Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
OK so a few prompts from people at home and I'm attempting to sort out the lack of recent blog entries- sorry, I've been incredibly busy and had no idea it'd been so long. So it'll be less detailed which is bad, but I'll see what I can remember...
I believe I left you in Brisbane. (wow that was a long time ago!)
Right, so after the slightly disappointing Brisbane, the weather decided to stay pretty stormy and cold for a few weeks. We moved on to Surfer's Paradise so that we could meet up with Aileen's friend Vicky before she moved back to England. Our hostel was a relatively OK little place with a nice enough pool, a kitchen big enough for 2 whole people to stand in at any one time, and a slightly scabby but none the less en suite bathroom. The hostel staff managed to convince us that a bar crawl would be a good way of seeing what Surfers had to offer after dark and failed totally to mention the fact that it was still scoolies time (end of the aus school year and the time when the 18 year old of Australia flock, on mass to Surfer's Paradise and Byron Bay. Nice. We had a reasonable night, being hearded from bar to bar (only one was nice ish, as it had a live band) by people shouting 'backpackers, we're leaving', before getting lost in bar 3 of 4, trying to leave through the door we'd come in which had been locked, and ending up losing the rest of the group and forfeiting our last free drink. On the plus side, I managed to convince a fellow lost 'backpacker' that I was in fact Australian, with a slightly ridiculous attempt at an Aussie accent. Boom! The next couple of days were spent with a few guys we met at the hostel, relaxing by the pool under the clouds, taking t-shirts off and putting them back on every time the sun tried to shine! A few of them found an apartment and moved in while we were there, so we had one evening of near luxury, sitting in a genuine lounge, with actual sofas and only people we were actually with (even if we didnt really know half of them!)... All in all, a pretty OK place, nice enough beach, some average fish and chip shops (which we trialled... Aileen dropped her fish on the floor before even making it to the table and at the disgusted glances from locals, scraped up and ate what she could anyway! It was probably a whole lot cleaner eating off the floor than 'clean' hostel plates!!! HAHA.
Next was Byron Bay... storms or no storms, it is fair to say I LOVED this place!
The bad weather did follow us and was pretty strange as it would be clear and slightly promising looking, then suddenly turn into a monsoon- very strange! If you were sat within a meter of the edge of the roof, you'd be soaked- interesting when the table to eat at is less far away than that! eat stood up, with your back against the wall anyone? Yep? OK! On the first day, we bumped into Laura and Nicole who happened to be staying at the same hostel, so had a quick chat, but they were off down the coast faster than us so went their own way soon after. We decided to stay for a whole week, instead of our intended 5 nights and spend our time relaxing a little, making bracelets with beads from the numerous little hippy shops, eating amazing pies from the 24 hour bakery 'the Hot Bread Kitchen' (a genius idea, but maybe dangerous for the waistline?) and pottering about enjoying the atmosphere. One day we walked along the beach and came accross a group of people playing the bongos and the spoons (seriously) and a crazy hippy girl doing some zombie dancing to it all, so we sat on a rock and listened for a while. We tried to soak up some of the local nightlife too but it was still the tail end of schoolies so everyone was 18 and a bit annoying and I felt like an old lady getting all annoyed at them for spilling drinks on me etc. We tried out cheeky monkeys- Possibly one of the most dangerous clubs ever! Their dance floor consists of long picnic bench style tables and benches which you climb on and dance... which is all fine (if a little antisocial as you have to all stand in a line) until someone near the top trips or stumbles or is pushed by too many people trying to squeeze on, then the domino effect is tested! At one point this happened and I was pushed, so my leg slipped and went in between the bench and the table, my body the other way- i twisted my ankle quite nicely and had to be saved by a kind (18 year old of course) boy who may have been the only other person there not too drunk to remember his own name! I wander how many people break bones in that place? We tried cocomangas as well, but again were way outnumbered by children and spent the whole time avoiding their face paint so that we didnt spoil our clothes in the same way as in Noosa! The highlights of those nights were always the pie on the way home! :)
On the Sunday we got the Happy Coach to Nimbin, a very strange little town where everyone is permanently stoned and their one main street sells nothing but drug related memorabilia and has 'museums' about drugs etc which were clearly made by people who had enjoyed a few too many! The strangest thing was maybe the bowls club just down the road (everyone here was drunk and stoned too of course) where we had our 'BBQ' (code for dogmeat sausage) and I was asked by a drunk old man 'girls, did you really just say that to me? Huhuhuh"... Erm no... Didnt say anything to you, drunk man... maybe go easy on the hullusinogens? We also hired bikes and cycled (in between bouts of torrential rain) up a very very very steep purple face inducing hill to see a lighthouse and have our lunch nearly stolen by some cheeky birds. I do not like bicycles, hills or birds anymore! Haha.
