Back to the mainland

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Well back to the comfort of Tuck’s house and Rob, Emma and the children’s company I settled down to whoop Alfie’s butt at Mario Kart on the Wii. Instantly I realised he had been practicing while I had been gone as he whooped my butt on a couple of races. The teacher has become the student! I spent the next few days chilling out, maxing, relaxing (no meatballs involved), kept hitting the gym just to slow down if not stop the progress of my ever growing beer belly. Soon enough it was time for me to head off on the next stage of my journey, out into the wilderness of “maite, scooners, Barbie’s and no worries”.

My first planned stop was to Canberra, it boasted an outdoors experience with a lake to kayak on, sports facilities and Australia’s biggest thriving sex club scene including a ‘love bus’ tour of the best and most shocking venues. Rude not to. On the Greyhound coach – I have to take a moment to mention how good Greyhound coaches as a company are, they drive you to where you’re headed, exactly on time with enough stops on route to stretch your legs, get a bite to eat etc. Sure the bus stinks due to the amount of backpackers on it and the air con is never quite at the right level, and you end up arriving in some places at Silly O’clock in the morning but on a Melbourne to Sydney route, at least one destination is going to be at an unreasonable time. There, I’ve defended them so any discomfort that I endured on any journey is not a direct result of this brilliant company, just the inhabitants of the night time trips – I stretched out my double seat that I seemed to have blagged, everyone else had company. Then one minute before we’re due to depart Attila the Hun boarded. This guy was HUGE and sat next to me/ON me, I was trapped against the glass of the window that now didn’t seem so strong with my weight and half of AtH’s as well pushed against it. Oh well at least I wasn’t going to be cold.

Never before have I had such a bad case of sleep twitches in my life! Typically, as my right arm and leg were jammed against the side of the bus and me and Attila (mainly me) had tried to create some space between us, they all sailed out to the left. Every half hour or so my left knee or elbow would fly out to meet his barrel ribs or the dead leg spot of his thigh, every time waking him up, increasing my fear of him and met with a very rapid apology regardless of my dopey demeanour. Canberra couldn’t have come fast enough and I disembarked for my 2 day exploration of Aussie’s Capital City. I consulted LP (Lonely Planet) and found my way to the YHA hostel, noted as the only one in Canberra, at the door there was a German couple pitched ready for opening time and a sign saying fully booked with a few suggested hotels around for $40+ per night. You see, everyone had told me that no one goes to Canberra and it sucks basically so, I thought there really wouldn’t be any need to book. Back at the transit station I got on my phone and booked the next Greyhound bus to Sydney… I didn’t really want to see the giant water cannon that shoots water out of the lake over 100 feet in the air, nor the guided tour of Canberra’s darker sex scene … stupid hostel!!

My first brilliant idea was to head to Bondi beach seeing as there was plenty of rave about it. I tried to book myself into the YHA there too but it was also full. Instead I found Noah’s. Grotty and with no policy against long term residence it was extremely cliquey. I sat in the common room and tried to start up a few conversations between programmes but no one was really interested. I later found out that there’s about a week’s bedding in period before anyone really makes any effort to socialise with you. My dorm room stank. There was a worker in there that insisted on keeping his work boots in the room and a couple of couples from America. I opened a window and fled to the beach. My first opinion was that it was another Fistrel Beach (Newquay Cornwall England). Nothing particularly special and with the drizzly overcast weather not impressive in the slightest still, I made the most of it and walked its length, took photos etc. The few days I didn’t really feel like doing a lot, just hung out in the common room, watched TV, chatted on the internet, sent job application and booked a room in central YHA.

My last of three nights in Bondi the Americans decided it was party night. That was fine, they went out, did the clubbing thing and obviously enjoyed themselves as they crashed through the door at about 3am, climbed into bed and one couple decided it was a good time to get nasty. 10 Minutes of “mmm” “ah” and “huh-huh” they were finished. Then the question that made me flinch as it left his mouth “did you cum?” BRILLIANT, poor girl! If you have to ask the answer is ‘no’. About 2 hours later I was awoken by the same routine and then a third time a little while later. After the last time the girl went to the toilet, didn’t take a key and couldn’t get back in. All drunken parties asleep no one but me and the worker on the bunk beneath could hear her knocking and shouting, he tried telling her fella the situation but the drunken guy just complained incoherently. With that we ignored her, the knocking stopped and we got some sleep. I still don’t know where she went or what happened but she wasn’t there in the morning and I doubt she wore a lot to the bathroom.

Central YHA Sydney is a huge building about 8/9 stories high, it had independent floor Wi-Fi to reduce loading on peak times (with discounted 3 day rates rather than pay by hour), a swimming pool (bath) and sauna (that was 30 degrees) on the top floor, laundry facilities, kitchen, TV room/common room and many computers for $4 per hour. It was also where I met Brad (in the room) and Michael (on the town walk – a bit naff but a great way to meet people and avoid being a recluse) and set up my base for job hunting. Brad and I went out a few nights for some grub and a few beers usually with Michael and his friends, the first night being Kangaroo night, damn that’s a good steak. One night Yvonne (whom I met through everyone else) took us to a little out of the way Taiwanese restaurant, it was around $10 a head, the food was brilliant and you didn’t leave hungry. The funniest bit of the night was my attempt to eat all the red chilli peppers on the Kung Pow Chicken and failed after the 8^th was stupidly spicy and I instantly turned bright red.

I made sure to visit the Opera House and browsed Glebe Festival and market with Becca, I spent my days going to beaches or seeing the Botanic Gardens or other sites around the city, I hoped to catch a photography exhibition actually in the Opera House but missed it. Becca, her friend Ian and I went to Sculptures by the Sea stretching from Bondi beach to the next little one on along the cliffs. There was a vast array of sculptures made of everything from wood to metal, clay to fabric arranged in such ways that they were truly impressive. You could tell there had been a lot of preparation work that had gone into arranging them let alone creating them in the first place.

I tried booking myself into a Surf Camp trip with said company for the Monday my hostel booking was due to end but was told it was full and I would have to go for the 3 day trip on the Wednesday instead so on Wednesday I made sure I was out and ready waiting, I met two Chinese/Australian girls and we all waited, and waited. Around 40 minutes later the bus turned up and I was asked where I was Monday. Apparently my name had been on the booking sheet and they had waited there for me for 40 minutes… So I could have gone then after all.
The three days were brilliant; there were morning and afternoon surf sessions with meals before, between and after (not gourmet but more than enough for active surfers). The only thing that ruined it was again the clique-iness. Seeing that they had all been there since Monday there were well established already friendship groups. The age of the camp (customers not staff) as a whole was quite young. This was emphasised by one individual that had been there, done it all and talked bullshit constantly that everyone else lapped up as if it were gospel. An example was that one night he was telling everyone that he had sky dived loads and once even naked then the next night was asking me what it was like to sky dive as he’d always wanted to try it. He truly was the embodiment of the phrase ‘those who speak the most have the least to say’. This aside the camp itself was exactly what it advertised; the staff were brilliant, lessons clear and loads of fun. We played games of British bulldog or The Blob to warm up followed by stretches. On the last day there were the best wave sets of the week and a group of us that were keen to go out and play on the big greens paddled out with the instructors. I had an amazing time and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone who was interested.

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