I! AM AN FBI AGENT

(Michelle and Stephen, at Uluru, January 25th, 2008)


The drive from Melbourne to Adelaide incorporates the ‘Great Ocean Road’, and that seems to be a big claim. Especially as the first bit we got to was so far from the ocean you couldn’t see it.

The first stop is Torquay, or Surf Central on the south coast. This is the place which hosted the birth of competition surfing, with both Rip Curl and Quiksilver calling Torquay home. Bells Beach is the venue that, in April each year, provides the waves for the Rip Curl Classic, and is of course also famous for being in the last scene in the best movie ever made, ‘Point Break’. Except the beach used to shoot the last scene was actually in Hawaii, and all they did was put a sign up saying ‘Bells Beach’, and have a Railway Station sign in the background saying ‘Torquay’. The real Bells Beach looks very different, has no railway station, and today is as flat as a pancake.

“We’ll get him when he comes back in!”
“He’s not coming back in…” (That’s for Nick from The ‘Gong!).

Anyway, we go and visit the Torquay Surfing Museum, which is really good and takes up a good lump of our day. The rest of Torquay is quickly visited as there isn’t actually much else there, and we get back on the Great Ocean Road towards our booked motel in Apollo Bay. We get an apologetic call from the booking agency telling us that our motel has had a flood, and our room is no longer available, but they have found us a cabin on a camp site nearby.

When we turn up at the site, the owners have a bag of bedding and towels for us, and point us to our cabin – which is excellent. The cricket is on, we drive into town and get some snacks from the supermarket and walk past the motel we had booked. We agree that we got the best out of that deal. It’s a dark and stormy night by the time we get back so we cozy up in the cabin, watch some tennis and have an early night.

The next morning is wet, grey, misty and quite cold. Not UK cold, but we have to put on a hoodie with our shorts. Still, such is life, eh. Chelle has read about ‘Mariners Point’, a viewing place above Apollo Bay, so we drive up a long and windy road, park and walk the last 10 minutes before getting to a field full of sheep, with a layer of clouds which seems to be hovering just over our heads, and a view over the bay which, despite the cloud cover, is as spectacular as the Wollongong mountain view.

Driving from Apollo Bay the road veers inland and upwards, and into fairly dense forest. At times it’s difficult to see much further than the front of the car, and with the rain it feels like being in the highlands of Scotland. Back to the coast and we stop and find all the other tourists in Australia have parked up to go and see the ‘12 Apostles’ – rock formations off the coast of Victoria which are slowly disappearing. In fact there are only 7 left, and I can’t help but think the tourist board have put a bit too much effort into promoting something that maybe isn’t as impressive as it thinks it is.

We get lost in Port Campbell, driving past the same signpost three times before finally taking the correct turning (you know, the one we rejected as being the wrong one in the first place) and getting to Port Fairy, where we are booked into Seacombe House which claims to be the oldest building in the town. It’s certainly got a lot of tiny corridors and un-even stairs, which are not designed for heavy awkward bags being carried by a bloke with a bad knee, and our room is no bigger than the bed that’s in it, but it has a lot of charm and there is a lounge which we decamp to for a while. I decide to catch up on some writing, and Michelle decides to go and have a look around.

By the time we get back from eating – the walk into town and back was notable only for the lack of people, or any signs of life at all – we expected a few more of the 20 or so small rooms to be occupied, but with the exception of one, all the doors were still open and the rooms empty. We try and log in to the Wi-Fi that the hostel has, but can’t. A cat appears and becomes our friend, before demanding to be let out of the front door, and we sit reading in the lounge before giving in and climbing over our bags into bed.

The next morning Chelle gets lost again while out for a run, we pack and finally get going in the misty morning weather. After a drive around Portland we stop at Nelson for lunch at the local pub and get to our booked cabin in Robe late afternoon, with the sun having broken through. We check out the Information Centre, which has free WI-FI access, and begin to sort out the last leg of our Australian Adventure, in Perth. When the centre closes, we carry on outside until it is too windy, so we move to the car. Within an hour we have booked places to stay, checked out things to do, and mailed our friends Becky, Nick and Kylie to warn them that we’re coming to visit.

We call in at the supermarket on the way home and get some food to cook in the cabin, which we eat while watching Leyton Hewitt lose to Jorkovic in the 4th round of the Australian Open. We walk over to the beach to watch the sun go down, and try and avoid kids on bikes back at the cabin site.

Chelle’s on a roll, and runs along the beach again the next morning. Luckily the running kit has had a wash. We have brekky in the cabin before throwing everything back in the car and setting off for Adelaide. Today’s drive is a long way, and consists mostly of nothing. The first 170km of road runs along the Coorong National Park, with only one gas station along the way. Chelle drives first today, because I will drive into the city later. As established, her navigating and me driving is the preferred arrangement. We see about 10 other cars for the first three hours, one of which is a Police car that follows for about 20km, before blasting past. The picnic we had packed came out near Murray Bridge, and a German bloke explains to us about the ferry that is crossing the river in front of us. Not that we’d asked him, but he seemed keen to tell us anyway.

30km down the road we come across ‘Hahndorf’, which, according to the Lonely Planet bible, is the oldest German settlement in Australia. Coincidence? I don’t think so…

Suddenly there are three lanes heading into Adelaide, but not all full of traffic. At this time on a Wednesday afternoon on the M25? 5mph, max. The road layout is so easy to follow that we pull up outside our hostel before we know it, we get our key and load into a good room across the road from the actual hostel in another building, called ‘The Guest Room’. We decide that we won’t need the car anymore, so do the usual “dropping the car off in the middle of town”, followed by the usual “Constables wander around the city taking it all in” thing, and we find ourselves with fresh juices, sitting by the river, having walked through a university campus, and realising that we are in Cambridge – or a near approximation of the UK city. The fact that it’s searingly hot brings us back to reality, and I point out that this must be a rubbish place to keep fit as we watch the umpteenth set of runners or cyclists wiz past us.

Back into the CBD (Central Business District, do keep up) we find the inevitable free bus which circles the city, get on, and stop near our lodgings at Victoria Square – also home to the temporary ‘Down Under’ cycle race village which of course, we visit. There’s not too much going on, as the race is happening elsewhere and the teams are out with the race, but we do get to look around the associated stalls in the main tent and find a pushbike made by Ducati. I’ll let you all think of your own punchline about it being the only Ducati I should be allowed near these days etc etc.

After showering and changing we walk the short distance back into the city, have some not so good cheap noodles, and after a bit of a longer walk than we had planned, find ourselves at a pub/hotel called Grace Emily’s watching the last 30 seconds of a set from a solo singer and the whole 45 minutes of a set from a 3 piece called (we think) ‘Birthglow’. I can’t help but think that John Peel would have loved them, quirky and very indie as they were, and we feel very comfortable in this place, surrounded by skinny, glasses wearing music nerds and their doting young muses. The beer was nice too.

This is one of the good hostels that offer a ‘free’ (or, included in the price as we like to think) breakfast, so we go and have some cereal and toast before sorting out a pile of stuff to send back home. Most of it seems to be clothes that I just don’t need, but there are also some CDs and books, and our presents from Kirstie and Manu. We took the stuff to the main Post Office, bought a box, packed it all, and posted it to ourselves. By sea, which of course is the cheapest way, it cost A$70, and will take up to three months. We should be there to collect it.

Across the road we caught a tram west to Glenelg, a beach suburb of Adelaide, where very attractive waitresses made ok lattes, the beach was full of teenagers making a huge racket with the girls all trying to look like Lindsay or Paris, and the boys all trying to look like 16 year old Cory Whatsisname, who has filled the news networks and radio shows with, not so much his out of control infamous party antics, but his insolence, ever since he caused $20,000 damage to his parents house in a Sydney suburb.

We waded out into the water, and it was one of those beaches which is shallow for ever, and it’s beautiful, even with the sound of a thousand teenagers all screaming at once. Actually, I was struck by the fact that all of them, to a teen, smothered themselves – and each other if they could get away with it – with sunscreen as soon as all arrived. Kids with a conscience, eh. Whatever next!

It’s also very, very hot today, and after a while we decide to head out of the rays and into some shade. The Bay Culture Centre is at the main esplanade, so we go and have a look. The old fella who is showing people around asks us where we’re from, we tell him, and he spends the next ten minutes, plus interjections over the next 30, going on about ‘the bloody poms’. This is the perfect place for him because he looks old enough to have been there at the start with Captain Cook. It’s actually a good little centre, and tells the story of South Australia and how, in a perfect bit of irony, Adelaide was the first settlement in the country that wasn’t a penal colony, but was actually set up by an ex-convict. I like the Australian ‘European’ history because it’s all so tangible, and so much has been achieved in a short space of time. So much has been destroyed, too, but I’m still reading about it all so I can’t go into detail yet (I can hear those sighs of relief from here, you know…).

We get the tram back to Adelaide, nurse our tiny bits of sunburn (stomach for me, leg for Chelle) and go over to the backpackers for their weekly BBQ, at which a UK based couple play a few songs on guitar and chello, while a photographer from the Lonely Planet guide takes pics and we stuff ourselves with quiche and salad. We get online to check our flights and get back to our room in time for the late news on the telly, where we find out about Heath Ledger’s death.

He’s a bona-fide Aussie hero, and the media is in overdrive. The next morning, and to be fair the rest of our time in Australia this is the story. He’s a Perth boy and that’s where we will be in a few days time.

The Melbourne Ultimatum…

(Riding the sofa, St Kilda Beach, January 2008)


Chelle spent most of the night either sitting up in bed or sitting in the, er, sitting room of the hostel. She felt right crook, I reckon (see! We speak Aussie!), but – apart from feeling tired – she felt better in the morning. I felt knackered, although to be honest I had slept through most of it, but realised that I should really drive, so after saying goodbye to our new German friends we loaded up and drove off.