After that, Aileen and I parted ways for a few hours (sniff sniff) while she took advantage of her free surf lesson at Spot X and I followed to pay a huge amount for mine! Initially I'd just planned to go there and stay a night before leaving with Aileen for the next place at lunchtime the following day... but, well, you can't stay at a surf camp and not surf really can you?! So I paid my $55 reluctantly and was assured I'd love it and get loads of help. I think I may have been the only person or maybe one of a very small handfull who were staying there but didnt buy a package, which meant everyone else got free (and tasty) meals. After hanging around and looking sad, watching people go and collect plates of beef strogonof with soup to start, crunchy rolls and every kind of salad you could imagine, I was told to hurry up and line up as it was ladies' night so girls had to queue first. Now, I genuinely had intended to go and cook so pasta on my own in the camp kitchen, but who was I to argue with the staff of Spot X? They tell me to eat their food, I'll eat their food! And boy was it good :) I managed to latch on to a group of Oz Experience people in the food queue and sat with them for a bit in the evening whilst I waited for literally everything I owned to finish being washed. At one point I decided togo and get something from my room, which involved walking down a dark little path at the side of other dorm huts. So, I set off on the long and troublesome journey (obviously I'm lying just to set the scene, it was just a little path, should've taken about 1 minute to reach my room), but not being able to see much in the dark, I was concentrating on not tripping over branches and snakes on the ground and so did not notice the spider's web that stretched from one of the huts to the bushes on the other side of the path (or the spider that ocupied it) until a split second before I walked into it. The spider fell onto my shoulder and decided to punish me for breaking its web by biting me on the shoulder. I did a very good bit of Irish dancing to get it off me, which resulted in the spider going inside my dress and biting me again on my back... not exactly what I'd planned. A further attempt at more Irish dancing and I had no idea where the spider had gone but was desperate to check it wasn't still lurking inside my dress waiting until he was hungry again, so I ran to Aileen's room and asked her to check. She demanded I take it off and shake it out, which I did- spider was gone (he must have been stunned and amazed by my dancing and decided I was worth keeping alive) but as I hadn't actually seen him properly, I had no idea what he looked like. Not such a good thing in Australia where half the biting spiders could kill you within minutes. Feeling a little bit foolish, I went in search of a real life Australian with some spider related knowledge. After failing at that, I settled for a standard spider knowledge-less Australian with a phone and a nurse's number. The nurse and I had a nice little chat about whether my face or lips were swollen, my abdomen sore, my shoulder and back blistering, my head aching, etc etc etc, by the end of which I was pretty sure that all of those things were true. In the end she advised me that if I felt strange or reacted in any way other than the red lumps I'd found initially, which faded within about an hour, I should call an ambulance as I may be dying... definately what you want to hear just before attempting to go to sleep! I told the girl in the bed below mine to call an ambulance if I looked wierd or anything, which she agreed to before falling fast asleep. I didn't.
Bright eyed and bushy tailed the next morning (cough cough) I went off for my surfing lesson... we were split into 2 groups, each with an instructor who would help us in the water and we were told what to do and made to practise jumping up on the boards on the beach (this was enough of a challenge for me... upper body strength never really was my best attribute). My instructor appeared to take a liking to a french girl with hair just like his and who needed abolutely no help whatsoever, so the rest of us were left to frustratedly attempt to stand up whilst he chatted her up for 2 hours! None the less, I did manage to stand up... 3 whole times! Granted, they were all accidental and I couldnt have told you how it actually happened and they may have been each for just a few seconds, but that was enough for me!
We showered, sneakily ate a bit more food meant for someone else than me and got on the bus to Coff's Harbour. I have to be honest, it isn't my favourite place. It is just a little bit too... nothing. We bumped into Liam and Vart, two 18 year olds who we'd met in Noosa and introduced to goon and ring of fire- they informed us they now had a 'goon problem' and were getting through a box between them every two days... woops! We were only staying a day, so we walked along the beach and to the harbour, slightly unimpressed with it all. Along the way we found a seagull which was struggling to fly and looked about to be swept away by the sea- I made a gigantic tit of myself by going to the lifeguard and saying (and I quote:) 'we have found a very sick bird on the beach'. Needless to say, he laughed at me. Quite a lot. And totally fairly! Anyway, I don't think he did anything about it, but on the way back the 'very sick bird' waited for us to come along before making a miraculous recovery and flying away. Who knew seagulls were actors?
