May 2006

Loosely translated: Great Ocean Road. One of the things that I have been planning to do ever since we got to Melbourne. In the end we decided to include it into our trip heading to Adelaide. We didn't really get to appreciate it as much as we could have. Our aim was to get to The Twelve Apostles by Sunset for some great photos. This didn't exactly go to plan. We first had to drop off the car we were borrowing back upto Violet town, stayed there two nights just for some free accomodation. So, we drop off the car, pick up a hire car, lovely Hyundai Getz (when I say lovely I mean a Skip on wheels - but with a CD player and air conditioning). We had to drive two hours just to get back to Melbourne before getting anywhere Great Ocean Road. May I add we were late picking up the car due to having difficulties finding the hire place - how were we supposed to know the shop would be labelled as a Party Hire shop with "Car Hire" in small writing!! 3 hours later we hit Great Ocean Road. By this time we knew we were getting a little short on time and it was Gavs time to drive. What made the road for me was not just the coastal views but the road its self. How I would have loved to have taken my TT along it for a bit of a blast. It is one of the windiest roads I've ever come across (well until two days later). That little car got an absolute caning along that road. Our sole goal to get there by sunset. Mission failed. Guess we shouldn't have chosen to accept it! Stayed at Port Campbell for the night in a strangely homely hostel. Open log fire etc etc. It was empty, only 4 other people, 2 of them we didn't see and 2 girls. We taught them how to play Poker and had a great laugh with them. Next day Twelve Apostles - by daylight and then on our way along the rest of the road heading up through The Grampiens. We were told (Thanks for the advice Ryan & Kelly from Base) this was the best route to go as the rest of the road that goes a long the coast isn't so great and is just called The Ocean Road. Grampiens were pretty spectacular. A mountain range that had been hit by bush fires in the summer. A lot of the growth was starting to shoot again but still you could tell the devistation. Again it was a great windy road that led right up into the mountains at one stage, which gave some pretty awesome views of the mountain range. Stayed at a place called Horsham for the night. Not the best place we've stayed, titchy little porta cabin with two single beds and about a foot inbetween, but most importantly it was dirt cheap! Not the nicest of towns but it was close to the highway for our remaining journey onto Adelaide. Left pretty early knowing that we had to get the car back by 4. Not much scenery on the Highway, just wide open space. And to be honest, not much to report about Adelaide. Met some nice people though: Chris from Sweden, Colette from London, Sarah from Scotland and ofcourse Hayley who has moved over here - Lucky her!. Happy days, til next time.....

Ok, so I know I have posted about seeing the stars of neighbours before but this is a bit different. Every backpacker that stays in our hostel "base" goes to the neighbours night on a monday and see the stars - $35 so we gave it a miss in the end. But not everyone bumps into the actors! We've been going to this little bar which is right next to our hostel called "The Vineyard". I was at the bar having a drink when I suddenly saw Michelle (Stephs youngest sister) walk past. Hmmm, I thought to myself! She's going out with the actor that plays Connor in real life, he's probably here too. Next moment, there he is greeting her with a kiss! Now Michelle, I always thought was the worst out of the three Scully sisters, she had tough competition against Holly Valance and Steph! But hell, she's an absolute stunner now! So there I am drinking about 2 feet away from them when Stuart turns up. Three Neighbours stars right next to me! I got up to speak to James, next thing Connor came over and asked me - "You still using that mate?" pointing at the chair. "No, you carry on mate", I replied. I warmed Connors seat for him. Not much of a claim to fame, i know, but still best I can offer at this point! Just to confirm, yes Connor is Irish in real life, not just on the show. I was able to resist being one of the many people who went up to them just to have a chat. you could tell they were getting annoyed with some of the attention. Thats hopefully my last post about Neighbours, don't wanna bore you too much.

Finally made it to an Aussie Rules game at the Telstra Dome - Forgot to take my camera so no photos I'm afraid. Gav and James had both planned to go, but due to a late night neither could be bothered to get out of bed (I am talking after midday!!) We've just moved into a different dorm due to leaving it a bit late booking extra nights. Met these two cool Canadian guys called John and Keaten (spelling?). So headed to the game with them. They knew the rules a bit so explained as the game went on. Got into the game more than I expected. The one thing I would say is that it is a bit too long. Four quarters of half an hour each on a cacky plastic seat was not too comfortable for me, two words - numb arse! We were supporting the Kangaroos (melbourne), who lost, sorry, majorly lost to the Adelaide Crows 116-60. An exciting game though. I'll finally be able to watch it on TV now and understand what the hells going on! Managed to resist buying a Kangaroos Baseball Cap - finally cutting down on the expenditure a bit!