Before getting to Phillip Island, where we had a cabin booked for two nights (luxury!), it was deemed important to go to Wilson’s Promontory, a bit of National Park which sticks out below Watarah Beach and Sandy Point, our discoveries of the previous day. Each National Park costs money to get into, to pay for the construction of the gates from which to collect the money I suppose, although they claim it’s for the upkeep of the park. As far as I could tell, ‘upkeep’ means letting things grow in peace without doing anything to them, but what do I know.

We paid our $10, and drove through some bush before following a sign to Whisky Bay. According to the map we had been given, this was a beautiful sandy bay, and when we got there after a 10 minute walk from the car park, we could see that they were spot on. What they hadn’t mentioned, were the damn flies. It really is hard to appreciate scenery with one or both of your hands constantly waving around in front of you.

We almost ran back to the car, and Michelle talked me into driving to Squeaky Beach, which is the main reason for heading down this far. In another of those genius ‘tell it like it is’ Aussie namings, Squeaky Beach is so named because as you walk barefoot in the sand, it squeaks. We tested it out for a few minutes – yes it really does squeak - before high-tailing it back to the fly-free environment of the car. We drove down to Tidal River, drove past all the campsites, wondering how the hell all those people coped with the flies, and headed out of the National Park. As we got to the gates, another first. A kangeroo wandered out of the bush in front of us. Luckily I wasn’t going very fast, and we managed to stop, watch it bounce around in front of the car, stop and look at us, and then bounce off the other way. How cool!

We could tell that the day was going to get better when I noticed that we were very short of gas, and about two miles down the road a gas station appeared. They are few and far between out here, and everyone tells you to fill up when you can, not when you need to.

It’s a long drive up and along the coast but Chelle is feeling better, it’s a sunny day and before we know it we are going over the bridge into Phillip Island, and heading for the main town, Cowes. Yes, Cowes. Phillip Island is twinned with the Isle of Wight. It’s a small island, and within 15 minutes we’re driving up the main street, turning left and finding our YHA lodge, which is actually a cabin. A walk to the supermarket and a splendid Chelley-cooked stir-fry later, we walk down to the waterfront where there is an evening market happening, along with a solo singer doing Crowdies songs quite well. We sit and listen as the sun disappeared, and it’s a good end to a good day.

It’s a bad start to any kind of day the next morning, with rain falling, a grey sky and the necessity of wearing more than just a t-shirt for the first time in a long, long time. Breakfast is provided at this place, and we have cereal, toast and coffee over in the communal dinning room, sitting and chatting with a Nigerian Lady and her three kids, who all now live in Melbourne and are making use of the school holidays. The room is packed full of people in no real hurry to go out in the rain, but we eventually decide to go down to the main beach and have a look. Looking is all we can do, because Watamai Beach is closed. It’s easy to see why, as it is difficult to stand upright in the winds that are blasting off of the sea. The next beach along is only accessible via a steep set of steps, so we try and hold on to each other as we watch the one brave/stupid surfer in the water from the cliffs above. The beautiful houses overlooking the sea provide some distractions as we drive along the clifftop, and we find a café to have coffee and egg sandwiches and take refuge from the wind.

We nearly decide to miss out on Smiths Beach, the final public beach along the south shore of Phillip Island, but then change our minds. We’re glad we did. It’s packed, as it’s the only beach that’s open on the whole island, so we get our towels and books from the car, put on another layer and find a space. It’s not nearly as windy down on the beach, and we settle into watching the hundreds of kids (and adults) with body boards tackle the waves. The lifeguards have about 20 layers of clothes on, and we muse on how long it would take them to get the layers off if they needed to get out in the water quickly.

We reluctantly leave, and nip back to the cabin for more layers and to make some sandwiches, because we’re off to see the Penguin Parade. This is one of those ‘tourist’ events that generally leave me a little cold, along the lines of some of the zoos we’ve been to. Mostly it’s me being a bit of a snob, but sometimes it seems that the event has impinged on the natural order of things, and I often feel that we, as people, have little or no right to be there. But simply by being a tourist I’m perpetuating the order of things, so I guess I don’t really have a leg to stand on. This is something that I could go on about forever, and I do actually lay awake at night thinking about, but suffice to say that I’m still travelling, only with a conscience to always try and do the right thing. More of this probably when we go into the Northern Territory, and see Uluru.

So, anyway! We head for the south-west of the island and firstly the peninsula called The Nobbies – I guess because, no, I have no idea why they’re called The Nobbies. It’s almost literally blowing a gale, and we’re wearing woolly hats and snowboard jackets that we didn’t think we would need until we hit New Zealand. The coast-line is home to seals and, surprisingly, seagulls. Surprisingly, because it never occurred to me that seagulls would have a home.

The Penguin Parade is a fancy name for the moment each evening at dusk when the penguins leave the water, where they have been looking for food, sometimes for up to three or four days, and return to their burrows. The scariest bit of this journey for them is across the beach, where they are exposed to predators and defenceless for the time it takes them to waddle up the sand. In the water they are agile and can get away from most things, and in the bush they are small enough to hide and have camouflage, but across the sand? Scary. So, of course, the centre have set up terracing and lights, where up to three thousand people sit and watch the penguins run for their lives.

Now to be fair, this of course means that the penguins are actually a lot safer then they would be if there wasn’t three thousand people watching their every move, but if you had three thousand penguins, twenty times as big as you, watching you drive home from work every night, wouldn’t it worry you? According to the rangers however, the centre has been there so long that the penguins are used to it, and, as they rightly point out, if they didn’t like it, they would build their burrows on another part of the island without the viewing stations. The centre build lots of burrows for the penguins, which helps because they are essentially quite lazy creatures, but don’t interfere beyond observation, and ensuring that us tourists stay back and don’t interfere either.

Some people seem incapable of following simple instructions, like no flash photography, or don’t try and reach out for the penguins, but I guess these are the people that ignore advice anywhere, and hopefully the Darwin theory will kick in at some point and do the right thing by these idiots.

So I feel somewhat reassured, especially after chatting with Ranger Dan, and we get back to our cabin late and sleep.

This time it’s my turn to feel crook, and I spend most of the night out of bed and feeling sorry for myself. By morning I feel better, if a bit tired, and after Michelle has some breakfast she does first stint at the wheel as we drive back around the coast road to Melbourne. I doze for the first hour or so, and then take over at the wheel as we head into the city, as we have discovered that my driving is better than my navigation, and Chelle’s navigation is a lot better than my driving, or indeed my navigation. Luckily the hostel, in the beachy suburb of St Kilda, is easy to find, and we check in to our expensive double room, which is big enough for the bed and very little else such as bags. Or feet.

The ‘luxury’ (as it is billed) room usually costs $99 a night, which for a double with a bathroom in a beach suburb of a city, isn’t too bad, but because we have managed to schedule our stay to coincide with the Australian Open tennis tournament happening up the road, is now costing us $140 a night. And they can only do 4 nights of the 5 we wanted, so we have found another hostel across the city that has a twin room for the last night. The hostel is part of a chain called ‘Base’, which is a triumph of style over substance. The place is designed to the hilt, with the façade covered in red plastic squares, the reception decked out in funky red and white, a clubby looking bar and lots of good looking staff. But for your $140, you don’t get any towels. They are $6 extra. You are not allowed to bring alcohol into the hostel, but you can drink yourself stupid at the (expensive) bar. The kitchen is big, but it’s hard to find a knife or fork that hasn’t been mauled, and certainly wasn’t washed and dried up, or put away. The washer/dryers are a reasonable cost of a dollar for ten minutes, but there is a minimum charge of $5. Even if you just want to, for example, dry your towel after being on the beach all day because you don’t get towels in your ‘luxury’ room. And there’s more, but I’ll shut up now.

We have to take the car back to the Thrifty office, which of course is in the centre of the city. We have a map in the Lonely Planet bible, which looks useable, so we set off up the St Kilda road, with a plan to turn left onto Flinders Street, and then right into Elizabeth Street, where the office is. This plan goes very well, until we see the no right turn sign at the Elizabeth Street junction with Flinders. It seems that, if we had been in London, what we were trying to do would be turn into Oxford Street. Chelle does her usual top notch navigation job, and, including a few intuitive guesses when we had wandered off the map, we finally find the Thrifty office, just as we realise that we have fill up with gas before returning the car. The three people we ask as we are stopped by the pavement have no idea where we could go, so we set off, following all the one way roads and trying to remember where the office was and stumble across a 7/11 gas station north of the city. We fill up, take the car back, where they don’t bother to check if we’ve filled up or not, and set out down Elizabeth Street for a look see.

It’s a compact city, and all the usual city stores are here. We get down to the station and find Federation Square which seems to be the hub of the city, and where the Information centre can be found. Melbourne has a fantastic tram system, so we buy a weekly ticket each and find the number 16 tram back to St Kilda, which is 5km out of the city, along with all the commuters, which briefly reminds us that normal life is going on around us.

Back at the hostel, and after finding a local supermarket, we manage to cook a noodle stir-fry with a fork, a pan and two toasters, before walking along the beach to the pier. It has been a warm day, but with the wind added to the evening, it’s chilly and we wish we had bought something to wear over our t-shirts. I call my friend Fiona, a St Kilda resident, who I also met in LA, and we arrange to meet the next evening, as well as planning a bit of a reunion with some other Melbourne-ites and Nick, who is visiting for the tennis. I call Ben, one of ‘the others’, who is up for the plan and offers to gather another couple of people. I’m looking forward to seeing them all again.

We go back and watch the tennis, which is happening live just 5km up the road.