We headed off next to Port McQuarrie and were met my Brady, Aileen's friend, who took us to his house and cooked an amazing steak and real meat BBQ for us, his flatmate Lisa (who he wasnt much a fan of... awkward!) and Lisa's parents. It was actually really nice to just have a family meal (even if it was a family I didn't know). The next day we walked along the beach and enjoyed reading all the messages on the painted break wall, before cooking a risotto (roasted veg risotto, just because we could- oven joy!) for Lisa and Brady, drinking home-made coctails and heading ot his friend Lorien's house for a few more drinks. All in all, a really nice day. The next morning, Aileen and I chilled out, had a lovely lie in on the sofa bed (which caved in to the middle so we kept rolling into each other) and waited for Brady to get home from work so we could drive all the way back up past Coff's Harbour to a little place called Nymboida for dinner in Russel Crowe's pub (Nymboida Coaching Station Inn)- apparently I can 'really eat, for a little girl'- and a bit of white water rafting/ tubing down the river- possibly not totally safe, but so much fun! I got sucked into a washing maching-like current that whipped me round and round in cirecles and I fell off my tube at one point and shaved all the skin off my arm, but that's life!
Newcastle! On the way here, we experienced the absolute height of rudeness from the grumpiest (and that is really saying something) Greyhound driver of the lot- I was so cross, I actually made notes (4 whole pages of them!) with the intention of writing a very strong letter of complaint... but I don't have time for that rubbish! The long and the short of it was that he told someone they were stupid for helping to take bags off the bus (makes total sense, no?), refused to let a girl get her forgotten phone because she'd already got on the bus, then let an older Australian lady detour the whole bus for a toilet stop (the buses have loos on them and we'd just had a stop with toilets about 10 mins before)- the phone girl said to her friend it was crazy that he didnt let her get out to grab her phone but he'd do this- he yelled at her for a long time in front of everyone, then proceded to make a point of how much he hated young people or travellers or foreigners perhaps or all of the above. He did this by walking up and down the bus, asking everyone who was clearly an older Autralian (and ignoring all youngsters/ travellers) if he could buy anything for them from the shop, but refused to let any backpackers off to get anything. Anyway, this sort of behaviour continued and he bacame top of my hit list pretty quickly! Booooo to you Mr Greyhound driver!
Claudette managed (after a lot of phone calls, descriptions of what I could see and general driving in circles) to find Aileen and I and took us to their new house in Newcastle. We spend a really lovely few days being thoroughly spoilt- cooked for (real proper food and plenty of it!), taken out for lunch and to window shop for beautiful shoes (aah I remember those...) and for walks through thunderstorms and gorgeous sunshine on the beaches. We also explored the local wildlife reserve- entertainingly called Blackbutt- which was a nice free activity. All in all, we had a really lovely stay with Anthony and Claudette and loved being in a house again for a while!
After that, we made our last Greyhound trip to Sydney for Christmas. While waiting for the bus driver to check our tickets and let us on, I heard a 'ho ho ho' and turned around to find good old Father Christmas handing out sweets to everyone in the line. It turned out he was a local bus driver who happened to look a lot like FC and obviously had a bit of a Christmas obsession- he'd dressed up and had decked out his bus (just a normal city bus) with huge amounts of tinsel, santa models, wreaths, etc- he'd even wrapped up parts of the bus like the dashboard and stuff in wrapping paper! Totally made my day- we sneaked out of the line to go and explore his bus and have our photo taken with him... maybe I should've got his autograph too! Not only did we meet Santa that day, but also met our first ever friendly Greyhound driver- he'd got the Christmas spirit and was very chatty and actually knew how to smile! Amazing! Hopefully for him, the Greyhound big bosses don't find out that he was kind to travellers- they'd have him out of there so fast...
So we checked in to the mighty mighty 'Wake Up!' hostel and although we were put in seperate rooms, we did manage to get on the same floor which was pretty handy and it turned out that the people in Aileen's room were a bit strange and the people in mine was amazing, so we had options! Woooo! We had an early one and set out to be cultured and try the historically famous 'Harry De Wheels' pies- pie choice of the rich and famous- not too shabby I would say! We also went and explored the Museum of New South Wales, ignoring the exhibitions that cost money and just going for the free stuff- it was actually really nice walking around an art gallery and we saw some really cool stuff... and some weird stuff- one exhibit was a very realistic model of a super hairy chanel 4 documentary style girl clutching some kind of monster baby with fat feet, a big mouth and tenticles... I found it a wee bit creepy and actually couldn't stand too close for fear of the girl grabbing my leg or chucking her monster baby at me! That evening we celebrated our arrival a little too enthusiastically on the first night after deciding to go and 'see what the bar downstairs is like'... Normally, to see the bar, you don't need to down a whole box of goon and a few shots of gin and whisky first (thanks a lot to the people in my room for that one! Pshhh) but we decided we did. I think it's fair to say that my memory of that night faded from about the time we went downstairs... hmm not so good. I made it home at about 7am to find that Aileen had been napping in the toilets of the bar (someone had to climb over the door to unlock it and get her out when they closed!) and the toilets upstairs on our floor... We both were a little worse for wear the next day... BAD GOON! Nonetheless, I managed to get up at 9am and go on a 5 hour (no joke) walking tour of Sydney... urgh!
