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Published: January 2nd 2006
Melbourne City Centre
Looking for a bargain at the Boxing day sales in Melbourne!Happy New Year Everyone!
Hope everyone is well and that you all had a great Christmas and New Year.
So... it's been a while since my last journal but as you would expect I have been busy hoping on planes and trying to see as much of Melbourne and Sydney as I can in such a short space of time. I left the volunteer centre on Thursday 22nd December, which was far more emotional than I ever expected and it's amazing how that place has left it's mark in my heart. Seriously, I've only been gone for just over a week and I miss it so much but at least I've managed to find some sun at long last! ;-)
Let me start by saying that so far Australia is great... but I'm still looking for my paradise!? ;-)
I arrived in Melbourne on Christmas Eve and had to wait a further 3 hours in the airport for my friend Tim's flight, which was arriving from London. By that time it was 7.30p.m and we still hadn't booked a place to stay so it was lucky that I managed to bump into a fellow backpacker who was
Cricket Ground!
Australia v South Africa in the Melbourne test match! heading towards a hostel in St Kilda, which luckily for us still had a few spare beds or if you had seen the beds you would probably think that we were unlucky!
We spent Christmas in Melbourne but unfortunately my friend Simone who I was suppose to hook up with decided to spend Christmas at her boyfriends family house, so we were left with spending Christmas in the hostel where we were staying... not exactly according to plan! The beaches in Melbourne are probably some of the worst I've been too and it doesn't help that they have about 50,000 flies who constantly fly into your ears, nose and if you're really unlucky into you mouth! YUK!
We did however meet some nice people in Melbourne and a couple invited us to their posh apartment for a farewell drink, which was very nice. I also managed to hook up with Ryan my dive buddy and we went to the Australia v South Africa cricket game, which again was a great experience for me and we obviously ended up very drunk! ;-)
Tim and I then moved onto Sydney on the 28th Dec and were amazed by the
Our Youth Hostel in Manly!
And they say that you can't get a bargain these days!? youth hostel that we had booked (yep, I was a little more organised on this one!). Basically it's an old castle, which has been converted into a uni but they rent out the halls of residence in the summer to backpackers, so we couldn't believe our luck!
Haven't had much time to check emails or up-date journals until today as it's been a rush to find ourselves a place to spend new years but we finally hooked up with a few other backpackers and headed to the Botanical gardens just off the Sydney harbour and camped out there for 13 hours until the fireworks started at midnight.
To be honest it was an amazing 9 minutes of fireworks but the 12 hours and 51 minutes before were pretty shit as we could only get a beer every hour and it felt like we had 25 thousand people sitting on our laps! And once it struck midnight everyone just watched the fireworks and headed off home, which is really strange as I was expecting the party of all parties but I guess it's just another one of those things when everyone hypes up a place so much and it
Sydney Harber!
Our view from the botanic gardens of Sydney harbour, taken at 5p.m... still another 7 hours to go for the firworks! ;-) never lives up to its expectation!
However after all that it is amazing to spend new years day on manly beach, which is where we have just got back from. Another thing I've noticed is that there are loads of Brazilians in Manly, which is strange as I hear more Portuguese being spoken than English! ;-)
OK I guess it's time to go now, so take care of yourselves and stay in touch!
Love...
Paulo
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