Breakfast at the hostel is a reasonable $6, and sets us up for a wander around the area, which we like to do. Some of it is similar to Venice Beach or Santa Monica in it’s welcoming and encouragment of an alternative lifestyle, some of it further away from the coast is like a London suburb with seemingly specific ethnic areas, all mixed in with cafes and those expensive clothes shops with nobody in them. There are plenty of eating options for us, with a healthy slab of veggie or vegan places, and we discuss these later while sitting on the beach. The sun is strong today, and I decide to go for a walk along the boardwalk to find drinks. It’s nearly 4.30pm, and considering it’s school holidays, the middle of summer, and we’re on the beach, all the kiosks bar one have closed down for the day. The one I find is in the process of closing, and it seems odd as people from work start descending on the beach and riding their bikes along the boardwalk.

We leave the beach by 7pm, and eat gorgeous veggie burgers (chickpea for Chelle, tofu for me) with salty, herby big fat chips at a place called ‘Grill’d’, before showering and dressing up in jeans and coats to go and meet Fiona. She turns up in shorts and t-shirt, it’s quite warm out, and we’re way over-dressed.

It’s great to see her again, she looks fantastic, and we buy wine and go back to her excellent flat, which is a two minute walk from the hostel, and chat until we realise it’s 1.30am. We arrange to meet the next night, she insists that we stay at hers for the last night instead of the other hostel, and we walk back to the hostel.

Despite the late night we are up early and eating raisin toast, before walking 50 yards down the road to a bike hire office and getting a couple of ‘cruisers’. The bloke assures us that we won’t need any gears for our journey along the beachfront, so we head off and try and get used to the things. They are so soft it is like trying to ride a sofa, and initially we glide along the flat bike lanes alongside the beach.

There are a couple of steep-ish hills, which would have been easier with a couple of gears to change too, but all in all it’s a fun ride into the wind. We get to Brighton Beach, but continue down to Hampton where we find a waterside café by a yacht club, and drink lattes and water. There is some kind of race going on from this club, and the roads are awash with the spoils of richness – Porsches, Mercedes and all types of SUVs clutter the road while their owners sail water-going versions against each other.

The cycle back is much easier with the wind, and we stop off at a beach that is lined with beach huts. It’s like being on the Suffolk / Norfolk Coast again, without the rain obviously, while the road alongside the beach is just like the beach road from Brighton to Hove in the UK. We feel a little homesick, remember where we are, look up at the sun and carry on having a great time.

Stopping only to consume an ice-cream back at St Kilda, we continue our ride to the north, spotting the port a few km up ahead, to make the most of the hire. It’s a nice ride there, but an absolute killer on the way back. The wind is like a gale coming off the sea, and blowing right in our faces as we try and peddle our sofa-bikes with one gear. After what seems like hours of hard work we make it back to the cycle shop, mention the wind to the guy who says he would have given us mountain bikes if we’d told him we were going that way.

We have plans to meet up in the city tonight with the LA crowd, so we try out a veggie pizza joint in Aclund Street and eat early. They turn out to be more like pies with piles of veggies on top of a wholemeal crust, but we like them anyway, and then get ourselves smartened up for going out. Fiona calls and says she’s running late, gives us the address and says she’ll meet us there. It’s odd dressing up (as well as we can, we hadn’t really packed for social functions), and getting on the tram into the city as the sun went down seemed somehow glamorous. We got off at Collins Street and walked along the road, looking for the number we had been given. It turned out to be about four blocks along, and just as we got there, Fiona stepped off a tram, which had pulled up next to the bar.

I was a little nervous about tonight – this group of people hadn’t been together for three years, since I had been in LA during my lost weekend, and I worried that we would all be sitting looking at each other, wondering what the hell to talk about. I was also nervous for Michelle. Meeting one at a time had been fine, but I worried that meeting 5 in one go might be a bit full on, and that she would feel a bit left out. But I needn’t have worried. She had already meet Nick and Fiona, so they were great, but Ben, Jared and Georgie were excellent, and as soon as we walked in it was all about the hugging, the drinking, the talking, and it was so good to see them all again. Ben has pretty much been frozen in time, and is such a nice guy that I wish there was some way I could help him figure out what it is he wants to do. Jared already knows what he wants, and pretty much knows how to get it. He had an audition set up for the next day, which he still hadn’t learnt any lines for, but he’s the kind of bloke that will charm his way through pretty much anything. Once you get past the bluff he’s a rad ninja to know, and I’m so pleased we got to meet up again. Georgie, well, I don’t really know her that well. She wasn’t around in LA for very long, but we did share a room for a couple of days, and she remembered me as “the Austin Powers bloke”. It could have been worse, I suppose. The bar was pretty empty and the waitresses joined in, and all too soon it was time to go catch a cab, as the trams had long since stopped running.

We had made plans to meet up with Jared in March, on our way back through LA, where he now lives, and more immediate plans to meet with Nick for coffee in the morning, before he flew back to Wollongong early afternoon. A cab ride with Fiona back to St Kilda, and another late night walk back to the hostel.

The next day we meet Nick at Federation Square and he shows us a side street near the station which is chocka with cafes. We sit and have coffee, chatting away until he has to go and get the bus to the airport. The second goodbye is a lot harder, as we won’t see him again for a while. Get sorted, my friend, and we expect to see you on the telly soon.

We wander off around the shopping centre of Melbourne for a while before heading back to Degraves Street and lunching at a wonderful place called ‘Café 5’. If you’re ever in Melbourne… Southbank was next, and a slow walk along the riverside leads to the Casino. Now we’re not what you might call gamblers (as two of the very few people to go to Vegas and not bet any money on anything), but this place was huge. Room after room of people betting on all sorts of events from cards to horses to roulette to cricket to football to – well, you get the idea. Fascinating for a while, but the desperation hangs heavy in the air, and we needed to get out. We found another tram, the 96, which took us back to St Kilda and while I rested my knee, which had now started to throb and puff up, Chelle went to do some washing at a launderette down the road. More difficult than it should have been, she got back 2 hours later looking like she had been out with her mum for a while (only kidding Anne!), and needed resting before doing anything else.

Still, we now had a whole pile of clean clothes to choose from, and we chose carefully before going down to Aclund Street to find some noodles. The place we found was closing, at 9.30pm, but let us in. Excellent noodles, excellent rice and back to the hostel by 10.30pm, where we sat and caught up on emails for an hour while listening to the increasingly bad chat up lines from the Irish lads in the hostel, which fought with the increasingly bad, and very loud dance music coming from the bar. Maybe it just seemed that way, but there can’t be many 18 – 21 year old blokes left in Ireland, as they all seem to be in the Base Hostel in St Kilda.

We go to our ‘luxury’ room on the 2nd floor and Chelle falls asleep almost instantly while I watch the Bhagdadis v. Saffin match from the Open on the telly, turning it up to compete with the bar downstairs. I finally fall asleep to the sound of a room full of Irish boys singing ‘YMCA’. At least I can tick that off my ‘must do’ list now.

Surprisingly we are both quite spritely in the morning, but Chelle is more spritely than ‘others’ and goes out for a run. We’re packed and out of the room at 10.00am to meet Fiona outside with our bags, to move to hers for a night. We go to Café Brewhaha – which is next to the vegan restaurant ‘Lentil as Anything’ (one for Kilbey there) - for scrambled eggs and lattes, we meet Fiona’s actor friend Daniel who co-owns the place and then we go for a drive.

Fiona gives us the grand tour of Melbourne districts, including Pahran, Toorak, Richmond, Smith Street, and Fitzroy, where we stop off in Brunswick Street, famous for it’s coffee, and have green tea. She has stuff to do so drops us off at the Victoria Market, which is full of Aussie tat, beautiful looking veggies and fruit, and stalls selling leather look goods. We catch a tram back into the city and go to Federation Square before looking around the exhibitions at the ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image), spot a really old Mac Plus in a store window, and walk down to the Yarra river, where we sit and have a drink as people drift by to and from the tennis going on just down the road.

Another tram ride back to Fiona’s, where we all get ready and walk down to the Pelican Bar on Fitzroy Street (confusingly, not in the district of Fitzroy, but in St Kilda) and meet two more of Fiona’s actor friends, Josh (more Woody Allen than Woody Allen), and Andrew (an Aussie Pierce Brosnan). They are both excellent people and we talk over the hub-bub of the bar before heading to another place up the road called Mink. Josh goes home and leaves the four of us wanting coffee as we leave the bar at 2.30am. Coffee is hard to find so we go back to Fiona’s flat for a brew and carry on talking, and talking, and talking and it’s 5.00am before we grudgingly give in, and Andrew calls a cab. We sleep in Fiona’s bed, she borrows her neighbour’s spare room.

Remarkably, we’re up, showered, packed, out the door and on a tram by 10.00am, and picking up our car in the city by 11. We pick up our bags and Fiona, and have a last coffee round the corner before heading off over the West Gate Bridge, and away from Melbourne.

Everyone had told us that we would ‘love’ Melbourne, so it was inevitable that it couldn’t quite live up to all that expectation. The tour with Fiona helped, because we realised that the city has an ‘energy’, and a buzz about it. It’s more villagy and less international than Sydney, and I think it’s worth another visit. Or two. Maybe three…

Apologies...

(Michelle, Claire and Geoff, Christmas Day 2007)

...to Geoff, who we hung out with in Sydney on Christmas Day, went boarding with and spent New Year's Eve with. I referred to you as 'Jeff'. Inforgiveable, but it was a 50/50 chance, and I got it wrong. So, Geoff! It was a blast, see you again soon!

It’s not just about eating. Is it? Really?

