Our time in Brisbane was up and we set about the task of driving just shy of 1000 km in a day. I drew the short straw and got the last shift and waited until 7:30 to start my part of the journey whilst the others tucked into some goon ( box wine). We camped that evening about an hour outside of Sydney in a place called Berowra next to a lovely inlet. We set out for Sydney and it slowly dawned upon me the fact after 3 and a half months of bickering and many laughs along the way Ben was headed for home. I was flying solo!

With nothing on the cards and having had enough of Sydney I hopped on a plane and headed to melbourne. I spent a week staying with Alex Reid another of Bens uncles! Carly and Morgane also headed to Melbourne too in pursuit of acquiring a job. No suck luck, they decided their time in Australia was up and wanted a new challenge so decided on India! I can only imagine how different that is going to be. Melbourne was a place that I really liked, the transport network of trams and buses was awesome. The T20 cricket was on so Carly Morgane and myself went along to cheer on England. It didn't help we lost again. The MCG is a massive stadium and there was a great atmosphere going on with mexican waves and the slighly tipsy crowd cheering at any given opportunity. On one particular day the three of us headed to St Kilda a popular beach spot not far from Melbourne. The gay pride was going on so we stopped and watched for a while. Now what happens next is something that was spur of the moment and you have to just go with it. After all I am a yes man! We were asked to hold the flags for a small group in the parade and next we were taking part in the parade for an Italian lesbian group of some description. Was a rather surreal experience but hey a story to tell anyway!

I was in melbourne for a little under a week then ventured back to Sydney to take the opportunity for some more work through a family friend Hugh who managed pubs and cattle properties. Hugh was a very good businessman who had earnt his trade managing pubs or hotels as they are known out here. Hugh was a very tall guy laid back kind of guy but when It came to business there was no messing. My first job was to help look after a group of Chinese guests with Nicola. They have come to experience the Australian outback. little did they know they were being looked after by two English people! We drove to a farm called lantern hill in a small town called Exeter not far from moss vale. It was a 1000 acre property with cattle and a few horses. We picked up our guests from a race course and took them to the farm for a afternoon of activities involving a chicken safari, kangaroo searching and feeding horses. We had set yabby traps in some of the dams and collecting them was part of the activities. Yabbies are a freshwater prawn type thing which we ate for starter and they are actually quite nice! Only one of the Chinese spoke English which made communicating not the easiest! The Chinese stayed overnight and had a cooked breakfast and then were back on their way back to Sydney in a flash!

I stayed at lantern hill for a week helping out Graham the farm manager with some cattle work. Graham was a guy who had plenty of stories to tell and a great guy who worked by himself most of the time so was great full of the company. Needless to say he took every opportunity to tell a story! I spent the week on the farm helping out fixing fences and buzzing around on quad bikes rounding up cattle! What an ideal job! The cattle were pretty wild and didn't like being handled so we had to watch our backs otherwise we could have been pinned up by a cow! Or as the Australians describe a wild cow a bit 'towey'. I stayed in the beautiful farm house for the week was perfect!