Crown Casino in the centre of melbourne - A little bit of Las Vegas ready to snap up whatever money you are willing to throw at it! Its a Casino that takes up a whole block of the city, actually two I think when you add the massive hotel and car parks! Its got two awesome clubs (open til 7am), loads of bars and a multiplex cinema. You could be entertained for hours on end! Especially as the gambling portion is open 24 hours. I'm not big on my gambling, but having played a bit of Roulette as a kid I thought i'd have a go. I kinda figure I'm out here to have a good time, so a few bucks isn't going to hurt me too much on the wallet front! I wasn't let down, it was great fun and I managed to win some major bucks (well on my scale of things), which naturally I put straight back into the table! On the plus side though I walked away having won what I had put down in the first place - so no money lost in the whole scheme of things! I have managed to keep away from the slots, as back in Coogee I saw a guy (called Spiderman - nickname) put $1500 into one in about 15 minutes! and lost it all. And another guy leave after only a month as he had gambled his way home - leaving no money for him to continue his travels! Slots aren't quite the same over here - completely luck, not like ours in the UK where you get different features, quite boring really! Anyways, Aussie Rules Football tomorrow at the Telstra Dome. Watch this space for an update of my latest goings on!

First night in St. Kilda beach on the south side of Melbourne. We had a girl called katie staying in our dorm back in Coogee who had told us about the "Neighbours" bar where she had worked and met loads of the stars. So thought we better check it out - much to Gav's disgust. We got there quite late, and it really wasn't worth the money for the amount of time left of Karl's band ("Waiting Room") playing. Apparently we had also missed Connor, Ned and the legend that is Jelly Belly (Harold) who are there earlier on in the night answering questions! It's all good though as we are planning to return next week in hope to meet the one and only Toadie and maybe even Steph! From what we heard and saw of Karl, everytime the door to the stage opened they were a pretty wicked band, doing covers of some classic tunes. Should be a good night when we return. Happy Days!

Left for Gav's uncles place knowing that he lived in a little town (what we'd call a village) with not much to do around him. What a shock when we actually got there to find he was living in a half built house with no proper shower and no flush on the toilet! He owns a farm near Violet Town - when I say near I mean about a 15 minute drive! All the roads are really straight over here and you rarely see other vehicles, but when you do they are normally huge double length trucks which absolutely bomb it up behind you. Haven't seen a road train yet, apparently they are normally in the northern territory and western Australia. Gav's uncle lent us an old Ford Laser. It's getting us around, just about! We're doing a huge amount of k's for the age of the car!

So for the last week we have pretty much been heading to every close (ok far) town in the area of Violet Town. Been to Shepparton, reasonable size town, nothing much exciting going on though. Also Bendigo, quite an old town in terms of Australias history. Some nice buildings. Day before leaving we went to the town of Ned Kellys last stand. Look up the story, or watch the film! - Can't be arsed to get into the details of it, but its basically the guy who made a iron suit of armour and went against the police to fight for their rights.

Heading to Melbourne next - desperate for a shower that is indoors (not completely out in the open), with hot water and a flush - not a bucket!

Coogee Beach, Record attempt, XBOX 360 launch. Probably the funniest and most insane thing I have ever done! What happens when you put 1500 people in green tshirts and 1500 people in grey tshirts, give each person 12 water balloons a pair of goggles and stick them on a beach? In short: Hell on earth, total mayhem and extremely wet! We were all hurried onto the beach where we were put into position to form the words "XBOX 360". If you want to try and spot me in the photo, I'm on the left hand inner side of the "O" in "XBOX" .The helicopter went overhead, countdown from 10, on 1 we had to throw a balloon directly up into the sky for a photo opp! Then charge towards the people in the grey and lob as many balloons at them as hard as possible. Not all balloons breaking, so it was a mad attempt at scrambling around grabbing as many unbroken balloons and then lobbing them again. Being twatted in the face with a water balloon is always good fun aswell! Looking back on it, i'm pretty sure that most balloons our team threw didn't even make it over the 10 metre gap (which had to be between the teams to make it a valid record). Most splatted straight on the back of the heads of the people that were throwing in front of you. So glad we stayed in coogee that extra couple of days longer to take part! Thats one thing I can tick off in my "101 things to do before you die" book. I am officially a record breaker! Dedication is what you need!!

Here's a pic of us just after when we got back to the hostel. From left to right: Gav, (add name here later when we finally remember what he's called), Josh, Slater, Spiderman (Simon - Drinks allday!) and ofcourse me!