(Waratah Beach, January 2008)

I hope everyone is enjoying these blogs. I’m a bit concerned that there is so much detail that none of you are actually reading it. Some of the basic grammatical mistakes clearly shows that I’m not reading it very well, either. Sorry about that. It is proving a bit difficult to find the time to write about all the stuff we’re doing, what with most of our time being taken up by actually doing all the stuff I have to write about. A classic miscalculation, I grant you. Still, I will try and keep up, because I know that my Mum, Dad and Nan are definitely reading every word. Hello mum! Hello Dad! Hello Nan! You weren’t supposed to open your birthday present until your birthday, but I guess we’ll let you off… and yes, I have put one or two pounds on, but I’m on day fifty something of not smoking! I’m not even counting anymore! The pounds on the scales, that is…!

Anyway, back to the plot:

We had neglected to book anywhere to stay for the coming night, so first things first, we called a backpacker hostel in Kiama. They didn’t take bookings on the phone, which should have triggered the alarm, so on our way through the town we called at the Information Centre. They gave us a couple of addresses for motels, which were way over budget, so we decided to call in at the hostel anyway. Having found the bloke who purportedly ran the place, we asked if he had a room. Normally a yes or a no would follow, but he asked if we’d seen any of the rooms. We told him we hadn’t, to which he asked how we knew we wanted one. We decided that we didn’t want one after all, and left.

Next door was the Kiama Hotel, essentially a pub with some rooms above it. We called in and asked the barman if he had any rooms for the night. He told us that the cleaner was still upstairs, and he didn’t know if he had any rooms until she came down. At this point, I expected him to ask if we’d like to have a drink and wait for him to find out, but he simply walked away. So we walked away, too.

We sat over the road with our guide-book, and Michelle suggested that we try some places further inland. We found a place called Kangeroo Valley, and being good tourists, decided to try there, because we liked the name. Within five minutes we had a cabin booked, for less than the hotel advertised their rooms, and set off to sit on the beach for a while. We felt we deserved a break after all that conflict.

Having read our books and enjoyed yet another excellent beach for a couple of hours, it was getting dark, and was time to set off for ‘Roo Valley. We stopped off at some public toilets, where I was offered drugs by a skinny bloke standing by the door to the gents, and so we got the hell out of Kiama. I’m sure the bit we didn’t get to see was very nice, but we’re in no hurry to go back…

Kangeroo Valley was a different story. 30 km inland, with most of the road being of the windy up and down variety, it is essentially a dairy farming area, with a one street town which has a Scottish-looking stone bridge, called the Hampton Bridge, at one end. Just before this bridge was our campsite, and the very friendly couple who ran the site had stayed open especially for us, ran through all the usual stuff, showed us the range of DVDs they had for guests use, with no charge, and then told us which places to eat in, drink in and buy stuff from, in the town.

The cabin itself was small, but easily the nicest we’d stayed in. As we went out to pick a DVD, we bumped into an Aussie couple with two small boys, said hello, and set off into town. We got some beer from the bottleshop, and as we left, bumped into the Aussie couple coming in. We ordered food down the road, and as we sat outside waiting for it, the Aussie couple rocked up to order theirs. We chatted while we waited, noting that the people who ran the site must have shares in the bottle shop and the food place, and then both set off back to the campsite.

Stuffed, we lay in bed watching our chosen movie, and both miss the end.

The next morning we re-packed, and as I loaded the car, spotted the bloke we had been chatting with the previous night, at the playground with the older boy. I went over and, realising that we hadn’t actually done so yet, introduced myself. Geoff and I chatted about Sydney, I found out that he and his wife, Bridget, were both Film Editors, and they lived in Belle Vue, a suburb of Sydney. They had both travelled a lot before starting a family, and we got on so well that by the time Michelle and Bridget and joined us we realised that we were late checking out again. I ran over to the office, all apologetic and out of breath, and the lady told me that she had seen us chatting and she thought we’d all get along, so there was no hurry. Geoff and Bridget gave us their numbers and address, telling us that we must call them next time we’re over. I think we definitely will.

One of the nice things about being a little inland for a change was that we were close to a couple of waterfalls, and Michelle could therefore tick these of the long list of ‘things to see in ‘stralia’. The first was Fitzroy Falls, and following a short walk we came across a rather disappointing trickle of water falling down a much more impressive cliff face. Back to the car after avoiding the hoards of Japanese and German tourists, we drove to another place called Carrington Falls, which Michelle had found on a map, and found a much better twin waterfall. We also found an empty car park, a sign that said ‘Stevo’s walk’, and an excellent little track which led to the top of the waterfall. Result. Another twenty minutes down the same road is a rain forrest walk called Minimure, which was notable for being calm, quiet and empty. We completed the 2 hour walk in 45 minutes, and rewarded ourselves with lattes at the café in the middle of the rain forest. By this time it was late afternoon, and we decided we really ought to try and find somewhere to stay for the night. The 6th place we try out of the numerous books we have collected is in Culburra Beach, and they have a cabin which we book for two nights. We get there late as it’s quite a drive down the coast, pick up Chinese food and have a moonlight walk on the beach.

Culburra Beach is at the North end of Jervis Bay, and the next morning we decide to see how many beaches we can visit in one day. Jervis is a natural horse-shoe bay, with Booderee National Park at the South end, and a number of beaches along the way. We started at Huskisson, which contained way too many Man Utd shirts on pink people and cheapy ‘tat’ shops for our liking, before driving to Hyams Beach, which contained hardly any people in any type of shirts, or indeed any type of shops. The sand was white and despite the grey skies was beautiful, so we stayed for a while before having a coffee at Vincentia, staying at Green Patch for about 2 minutes because there were too many stupid people (how difficult is it to understand a sign that says “do not feed the birds or the animals, it upsets their natural diets and harms them”? As we walked past, one of the kids screamed because a bird had pecked her. Her Dad was shocked by the bird’s behaviour…) and headed for a place called Cave Beach. Cave Beach was a ten minute walk from the car park, and had very few facilities, which generally means that there will be less people around. And so it proved. A long, curved bay of sand with good waves, it seems to be popular with Surfers and local families who know how to behave in nature. We loved it and stayed until it began to get dark.

One of the nice things about staying in a cabin is that you get cooking facilities, and we had realised that, although it’s great to have the opportunity to eat out all the time, sometimes you just want to cook something simple. We had baked potatoes with beans and cheese, and it was as nice as anything we could have had in a restaurant.

Again we had to pack up, load the car and head off first thing in the morning. We had booked this evening’s destination the previous evening, at a motel in Marimbula, adding this to the list of campervan, hostel, house, and cabin. On the way we stopped off at the not so suitably named Pebbly Beach, which was another hard to find place, but brilliantly worth it. After an off-road drive of nearly half-an-hour, you reach a car-park, which in turn leads to a 15 minute walk down to the beach. It pays not to forget anything. We had brunch (made at the cabin that morning), Chelley went for a walk along the length of the beach, and we went up into the forest and found a whole bunch of kangaroos, sleeping and grazing. It was a shame too leave, but we had a long drive ahead. We swapped driving duties before finally hitting Marimbula, eating out in the town centre, and getting a bit upset with our neighbour’s parking at the motel. Well, I did. Michelle just looked embarrassed.

The next morning I checked out the view from our room, which was magnificent, while Michelle went for a run. The fact that I had such an amazing view should give you an idea of how high up we were, and even at that time of the morning, the sun is pretty strong. Just as I was starting to get worried she made it back, reporting that walking back up to the motel was hard enough, let alone after running a few miles in the wrong direction…

As we set off, we decide we really like Marimbula, but it’s crossed off the “possible places to live in” list because of the hills. Lakes Entrance is our next destination, and this time we have a room at a YHA hostel just out of the town. When we check in the woman tells us that a coach load of backpackers are expected in tonight, but they normally don’t make too much noise.

We walk the 25 minutes into the town (well, the one street of cafes and surf shops that counts as a town in most of the places we are driving through) in scorching heat, head for the beach, and run straight into the sea. It’s cold for about 10 seconds and then as the next wave crashes into you, it becomes cool. All around us kids and adults are jumping around in the surf, most with body boards, and all having a swell time. Sitting on the beach you dry off in no time, to be reminded of the one big pain in the bum problem this part of Australia suffers from – flies. They are everywhere. The action of waving your hand around in front of your face is known as the Aussie Salute. I’m not sure I could grow to accept them as the locals seem to, but we do our best.

After a while we head back to the hostel, and jump straight into the beautifully kept swimming pool before chatting with an English bloke who was the only other person near the pool. In the evening we walk back into town and eat at the healthiest fish’n’chip shop in the world, according to its owner, Guy from Belgium. His wheat and gluten free batter tastes excellent, his chips, cooked in special vegetable oil were tasty, and we were treated to the whole story of how he invented the batter while his wife cleared up around us, occasionally looking up to the heavens. I guess she’d heard the story once or twice.

The hostel was quiet when we returned, despite the presence of the promised coach outside, and we sat with coffee before finally giving in and retiring to the oven-like room.

In the morning we discuss how nice it would be to stay somewhere for more than one night as we pack up again, load the car and hit the road. We assign a brunch stop to a place called Sale, and when we arrive the only thing we can find is a shopping mall which seems to consist of lots of the Aussie equivalent of our ‘Pound Shops’. Chelle spots a café across the road, and it turns out to serve the best scrambled eggs I’ve had since the Alibi Rooms in Brisbane. Chelle enjoys her pancakes, and we look longingly at all the vegetarian options on the menu, wishing that we could take one of each with us.

It seems even hotter today, and the drive seems a little harder today. Foster is our destination, and another YHA place. This turns out to be the smallest place so far, catering for 10 people a night, it is essentially a small cottage with three bedrooms – our double, one with three and one with five bunks. We are the first to arrive and the very friendly host, John, shows us around. We decide to explore nearby beaches and save the big local attraction, Wilson’s Promontory, until the next day.