By the evening, I'd had a quick lie down and we'd found out that there was a night market that sounded pretty good at The Rocks, so we went for a wander (via the free bus- why doesn't Reading have those?!?!)- we watched some people at a stall with a silent disco and giggled at them basically looking like they were auditioning for a weird dance contest, Ross and Monika 'Friends' styleee and found a stall that sold pretty funny masks... Being the grown up, sophisticated individual that I am, I set about trying on every marsk and giggling at myself in the mirror, makingaileen do the same- the mask making man (yes that was his name) didnt seem to like me much to start with, but figured I was actually attracting him a lot of attention for his stall so ended up laughing at me too, handing me masks to try next. Very entertaining evening all in all! We'd heard about something called 'market city' which turned out to be just 10 minutes walk from our hostel and basically a permanent market underground selling rubbish (totally my scene!) and factory outlet shops with crazy ceap clothes upstairs, so we spent a good portion of the next day there and I managed to replace nearly my whole 'wardrobe' with $5 tops and skirts etc- very handy as everything I brought with me has had to be binned as it's shrunk/ discolourd/ broken or most likely all 3! In the evening, the bar downstairs had a Cristmas dinner (sort of!) for Christmas eve, so we went there and ended up having drinks with some of the people from my room and sticking out the night in good old Side Bar, doing silly dancing with Aileen's friend James and his friend (who I though for literally the whole nioght that none of us knew him and that he was a random who had attached himself to us... I ignored him for this reason... woops!) and left at about 3am.
Christmas day!!! We'd arranged to do a secret santa with the people in my room (Laura, Liz, Mark, Ellen, Niel, Andisha, me and Aileen,... think thats all?) for $5, theme- something to wear for the day (hence our Christmas eve trip to Paddy's Market)- so we spent far too long rounding everyone up (people kept escaping one at a time for showers, to get the free freakfast mince pies etc etc) and eventually managed to sit together in the kitchen and open our pressies- really nice when you're away from home to have people to do that sort of thing with- they really were my temporary Syndey Christmas family! People ended up with varying degrees of silly presents- Aileen's present for Liz ls was a male stripper kit- a moutache, cuffs and bow tie- which she did indeed wear all day in some respect! My present was a beautiful pink sparkly clip and a heart shaped sticker thing for your skin, covered in pink jewels... which burnt my cheek and left it red for about half an hour after I took it off... yay! Haha! We headed off on the bus to Sunburnt Festival, somehow ending up splitting up (niel and Andisha had a BBq on the beach instead... well, tried, but didnt manage the actual BBQ part- I think Niel really wanted to just say 'stick another shrinp on the barbie'... he bought shrimps purely for this, saying he didnt even like them... why not!) so it ended up being just me, Laura and Aileen for a while- we queued up, thinking we'd made a massive mistake by not just sitting on the beach- the sun had finally decided to be nice and there wasnt a single cloud in the sky and we were heading for a building... even the bouncer said it was indoors- we were not impressed! Part way through the queue they asked everyone to get out their IDs ready... I dont know which idiot took mine from my purse and hid it in my toiletary bag with my debit card, but it almost definately wasn't me (cough cough). So, we were forced to perform a rather nifty little manouver involving Laura being ID'd first, then passing her ID to me via Aileen (which Aileen forgot to, making it pretty obvious as she poked her and then just leant accorss and put it in my hand in front of the bouncers!) for me to hand to the other bouncer. I think it's fair to say that me and Laura look a bit different and I barely pass for my own age, let alone a good 5 years older than I am, but she looked at the picture, looked at me and let me in- result! We got our free BBQ (a dog hoof and chicken beak sausage, a piece of white bread and a lettuce leaf- gormet or what?!) and got drinking! We managed to get a bar man to give us doubles all day for the price of singles, by smiling sweetly- not too bad! We ended up being in a field, with cheap drinks (doubles remember) and DJs playing the same 5 songs on repeat all day, which turned out to such good fun! We danced about like crazy people in the sunshine, merried up with Christmas spirit (or spiritS... mainly vodka), soaking up the sun in bikini tops and shorts. We'd managed to find Liz, Ellen and Mark after an hour or so and had been joined by some of Laura's friends from when she was in NZ (Stuart, Luke, Laura and Louise), who were all a giggle and generally a perfect group to spend a very fun Christmas with- one of her friends (I think it was Stuart?)kept telling me he was scared of 2 other girls as they wouldnt talk and looked very glum all day- apparently it freaked him out- I was loving life and he couldnt shut me up, so I guess I wasn't scary and he stuck with me! Haha! We popped out in the evening for a bit of Bondi Beach time, a mini cheesy photoshoot (which was totally admired by a couple who watched, then asked us to replicate it with photos of the two of them! We totally should've charged!) before getting Christmas fish and chips (just like mornal fish and chips but... on Christmas day!) and went back into Sunburnt for a bit- the prinks had gone up in price for the evening and they had begun to try to cheat people out of the alcohol, charging $10 as oposed to the usual $4 and simply 'forgeting' to add the vodka- cheeky moos! So we had a bit of alcohol free dancing and decided to go home while the buses weren't too busy, in time for a wee bit of evening skypage to the families :) One of my favourite Christmas days, it has to be said!
