Arrival The bus journey from Surfers to Brisbane was relatively quick, mainly because we slept like babies. We were soon stretching our aching muscles at the Brisbane Transit Centre in the warm Queensland evening. We had phoned up and booked a cheap deal with Brisbane City Backpackers, a central hostel in, surprisingly enough, the city of Brisbane. We stumbled about with the weight of our bags up to the hostel using rough directions from the Scottish receptionist, who oddly enough knew another Gary Stewart from Scotland that was in Australia. We checked into our 8 bed dorm which was pretty nice, [View Full Entry]

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Panoramic View: Surfers Paradise Bus Journey From Sydney To Spot X The excitement was building now that we had actually boarded the bus. We sat down and didn't mess about; it was an overnight journey (we were to arrive at Woolgoolga at 5:30am) and we needed the sleep. Unfortunately, this particular Greyhound bus was pretty uncomfortable, both in terms of leg room and the chairs themselves. Tiredness won though, and we were soon drifting off to the sounds of the film Flushed Away which was playing. It was fine until an alarm clock in the film went off and one of [View Full Entry]

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Finally the week we have all been waiting for!! Our final week of work!! Despite the fact that our temping jobs were really rather boring and the days seemed to drag in, its amazing that we are now approaching May and set to travel again!! This year has passed by at an amazing rate so far!! We will be home before we know it!! This week was set to be relatively busy, squeezing in all the final things that we wanted to do in Sydney and the general administrative tasks that needed completed before putting our rucksacks on our backs and [View Full Entry]

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Panoramic Picture: Twilight Bridge View From Manly Ferry Getting Out Of The Flat We had all started to wind down now that the end was nigh. With only 2 weeks left, our attention towards our work was becoming increasingly unfocused and we started to feel the need to seize the day in order to make the most of our dwindling days in Sydney. So, in true seizing-the-day fashion, on Tuesday night we ended up.........going to the cinema! It's the cheap cinema night in Sydney on a Tuesday if it's any defence and we ended up seeing Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which was [View Full Entry]

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Relieved that we managed to sort out our tight schedule for touring Australia, we were back at work for another week with a slight skip in our step, dreaming of our upcoming travelling. On Monday after work I headed into town to pay the remainder of our bill with the travel agency. Banks in Australia not only charge for the simplist of bank accounts, they also make it extremely difficult for customers to withdraw anything over $1000 in any 24 hour period. Despite having internet and telephone banking with them, and asking permission for a larger EFTPOS payment, I was advised [View Full Entry]

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Busted We awoke on Sunday following our Blue Mountains excursion with numb joints all round. Settling into (the couch) our new flat wasn't too much of an option as we had things to buy, so with much grumbling we headed into town. We went around our usual shopping places and nothing of note really happened until I decided to be lazy and get the bus from Town Hall to Railway Square. I'd been purchasing student bus passes, despite the fact I knew that it was only NSW students who were eligible for this (it's still not clearly outlined anywhere though). Although [View Full Entry]

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Finally after weeks of talking about it, we made it to the Blue Mountains!! Over the weekend, we had moved flats from Joe's in the city to Megan and Stew's in Stanmore. Shannon had opted to do an East Coast tour and was vacating a room in the flat, and it didn't take much convincing for us to move in. We felt more homely at their flat than our own (and spent probably more time there) and the benefit of it being right beside my work was handy. Gary had finished his job in the city, but his work moved him [View Full Entry]

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This weekend was set to be a busy one with Saturday tickets for the Easter Show and an AFL match on the Sunday. We went to our usual Friday night haunt at Megan and Stews, after a very tasty BBQ, which resulted in a few too many goons consumed by all. Despite the prospects of a few sore heads the next morning we all agreed to meet relatively early in an attempt to beat the crowds at the Easter Show. We had heard lots about the Easter Show from various locals at our work including the strain that it had on [View Full Entry]

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Four days off! It's a nice prospect at Easter which the majority of the population do enjoy. It's something of a conflict of interest though when you're temping; four days off is always nice, but the wage is reduced. I'd say it was worth it though and it felt like a much needed break from the mundane office environment which we both work in. For Good Friday, we had tickets booked for the Rugby League match between the South Sydney Rabbitohs and the Bulldogs at the ANZ Stadium, one used for the Sydney Olympics. One thing about Australia, and apparantly also [View Full Entry]

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The weekend life in Sydney can be expensive. A lot of backpackers end up splashing their full wages (or money saved from home) on going out to clubs & pubs, which was something we were looking to avoid due to our finances. Sitting in our flat isn't particularly fun though due to uncomfortable seating, assorted mess from our flatmate, and the cockroach situation. On the Sunday of the weekend that started in the last blog, was the public celebration of St Patricks Day (a day earlier here this year), an organised drinking day. We still had some money left in our [View Full Entry]

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