It’s about 3 in the afternoon, and we randomly pick Waratah Bay. Twenty minutes later we park up and walk through some green to emerge on an empty strip of white sand, some perfect looking waves, and winds which made it quite difficult to stand up. So we sat down, finding a little bit of protection from the wind in the dunes at the top of the beach. After an hour or so we had been joined by a few others, most of which turned up with body boards, some of which have dogs and one of which has a kayak. We reckon the vast majority of these are local families who head down to the beach after school and work, we are chuffed that we found the locals beach, and we enjoy being part of it.

Eventually we have to move – thanks to a mixture of being hungry, being wind-battered and being quite thirsty (unlike all the locals, we forgot to bring water with us, and there is no café on this beach), but I’m in the mood to explore. Instead of turning left to go back to the hostel, I turn the wheel right and we find another road along the coast and a sign which says ‘Neds Lookout’. Up a side road, round a corner and a short walk from a rough car-park, we climb up some stairs to be on a wooden platform overlooking miles of beach, including Waratah to our right, and Sandy Point to our left. Pictures are taken, we try to stand up straight in the increasingly wild winds, and grin at each other quite a lot.

Back down to the road, more exploring calls and as we drive along the road we find our house. It’s for sale, and it’s a four bedroom, wooden framed two story, with access to the beach and parking for loads of cars. It doesn’t say how much it is, but we enjoy the thought that we might be able to afford the shed that is at the side of the garden. With a large mortgage, of course.

When we stop at the general stores down the road to get a coffee, there is a real estate office next door, and ‘our new house’ is in the window. It’s $580,000. Which for those of you in the UK, works out to about £250,000. Michelle has to stop me going in…

Back at the hostel and we cook pasta and salad in the kitchen, before sitting outside for the rest of the evening with three German guys – Lars, Stefan and Michael – who where travelling around after working in Sydney for five months. We even had to go to the bottle shop for more beer, which just about made up for our lack of German. This is where staying in hostels wins over hotels. It’s not just about cost, although they are significantly cheaper, it’s about meeting people and exchanging ideas, and it works best in the smaller places like this one in Foster.

Oh, and we saw a wombat at last. It wandered around in the garden for a couple of minutes while we sat outside.

Tomorrow we go to Phillip Island, and eat some more food. Oh, and do some sight seeing too.

Hang on, THIS is Grey Street, right?…

(Me and Nick work on that tricky Metallica middle-eight... January 5th 2008, Wollongong)

Our time with Kirstie, Manu and Summer was coming to an end, so for our last day we all piled into the car and headed for Bobbin Head, one of Manu’s favourite running spots, as well as being one of the funnier double-entendre names around here. Michelle and I joined Manu for a walk along one of the routes, leaving Kirstie and Summer in the shade at a café. It’s a hot day. Really hot. Manu reckons it’s a bit warm, so yes, it’s really hot. There is shade along the way, and you find yourself walking just a bit slower in the shady bits. We go past a Goanna, which looks as bit like an Iguana. In fact I can’t tell the difference, and I still haven’t found anyone who can actually explain the difference…

The views of the lake and the hills are spectacular, and after half an hour we turn and go back. Manu suggests a detour, which to me looks knee threateningly steep, so I break off and head for the café. When we’ve all re-convened it’s back in the car and off through the National Park to a Wildlife reserve where more views are to be had, some kangaroos and turtles are to be seen and a colleague of Manu’s is to be met. Another trip in the car, partly on a ferry, and we get to Berowra Waters before heading back to K&Ms.

Manu and I get some take out Thai food and we all sit on the balcony, drinking beer and chatting, and finally we all go to bed.

The next morning we pack, call a cab and head for the station. It’s impossible to thank Kirstie and Manu enough for asking us to stay with them over C*****mas and New Year, for their hospitality, for sharing their friends, for driving us around, for feeding us and for, well, for being our friends. We try and convey our thanks, and look forward too seeing them in the UK later this year, when we hope they’ll stay with us.

Michelle had found us a room at a hostel in the middle of the Kings Cross area of Sydney, which if not physically, is culturally a long way away from Wahroonga. It’s backpacker central, and as we finally find the right street after finding every other wrong street in the area, we walk past about 50 backpacker places before we get to ours. The room seems ok, and there’s a fridge, a TV and three beds, and we find out that we have free Wi-Fi access – so plans for the next few days are made, places are booked and snacks from the local supermarket are snacked.

We also book tickets for the open air movie theatre which is showing The Godfather. It’s in Centennial Park, to the east of the city and we think we know where it is having gone past it on the bus going to Bondi. We need to be there at 7.30, so we start walking, panic that we’ll be late and hail a cab. The cab goes the other way to that which we have been going, and drops us off at the gate to the park 10 minutes later. We have more snacks with us, plus some beer and as it gets dark we sit on our towels and the movie starts. Covering ourselves in mozzie spray seems to keep the little blighters at bay and, despite Chelley falling asleep about halfway through, we have a brilliant time. Trying to figure out the buses on the way home seems a little more difficult than it should, but we have a map and decide to walk. It’s 12.30am, and we walk down Oxford Street, going past signs to Liverpool Street and Charring Cross, Paddington and finally Kings Cross and it’s taken less than 40 minutes. The corridor to our room is full of backpackers drinking cheap cider, we have the stairs on one side of our room and the men’s showers on the other. Sleeping is not easy, but we manage it thanks to the walk.

The next morning, fuelled by fruit, we catch a train and then a bus to get us to Circular Quay and then walk to The Rocks, the area under the Harbour Bridge which is billed as the oldest in the city. After walking an unnecessary extra couple of kilometres around the pillars, we find the way up onto the bridge and then up inside one of the pillars. The view is amazing, and at $9 each, a lot cheaper than the walk up the actual bridge. A lot safer, too. We walk over the bridge to the North side, buy pastries and head for the North Sydney outdoor Swimming Pool. Chelle gets in for a few lengths while I get on with some snoozing, after appreciating the view – one end of the pool is at the entrance to Luna Park, the other at the foot of the Harbour Bridge. It runs alongside the water in the harbour too, giving a great contrast in colours.

We catch the ferry to Balmain, a suburb to the west of Sydney (although not in ‘West’ Sydney), get milkshakes and raisin toast in a café, get back on the ferry and shoot across the water to Darling Harbour. There’s not really much there for us - it’s mostly fish or steak restaurants along with the Aquarium, but it does have a monorail station, and we catch it back into the city. It runs up high, 2 or 3 floors above street level, and gives an unusual view, and we get off, catch a conventional train back to the hostel, picking up take out pies and salad to have in. We’re knackered.

Despite the noise in the hostel, we sleep like very sleepy people and emerge at 9.45 in the morning, along with the realisation that we have to check out at 10.00am. Quick showers are had (it’s better that way in shared facilities sometimes, as is the fact that I can’t see very much without my glasses), bags are packed, toast and coffee is had in the kitchen while making sandwiches with the left over snacks from yesterday, and we’re handing back the key by 10.30am with apologies. We lock up the bags in the back room at the hostel and head out to fill up 2 hours before picking up our hire car.

Walking the other way is always a good thing to do. We had turned left as we stepped out of the hostel for the previous two days, so this day we turned right, headed down the road, found a park and an enormous set of steps which led down to the Woolloomooloo District of Sydney. And no, I didn’t just make that name up. Across the road is Harry’s Café de Wheels, an infamous attraction in the city which has been there since 1945, is open 18 hours a day, and is covered in pictures of celebrities eating pies at the booth, which is next door to the wharf which houses a posh Hotel and, as we were told later, Russell Crowe’s Sydney pad. A short walk round the wharf and we find ourselves in The Domain, part of the Botanical Gardens and about ten minutes walk around the headland from the Opera House. The geographical jigsaw of Sydney was finally starting to make sense, and we were slowly putting the final piece in place, but first we got distracted by a modernist structure at the side of the gardens. It turned out to be the ‘Andrew ‘Boy’ Charlton’ swimming pool and café, with Olympic size salt water serious pool, full of Sydney’s citizens dutifully counting lengths, and attached café, at which we sampled some green tea while watching the swimmers. Well, I watched the swimmers, Chelle was watching the lifeguard. Of course. I promised myself that I would find out who Andrew ‘Boy’ Charlton was, which I will do. Soon. Really.

Further walking through the gardens revealed that preparations were well underway for the Sydney Festival which starts the day after we leave, quelle surprise, and we complete our loop by finding our way to car rental central – Wilson Street – and going into the Thrifty office, to be told that they had no record of our booking. If you can recall, we made our booking through an organisation called ‘Backpackers’, a couple of days ago, but had received no confirmation. In characteristic fashion, I had decided that they were probably busy, and had simply forgotten to confirm. Maybe they had been to busy to book it, too. The lady in the office asked us to give her half an hour to investigate, and sent us around the corner for a coffee. Slightly concerned but buoyed by her calmness, we followed her directions and discovered her recommendation to be just one in a street full of Italian cafes. As we sat outside, trying not to worry about not having a car, or somewhere to sleep if we couldn’t get one, we enjoyed the sun, the parade of Italian cars including an old Fiat Arbarth (one for Justin there) and the conversations of the obviously gay couple of girls on the next table.

When we returned we were relieved to hear that there had indeed been a computer based cock-up on the car-booking front, and Thrifty would indeed provide a car for us – however, we would have to give them an hour or so to get it here, along with all the others that had been booked and not made it onto the list for the day. We were in no real hurry, so headed back towards the hostel and called my friend Nick, who was going to be meeting us and providing a roof over our heads for the next couple of days.

