Ooops! I forgot to mention Xmas and New Year!

What a noggin!!

I've just realized that I've completely gotten the last 4 blog entries in the wrong order - d'oh!!! The order they should have been in is: Cairns-Alice Springs, Alice Springs-Adelaide, Adelaide-Melbourne & Melbourne-Sydney. Ooops. :) Ah well, keeps you all on your toes eh?! But then again - none of you noticed! Is anyone actually reading this?! ;)

So seeing as the day after we arrived in Melbourne it was 40 degrees C and everyone was on the beach, you'd have expected Xmas to be hot, wouldn't you. Wrong! It was around 16 degrees (although felt colder), wet and windy. So rather than the barbie on the beach we'd all imagined, it was a picnic next to the bar in Base backpackers (see bottom photo: left bottom clockwise: Franzie, Marie, Julien, Kazu, a lovely German girl from our last 2 buses called Kerstin and of course moi. Second photo is Kazu and me). When we'd asked in Woolworths (one of the main supermarkets here, along with Coles) about getting a disposable barbecue, they looked at us like we'd just landed from another planet. Apparently they don't do things like that in Australia and couldn't believe we had them in the UK. This is the land of the barbecue for crying out loud!! Well, good job in the end really. So none of you need be jealous! ;)

It was a lovely afternoon though and good to be with people. I showed Kazu my Japan photos and Julien tried to teach Kazu the didgeridoo - in a locker - don't ask, better acoustics apparently! The hostel put candy canes on our pillows as Xmas presents - a free night's accommodation would have been better but hey, don't look a gift horse in the mouth! I gave Franzie a present of a couple of photos of me and her in a Melbourne koala photo magnetic frame. In Switzerland (and most of the rest of Europe, apart from the UK) they celebrate Xmas on Dec 24. So we had a nice meal out in a restaurant the night before. That was one thing I missed about Xmas day - my parents and my mum's prawn cocktail sauce - divine. I was sad to leave Melbourne as I really liked it there. I was sad to leave my friend Kazu too - I'll miss him. He said he'll miss me too. :)

On Xmas Eve Marie, Franzie and myself had grand plans to go to the Carols by Candlelight concert in the Botanic Gardens, not far from Federation Square. This is a huge thing each year apparently. I had no idea about this. Needless to say, such a big thing, it was sold out. So we got there, bought our candle (cos it was by candlelight you see - see what they did there) only to find out it was sold out. So we ended up sitting on the cold concrete in Federation Square and watching it on the big screen. But that was not the end of the drama. It was cold - I mean really cold compared to what it had been and I just had my jeans, a t-shirt and fleece on. So we lit the charity candles we'd bought for warmth. No sooner had we done that then we were told to blow them out by security! Despite the fact that everyone on-screen had them lit and were waving them around in a Botanic Garden! Marie took issue with this - understandably - but they didn't believe that we had bought them outside the venue - despite the big screen evidence. Ah well. So we were rather miserable. Franzie and I left her to it in the end as it was so cold. She is made of stronger stuff than us - good on her for sticking it out - she was well wrapped up though.

Marie and I left Melbourne on Boxing Day on the last leg of our Oz Experience! Our last bus driver Luke had recently won the Oz Experience award for best tour leader so we had great expectations. He was not bad actually - full of interesting info and he gave us an amusing alternative tour of Parliament in Canberra on the last day.

He wasn't quite as entertaining as Lawrence though, but he was still good, despite the fact he kept mumbling to himself every now and again, and singing too - but there's nothing wrong with that! ;) So the highlights of the last journey included a meditation lesson and our stay in SIBA Buddhist Academy in the Snowy Mountains; the mountain walk around Charlotte's Pass (reminded me of the Pennines) and a look around Canberra (the YHA looked very swanky from the outside).

And so I returned to Sydney and Base backpackers. It was still the same as when I'd left it before and I got to see the laundry and kitchen this time. The kitchen was not great but I ate out most of the time anyway so it made no difference to me...

New Year was one hell of a show. Fireworks over Sydney Harbour. It was Marie's dream to see the show from Mrs Macquarrie's Chair (a park area next to the Botanic Gardens) and who were we to argue with that? So we all queued up from 6am - yes 6am (the gates didn't open til 10am) - to get our prime spot. And we defended it all day from over-zealous tripod-wielding 'amateur' photographers. With hindsight, I should have let one of them put a tripod infront of me and then hijacked it with my camera, as my camera does not work that well in the dark, hence many of my shots of the festivities were sadly blurred when blown up on a computer. :( Hey ho. It was an impressive show though and worth the early start.

Events started at 1pm with cannon fire and then every hour on the hour something happened such as plane flyovers or boats with fountains spraying out of them. There was supposed to be something every hour but that kind of fell by the wayside...

The children's fireworks began at 9pm - a chance for everyone to test their cameras and put them on the correct settings. Then at midnight the real show began. Numbers on the side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge counted down to fireworks exploding off the top of the bridge, then they were behind the Opera House, then they were over the harbour to our right, and then they began exploding from the tops of city scycrapers to the left! They looked like they were on fire, it was really awesome. I just wish I'd bought a tripod! ;)

My parents said they watched it all with me live on BBC News 24! They heard the music though too - I don't know, they got a better view than I did and I was there!!!

The bizarre thing was that Starbucks and Gloria Jean's coffee shops were open at 01.00am when everyone was walking home?! Is nothing sacred? They were open New Year's Day too - I bet their staff were happy!

Then the damper of the evening was that I heard bombs had gone off in Bangkok - my next destination, in less than a week! After consultation with my friends Shaz and Andy we still decided to go - as you now know seeing as this is in totally the wrong order..!

So for the rest of that week I had to get my third lot of antibiotics from the doctor cos the cold had gone down onto my chest - which was timely cos I needed more steriod asthma inhalers so that was handy. Then I just had a struggle with STA Travel to get the funds back, but I did before I left.

I visited the beaches of Bondi and walked to Coogie with Anna and Clare. I also walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge with them and went to Manly via the ferry with Paul and Marie. It was a good week. I was kind of sad to leave but was in need of getting out of civilization and more of a challenge... so on to Bangkok!

Later. X