Sunny Newcastle

---

Geo: -32.9264, 151.781

YAY...finally i left Canberra and made it to our next destination.....Newcastle. Well not Newcastle in general, but outer suburbs and small townships around Lake Macquarie.
But i did encounter once again more problems with the car before we drove up, this time the distributor wasn't working properly and therefore had to be replaced. I was told $1700 for a new one or $250 for an aftermarket one. It became clear what choice i made.
Finally after 2 days in the shop and $800 later it was ready to go.
We took Sean's car up for the Thursday and Friday as Sean was going back down to Canberra for the weekend, we managed to Audit 15 schools in 2 days which was 1/3 of the area, this was because all of the schools are so close to each other that we don't have to drive 30 min to the next school as we had been doing previously, but instead it was only taking 5 min between schools.
So needless to say we were in good spirits.

That Friday i was due to fly into Melbourne from Newcastle, i arrived at about 7:30 where i was picked up by my friend Bec and dropped off to meet the boys at the pub in Hawthorn for some birthday drinks for Regan.
The only bad thing was that night i had lost my wallet, and i wasn't even drunk, oh well, i had a good run.
This meant that i was cashless with out banks open over the weekend, i was forced to borrow money of the old folks. But even though i had to budget throughout the weekend, i did still manage to have quite the big weekend. Starting the Saturday where i ended up in the city with Kamil.
We decided to head up to the cookie rooftop bar, on the way up signs were posted saying it was a private party, but some guy heading downstairs told us to say we were friends with Tim the owner, so we did so and got in. The rooftop bar is great, beautiful views and atmosphere. We also managed to get free drinks as well, this was because people who were actually invited to the party had white wrist bands and Kamil just happened to have one of those rubber wrist bands, so the bartenders thought he had a wrist band......sweeet....a bad hangover followed the next day.

The Sunday included a haircut, birthday breakfast, A League soccer, a birthday dinner, drinks and topped off by poker to the wee hours of the night.
Overall it was a great weekend and a great trip back down to Melbourne to catchup with everyone. Short that it was, i had to fly back to Sunny Newcastle early Wednesday morning.
Work followed for the following 3 days where on the Friday Kamil flew up for the weekend.
We booked ourselves into a backpackers and headed out for the night.
Ive never had such a crap time at a backpackers before in my life than i did at this one on this weekend.
This was the second time i had stayed at this hostel and was put in the same room which is out the front of the building. All the fun and games happen in the back of the building till 10 pm because of the neighbors, so everyone, on both occasions, and for some unknown reason, go out the front to continue chatting and drinking, this of course is right out the front of my room. This happened on both nights till the wee hours of the morning so i didn't get much sleep on both nights making for some tired days.
The Friday night Kamil and myself along with Sam, from Albany W.A, hit the town, we went to the Broadway Pub for a few drinks, upstairs seemed to be a private function but were letting people in later on in the night so we went up, turned out to be a gig by Paul Dempsey, who is the lead singer of Something for Kate, this was his solo project, and it was great. Ive heard many a song of his on Triple J and it was awesome to hear him live, and for free. We then proceeded to the local night club which was pretty boring with crap music so Kamil and myself bailed on Sam who had hooked in with a lady. He made it back to the hostel a bit after 6am.
The following day, with 3 hours sleep, Kamil and myself went and got some breakfast and then headed up the coast to check out Port Stephens, We scoped out a deserted beach and relaxed for an hour or so and then checked out Fingal bay and grabbed some lunch.
After lunch we made the trip to Maitland and checked out the old Gaol, we did a audio tour full with lots of history and facts, this was also where Ivan Malat did time.
We made our way back to the hostel and both of us were in bed by 9, although i stayed up and watched "Into the Wild", i absolutely love that movie.
Sunday was an early start, 4:30 am, as Kamil had to catch a plane back to Melbourne at 6am, so i drove him and went back for more sleep.
I had 4 hours to kill before i could check into the caravan park in Wangi Wangi so i drove to Bars Beach where i relaxed, there was also the Newcastle Dog Fete where all sorts of stalls were up selling all sorts of dog related things, so there were many people and many dogs about, just across the road from the beach. I then took a walk up hill and checked out the old Army fortress which looked really cool with all the container ships in the background, it almost gives you an idea of what it may have looked like back in the days.
We finished Auditing all the schools within 7 working days, including 10 schools on the Monday.
So finishing early meant that the film was not ready to be sent, so we found ourselves with a week off. Sean went back down to Canberra/Melbourne and i decided to take a trip to Broken Hill.

---