We called into a second-hand bookstore which had previously caught our eye, and I found a couple of Clive James books I had been looking for as well as wandering into a room at the back which was full of interesting vinyl records. As I walked in, the guy behind the counter put the first Crosby Stills & Nash album on the turntable, and the first book I spotted in the music section was Colchester’s own Giles Smith’s Lost In Music. It was turning into a splendid day, despite the car thing, and we sat in a park, eating our sandwiches, reading our newly purchased books waiting for a call from the Thrifty Woman.

By 3.30pm we were finally on our way, having called at the hostel to get our bags, and navigated our way out of the centre of Sydney and headed south to Wollongong, home of my friend Nick.

An easy drive means we arrive in North Wollongong by about 5 in the afternoon, and we find a beach café, watch the massive waves, and call Nick. I met Nick in LA over three years ago. We were both staying at the Orbit hostel, and ended up hanging out with Darren (from the Gold Coast, getting married – come on, keep up!), Gary (who we went out with, along with Nick, on our first night in LA on this trip…), and Fiona, who we will be meeting up with in Melbourne…Look, it makes sense to me, alright?

Anyway, Nick arrives and we have coffee and watch with a mixture of fear and excitement, as the Lifeguards rescue a guy who was stuck out in the huge waves that have been relentlessly pounding the beach since we arrived. In the most impressive piece of work I’ve ever seen, the Lifeguard paddled out on a board, through 16 foot high waves, got the bloke onto the board, and then paddled both of them back. The whole thing took over 20 minutes. A round of applause broke out across the beach and the café as they got to the beach, and if I had been the rescued, I would have felt indebted to the rescuer for the rest of my life.

We follow Nick back to his house, meet his mum who makes us feel very welcome, before heading into the CBD to eat Thai food, drink beer, and sample The ‘Gong. It seems to be a similar in size to Ipswich, there are a couple of night clubs, a few bars, a smattering of restaurants and, as it is Friday night, a fair amount of locals looking for a good time. The most obvious thing is that The ‘Gong is not a tourist place and its lack of pretension is obvious having spent the last few days in Sydney. As we sit in the bar after eating, the similarities with our home town are cemented when it starts to pour with rain. Back at Nick’s we watch the highlights of the 2nd test between Australia and India, which seemed simply like an intense international sporting event at that time, before the whole series was put in jeopardy by name calling and accusations of un-gentlemanly behaviour.

The next day it’s still raining as Nick cooks up a storm in the kitchen, before taking us up Mount Keira, part of the Illawarra Escarpment, which rears up behind the city, and provides breath-taking views across to the sea as well as up and down the coastline. It’s still steadily raining, so we go to the movies and watch National Treasure 2, which I had high hopes of being featured in having been an extra on the shoot in London about 6 months ago. Within the first five minutes it’s clear they didn’t use any of the shots I was in, so I hide the disappointment by pretending to not enjoy the film.

We have coffee and cookies, watch some more cricket and then head out to Napoli pizzas – Nick’s favourite restaurant. Like a huge number of places in Australia, this is a BYO place, meaning you bring your own wine or beer, and some places charge you a nominal fee to open it (called ‘corkage’), so we stop off at a ‘bottle stop’ on the way and get some Coopers Pale Ale.

The pizzas are excellent, the beer is good, and we finish the evening off at The ‘Gong’s micro-Brewery, down by the south beach, sampling a few of their own beers. Back at Nick’s Chelle leaves us to watch one of the worst films in the world, about Nazi’s bringing some Gargoyles to life, before I retire to bed too. As I drift off to sleep I hear some whist-full a'capella singing coming from outside somewhere, but feel too tired to investigate, and fall asleep.

Nick had also heard the singing, thankfully for my sanity, but we’re at a loss as to where it had come from. His mum cooks us a beautiful breakfast, we pack up and do the difficult good bye bit again. I don’t think we will ever get used to this, but at least this particular one is only temporary, as luckily, Nick will be in Melbourne next week, the same time as us, for the tennis. Plans are made for meeting up.

Here’s a thing. When Michelle was young, she used to hang out with her family’s friend’s children Andrew and Trevor. Andrew had, during his travelling days, met an Aussie girl called Penny, and eventually moved over and settled down with her. So far so normal, but it happens that they had settled in Wollongong, and his parents had suggested we call in and see them, as we would be visiting Nick in the same city. It’s a big place, the World, and Australia is a pretty big part of it, so the fact that one of Michelle’s childhood friends should move to the same city as a friend of mine, that I met in LA, is a bit of a coincidence. The fact that, once we had checked his address, Andrew lived less than 30 yards down the same road, Grey Street, as Nick, was a bit more freaky.

So, having packed the car up, waved goodbye out of the car window, we went over the hill and pulled up on the other side of the same road. Andrew and Penny had, after 15 years of living together, finally done the decent thing and got married just before Christmas. A lot of Andrew’s family had come over for the wedding, and some had stayed for Christmas and new year, but the final lot had left the day before we called, so they were feeling a bit empty. We were concerned that, having had a houseful for a month, they would want some time to themselves, but they were incredibly welcoming, with snacks, drinks and wedding photos, and we chatted for a couple of hours before heading off, this time driving a little bit further down the coast to Kiama, with a lot of useful information from Andrew and Penny in our heads.

So, which one is the Harbour Bridge again?

(l to r: Manu, Kirstie, Michelle, Stephen, Claire, Jeff, Julia, Clayton. Behind the camera, Dean. Sydney, just after midnight, January 1st 2008.)

For someone who supposedly dislikes C*****mas so much, I seem to have written about it quite a lot so far. And there seems to be no reason to stop now, because this year Michelle and I spent the 25th December on a beach!

First things first – a few presents are to be opened. We have a couple of pictures of Sydney from Kirstie and Manu, they have a few family presents plus our gifts, and Summer sleeps through it all. I doubt whether she will in the future. We have coffee and toast before gathering some towels and boardshorts and heading to the beach. Unfortunately, the one thing we won’t be needing is sun-screen – although warm, the sky is grey and there will be no sun peeping through. Still, it’s 25 degrees, and by the time we’ve walked the 20 minutes down some steep tracks, we are all very warm.

There is no-one else on Flint & Steel Beach, Michelle and Kirstie stay on the beach while Manu, Summer (in a papoose type thing called a ‘babybjorn’) and I go off investigating caves and rock pools. By the time we get back, we have been joined by Claire and Jeff, friends of K&M, and also poms. Claire had recently celebrated passing her citizenship test, while Jeff was contemplating going back to the UK to finish a stint in the Police Force, having taken a couple of years off.

After a glass of wine, Michelle, Claire and Jeff decide to go swimming, while the more sensible of us decide to watch. And finish the wine. I get to spend some quality time with Summer, and before long we’re heading back up the trail, saying goodbye to Claire and Jeff, and back to Wahroonga for dinner.

Manu disappears into the kitchen, refusing any offers of help, and we have some more wine. Christmas Dinner appears on the table in the form of a veggie risotto, asparagus, lobster and scallops, and I am now a confirmed pescatarian, keen to try more seafood. Late in the evening we both call home and my insistence that I’m not missing anything crumbles when I speak to my mum, dad, nanna and sister in quick succession. They all tell me it’s cold and raining, but for a while I wish I was there sharing it with them.

What do you do on public holidays when it’s warm? You spend hours on buses, that’s what. We had decided to give K&M a day on their own as Manu had generously saved all his holiday for when we were around, and we thought he might like some family time. The sun had returned to it’s normal place, so we decided to take the train into Sydney and the ferry out to Manly Beach to watch the start of the annual Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. Which was a good plan, apart from the fact that the trains weren’t actually running. Still, we figured that we were in no big hurry, and clutching instructions we boarded the replacement bus service into the city. In the UK the streets seem pretty empty on boxing day, but here it seems like everyone is out in their car. Consequently, buses take a rather long time, and instead of the 40 minute train ride, we have an hour and a half in a hot bus before arriving at Wynard Station. As we get off, we realise that at no point had we bought tickets, and at no point had anyone asked to see any tickets. From there it’s a 10 minute walk down to Circular Quay and the ferries, and we arrive just in time to be told that the last ferry for three hours had gone. Apparently, there’s some kind of race starting in the harbour, and ferries would just get in the way…

Still undeterred, a patient ferry man tells us where the get the bus to Manly, and so we join the long queue of people who had also planned the same ferry trip as us. Three buses come and go before we get anywhere near the front of the queue, and as we board we realise nobody is showing tickets or paying the driver, so we just walk past too. It’s another 30 minutes before we get off the bus in Manly, and also about 40 minutes since the race started. As we arrive at Manly Wharf we see about 5 stragglers leaving the bay.

Manly is busy. The Wharf is at one end of a long pedestrianised street, with the beach being at the other, and everywhere is awash with people. We buy sandwiches and drinks near the Wharf and head towards the beach, finding a shady area of grass to sit and picnic. Then we reach the beach. Remember those pictures that the English tabloids print on the first sunny day of summer, showing Bournmouth or Brighton beach covered with people? It looks like that, only with less pink blobby people and many more surf boards taking up space. Obviously this far into the trip Michelle looks like a local, so I up the number of pink blobby people by one as we find a space near the shady back wall and start the ritual of changing, slopping sun screen on and getting comfortable.

I have a new book on the go, and so fall into my own little world, while Michelle tests out the water and falls asleep. When we both look up again, it’s gone 6.00pm and the beach is emptying. We call K&M to say we won’t be back for dinner, and start the ‘wandering around looking for suitable food’ ritual. I’m sure you’ve all done the same thing. We find a very posh looking place by the wharf and neither of us considers it as a possible, thanks to our self imposed budget restraints, but when we have a look at the menu it’s more affordable than we first thought. Safely ensconced inside we feel a bit grubby compared to the cool crowd surrounding us, we get a beer, some fish and chips and have a great time. The ferries are running and we get on just as the sun is going down. The views of Sydney, the Bridge and the Opera House as the ferry rounds the corner and heads into Circular Quay are breathtaking. The bus back to Waroongha takes less time than earlier that day and the 20 minute walk from the station back to K&M’s means that we sleep very soundly.

