After work has quietened down we then had to decide what we were going to do now, we decided on buying a car. So we set about looking for a car and after returning from a trip to wagga airport to drop one of the lads off we came across a mitsubishi magna parked at the side of the road for sale. It looked a bit of a beaut so I gave the chap a call and a few days later we had ourselves a car!

So the 9th of December was the day that the road trip began our first stop was to see the capital Canberra. On the way it dawned upon us on what we were embarking on and again the sheer size of Australia. When we arrived in Canberra we checked into a YHA hostel a clean and tidy hostel packed full of school children. Great. Whilst in Canberra we checked out the Australian institute of sport and after waiting for an hour for our guide we were refunded and got a free tour! Canberra didn't have a lot else going for it the nightlife was quiet whilst we were there as the four universities were on vacation. On one particular evening we somehow got roped into performing a rendition of the proclaimers walk 500 miles with two Scottish ladies. An experience to say the least!

After seeing everything Canberra had to offer we set out to visit Pat and Tori who live a few hours south of Sydney in a town called Milton. Pat has a lovely house with 5 acres and they are pretty much self sufficient, what a great way to live. We stayed with Pat for a week doing our best to eat them out of food but even we struggled to do that! Whilst at Pats we helped out with a few jobs one of which included attempting to shear a sheep. This process took about an hour in total what can I say poor sheep! On one morning at around 5 am we set out to experience outrigging something which neither of us had done before. The best way to describe it is you are sat in a boat with a paddle and do your best to paddle as fast as you can whilst keeping in time. Sounds simple but to make things more confusing you alternate sides after 16 strokes or if you can't count listen out for the 'hut' yelled out on the 15th stroke to cue the impending change. Next stop on our way to Sydney was Wollongong something which we didn't have big expectations of after hearing pats description of it, a 's*** industrial town with nothing to do' this was a fair description but it had a lovely beach. We found a hostel to stay in which turned out to be a great decision it wasn't the nicest of hostels but the garden area was awesome and everyone was very welcoming. The first night we went out with some of the other guys at the hostel all good fun! The following day we proceeded to make the most of the communal area and spent the entire afternoon there. Whilst there we met two English girls Morgane and Carly, who had been travelling around Asia for a few months before coming to Australia. They are both teachers Morgane of art and Carly PE. We proceeded to repeat the route from the previous evening. Going out getting drunk and spending large amount of money. We were introduced to something called skittle bombs I haven't a clue what goes into one but they are very sugary and go down pretty well which helps!! Everyone had a merry time which was made better by one of the other people staying at the hostel winning $1000 on the slot machines and because he wanted to keep his good luck going he went out and brought the people staying at the hostel a case of beer! Cheers!