Nearly 6 weeks in Oz...

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OK, I'll have been in Australia for 6 weeks on Monday. I really did mean to write something sooner! Ah well, here's a brief(ish) description of where I've been and what I've seen...

My first week in Sydney was a whirlwind of tourist madness! The first couple of days I was suffering slightly from jet-lag but it didn't last long at all - mainly I think because on arrival in Sydney at 5.30am I forced myself to stay awake until 10pm. When I landed it was raining and the first 3 days continued to be wet. All the locals kept telling me how they were in the middle of Australia's worst drought in 100 years. I know now that they were telling the truth but at the time I thought they were taking the piss! I went to see the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House pretty much straight away. That was a bit crazy - standing by these iconic Aussie structures and realising that I was now definitely on the other side of the world.
The first week was organised by Real Gap. All of us in the Real Gap group arrived in Sydney on the same day and we started out with a trip up to the top of the Centrepoint tower in Sydney. The restaurant at the top revolves. It takes an hour to go round so the idea is that you get to see all of Sydney. Of course it was still raining at this point so the views weren't great but we got a nice buffet at the restaurant.
Over the week we went to a Wildlife Park, took a trip to the Hunter Valley for wine-tasting, walked from Bondi beach to Coogee beach, had a surf lesson, went to Taronga Zoo, went on a bar crawl round Sydney and took the ferry to Watson Bay. I also went to the aquarium and the Blue Mountains and climbed the Harbour Bridge. The highlights from the week have to be the Hunter Valley day and the surf lesson. The Hunter Valley is vast and there's many many vineyards there. We visited Tyrell's, Ivanhoe and Drayton. It was great! Our driver and guide, Steve from The Surfing Kangaroo, was brilliant. He was full of fascinating facts about everything Australian. He also played lots of good music on the bus! We got to test at least 5 white wines and 5 red wines at each vineyard as well as any port or other extras they may have. That's a lot of wine to drink if you decide to test everything! I expected the prices to be really high but the average price for a bottle was $20 (just over 8 pounds) which was really good! I bought some lovely port from Tyrell's.
The surfing was fun too. Our instructors said the waves were a little rough for beginners but they chucked us out there anyway and we got a bit bashed about but had much fun in the process. I surfed a little wave and I also managed to surf a big wave. I wasn't stood up completely straight cos I was convinced I would fall off but I surfed!!
I had an amazing bridge climb experience. I was booked on to climb at 5.30pm (a night climb) but our climb group set off a little early so we ended up seeing the sunset on our way up which was an unexpected bonus (the twilight climbs cost a lot more)! It was also a full moon so as it got darker the water was lit up and sparkling in the moonlight. All the city lights were glowing and it looked gorgeous from the top of the bridge. As we were admiring the view from the top, a firework display started from right by the bridge! It was Fashion Week at Circular Quay so we guessed that was why but they couldn't have timed it better! The fireworks going off with the Sydney cityscape twinkling in the background was an amazing view.
After my tourist crazy Sydney week I went to stay with my Dad's cousin Bob near Sydney for a few days. Bob and his wife Narelle and the whole Keast family were very welcoming and I had a really nice time with them. It was my great-uncle Melville's 90th birthday while I was staying so we had a party for him and it was great for me to meet so many Aussie relatives. It was really good to see Melville again. The last time I saw him I would've been about 13. I showed him lots of pictures of family from the UK and we had a good catch-up!
I came back into Sydney for a couple of nights after I left Bob and Narelle's place and quickly realised that thanks to my earlier tourist craziness, there weren't a lot of sights left to see. So I had a couple of lazy days catching up on emails and writing postcards before I flew to Melbourne.
My flight was really late and I landed in Melbourne at about 11.30pm. Finding your way around an unfamiliar city in the dark is not recommended. I won't be doing that again! The trams in Melbourne should have map inside like the tube trains do in London. You never know what stop you're at or where the tram's supposed to stop. Maybe it's just me but I think maps in trams should be compulsory! I met up with Juliette, a girl I had met on the Blue Mountains tour. She was staying in St Kilda, a little part of Melbourne not far from the centre. We checked out Chapel Street and Ackland Street and went to St Kilda beach. I did really fall for St Kilda. It's a gorgeous place. There's too many cake shops to count, loads of cool independent shops and it has a beach!
After just a day in Melbourne I had to head out to my 2 week CVA (Conservation Volunteer Australia) project. This first required me to find out where I was going to be based. I got to the Melbourne office who then sent me off to Bendigo, about 2 hours by train from Melbourne. It's only a small town. It was established when gold was discovered there around 150 years ago. Me and Iraida, my fellow CVA-er arrived at the CVA house in Bendigo later that day and met Amy and Gareth, the other volunteers. Our project for the first week was based in a park in Lockwood South which is only about half an hour's drive from Bendigo. Brian, our team leader was fun and was pretty laid-back for a team leader. He would take us to and from the projects and do the work with us. We had a morning tea break and a long lunch most days and sometimes he'd decide we were finishing early and take us off to see some of the sights of Bendigo (yes, there are a few). Our work in Lockwood Park was mainly weeding. This involved hacking out pretty hefty weeds with matics which