Australia!

I arrived, safe and sound in Melbourne albeit baffled by the night being several hours shorter than it should have been due to the time difference, jumped on the shuttle bus and met up with Mr Cameron Wakefield, a guy I met in Vietnam who kindly offered to show me the city and let me stay with him.

My time in Melbourne was a sports overload. I got a bit carried away and on my first full day I looked around the sports museum, toured the MCG stadium (where they play cricket and ozzy rules) and attended the top of the table rugby league clash between the Melbourne Storm and St George Illawarra Dragons, a tight affair which the storm edged 8-6, very tense!

The stadium tour was run by an elderly volunteer and cricket enthusiast, having very few chances in very few sports as an englishman, I made the most of the opportunity and enjoyed rubbing in the fact that Australia are pretty rubbish and England are the bestest team ever to have played the sport. Take a bow Mr Cook, Swanny and the rest of you.

Sport certainly wasn't all Melbourne had to offer though, I explored the local area, botanical gardens, went in my first supermarket for 3 and a bit months and St Kilda, the backpacker area of Melbourne. An awesome beachside suburb where I chilled out on the beach, discovered penguins on the pier!?! (Not what I was expecting as it was a cloudless sunny day with only a slight chill, not exactly penguin weather!) and generally acclimatised to life in an English speaking country. a refreshing change after 3 and a half months in Asia!

Since my arrival I had undergone a crash course in AFL (ozzy rules) which is far and away the sport of choice in Victoria. With a relatively basic understanding of the rules, I attended Collingwood against Brisbane Lions. Collingwood won 102-78, thoroughly enjoyable and I would say I understood a reasonable amount of what was going on, as far as I can tell though there are limited tactics but there is some method to the mayhem! There was a minor punch up in the crowd one tier below me which added to the entertainment as well.

All in all a very good time was had, thank you very much Cam, you are a hero for having me! After an awesome couple of days in which I rekindled my beautiful relationship with red wine, pub food and steak pies, I felt it was time to get moving, onwards to The Great Ocean Road!

The next week or so was spent cruising down the coast, taking in the awesomely picturesque views, wicked beaches and all the landmarks and lookouts along the way (the twelve apostles and bay of islands jump to mind as highlights). Amazing sunsets were witnessed and getting stuck into yet more goon with my fellow travellers was frequent.

I also looked for whales....failing spectacularly as they weren't playing out (or were playing out further than I and all the prepared spectators with binoculars could see), tried to surf on several occasions but was hindered by the lack of waves, encountered an absolute lunatic on the bus who was hearing voices, marching up and down swearing and eventually demanded to be let off in the middle of nowhere....nice chap! I would describe him as a bald man with the occasional dreadlock if that makes any sense.

On a night time excursion I witnessed a shooting star and me and becky (a girl from Hong Kong) tried and failed to photograph the stars on one of the clearest nights I have ever seen. The pictures didn't come out but the stars were unbelievable. I've been so lucky with the weather in general, it's been cloudless everyday with only a minor shower that passed quickly in Warrnambool to speak of.

I tracked down a pub for the tri-nations finale and had a bit of banter with the locals as I, of course, was supporting New Zealand, something that went down well but mainly, I suspect, because they lost!

The nights out have been few and far between as the price of a "scooner" (the girly sized beers they serve here) is large, I instead favour getting boozey in my hostels, however I did have a superbly eventful Saturday night out in a pretty remote town called Mt Gambier, an absolute ghost town during the day, after dark however the locals come out to play, I made friends with some (one of whom had a perm!), offended others, accidentally crashed a hen do (flat out refuse to elaborate, did manage to keep all my clothes on though....just!), had more port than any one person should touch and got a little more inebriated than is probably recommended before undertaking a 7 hour bus journey to Adelaide the next day.

I think the action that best sums up my state was getting refused service in McDonalds the morning after, due to my inability to tell the time! Seriously though what's with the half an hour time change that mysteriously happened along my trip!

Arriving in Adelaide after 9 o'clock on a sunday is crazy, the city centre was literally empty. I checked into a pretty awesome hostel though and had my first Dominos of the trip (it was so good I felt it deserved a mention!)

The next few days were spent exploring Adelaide. I went to not one but two museums! Looked around the theatre, botanical gardens and general city area.....and went to the cinema. The hostel I stayed in was full of some pretty cool people, I befriended several of the staff who earned ludicrous wages, 22 dollars an hour (about £15) to play pool all day! The monetary system here is loopy! With most things outlandishly expensive, It's £2 for a mars bar, £5 a beer but only £7 for 3 litres of wine! If they had to make something cheap I suppose they chose the best option!

As I pen this blog I am in yet another airport terminal, this time Adelaide's awaiting a flight to Sydney, What awaits me there I don't know but I am sure I will blag it successfully as usual!

Hope this blog finds you well and was an entertaining read!

Luke. X