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Published: January 10th 2009
We left Blenheim early on the 19th December and caught a bus to Christchurch airport to fly out to Australia for a two week Christmas break for a little holiday from the holiday!! After flying through Brisbane we got to Melbourne at around 10.30 and were picked up at the airport by Matty and Jemma (friends of mine from my first visit to aus, also the guys getting married) and headed straight to there place where we were staying the night. Once back at there's we cracked open some beers, caught up and played the Nintendo Wii for a few hours, great fun!!!
The next day me and Barbs headed to Caulfield park to watch my old club Caulfield play cricket. The firsts and thirds were playing on separate pitches so we spent the afternoon in between the two games, supping on a few beers and watching both teams destroy the opposition. The club were holding a Christmas party that night so we hung around for a few hours and i caught up with a few friends their, it was really good seeing all my old team mates! Later that night we headed to St Kilda to meet up with
Beery (another Aussie freind of mine) and his girlfriend Sheena and went to a couple of bars and enjoyed the Christmas atmosphere.
On the Sunday Barbs headed up to Shepparton to stay with Jules and Ox (two friends we met on the Inca trail, and then traveled Bolivia with) whilst i stayed in Melbourne and caught up with the Grafs (the family i stayed with when i was first over). It was really good seeing Robyn and the boys again and after a couple of hours at there place i headed back to Matty and Jemma's for a chilled out night in front of the TV/playing on the Wii. On the Monday i spent the day in the city buying a few presents for Xmas and then in the evening i went round to the beers house for dinner, where me and Beery finalist my best man speech for Matty and Jemma's wedding and made sure we were ready for the big day on the 29th as joint best men.
After a few days in Melbourne i caught a train up Shepparton to spend Christmas with Jules and Ox and to obviosly meet up with Barbs again. On
Christmas eve we got a few beers in and spent the start of the night chilling out in there garden getting ready for a usual night out before Christmas day. At around 10 we headed to the GV hotel and saw in Christmas in a pretty drunken state. I woke up early Christmas morning with the usual hangover and at around 11 we all headed round to Jules's mum and dads farm where we all opened all our presents and had Christmas dinner. Mario and Gus (Jules's parents) treated us to the most amazing feed with the first course being ravioli, followed by salad and meat and then the choice of around five different desserts, so a massive thankyou to you! The weather was amazing with the temperature being around 35 degrees and there not being a cloud in the sky (a little different than back home id imagine). In the afternoon me, Barbs and Ox did a little shooting around the farm, didn't hit any birds but managed to shoot at a can successfully before heading back to the guys house to carry on the celebrations. Before the day was over we headed to the Shepparton oval to play
Poker face for Christmas
I love Christmas hats!!!a little Xmas day Frisbee, watched Anchorman and played a lot of poker!
On Boxing day we all headed back down to Melbourne where Barbs, Jules and Ox went to stay with Ox's parents, Lawrie and Carol. I went to the boxing day test match at the MCG. The Aussies were playing South Africa and its safe to say i spent most of my time in the bar in the members section with Beery and a few other friends, i probably saw around an hour of the cricket. After the days play had finished i went to a couple of pubs with Jonesy (a guy form Caulfield) and ended up in the London Tavern where i caught up with a more friends from my first visit to Australia. The next morning, extremely hungover i headed up to Canberra to meet back up with Matty and Jemma and to go to there wedding! The first night in Canberra i had a meal at Jemma's family's place and then stayed with her brother. On the 28th, the day before the wedding i met up with a few friends, had a couple of beers and then went to the church for the
rehearsal for the wedding. The St Francis Xavier Catholic church was really nice and according to the priest really old, over one hundred years, this made me laugh a little!!! After the rehearsal me and Matty checked in to the hotel we were staying at, went out for a meal with his mum, sister and gran and then just had a quiet night watching some sport in the hotel!
So we had finally got to the wedding day and Matty was surprisingly calm, maybe because we still had a few hours to go till kick off! After a relatively calm and smooth build up with the biggest problem being neither me, Matty or Berry knowing how to tie a windsor knot the car picked us and Jemma's 3 younger brothers up from the hotel at 13:45. The wedding itself was awesome, with the bride Jemma looking amazing and the ceremony running pretty smoothly and the church being pretty much full. After the ceremony all of us in the bridal party and the bride and groom had photos taking at the church, some garden in Canberra and then at Old Parliament house where the reception itself was held. Once all
the photos had been taken it was time for the reception and once all the guests were seated the bridal party were introduced and we took our seats! After an excellent three course meal and a few glasses of wine it was time for my speech, it went pretty well and the rest of the night was great fun with all the usual wedding activities occurring. Matty and Jemma got picked up to go to there hotel at around 23:30 and a few of us decided to hit a bar in the city, this is kinda where my memory leaves me, but i woke up in my hotel bed the next day so all was good! The day after i went to the Hogans house again for lunch and waited to catch a bus back to Melbourne that night.
I got back to Melbourne on new years eve and met back up with Barbs, Ox and Jules at Ox's parents house. We headed to St Kilda for new years, having a Mexican meal and then going to the Espy for a gig to see in the new year and to celebrate the start of Jules's birthday. Spiderbait were headlining
and were really good. Once the gig had finished we went to the casino, i lost some money and then it took us around 2 hours to get a taxi and back to Ox's mum and dads. New years day was fairly relaxed and of course Jules's birthday, so we headed down to Frankston to see her aunt for tea and cake and then had a meal with Lawrie and Carol's back in Melbourne. On the 2nd Jan i spent the day saying hello and goodbye to a few friends, i went over to Robyn's for lunch, saw beery and Sheena and then met up with Shaun Graf at the MCG to watch some 20 20 cricket between Victoria and South Australia.
We spent the last couple of days in Australia with Jules and Ox going to a music festival called solar down at Mornington peninsula which was really good with just Aussie bands playing. I think my favorite bands were You Am I and That One Guy. On our last day we finally found time to go down to the beach (black rock beach, i think) and then spent the night at Lawire and Carols place drinking Jaigermaister,
bourbon and beer which made for a good leaving night!
After 17 fabulous days in Australia we had to go back to New Zealand, and caught a plane back at 4 o clock. After around 24 hours of waiting around and travel we got back to Blenheim on the 6th and started work on the vineyards again the next day.
Before i go would just like to say a massive thank you to everyone in Aus for looking after us and for making it such an awesome holiday. Oh and to everyone back home take care and i hope your all well!!!
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