are fun fun fun tools to use when you're feeling aggressive! We were helping to clear the walking trail in the park so we also cleared loads of old barbed wire (I did manage to hit myself in the face with rusty old barbed wire), put little arrow signs on posts to point out the trail, took out gateposts and put in bollards (to keep cars out). It was a good week and it felt like we'd got a lot done (even if Brian did keep taking us off to see the sights of Bendigo). Just before we left Bendigo I took myself off to the Discovery Science & Technology Centre to see Australia's tallest vertical slide (7 metres high). There were loads of kids on it and just as it had closed I was speaking to the slide man and he let me go on especially! Now, the fact that there were kids on that thing was deceptive. Sat at the top of that slide I was absolutely terrified. And from the top I could see all the kids at the bottom watching and waiting for me to slide. So I couldn't back down. I had to go for it. Anyway I went (eyes closed, I don't know why) and it was worse than a rollercoaster ride! Then slide man told me to go again so I did but it was just as scary the second time. Then he said I had to go for the hat-trick so off i went again. I felt great afterwards but it was sooo scary!
Anyway, the second week of CVA was in Camperdown which is south-west of Melbourne and about an hour from the southern coast. We had four more volunteers for the Camperdown week, all Korean. We didn't stay in the CVA house because it was too far away so we stayed in log cabins in a Caravan Park. Now Bendigo is small but Camperdown is waaayy out in the sticks. Me and Iraida wanted to go see the new Pirates film and when I asked about the local cinema I was told it shows about one film a week and they usually go into Colac (the nearest town, half an hour's drive) for anything like that. So yup, out in the sticks! It was an interesting landscape though. A volcano (now extinct) erupted many years ago and left these little mounds and craters everywhere. So the whole place looks like Teletubbyland. Very pretty. We were based in Camperdown College and we made possum boxes which are used to release possums into the wild. We also did a bit of weeding, chopped down some small trees and collected some plant samples from Mount Leura and Mount Sugarloaf (the two biggest mounds created by the volcano). I liked the landscape and the people at the college were really lovely but there really wasn't enough work, certainly not for nine of us so it did get a bit boring at times. I wanted to go back to hacking at weeds with matics! On the Wednesday of the Camperdown week we spent the morning planting trees in Timboon which is towards the coast. We had the afternoon off so we went to Great Ocean Road and saw the Twelve Apostles. There's loads of rock formations coming out of the sea and it looks pretty spectacular.
Once the Camperdown week was over and my CVA project finished I came back to Melbourne. I decided to stay in St Kilda after liking it so much when I first arrived. Me and Iraida finally got to see Pirates (loved it)! We also checked out the Crown casino, the Queen Victoria market and Brunswick Street. I also went to the Botanic Gardens in Melbourne on an Aboriginal Heritage Walk. Trevor, our Aboriginal guide, took us around the gardens, performed an Aboriginal smoke ceremony and explained how Aboriginal people would live in the bush. It was an interesting walk and the gardens had a rainforest section which was pretty cool.
I met up with Finbarr from the Real Gap group one night and we went to see an AFL game at the MCG which I was very excited about. The game was Richmond Tigers vs Essendon Bombers. Seeing as Brian was a Richmond supporter I decided to support them, although Brian did also admit they were doing crap at the moment. I had never seen an Aussie Rules footie game before in my life, not even on TV, but I had managed to pick up the essential rules of the game by the end of the first quarter. It was a very exciting game and it was tied 84 points each right at the end until Essendon won it in the last seconds! Ah well, I had fun anyway. I noticed a couple of things though when comparing the game to English footie. Firstly, they mix the crowds!!!! Now that would be utter madness back home but there wasn't any trouble. There were 3 guys sat in front of us (two Richmond supporters, one Essendon) and they kept arguing and arguing and just when we thought someone was about to get hit, they'd start laughing about something else. There was no swearing or chanting from the crowd which was strange. I guess the lack of swearing is a good thing but it doesn't seem right to be at a footie game with no-one chanting! The other thing I noticed was the violence of the players. They just pile on top of each other if they want the ball or grab at each other. At one point there was a fight between several players at one end of the pitch while the game continued at the other end. The referees just let it go and concentrated on the game. Bizarre!
I had a mega Neighbours day on my last day in Melbourne. It started with the tour which went to the school, some of the outside sets where we met Fraser and then Ramsay Street itself. Ramsay Street is really very tiny. There's about 6 houses on it. So I got loads of pictures there! I met my friend El for lunch in the city and then in the evening it was Neighbours night at a pub in St Kilda. It was so exciting! First we got Libby singing. She was really good. Connor, Dylan and Dr Karl came out as well and they all answered some questions. Then they all wandered round the pub and we all got our photos taken with them. At the end of the night, Dr Karl's (Fletch in real life) band played loads of covers (Kaiser Chiefs, Foo Fighters, The Fratelli's) and Neighbours-inspired(!) songs. I had to leave before the end though because my Oz Experience bus to Sydney was leaving at 6.30 the next morning.



I'm in Sydney now but I'll update with the trip back here from Melbourne next time. I'm heading off to a Jackaroo school tomorrow so I'll let you know how that goes too.

Til next time x ....

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