I'm in New Zealand! It's 3am, I went to bed at 8pm and I have to be up at 6am but the whole building is shaking with music so I might as well get up and write about my last couple of days in Australia before I'm swept away on the Kiwi Experience bus where all nights are apparenlty dedicated to killing my liver, if there's anything left!

So, I wasn't exactly blown away by Australian cities so far on my trip. They all just seem too new or something; no interesting buildings, no quirky hidden spots... just lots and lots of pharmacies, hostels and nightclubs with '100% guaranteed fun' written on the door. Obviously I'm doing the tourist route so that was kinda expected, but it's just all a bit bland I guess. At least throw in a bit of interesting architecture or something! Never thought I cared about architecture, strange. Anyway, Melbourne feels a bit more like they've actually put some effort into it, and even though I hardly saw any of the city and the roads are still eerily quiet here, I think it's probably my favourite (Sydney was nice too to be fair, but Melbourne's quirkier).

Booked into Nomads which was freezing cold and full of English people, which I would have done anything for a couple weeks ago but I wasn't really in a WWWHHHHHEEEYYY LETSS GET WAASTED LAAADS sorta mood this time. I explored the city for the day, admiring the graffiti and the little alleyways full of little cafes. Then I went shopping for warm clothes to replace all the ones I lost and wandered back along the river, enjoying being surrounded by skyscrapers for once, makes a much cooler skyline! Couldn't be bothered going out so I caught up on sleep instead.

Next day was my last day in Australia so I thought I'd better put a bit more effort into it. Not enough effort to get me all the way to St. Kildas and explore the beach mind, it's supposed to be nice but I've seen plenty of beaches now thanks. So I went to the market which wasn't up to much, and then tried to catch sunset on the Eureka 88 Skydeck, the highest viewing tower in the Southern Hemisphere. Being the muppet that I am though I'd forgotten to change my watch from Northern Territory time, so despite having a bit of a jog across Melbourne to get to the tower, the sun had already gone by the time I got up there, dammit! If there's one thing that's really impressive about Australia it's the sunsets, and it would have been nice to see one last one but it was cloudy anyway so meh. Nice view though!

The people in my hostel weren't up to much so I met up with Matthias the German I met on the plane instead. Spent most of Australia with Germans so it seemed like a fitting end! He redeemed them a bit by speaking english the ENTIRE time, must've taken some effort. We went for some German bratwurst, followed by Japanese cocktails, then headed off to the casino where I spent $5 on slots and we were both too wimpy to attempt to play anything else. Everyone looks so serious in casinos. Had another dash across Melbourne for Matthias to catch his train, then called it a night.

It was 1am and I'd have to get up at 4am to catch my 7am flight and I didn't trust myself to get up on that much sleep so I just stayed up instead, which resulted in me being slightly deleriously tired on my flight. Fell asleep before takeoff again and then kept falling asleep on all the shuttle buses until I got to my hostel in Auckland. Felt a bit more perky then so I wandered around town for a bit to confirm my Kiwi Experience bus for the next day and do some shopping. I quite like Auckland, it's actually got lots of people on the street and cars on the road, crazy! Feels a lot more like home cities and it was surprisingly warm! Reckon it's gonna be raining for the whole time I'm in the Bay of Islands though, joy.

So yeah, a pretty uneventful end to my Aussie adventure! I was far less sad to be leaving Australia than I was about Asia. I've seen my platypus and my big rock so I'm happy! I've had a pretty awesome time and met some great people, but it's not really had the same feel to it as Asia. A lot of the people you meet are working here, or travelling in couples or with groups of friends (or speak German the whole time!) plus I haven't stayed with anyone longer than a few days so I never really got attached to anyone or anywhere. There's far less 'interesting characters' (aka crazies) here than in Asia too, I miss those. Plus the music's the same everywhere and I'm pretty fed up of BBQs! So yeah, not a massive fan of the country really, good times were had but I probably won't be back for a while. I think the best bit was definitely in Sydney with Jenny and Spry, I miss real friends! I think the Kiwi Experience is more of a proper tour where people stick around though, bring it ooooonnnn!