Well here we are at last! I know we haven't spoken in a while but we have been busy bunnies so we apologise. We landed in Sydney at abouy 1 O'clock in the afternoon on the 20th of February, and it was into blazing hot sunshine. great stuff!! After going through the very slow process of immigration and quarantine we searched for somewhere to ask how to get to the hostel we were stopping at, so we asked at the information point. Now let it be said, i know that we are brummie and that we are sometimes hard to understand, but we made every effort to componsate for our accent's and spoke slowy and clearly to this woman and showed her the address on a piece of paper and she still manages to send us to the wrong place!! That added about an hour and a half to our journey and about $10 to our expenses aswell so not really the best start. so once we were in a very nice part of town we were told the correct way and bus to catch, so we jumped on, took in some beautiful sights you know the usaul, Sydney opera house, the city centre and we crossed the harbour bridge. We didn't seem to be heading into town instead we went further and further away. After about 40 minutes we eventually pull up outside our hostel, 10 miles away from the centre! No partying for us for the next two nights. Lol. By the way i forgot to mention that because of the fund situation we had to share a room with two other people and have done since since except now there are 4 other people with us! anyway we didnt meet them straightaway so we threw our bags into the room and went for a look around the local area. The beach was a stones throw away from the hostel so went for a stroll down there, after about a mile I suggested that we head back, Jade decided it would be a nice idea to have a paddle so there we were strolling along when a little blue Jellyfish (They call them blueys, i wonder why?) stung me across both ankles and my right foot, I have to say th pain was erm... uncomfortable to say the least, and before you think about it, no, there wasn't any weeing done by any body!! lets just get that clear, i'm not into that sort of thing! the life gaurd was a mile away back the way we came so we slowly and painfully made our way back to them. When i got there i asked the lifeguard what he recommended i do and was told with a smirk on his little ozzie face that i just had to suffer the pain, there was no cure, I mean they can cure Malariabut not a jellyfish sting! so that was me immobolised for the rest of the evening, (actually it lasted about an hour). We met our roomies and they were a Northern couple Joanne and Darren nice pair although quite a bit older than us, mid thirties. The next day we grabbed a couple of surfboard's from the hostel , as they were free, and headed to the beach. We got there and it looked a bit choppy, so we just sat on the beach criticising the other surfers, just like them two blokes off the advert, lol. It then started to rain and half the people got out of the sea?! Try and work that one out! So we just chilled at the hostel for the rest of the day and booked the next hostel that we were frequenting. This turned out to be Cooe backpackers in Kings cross, which is amix between The Lozells Road, Kingstanding and Broad street. Totally seedy with Prostitutes and pimps, sex shops, brothells, Really good bars lots of drunk people and some dodgy looking things! We were stopping about two feet from the train station, not an exageration, We checked into our room and MY GOD!! how they can allow this place to stay open i dont know! Mould, stained floor, bedsheets, matresses, cockroaches, in the room crawling in the bathroom up the shower in the sink, the toilet pan the lot! and they charged us to stay there! oh but i forgot we did get a free breakfast, and free internet, which didnt work, lol. also we got dinner tickets for this bar/nightclub the Gaff the only condition was taht you had to buy a drink with a value of $4 which is about two quid. nice meal aswell. They had a Dj on at about 10 and the room was dead but the tunes he was playing were amazing, when i say dead there was Jade, me, Two Indian blokes and a fourteen year old 50 cent wannabe. I spoke to the Dj after and it turns out he has been playing for 6 month's i couldnt believe it, he was better than anything ive heard in Birmingham and he was only a novice. We strolled back past all the unpleasant night creatures on the way back, and got nice and cozy with the cockroaches and had a lovelly alchohol induced sleep. The next day we did the tour of Sydney in blazing hot sunshine, it was really cool, the Opera house looks different in real life, which was a nice suprise, the whole place is better than you can imagine. Asw we took a stroll through the gardens (check out the photograph we took of the sign) we saw threee Huge spiders, I mean they were the size of my hand, we kept a distance from them but we now know what they look like, not excatly inspiring me to leave the designated