On boxing day, a munch of us headed to The Rocks again to see the market in the day time (which I was very very happy about as it gave me another chance to buy a pretty cut out card for Sam and Bex (the muppets had told me about being engaged just after I got back from the stall with the handmade cards!!!), bought some corn on the cob (which oozed corn juice all down my hands and legs as I walked... nice! We had decided to attempt some sort of Christmas feast and bought huge amounts of food, then cooked with Ellen, Mark, Laura and Aileen- Me and Laura failed dismally at making pigs in blankets whilst Aileen did a brilliant job with hers- I guess our pigs were too hot to need to keep their blankets on? Too much wriggling in the pan I think! Anyway, the meal was pretty good (not really christmassy, but it did us allfor lunch the following day too- LOVE LEFTOVERS!).
By now, we had a really nice little gang, everyone wanting to go and expore different places rather than just do the same old thing everyday, so we decided to go to Glebe, a suberb which was meant to be quite nice and a little different and less busy than central Sydney. We had a late start and wandered off to explore some of the quirkier little boutiques and coo over pretty jewelery. We had walked past Victoria Park and, as it looked nice, we decided to do what any civilised travellers would do and get a box of goon to drink on the grass! To even out the scummy-ness of it all, we found a nice little pub/ bar type thing with a nice quiet beer garden and mismatched antique looking furniture to have a real drink in first. Conveniently, it was just next door to a bottle shop with a very helpful man who gave us free plastic cups to aid our illegal public park drinking! We had a really nice chilled afternoon in the park (minus Laura- she was ill :( ) and (aside from Andisha getting plastered and crying, spilling the fact that he'd been dumped by his girfriend who he'd come travelling with just a few days before...) everyone had a really nice time. A little merry (its amazing how far a box of goon will get you- me, Aileen, Ellen, Mark, Andisha and Liz- thats 6 people sharing one box), we found a thai restaurant and had a mini feast (Ellen went a little crazy at people being indecisive and basically just ordered for everyone, regardless of what we wanted, but it was all good). Liz decided to round it off with the most disgusting date and something icecream ever, which she had one bite of and decided she didnt want it, then couldn't even give it away to tramps on the street!
Aileen's friend Sarah who she'd met in New Zealand was in town, so we met up with her (much later than planned) and got the bus to Coogee beach where some of her friends were living- we sat and chilled out on the beach for a bit with them before heading off on the famous Coogee to Bondi cliffside walk- all in all, a really nice walk with pretty views, though the section with chickenwire fencing and a fassive graveyard may have spoilt it slightly! Coogee Beach was probably nicer for me than Bondi as it was smaller and felt less like it was on a main road, but a beach is a beach after a while, unless it is something totally amazing and different (too spoilt, clearly).
The following day was the check-in day for Travelodge, which I was pretty sad about as I'd had such an amazing time in Wake Up with my little Christmas family, but a few of the others were also leaving for other hostels that day so it probably wouldn't have been the same anyway- Niel had already moved out so the gang was beginning to disperse. We met up with Pete, Laura, Nicole and Mike for some lunch after moving my bags to Aileen's room for the day and then Aileen helped me lug my bags 20 minutes up the hill to the hotel and check in- it was pretty small as hotel rooms go and nothing too special, but still nice to have a bit of space that isnt shared with total strangers or people you know are likely to wake you up in the middle of the night or at 5am with a hairdryer or shouting at you in French... We faffed for quite a while, enjoying the fact that we could have a cup of tea with actual milk and headed off to meet Mike at the harbour and head out to Manly for the afternoon. Mike had been to apply for some jobs so was all suited and booted and I felt a little bad that we'd kept him waiting, but he knows about my lack of being on time skills so all to be expected! The ferry ride to Manly was nice, with some good views of the harbour bridge and opera house, so we got a couple of very windswept pictures, as tourists do! Mike took us to his apartment so he could get changed- a really lovely little place with a good sized double room, well kept kitchen, balcony and an AMAZING corner sofa which I nearly fell asleep on the second I sat down. We pottered about in Manly for a bit, Mike attempting to find the quickest routes between his apartment, the shops and the beach, before having a nice walk along Manly beach- someone had made a mermaid lying in the sand which was so in proportion and realistic that I almost fell over as I got close beacuse I thought I was about to trip oiver a person. Mike and Aileen made a pathetic attempt to look 'manly' for a photo (haha!) and we headed to the supermarket to buy food to make a curry with naan bread (excited about the use of an oven!) for dinner. After sitting chatting on the balcony for a bit, we headed back on the ferry to Sydney and Aileen caught a bus back to Wake up, while I met Laura and we tried to catch (and missed) about 3 buses in a row all beacuse one bus driver said that his number bus required tickets and you could not pay on the bus (a later bus driver confirmed what I'd thought, that he was just being a tool as they were all pay on board after about 7pm- meanie!).