Manu’s work means that he has a few calls to make the next morning, so we relax with Kirstie and Summer before heading off in their car to Balmoral Bay for brunch. We pay in a small attempt to start repaying K&M’s generosity, and are secretly pleased that the day is a little overcast, giving us a break from all that sunny-ness. Not. It’s an odd day, warm and muggy but grey and cloudy, and we decide to go and check out the local mall while Manu does a bit of food shopping. We manage to pay for the groceries too, which goes another small way towards thanking our hosts.

While Manu slaves in the kitchen, again refusing any offers of help, the rest of us snooze through ‘Love Actually’, and then Manu presents a special treat for me – seared tuna. In my new role as fish eater, this has to be my favourite so far, but Michelle still can’t be talked round.

Manu needs to work the next day, so we take ourselves off to catch the bus again, using yesterday’s knowledge to find the right bus stop to get to Bondi Beach. Before we know it (well, 2 hours later) we get off the right bus, walk round the corner and see the famous Bondi Beach. It’s a good looking beach certainly, and in this holiday season it seems very popular, but, well, it doesn’t really live up to it’s billing. I suppose it couldn’t really.

Still, we have a splendid afternoon in the sun on the beach, hearing mostly American and English accents, and it’s only when I turn round and spot some graffiti on a wall that I get an idea of how the locals feel. It says “f**k off backpackers”.

We eat late in town and get back to our hosts an hour before Kirstie, who has been out on the town with friends for the first time since Summer was born. Summer slept the whole time, missing out on this momentous occasion.

We’re on our own again the next day, and decide to head for the Northern Beaches. More long bus journeys are only lightened by chatting with people, and the memory of Manu’s fantastic pancake breakfast. Palm Beach is our first target, having read about it as the playground of Sydney’s rich, so clearly the right place for us to be. We couldn’t see Elle McPherson, Layton Hewitt or Nicole Kidman on the beach, but apparently Sting was there the next day. He could have called us.

Claire and Jeff, K&M’s friends with whom we spent Christmas Day, did call us and we arranged to meet in Avalon. They lived just down the road in Colloroy, and had been out walking, so coffee and snacks were on the menu for us both, before they invited us to go body boarding with them at their local beach. We jumped at the chance and were soon wading into the surf just north of Dee Why. I was dreadful, managing to catch just the one wave properly, Michelle – of course – was much better, but mostly we watched C&J show us how it’s done. After a quick shower back at theirs we went out for food, and then they gave us a lift, a good half hour drive, all the way back to K&M’s in Wahroonga. Again, the generosity of these people is fantastic, and we feebly offer them a place to sleep if they’re ever in, er, Ipswich… Kirstie had stayed up to let us in, but also to let us know that plans had been made for tomorrow.

We had some toast and coffee in the morning before piling into Manu’s VW Golf to head for the Central Coast. We had plans to meet the ‘Two Shays’. Shay number one was a former rugby-playing colleague of Kirstie’s, and Shay number two was her chosen life partner. They lived in a place called Sarratoga, but we were to meet them at Hardie’s Bay, about an hour’s drive from K&M’s. Well, I say an hour – Michelle and Manu were in charge as Kirstie, Summer, Summer’s chair, and me were squeezed in the back. Not much fun for Kirstie, being sandwiched between me and a baby seat, although Summer looked quite comfy. After turning the map around three times and finally deciding we were not in the right place, the navigators found the bridge they had been looking for and we arrived in the most beautiful bay we’d ever seen. Fantastic looking houses faced the bay from three sides, while the fourth carried the bridge we had just driven across. Expensive looking boats floated on the water, waiting for someone from one of the expensive houses to sail them, and just in front of us, on the harbour wall under the shade of one of the expansive trees, Summer was having her nappy changed.

The venue for lunch was an unlikely looking shack on a T-junction overlooking the bay. We had a reserved table outside, and sat down just as our ‘hosts’ came walking down the road. About as far from any cliché you care to name, both girls are attractive, have long hair, wear nice shoes and don’t hate men. Shay one is tall, blonde, and training to be a doctor having been in the Navy for 9 years, and Shay two is shorter, dark, and works for the Australian Alzheimer's Association, travelling around Australia raising awareness. She was also very keen to ‘have a go’ of Summer, and wrestled her from Kirsties arms before sitting down to say hello. We ordered, ate, and went for a walk along the bay before S&S offered to show K&M the house they had recently bought, and have huge plans for. On the way we stopped at Pretty Beach, which was pretty, and Cabana Beach, which was pricey. To give Kirstie a bit of room, I rode in the back of the Two Shay’s Subaru on the way back to theirs, and got a sneaky look at their lovely classic Ute – a ’63 Holden, which they plan to spend money on once the house is underway, and Shay one is qualified and earning a fortune.

The house, essentially a small box, was falling apart, leaking, and mostly built using asbestos sheets. But the plot of land was magnificent. They have plans to build a series of pods, joined together to form a Japanese inspired house and they explained the plans to us while we all gasped collectively at the view over the lake. Shay one is learning the guitar, and lent me her acoustic to have a strum on. I hadn’t touched one since leaving the UK, and it was very nice of her to let me have a play with hers while everyone else wittered on about something or other… As we left they made a genuine offer of letting us stay at the new guest pod. We just have to give them 3 or 4 years. We booked.

We headed home and after thanking Manu for driving a couple of hundred kilometres, retired to the balcony for a couple of beers and some snacks. It’s New Years Eve Tomorrow.

Having realised that we haven’t checked our mail for a few days, we walk into nearby Hornsby and head for the internet café. No Wi-Fi is available, so I head off to Starbucks which has expensive Wi-Fi to allow me to upload the next couple of instalments on the blog quickly, and Chelley stays and does her email at the café. We get some supplies for Manu – it’s our job to take the starter to the party tonight – and walk back to help with the fancy dips he has planned. Kirstie calls to tell us not to buy the beer we had planned to take, as our host has called to tell her that the police aren’t letting anyone down to the Point, where his apartment is, with alcohol. All we needed to do was contribute and he would get all the beer in for us. Less for us to carry, too.

Late afternoon, we walk to the train station, carrying various dips, chips, bread in bags, and Summer is in her baby bjorn, and are relieved to find that the trains are running again. The journey to North Sydney station is a whole lot quicker then the buses have been all week, and the train is full of people carrying picnics, making their way to various vantage points around the Harbour. When we get out of the station, it’s like we’re going to a Millwall Football match, policed by the SAS. There are concrete barriers herding us across the street, a few hundred police telling you which way to go (luckily the way we actually want to go) and we seem to be accompanied by most of the teenagers in Sydney, all making high-pitched “OH MA GOD!!!” noises while sucking back alchopops.

Collective noun time again. A ‘screetch of teenagers’? a ‘flimsy of teenagers’? Most of these ones have peaked a little too early, and seem destined to be throwing up and saying “Oh my God, my head hurts” way before the fireworks actually start, but that’s not our problem. It is our problem however to make it through this pre-pubescent warzone, get through the police checkpoint and get hold of Dean, our host, to come down to the gate and let us get to the safety of his 16th floor apartment. Of course the networks are on overload, and by the time we get through to him we have been joined at the gate by his sister, Tracy, and her partner Wayne, who are also invited.

The apartment block at Blue Point is the only one for miles, and is surrounded by a small park at the bottom of a long gradual hill from North Sydney station. It’s an amazing view from both Dean’s lounge and bedroom balconies, and we can see the Harbour Bridge pretty much head on, with the Opera House just beyond, Sydney CBD (Central Business District) with it’s skyscrapers across the water and a parade of boats all taking their positions in the water. Dean, and his partner Julia, are incredibly welcoming, and we are handed beers as we arrive. I get to have a chat with Wayne, who drives an excavator and used to be a fisherman, and can’t understand why anyone travels. I tell him we’re off to Melbourne, and he tells me it’s full of poofs. Not that he’s been there of course. He used to build exhibition stands for all these designy w***ers from Melbourne, but they don’t know anything. Luckily there isn’t time for me to tell him that I used to design exhibition stands and was quite looking forward to the cultural aspects of Melbourne and, oh, we’re travelling right now and it’s great, actually!

Wayne and Tracy stay for the 9.00pm fireworks, but are needed elsewhere soon afterwards, leaving Michelle and I, Kirstie and Manu, Claire and Jeff, our hosts Dean and Julia, and a guy called Clayton, who had just come second in a national Iron-Man competition, but even so seemed like a really nice bloke and quite level headed. Despite the swimming/cycling/running madness thing.

Food was had, beers were drunk and a board game played before the giant egg-timer on the bridge (you had to be there) turned for the final time and the countdown began. Those of you that know me well will remember that I’ve never really cared for fireworks too much, but these ones are, well, outstanding. It’s clearly pointless trying to write a description of a fireworks display, but I can say that even I had the biggest grin slapped across my face. Summer found her first New Year’s Eve just a bit too much and managed to sleep right through all 18 minutes of thundering explosions, bangs and fizzes, which justified the reputation this event now has worldwide.

Half way through the display I allowed myself a minute to reflect on the fact that all our friends and family back in the UK were right now having their lunch on New Year’s Eve, and still had 11 hours to wait to welcome in the new year. Everyone in the apartment hugged and kissed and wished everyone else a happy new year, and I realised that Michelle and I already had a head start. We eventually began to pick our way home through the debris in the streets back to the station, and after a walk back to K&M’s, fell into bed at about 3.30am.

Hugs and kisses to all our friends, all over the world, and we would like to wish you all a belated, but very heartfelt Happy New Year.