paths i tell you. There were two crusie liners in the Harbour (The Queen Victoria and The Queen Elizabeth II) and at 6:30 the did a once in alifetime thing... They crossed each other blowing there big horns at each other, Grrrreeeaaatttt!!!! It was really childish like my horns bigger than yours sort of thing. I personally think the Captains were over compensating for something. All that aside it was really good, thousands of people and hundreds of boats turned up and it had a really nice atmosphere. So we watched that and then had a world famous Harry Pie n' Mash, all the celebraties have had em, from Sinatra to Latisha Dean (Sharon, Eastenders). And Man it was a good pie. Then another night with the roaches. Early set off the next day, we left sydney at 9 O' clock and arrived at Albury which is about half way between Sydney and Melbourne at Half five, That's right 8 and a half hours!!! We were booked into a hostel called Soden's and erm.. well there weren't any cockroaches anyway, the door didnt' lock, but no roaches. (look at the pics) We went downstairs to the bar and had a few drinks, couple of free games of pool, then i got challenged by an old fellow who could onbly see out of one eye and kept doing little farts everytime he bent over to hit the ball, I had to humour him it seemed to make him happy though so I didn't mind. Whilst i was in an epic match, the man actually managed to put three balls down, (it was close) Jade got talking to a couple of girls who went to the local Uni, Kotty and Carly, I think thats how you spell it any way :-s. Who were really nice to us and sat there chatting away for the rest of the night,(The bar closed at 9:30 on a Monday, crazy.) We both had a good time, talked about travelling differences between countries, and just general chitter chatter. Afterwards We walked to the supermarket to get food and was escorted by both untill Carly went one way and us other three went to the supermarket, we chatted a little and then swapped email addresses and we have had an email since so hopefully we can keep in touch withe them, an if they ever come to good old Brum, we can givew them the guided tour.. We spent the next day chilling in the sun waiting for our coach which left at six on the night. Got into Melbourne at about 10pm, and went looking for the hostel, got on the tram didnt know how much we had to pay so we got a free ride! woohoo! We stopped at an Irish bar called Pint on Punt. The intoduction we got was.. interesting to say the least. This Scouse girl welcomed us in, and was explaining the free brekkie, cheap meals at the pub and the discounted beer at the pub when A Rotund gentleman and a lazy eye, sweaty forehead, greasy top and hairy arse, waltzed in, he was quite happy milling about scratching the afore mentioned arse, when he was asked, " Whats on the menu tomorrow, Dave?" to which he replied, quite seriously "$hit on a stick". He didnt even crack a smile, So we gave the old pub lunches a miss. We were in the Area called St Kilda, which is where all the bars are and stuff, really cool place, but it's no Kings Cross in our eyes! We went out to a hostel called base wher they had a ladys night, ( Lady's drink for free) turned out to be Bucks fizz, but beggars cant be choosers, just like a student night. We have now moved to a place about ten minutes walk away called back of Chapel, Its just like being in a house, everyone is really friendly and we went out with some German people on the first night. We had a few drinks then went into Melbourne city centre, where we went to a bar called St Something? which was a really good bar down this back alley where all this rubbish was, the door was just like a back door to a shop or something dodgy, but we got in and it was just like one massive house party! Really good, we had drinks called Jager Bombs, which do the job and taste good in the process. They are Jagermeister with Redbull, Lads, make sure you give it a whirl if you haven't already! We got split up from the guy who invited us out, went to the next bar they were going to, to be told by k*** head bouncers 6that it was guest list only, yeah ok! Whilst we were waiting for one of our group to return he let a group of three girls without a single glance. Hmm.... That didn't make Jade happy to say the least, she soon had words with him, but we still didn't get in so that made her even more unhappy. At this point we decided to call it a night and went to bed. The next day we went for a Malasian lunch, it cost us $8 each and was absoloutly stunning! I had this bread called Roti, to die for. And that about brings us up to now, we are currently looking for work, but it's harder in the city so we may have to go to a town in the outback somewhere, thats if i can't get an admin job or something, we will see, I quite fancy getting stuck in to the wilderness sort of thing. anyway we will update you soon along with photo's and such thing's we deem appropriate. Byeeeee!!!!!! xxxxxxxx