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February 27th 2007
Hi everyone,
Well this is my first journal entry from Australia, sorry it’s taken me nearly a week to get around to it but it’s been quite hectic. I landed in Melbourne at 6.30am on Friday morning (7.30pm Thursday for you) after 21 hours of flying, it went quite quickly though because I was excited which was good. I was sat next to a really cute little old couple on the way out, the woman was quizzing me about why I was coming traveling so I told her about the last few weeks and why I’d decided to come and she started crying!! Bless her I felt really bad, she was so nice. I met Laura at the airport when she got in at 11 and we got the shuttle bus into town to find somewhere to stay. Our bags were so heavy and we were both so tired that we just went to the first hostel we saw, we’ve since renamed it “the flea pit”. We were in a dorm with two other girls and one of them was covered in bites all over her legs, we assumed that they were mosquito bites until we went for a shower and everyone in there was absolutely covered in bite marks from head-to-toe and we were informed that the place was absolutely infested with bed bugs – nice!! We swiftly dumped our bags and headed out into Melbourne for a look around very very glad to be out of the hostel for a bit.
That evening we went on the Neighbours tour and it was brilliant, those of you who said you thought it might ruin the show were wrong it was so much fun. We got into our Neighbours minibus which was full of other English people, strangely every Australian we’ve told about going thinks we are crazy! And guess who got on the bus Dr Darcy from the show, I was a little bit startstruck even though he hasn’t been on it for a while. He gave us a talk about the workings of Neighbours and some gossip about the show (I’ve put it all in a paragraph at the bottom because I know they’ll be some of you who don’t want me to ruin the next 2 months of Neighbours viewing pleasure so you can miss it out!) and we got pictures with him and he signed some autographs, Eccy road girls you’ve got some Darcy related items coming to you in the post soon. First stop on the tour was the studios where unfortunately we were only allowed to see Grease Monkeys, the bus stop and Lou’s garage as the rest is all sealed off from prying English eyes. Next we were driven to Ramsey Street which was great I took pictures of all the houses and also by the Ramsey Street sign. However, I’m sorry to shatter the dreams of you fans but the street is absolutely tiny I don’t know how they ever managed to play ball games out there in the show. Also all the scenes inside the houses are filmed in sets at the studios as the houses are actually lived in by normal people, and the road isn’t called Ramsey Street at all but PinOak Court!! Last of all we went to Erinsborough High School where we couldn’t go in as it’s actually a working school but we could look around outside.
On Saturday morning we got the train to South Geelong, an hour out of Melbourne, to see Laura’s family who she hasn’t met before. Her great Uncle John and great Aunt Adrienne collected us from the station and when we got to their house we had a lovely lunch waiting for us including homemade cake which was great as we hadn’t wanted to eat at the flea pit before we left. They were so sweet they took us to a golfcourse in Anglesea where wild Kangeroos congregate in the day so we could get some photos of them. They are amazing animals really big but so graceful when they jump. We tried to find one which had a Joey but we couldn’t see any – I was a bit relieved to be honest I find the whole pouch thing a bit unnerving, like something out of Alien! We also met their daughter Karen and her two children Kellen and Taylor, Kellen’s a dirtbike rider and he has ramps set up at the house so he did some jumps for us he was really good. That evening we had our first “Aussie barbie” with the whole family and it was so nice – no offence to our English barbeques but theirs are so much better. We met John and Adrienne’s other two daughters Sue and Elisa and their children who were all very cute – Pheonix, whos 4 kept saying “Daddy I want another pony” in a posh English accent it was so funny. Karen also gave me the contact details for a friend of hers in Auckland who she thinks might be able to get me work once Laura’s left – I think I’ll probably work for a little while it’ll help me get a little bit extra together for skiing when Rachel comes out (have you booked your ticket yet Rach?!). On Sunday Elisa and the family all took us surfing because her husbands really good at it he’s being surfing for years. He kitted me and Laura out with wetsuits and we didn’t do too badly for Pommies! I was so proud of myself on my first go I managed to stand up although I wasn’t up for long. So now I’m on a mission I want to have another couple of lessons and then I’m going to rent a board for a while. I want to be a fully fledged surfer when I get back next year. Just down the road from the beach is the place where all the head offices for Quicksilver, Roxylife and Ripcurl are so there are loads of cheap factory shops. As you can probably imagine me and Laura both had a good shop although we’re struggling now because our rucksacks are a bit fuller. Sunday afternoon we were taken to an Aussie rules football match, for those of you who haven’t heard of it its like a cross between American football and Rugby. The match was brilliant for the first time ever I watched a sport and completely understood what was going on it was much easier to understand than football. The players as well make our footballers look like little wimps one on the team was 6 foot 8 and they’re all really muscly, I can honestly say they were a pleasure to watch!! The family were all lovely and they took us to so much stuff we had a really good time. They’ve invited me back to see them when I come back from New Zealand and I think I probably will go and get spoilt for a few nights – I’m hoping that by then I’ll be able to show off my new found surfing skills as well.
Yesterday we both flew up to Sydney where we’re staying with a mate from school David Jackson which is quite random, he works out here and lives in a shared flat with 3 friends who seem nice right near Bondi beach. When we got here yesterday the weather was rubbish, it was raining quite a bit so we just chilled out and went shopping. Today’s been really sunny so we went into Sydney for the day and saw the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House which were stunning and had a cruise around the harbour. Tomorrow is definitely going to be a beach day, I’m just hoping the weather holds out, I’m feeling extremely see-through at the moment especially next to Laura who is ridiculously brown from Thailand. We’re going to leave Sydney at the end of the week because we want to do the blue mountains tour before we go which takes us up into the mountains and to a big nature reserve. Also I’m hoping to see my sister on Friday night because she’s on holiday over here. Then we are going to get a greyhound bus up the coast, the bus is really good we get a ticket from Sydney to Cairns which is valid until the end of March and we can jump on and off as much as we like and it stops all along the coast. We were thinking of hiring a car but this is a lot cheaper and easier.
I’m going to finish here because we’re off to get some dinner. Thank you for your messages and those of you who haven’t sent me one yet – why not!!
Tammy and Phil I need some Hollyoaks updates hows the flat doing without me? – and Holly hope you book your ticket soon you’ll absolutely love it out here.
I love you all lots and lots and miss you all very much
Big hugs and kisses
Sam
Xxx
P.S Neighbours goss
1. Paul Robinson poisons everyone in Ramsey Street, everyone recovers but Stingray dies.
2. Dylan leaves the street followed a few weeks later by Janelle and Brie.
3. Boyd has an affair with that girl he’s been friendly with recently and leaves.
4. Steph finds Max in a supermarket carpark with another family – he comes home but they can’t work things out so he leaves to go back and work on the oil rigs.
5. Lynne Scully leaves (wooooooooooohoooooooooooo!!)
6. Sky goes to prison for bashing someone over the head.
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