It’s Christmas time, and there’s no need to be afraid…

Our destination for the night was a caravan park in Chinderah, the home town of my friend Darren, who I had met and spent a lot of time hanging out with in LA. What we had to find out during the course of the day was where Darren was that evening, how to get there, and then how to get to Chinderah Lakes.

An accident about 20 km outside Brisbane slowed us down for an hour or so, and the traffic was quite heavy, what with it being a Friday afternoon. Oh, and it was the last Friday before Christmas too, so we were surrounded by vehicles packed to the gills with bags and camping gear, heading off for their Christmas breaks. We left the M1 and hit The Gold Coast Highway, which luckily enough took us to the Gold Coast, and Surfer’s Paradise. Now, I’m not much of a surfer, but I would imagine that a ‘surfer’s paradise’ would involve good waves, plenty of space, some beer and a place to hang up your wetsuit. Not a collection of high rise hotels, fast food chains and millions of tourists, which is essentially what the place is. We didn’t stop.

We did stop at a little place called Kirra Beach, and found a bakery at which to buy lunch, while calling Darren to find out where he was drinking. He gave us directions to Rainbow Bay, and after we parked and walked over to the Surf Club Building, there he was, leaning over the balcony shouting ‘Stevo!!!’.

I met Darren while staying at the clean but soul-less hostel in Santa Monica 3 years ago. I told him about this cool place in Hollywood, so we packed our stuff and headed back to The Orbit, him carrying his surfboard, on the bus. We spent the next few weeks hanging out, together with Aussie Nick, but were both as bad as each other about staying in touch after we both eventually went home and probably haven’t emailed or phoned for a couple of years.

When we had planned this whole thing a while back, I emailed Darren to say we were coming to Australia, and had got no reply. I assumed he’d changed his email address, and as I didn’t have his postal address, figured that I just wouldn’t get to see him. A week after we arrived here, I got a reply. Turns out he just never checked his emails. We exchanged phone numbers and spoke a couple of times, and I found out that he now made surfboards for a living, and lived in Chinderah. The only day we could meet up was his last day at work, and he would be on his works Christmas Do, so he invited us to the party. Never say no to a party, right?

We signed in to the Surf Club and headed for the balcony. We had a big hug, and I headed for the bar as Michelle sat down to chat. We were introduced to his friend Arron (I know, Darren and Arron…) and his work colleagues Ian and the boss, whose name I have unforgivably forgotten. Beer was drunk, garlic bread and oysters consumed, although not by us, and eventually we snuck off to go and find our cabin, following instructions from an increasingly drunken Darren. After driving around Chinderah four times, we found the street we were looking for, and booked into our ‘basic’ accommodation. Keen to get back to the Surf Club, we headed back, and found that we had been joined by Arron’s wife, Amanda, and Darren’s fiancé, Nicole.

This, I must confess, came as a bit of surprise. Darren had shown no signs of wanting to ‘settle down’ with anyone in LA. In fact, quite the opposite. Still, here he was, introducing us to his wife-to-be. She seemed very nice, was very small, incredibly well made up and very smart. Apart from the being nice bit, essentially the opposite of Darren, who was (to utilise a cliché) so laid back he was horizontal, and generally looked like he’d just got up. And had slept in his clothes. But the important thing was that they had found each other and seemed very much in love. Michelle and I have an invite to the wedding in March but we’re not sure if we can make it or not…

We carried on drinking and chatting, all the Aussies attempting English accents to varying degrees of success, while listening to the solo singer guitarist inside do a great version of Hotel California. With the solo. As he packed up we went over to say thanks and he turned out to be a Mexican, who’d lived in England, with the surname MacDonald. Darren got his card, thinking he might be good for the wedding, but Nicole’s face told a different story. I think we know who wears the boardshorts in this relationship. By about 11.00pm, the place appeared to be closing down, and we said our goodbyes to all, making plans to meet in the morning. As we got to our car, I noticed that the ‘ute’ (a pick up van) next to us had the door open. I went to close it but couldn’t, as the owner was laying, drunk, across the seats with his feet hanging out. We got in the Renault and left, deciding that we needed to be careful on the way home. His mates might have managed to start their cars…

The next morning Darren phoned early, found our camp site, and then led us to his parents place, where he had a separate house in the grounds. We thought he’d been burgled, but it turns out he’s just a bit messy, so we went into see his parents and have a cup of tea. We spent a couple of hours with Darren and his parents, had a quick drive in the 1968 Pontiac Darren had bought in LA and shipped back to Australia, and eventually set off on our way down the coast towards our planned stopping place, Nambucca Heads.

We had better hopes for this part of the coast, and got to Byron Bay around lunch time. Having lost my sunglasses a couple of days before, I found some groovy big shades for $15, Michelle found a bikini that cost a bit more, and we felt really comfortable here. It seems like a calm place which, although full of backpackers, doesn’t have the nauseating smell of people drinking themselves into the ground. The beach was full, the shops busy and the restaurants looked inviting, but we decided to head further south for brunch, to Lennox Head.

By taking the wrong turn when leaving Byron, we found ourselves heading up a one way track which led up to the Cape Byron Lighthouse, some spectatular views and the most Easterly point on mainland Australia, and by taking another wrong turn on the way back down we ended up in Watego’s Bay, the most beautiful beach and little village which seemed stuck in the seventies. In a good way. To use a travel writing no-no, We will definitely be going back there.

When we reached Lennox Head, we were glad that we had held out this long for brunch. After a very good brunch at a cheap but classy looking café, the beach was our next item. In contrast to Byron, it was empty, but twice as beautiful. A horse-shoe shaped bay, the sand was soft and the wind blew as we walked along, deciding which of the beach-front properties would suit us best. Up in the town we bought fruit from the local grocers, and when he asked where we were from we answered ‘Ipswich, in England’, which had become our standard reply. ‘Is that near Hadleigh?’ he asked, and went on to introduce us to his son John, who had played cricket for Hadleigh for the last three seasons. We promised to go and see him play next year (it’s a good job I’m writing all these promises down, eh?) before heading off for the long haul to our cabin in Nambucca.

An uneventful drive meant that we reached the small town early evening, and finally found our cabin as it got dark. The beach was right behind us, the moon was bright and high and bathed the area in a blue light, and we sat outside eating take-out pizza listening to one of our campsite neighbours play Latin-American guitar.

The next morning we packed up and left early, stopping at a café in town for raisin toast and coffee, and swapping Fawlty Towers quotes with the owner, before attacking the 500 or so kms we had to cover before getting to the outskirts of Sydney, where our next hosts, Kirstie and Manu live. Rain peppered the journey, and we stopped just the once to swap driving/navigating roles, hitting the city at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and phoning our hosts to find out where to go. Manu talked us in, and before we knew it we were climbing the steep drive to their house in the suburb of Wahroonga, North Sydney.

And what a house. Some friends from Ipswich had been to stay a year or two back, and had told us it was a fabulous place, and they told no lies. We were shown into our wing at the bottom of the house after the regulation hugs and hellos, and then the tour of the rest of the mansion. We also got to meet the newest arrival in the house, 3 month old Summer, who shares my birthday, albeit 42 years later. She was a bit sleepy, so we agreed to chat later and sat down with good wine, good conversation and a fantastic curry. Manu knows his way round the kitchen, and had been cooking most of the day, save for the bit in which he fitted a shower, the shower door, and the bathroom floor. And went shopping for Christmas presents.

I hadn’t seen Kirstie for a couple of years, since her last visit back home, and hadn’t seen Manu for a good seven years. Both had worked (independently) with Michelle, and both had also belonged to running clubs with her back in the UK, but following her own travelling time Kirstie decided Australia was for her, and Manu joined her a year or so later, commuting between Singapore and Perth. They eventually settled in Sydney, and both had worked for big name companies until Summer came along in October. Now Kirstie was avoiding any questions about going back to work, and Manu seemed quite happy with that.

We retired to our section of the house eventually, with a plan for the next day, and slept like the proverbial logs. We woke and figured that we were ok for time, what with it being 8.15am, and leisurely got showered before heading upstairs to greet our hosts and have breakfast. After some toast and coffee it was time to head into the city centre, and Manu, who had to call in at his work, came with us in our hire car, which we had to return by 1.00pm, to guide us in. The plan was that Kirstie would then come in on the train later with Summer, we would all meet up, and then return on the train later. What we didn’t know was that New South Wales, where we now were, operates Daylight Saving Time, whereas Queensland, where we had come from, doesn’t. We were an hour out, and only when Michelle noticed the cooker clock did we twig.

It was fun driving into the city centre, driving over the famous Harbour Bridge, and we dropped Manu off downtown before following his careful directions to the car hire place. We walked back into the shopping district where we had about an hour to buy presents for the three of them before meeting up for lunch. Christmas Eve is as busy in Sydney as any other city, but for us it was a different, and good, type of busy, as we only had three presents to find. Kirstie called, we met up, bought lunch in a food court and headed down to the circular quay to sit and eat.

When you are away from home, you sometimes you forget exactly where you are, and need a reminder. Something like sitting eating your lunch while looking at the Harbour Bridge on your left, and the Sydney Opera House on the right, will do it, and I permitted myself a little smile. 6 months ago we were thinking about spending C*****mas in Devon, and here we were, C*****mas Eve, having lunch in the sun in Sydney, with two of the most famous pieces of architecture in front of us.

Kirstie took us to the Botanical Gardens, and we met up with Manu for coffee before heading back to the train station to go back to Wahroonga. We stopped off at the shopping centre to pick up seafood for the next day, and toddled off to their house for an evening on the balcony with a beer or three.

It’s C*****mas Day tomorrow, and I have a bit of sunburn on my foot. How cool is that?