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This is a very backdated entry! I am actually sat in Taupo in New Zealand with a free afternoon and cheap internet so thought I would get myself up to date!
In a nutshell - for the remainder of my time in Melbourne following on from my last blog I worked a lot, moved into a new city centre hostel, met up with a few faces from earlier on and currently in my travels and had a nice few leaving meals once I had finished work. I was involved in producing and formatting a large volume of documents for the new build Melbourne Exhibibition and Convention Centre with a really nice work team. I even stayed at a female collagues for a week during a 50 hour overtime stint! The International Comedy Festival was being held in Melbourne so we caught a Reginald D Hunter show at the main venue, Melbourne town hall and then they had a few very cool free acts on in Federation Square, such as Mario Queen of the Circus who's finale was riding a unicyle with a girl on his shoulders with all his acts performed to Queen tracks! I finally visited Ramsay Street also
known as Pine Creek, a really small touristy cul-de-sac with real residents living there. We went to the houses then to the set to see Lassiters, the corner shop, Carpenter's Mechanics, Charlies Bar and Grease Monkeys. My friend Louise works for Medibank so we got free tickets to a rugby league game (Oz style) Melbourne Storm vs Manly Sea Eagles. I wasn't too impressed, it was very Americanised with barbie style cheerleaders, pop singer singing national anthem, and a mascot who drove around on a quad bike everytime a try or a goal was scored. I finished Melbourne with a week long job at a private school where I printed children's ID cards on a special card printer, scanned them into word and entered them into a database - interesting stuff :-p I finished off Melbourne with a trip up the Eureka tower with Lauren (USA) and Hannah (Canada) at sunset. We went out to 'The Edge' which is a ledge that comes out of the tower then all the glass goes transparent. The Eureka Tower has the highest viewing platform in the Southern Hemisphere, that means I've been up the highest viewing platforms in both the Southern and Northern
Hemisphere (CN tower in Canada).
Onto Adelaide, Louise (Ireland) decided to join me for the long bank holiday weekend. We got up at 4.15 am (early morning flights always seem a good idea at the time of booking!) and arrived in Adelaide around 9am. We went straight to watch the Anzac Parade which is like rememberance day in the UK. It was a huge, quite emotional parade with the war veterans marching or riding army vehicles in rememberance of the Australians lost in War. Next we went to the South Australian art gallery which had some really interesting aboriginal pieces. Next we got the tram to a seaside town called Glenelg. My bosse's boss at one of my jobs in Melbourne arranged for Louise and I to stay with his son there which was really nice. We chatted to William for a bit, but the poor guy had been recently attacked in a park and had had recent surgery to fix his jaw. His Mum was there for a bit and mothered us which was nice.
Another early morning followed an early night where we jumped on our tour bus to Kangaroo Island. We started off with a
ferry where I felt a little queasy (was almost sick in someones paper bag of souvenirs!) then had a walk up Prospect Hill with great views of the island. We slept as a group in the Surf and Sun hostel where there was a lamb they had rescued in the garden recovering and resident koalas up the tree. So cute! The next stop was the highlight of my KI trip as we had a guided tour of a beach which was home to a colony of Australian sea lions. There were loads of them having a sleep after a morning of hunting whilst their adorable little pups sat waiting, chasing sea gulls and playing with sponges and feathers. Next we went sand boading in the Little Sahara and followed a BBQ dinner with a penguin hunt. We set off in the dark (and cold and wet) with our red light torches to find little penguins where we found a few amongst the bushes.
After a fairly early night (caused by a powercut!) we drove up to Remarkable Rocks which are really cool rocks that are limestone weathered by the wind that look like art sculptures. We were able to
hide in them, sit on them and shelter in caves. In the afternoon we went to see the New Zealand Seals which were big, smelly, seals lazing around, some of them asleep with their flippers still running. Before long it was time to go back to the mainland and Glenelg where we got a fishing charter back to shore - much more fun than the rocking old ferry on the way there!
We decided to spend our final day in Adelaide without the kagoules or hiking trainers so got a day tour of Adelaide (which included a tour of Haighs chocolate factory and a trip to the German village of Handorf) and an afternoon in Barossa Valley. The Barossa Valley is a vineyard area with all the famous wineries. We enjoyed wine tasting, cheese platters and a variety of ports and meads, yum! After a day sleeping at the girls flat and sorting out my bags I flew to Auckland where I have had lots of fun on the North Island of New Zealand travelling on a Stray bus, but that's a whole new blog!xxx
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Clare
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Rock
Wow that rock is so good what was it like in the, could you camp in them hehe