The following morning I had to get up at a crazy early hour to walk back to basically the place I'd moved out of, in order to meet Aileen and Liz (again, no Laura S as she was still too ill unfortunately) for a trip to the Blue Mountains. Not really sure what happened, but one of our company's buses had left early with empty seats and the one left over had too few seats, so the 1st bus was called back after many phone calls, a lot of waiting and a fair amount of wishing we'd all stayed in bed that extra half an hour or so, and we hopped on. The trip took us to see the 3 sisters (where we met a familiar looking girl who said hello and asked how our trip was going and clearly also couldnt place where we'd met- always awkward!) and a few other spots- the views were really lovely and the group very friendly and good fun, so we had a really nice day- well worth a visit. Aparently the blue hue of the mountains comes from the eucolyptus sap reflecting the sunlight or something? Cool place, either way. In the evening, Aileen and I went to buy some picnic food for our new years eve day out and briefly met the others at Side bar to figure out what we were going to do (minor panics about when to go etc as we'd met people who were planning on going to wherever to get a good firework spot at 6am!)
New Year's Eve came and I headed back to Wake Up again in the morning to meet the others and Aileen and I headed in the direction of the Observatory to meet Mike and save a good spot, goon not so hidden at the top of our food bag. We got near enough to see that the guards were checking bags for alcohol quite thoroughly so we very subtly hid behind a tree to plan our next move. Not sure how, but we were spotted, so we retreated back down the hill to work out how to smuggle in the goon and meet up with Ellen and Mark. None of us fancied sticking a 6litre bag of good up their top, gaining an instant goon belly, so we settled for hiding it inside a towel at the bottom of a bag- we decided that the cool bag with the zip would be harder to get to it in, so that became our jumpers, towels and blankets bag, which the non-cool bag became our food bag (suspicious much?). Ellen and Mark decided to go in ahead and see how easy it was to sneak goon in, but chickened out and came back, having bumped into some of their friends along the way. We manned up a bit and went in as a big group, smiling sweetly as they asked us if we had any alcohol and checked the top few items in each bag (clearly you'd HIDE whatever you were hiding at the top, right?)- Aileen and I and Ellen and Mark successfully got ours in, but the others' goon was found and confiscated (don't worry, they went out and replaced it about an hour later!) We found a nice spot with good views of Sydney from high up and were soon met by Laura S, Niel (who we took the mick out of A LOT, saying a girl he'd kissed and didn't like was coming with us later- Liz even pretended very very well to get a phone call from her asking where we were sat etc- pretty funny), Liz, Andisha, a few of Laura's friends and a few more of Ellen's friends. All in all, another really nice day of picnics, sunshine (Sydney really does pull it out the bag when it matters! I did spend a lot of the day using my towel as a sunshield/ cape to avoid sunstroke!), goon sneaking and really fun people. Everyone seemed to have a little lie down/ nap at some point in the evening and we all watched the fireworks. Niel kept trying to get me to meet him by some tree? Very odd. I didn't go. Strangely enough, there was no count down or anything that actually signified when New Year actually was, so everyone kind of just went 'oh... ok... happy new year...' after the fireworks had finished and we started to head off home- we quickly lost most people and ended up walking with just Aileen, Niel and Andisha, Niel trying to convince people to let him stay with them instead of having to go all the way back to his house in Bondi.
New year's day signified my last full day in Sydney and the last with Aileen, which was sad... we tried to cram in all the things we hadn't yet done by walking to Mrs McQuarrie's Point, sitting in her chair, walking all along the waterfront between there, the bridge and the opera house and eventually heading to Darling Harbour for a look around (nothing hugely special in my opinion and way overpriced!) I think we went to side bar that evening for a few drinks and to say bye to people (we bumped into a guy we'd met in Surfer's paradise who was clearly on something and resembled the bunny on the battery adverts... slightly scary!) and then had a sad goodbye before I headed off back to my hotel (for a night alone- Laura had decided to check out the day before and stay a night with Nicole to get a lift to the airport).
