorations so there were items from Hawaii, New Zealand, Tonga, Tahiti etc.