That's when good neighbours, become good friends!

Hello Family and Friends!

Wow. OK, here goes! I've been on this bus with a company called "OzExperience" who basically drive good for nothing students to some of Australia's most amazing places. I started in Sydney at 6am in the morning, which sounds pretty early but I was still jetlagged, so in England that would be only 10 at night [ I think, if my maths is right, which it probably isn't because I'm pretty shattered, you'll hear why later ;-) ] . There were about 20 people on the bus, I was the youngest. They were all about 23 years old. A few Germans, but mostly Brits.

There was an unbelievable coincidence, I hopped on the bus and this dude who I'd never seen before sat opposite and I soon found out he lives 5 miles away from where I live in England! I was like, omg, lol. He goes by the name of Scott Walker, I don't know if anybody knows him he went to The Leys and is the year above me.

So on the bus we did some introductions where we got the microphone and talked about ourselves, for some reason I said I liked tea, and from then on everyone thought I was a tea expert...which of course I'm not!

On the bus we did a little sociable quiz which was cool, I got 7 right but it was first to 10 so I didn't win, Gemma, a school teacher from England won it instead.

We were on our way to the capital of Australia, Canberra. The city was completely purpose-built, which is good in that it's a very practical design, but many people say that the place is lifeless and no sense of community. Based on my short stay I was inclined to agree with them. We visited the parliament buildings there, which were amazing! They were designed around the house of commons in London, with the red and the green chairs etc. The green was the colour of Eucalyptus leaves, wow. There was a HUMONGOUS flag, which weighed 15kg, and was really really high, it towered over the city, and it was really big and massive and big.

Also in Canberra we went to the National Museum of Australia, which turned out to be the absolute spot on definition of "Pretentious". There was this ridiculous spinning booth which we all sat in. It was mildly amusing that the booth consisted of three "quadrants" :-), as the polite, jolly Australian guide called it. In this stupid booth there were three TVs that for reasons unknown went up and down on little mini pillars. And behind these TVs was another huge TV. They had irritating bird noises, and water sounds and things like in an attempt to create an atmosphere in there, the whole time these TVs were bobbing up and down, it was like watching tennis. The whole display was a ludicrous attempt to convey what Australia is about, I'm glad we didn't take it too seriously. There was a large courtyard which they called the Garden of Australian Dreams, this was just one big artistic symbol for Australia.

"take one step and you travel the equivalent of 100 kilometres across the real landmass"

The guide was there for about 20 minutes telling us about underlying symbolic references. There was a huge great tree trunk bathing in a shallow pool, the reasons why still bewilder me. Maybe it's rain+forest?

We picked up a dude called "Rory" who was Irish and was pretty damn legendary. Here he is, with a roo.

We were driving to Jindabyne, which is a town where we were staying that night. There was a stunning view across Lake Jindabyne from the hotel balcony.

Next day we went tobogganing! We drove up to the mountains and there was a huge blizzard so I whipped out the old waterproofs and threw myself down the slopes, great fun. We had a hot choc in the cafe which was welcome relief from the storming blizzard raging outside, seriously it wasn't nice out there, glad I had me hat n gloves!

We then went to Lakes Entrance, which is a big fishing and oil industry port. We got up early the next day to watch the sunrise over the lakes, amazing photos, stunning with the full moon too! We also went to Victoria National Park, and saw Kangaroos yay! And also saw Emus, and Craig the driver almost ran over a Wombat, that woulda been naasty. He actually got a speeding fine the day before for $318 (strange sum i know!).

This was yesterday, and we arrived in Melbourne our destination. I went with all of the gang from the OzExperience bus to a pub called the Elephant and Wheelbarrow. You had to pay $40 to get in, but it was worth every cent :-) . The reason for going was because on Monday nights they have a neighbours night, so a few of the stars like the doctor guy came round. I've no idea who they were, but I got some good pics of them. There was also a pub quiz, and my team, ''At It Like Rabbits" were on top form. We had one Australian woman who was going out with this english dude, and this woman seemed to know everything about everything to do with Australia, so she got all of the Aus questions. I helped in the following question:

2x+4=14, find x (this is pretty tricky stuff.....)

So we had a few english tourists, and then the whole of the OzExperience bus on our team, which I swear must have been cheating. Other teams had brought along their brainy parents along just to get a quick buck. We so showed them !

Spot the German...

To cut a long story short, we actually came joint first out of 50 teams! And it was absolutely hilarious becuase the dude going out with the Australian woman had to do a dance off with the other team leader who we were joint first with! He danced like an idiot which was tres amusant, and he won the crowd over. So we ended up winning this prize of $500! The main contributors to the team (yes that included me :-P) got $50 each and swiftly moved to the bar to buy the whole team some rip off drinks. So overall was an amazing night.

I'm now in Melbourne on the south coast, and I'm just about to go have a little explore, maybe go down to the beach or tram into town. I'm getting the ferry tonight to Tasmania to stay with Phil and Rosie, some family friends.