In the morning, I got a shuttle bus which I was told would take an hour to the airport, but took a whole 5 minutes- I killed a bit of time by walking to the terminal he SHOULD have dropped me off at but didn't!). After checking in, I had ages to wait, so used my much loved bean pillow from Alice Springs to have a bit of a nap on the bench and woke up just before my seat number was called, finally spotting Laura and Nicole rushing to queue up to board the plane. After arriving in Adelaide, I got a bus to my hostel- with directions from my drop off point to the actual place I was staying- which I walked straight past, until I heard someone shouting my name- always a bit strange in a town where you think you know noone! It turns out, they were expecting me and knew it wasn't the easiest place to spot as it was in fact a bottle shop/ gaming room (with fruit machines etc and a bar) downstairs, so the owner was sat waiting for me, sticking his head out of the bottle shop window. I like to think I just looked like a Sarah, rather than a loat backpacker clearly nearby but not actually sure where I was meant to be! In all honesty, when I was taken upstairs initially, I did wander why I always chose the cheapest place to stay, as it seemed pretty shabby and there were old fat men with their sweaty beer bellies out for show sat around in the kitchen (it was 40degrees and mid heat wave but they didnt get more normal after that passed!) and the fact that I introduced myself to 3 people in my room to be met with silence and all 3 looking at the walls! I was feeling a bit glum when I sat down for my instant noodle dinner, but was sat with a guy who was eating a bowl of beans, so I joked that his meal looked about as healthy and balanced as mine and he actually responded! Turned out he was a very friendly swede called Marcus who was in Adelaide sort of because of his girlfriend who was staying nearby, but who he didn't seem to be seeing a whole lot of. He invited me to have a drink with him and a seemingly friendly Polish/German guy called Damien (appropriate name, it turned out) in the basement, where we got cheap drinks for 'living' there! I had a lovely chilled out evening chatting to the two of them and enjoying the fact that luckily not everyone staying there was rude! The following day I decided to head off to find Glenelg beach with a girl I'd met in the morning and we did a bit of Australian 'sunbaking' before looking over to see Marcus and his girlfriend had just sat down about a meter from us. I went and said hi and me, the girl I'd gone with (don't remember her name now!) and Marcus went in the sea for a bit. Marcus had told me before that his girlfriend was acting a bit odd since he'd arrived to meet her in Australia and he was having some 'good girlfriend days' where shed chat and be normal, and 'bad girlfriend days' where she refused to talk to him and was very irritable and generally silent. This was apparently a bad girlfriend day and he was glad we'd arrived so he was actually able to talk to someone! Eek! We moved to sit with them and I tried to chat to Catherina, the girlfriend, to a slightly frosty response which basically consisted of her turning over and reading her book. She headed off home soon after and we stayed and chatted until it started to get a bit too cold, then the other girl went to meet friends and I headed back (looking like I was lactating as my wet bikini had soaked through to my top- always an attractive look!) with Marcus.
The following day, I had planned to go on a mini road trip with Cindy and Mina (two German girls from the hostel) and Marcus, so we set off to pick up the hire car (and found out only Cindy and I were allowed to drive) and we headed off to a German village called Handhorf (totally wierd place) for gross german sausages for lunch in a scrazily frilly, over decorated little restaurant and on to Victor Harbour. At Victor Harbour, we walked accross to a little Island called Granite Island where we walked about, posing like monkeys in trees for photos and enjoying the beautiful scenery. Really pretty little Island! We headed to Adelaide Hills and for the views from Mt Lofty on the way back, planning to stay there for sunset initially, then deciding against it as it was very windy and cold and the views were simply a bit pants- just hills basically. Marcus and I decided to go out for a few drinks and Damien said he'd come along, so the 3 of us had some dinner and set about getting ready. That was prtty much when I decided that Damien was a big pain in the bum. I was ready in about 20 mins- I'd changed and put on a bit of make up and was basically done- until he saw me and said something along the lines of 'you aren't going out like that are you? You haven't even taken your hair down- you really should wear it down you know'. He didnt seem to accept that I'd chosen not to and basically told me HE preferred it when girls had their hair down and that I was being very small minded as in his culture, girls did what they were told so I should just do it. Erm no! Anyway, I walked away, he followed and tried to pull out my hairband, much to my annoyance! When we eventually went out, he continued to try to annoy me (it worked), including by insisting I danced with him, holding and not letting go of my hand even when I said no (crushing my hand in the process)- when I got to the point of just going home, Marcus decided we should lose him and we escaped to another room and had a much less scary being-forced-to-do-things sort of evening dancing to appallingly bad old music but having a giggle in the process. When Damien reappeared and forced me (again) to do some kind of salsa/ ballroom dancing with (as you do in clubs...) I decided it was time to go and Marcus and I left him to harrass someone else!
