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Published: January 23rd 2010
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Christmas morning before Kick Off Hello to all! Once again, apologies for taking so long to update the blog. Will try and keep it as short as possible and basically just summarise all the main things we've been up to but there's been quite a lot so apologies in advance!
After Brisbane we set off to start our Christmas celebrations with a few of the lads we've been traveling along with. It was to be a Christmas like no other! Because of our complete lack of preparation there was no hostels free so we took the bold step of getting tents and basically sleeping rough for 4 nights. As you can imagine, this was far from luxurious but we had some amazing banter. We started our Xmas day with a game of footy in the field we were camping in, picked up some nice sun burn, then opened our presents that we'd bought each other as part of a Secret Santa. The blow up kangaroo I received from Adam was pretty special and Joey's stick on tattoos along with his scratch card also went down a treat! The remainder of the day was spent on the beach, cooking up shrimp and kangaroo on the barbie
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Cooking the shrimp at the beach and generally trying to feel as festive as possible in 35dg heat!
After Christmas we spent a couple of days on the waves trying our hand at surfing. Needless to say, both Joseph and myself were complete naturals and are contemplating a career being rad on the gnarly waves dude. In truth, we were both pretty pants and spent most of our time face planting off our boards after about 3 seconds of standing up. At one point, Joe went against all surfing protocol and surfed on my wave (the dispute about who's wave it actually was is ongoing) and managed to cut in front of me and take a sharp dig to the ribs from the front of my board! He is still carrying the bruises 3 weeks later!
After our heroics on the sea we headed south to Sydney to start the New Year celebrations. New Year's Eve started early doors and after finding a decent spot that looked over the bridge we set up camp and the boozing commenced. 12 hours later and all of a sudden as we were all chatting some fireworks started going off and it was apparent that we were now
in 2010! Me and Joey were convinced South Park's bonfire night fireworks were a lot better but that might be due to some slight bias along with the numerous beverages that were consumed.
After spending a few days in Sydney we decided it was time to check out Melbourne and caught a cheap flight across. Whilst there we all took a trip up the tallest building in Melbourne and saw the city from above. It was really impressive and we took the opportunity to stand in a glass box which then was pushed 3 meters out over the edge 300m up. I'm happy to admit that I was completely papping myself and I still get sweaty palms just thinking about it! We also took a tour of the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) which is a 100,000 seater monster. Had a really fun day out and took plenty of daft pictures of ourselves as our 70-year old tour guide Bruce (what else!) looked on in bemusement.
Next up we decided to rent cars and venture down the Great Ocean road. After picking up our sickly-coloured Hyundai Getz (ran like a dream) we set off and had a whale of
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Santa hats in the sun, so wrong! a time going in convoy seeing the amazing sights. Our wee Getz was also to be our accommodation so after parking up on night one we put the seats back and had what can only be described as a bloody uncomfortable night's sleep! Once we'd done the Ocean road me and Joey had the great idea of trying to find a desert, just because we were in Australia. We didn't know where one was but using our impeccable logic we headed north. After driving a few hours we went into a Tourist Information office to ask where the nearest desert was. With baffled looks the guy basically laughed us out of the office and told us it wasn't going to happen. Plans were changed and we decided to go see the National Parks in the area instead. These were pretty incredible and probably better than any desert we would have found. Another night in the Getz and the fumes were becoming a tad too pungent so we decided to head back to the comfort of the city.
We headed straight for a 20-20 cricket game at the MCG when we got back which only cost $10 and was a
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Roger the Roo. Legend. brilliant evening. The game was between Victoria and Tasmania with a few decent names like Dwayne Bravo and Brad Hodge playing. There was a 43,000 crowd there so the atmosphere was really good and was very much like a footy match back at home but with annoying Aussie people instead!
A couple of days later we went to see the Australian Tennis Open. Tickets were pretty cheap and we managed to see the likes of Clijsters, Nadal, the Williams' Sisters and ended with the Murray match. We took it upon ourselves to be Scottish for the night and had a huge Scotland flag whilst shouting "C'mon Andy" in dodgy Scottish accents just so we could get on tele.
We're now back in Sydney where we're waiting for our flights to New Zealand on Monday. We went to see the Opera House, Bridge and Botanic Gardens yesterday which were all cool. We had planned to go to Bondi Beach today but because it's 41dg out, we decided against it! A day in the air conditioning watching TV is a much better option in our opinion!
Anyway hope everyone is safe and well in UK, enjoy the pics and
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A hot look right now. feel free to leave comments and let us know how you're all getting on.
PK & JW x
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Dom Webber
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Dom
Fair play to you, lads, you are clearly making the most of it! Joe, how skinny are you? You're wasting away man!