The following day, I went for a wander on my own to buy some new sunglasses (someone trod on mine and snapped them in half on the beach) and to sit in the sunshine in the botanical gardens with a book. I found the first bit of grass and lay down, enjoying a bit of time to just relax and soak up the sun (although it was a shame that people in Adelaide were not as keen to strip down to bikinis in the gardens as in Sydney- noone wants shorts tan lines!). When I got back in the evening, an English guy called Liam and a Swiss (maybe?) girl called Nadia had moved in and wanted to go out (along with a bunch of others), so Cindy and Mina convinced me and Marcus to man up and go out again for a second night to the same slightly rubbish club (HQ)- The group split in 2 somewhere between Tatts (the hostel) and HQ and it ended up being just me, Liam, Marcus, Cindy, Mina and a very drunk and slutty German girl who kept undoing men's shirt buttons and soon got kicked out! We had a fun night, though the club was predictably rubbish- we werent even allowed in- theyd hearded everyone into the patio area outside as it was so empty!
The next few days were spent doing a lot of not much, chilling out at the hostel, wandering around the shops, walking along the river (possibly the only actually nice bit of Adelaide itself) with Marcus and sometimes Liam and Nadia. Another English guy called Rich moved in and a few days later the 5 of us went for a picnic in the botanical gardens and sat by the river. We got coerced into playing drinking games with Charlotte and Pierre and some of the other French people (of which the hostel was full) and got a little bit tiddly on goon, I got cold and Pierre offered me his trousers to wear, much to the amusement of everyone else. Just an average traveller day I guess! After my initial 4 days had run out, I'd asked to extend my stay, but they hadn't space for the first extra night so Tom, the manager, actually put a mattress on the floor for me and gave me the night for free (not too shabby at all- free pancakes for breakkie every day, free washing machine, friendly fun people, cheap drinks and alcohol from the bottle shop downstairs and now a free bed!) and I ended up doing this a few times and starting a trend, as I waited for Marcus to get his bum in gear to do the great ocean road. The next week was killed in much the same way, with a bit of songwriting with a really sweet Turkish German called Mehmet also (apparently I get 20% of whatever he makes for the song I helped write! Ha!) which totally cheered me up on a day when I felt pretty homesick and bored.
Eventually on Friday 13th, Marcus, Catherina (his girlfriend), Amanda (her friend) and I set out for a 2 day self driven trip to Kangaroo Island (for which I became taxi driver as we found out once arriving off the ferry that only 25+ year olds could drive their cars). The lady was totally patronising and kept telling me things like 'if your passengers want to stop for a photo, don't just stop wthe car, wait for a convenient place to pull over' and wiggling her badly drawn on orange eyebrows. She kept telling them also to 'repect their driver', a phrase I reminded them of a fair amount over the next few days!
As we only had 2 days, we set off quickly in seaqrch of the key tourist spots, beginning with Clifford's Honey Farm, where we tasted some of the nastiest honey I've ever had; Seal Bay, where we saw a whale skeleton and a bunch of seals which all seemed intent on hiding under the boardwalk and scaring me by barking as I walked over; Little Sahara, which was a lot like the lake in Fraiser Island with the big sand dune (just minus the lake); Vivonne Bay (which we drove past by accident so we stopped at the harbour instead, which I thought was prettier); Kelly Hill Caves (standard cave tour- stalegmites/ stalegtites, etc etc) and finally on to Flinders Chase National Park, where we aimed to pay the fee and find somewhere to park up for the night. After standing in a carpark feeling confused with a carload of french people doing the same, we decided to go in search of a campsite and hopefully they could tell us where we would be allowed to park without being attacked in the morning by a ranger. We stayed at their campsite, funnily enough, and quickly became the laughing stock of the residents, as we failed to get out our tent (which they kept suggesting we do before dark) and then proceeding to sleep (all 4 of us) in our MICRA! Not something I'd recommend!
With a numb bum and legs and feeling a little bit sleep deprived, we set off (singing loudly to stay awake) to the Remarkable Rocks (which were actually pretty cool and made for a really good grown up playground and the perfect set for some totally natural photography, me with Marcus' camera just happening to catch him looking into the distance, etc and him with mine. Strange how these things happen! Next we went to Admiral's Arch, a cave like archway in a rock, again with more seals (one of which barked really loudly to get attention, then publicly weed everywhere!); then Stokes Bay- a really really gorgeous little beach which we couldn't resist sitting at and swimming at for a while. Finally we went to Paul's Place wildlife sanctuary, something I felt I'd had enough of and didn't want to pay for again, so I waited in the car (after being told off for walking down the road- think the guy was scared I'd see animals for free! Haha) We headed back on the ferry and then the bus, getting home as Adelaide started swarming with girls in heels and tiny dresses. All in all, it was a really really amazing few days (minus the car sleeping) in a totally beautiful place that I wish I could have stayed at for longer.
I had one last day at Tatts and then headed off at the crack of dawn to begin my Great Ocean Road adventure.
- comments