Brisbane-Sydney (Twice)

---

Helloooo

So to quickly pick up from where I left off last time as I have limited internet time....

Brisbane

We initially didn't think much of Brisbane, Base our first hostel was rubbish and the city just seemed like any other city in the world..which even by the end the latter is still quite true, although from our second night onwards we had a blast!
We switched hostels to be with fellow Oz ex-ers at Bunk which I can safetly say is the best hostel I will ever stay in...the staff were uber friendly,it was very clean and had a t.v room which some cinemas don't even come close to matching-not that we actually spent that much time in there.
On our first night though we went for a drink with a dutch girl in our room and got to meet some 'interesting' locals with clearly sketchy backgrounds called Keegan and Alan so politely after a couple of drinks we sloped off never to see any of them again, can't say I'm too sorry about that tbh.

We wandered through the heart of the city the next down and down to the South Bank which you could be forgiven for confusing it with London, we had to do a double take. Here cntained one of the little gems of the trip so far..the Museum of Modern Art. This was free to get in and some of the exhibitions ranged from the plain weird to the brilliant in one simple swoop...the room full of string probably sums up a bit of both of these. Our hostel had an excellent bar/club attatched to it and we spent the night laughing at two moustachioed spanish casanovas creeping out nearly every man, woman and child in the joint with firstly there appearance only being barely popular in the 1970's and their 'innovative' dancing which definitly was ONLY popular in the 1970s. We left the bar to take a stroll across one of the bridges in town to get a look at the cityscape which at night is quite picturesque and so far only bettered by Hong Kong on this trip.
Our last couple of days in Brisbane before moving onto Surfers paradise consisted of a teatime barbeque which ended with us being locked in the park and thus having to practise our best wall climbing skills, before then being rudely awakened by some girl from Devon offering us crisps at 4.15 in the morning whose forst comment to me after I spoke was 'ooh you sound like Take That'...Never Forget that I won't.

Surfers Paradise, Byron Bay and Spot X Surf Camp

On from Brisbane for a brief stop in Surfers which is in my opinion a cross between Benidorm and Blackpool with a better beach. Tamara and I decided Surfers would be our place just to relax and rest up for our final legs in Australia and it was nice that our hostel room turned out to be in a uni flat type set out with our own room in a seperate building with four other people with our own kitchen and lounge area so it was enjoyable to just have a laugh with two lads from Sydney and watch Neighbours after the hustle and bustle of the previous weeks.

We stayed in Byron Bay for four nights and it can be summed up as: the first two nights were brilliant yet the next two days were rather boring as the weather was intermittent, most of the other people we liked had moved on and there were millions of Canadians about the place, well just annoying Canadians.
Byron is very much a beach town with good waves so it would be rude not to spend the good weather we had for the first couple of days at the beach, mainly on the boogie boards and playing with a frisbee. We were in Byron bay during a festival called the Blues and Roots festival with artists like Jack Johnson and Newton Faulkner performing but tickets were far too high for our budget. However there was a bit of spillover in the form of talented buskers onto the street which gave the place a nice atmosphere. Our hostel and around was where all the entertainment was after the sun went down for the first couple of nights and then spookily all was quiet for the latter couple. By far the highlight in Byron was a small club called Cheeky Monkeys which really should not have been as good as it was but with the great group we had; dancing on tables which is what is the clubs selling point seemed like the best thing in the world, so thank you everyone!!

We left Byron on a chilly drizzly morning to go to a surf camp to learn how to properly surf. By the time we got there however the rain had vanished and it was a beautiful clear and hot day and lunch was imminent....and what a lunch it was, enough food to feed an army of surfer dudes and chicks 😊. On the surfing front at first I was rubbish for about a good hour it was just wave came, James stood up, James fell off; but with perseverance after a couple of hours I was far back away from the coast standing up to nearly every wave and even getting cocky enough to turn the board a few times and ride parallel..will try to carry on surfing when possible but I don't think Dovestones is the ideal location somehow.

Sydney (the first time)

On writing this after having been to Sydney now after getting very much behind on the blog scene, I can say that it was my favourite place in Australia but it did have to grow on me and I feel it, like much of Australia is very weather dependent. We went to the Opera House on our second day and were underwhelm as on an overcast day it didn't seem to sparkle or be that impressive but we returned about five days later with Nikki and Tarina and approached it through the Botanical Gardens on a truly beautiful day and the whole area seemed amazing and gave me a completely different viewpoint on the harbour as a whole. Both the Opera House and Harbour Bridge are two fantastic man made creations however although I don't think I really need to tell you that-but even though you don't want to you can't help but take them for granted when you see them for the thirtieth time....but then you shake your head and then go 'hang on, I'm in Australia'.
We stayed in a hostel called Wake Up which was very good and had a great feel and vibe yet a dissapointing kitchen compared to the other fantastic facilities including a remarkable bar/cafe/club underneath it called Side Bar strangely.
On our day trips we went to Bondi Beach, which is very overrated and small and barely worthy of a great mention here, especially when compared to Manly which had a quaint market, a lovely beach and the ferry ride from the harbour gives you possibly the best views of the cityscape for a cheap ticket.
Sydney will I feel be always the scene of the time I made my most effort for sport and for no reward...after a night out in Sydney, I had arraged to meet Danny, a lad we met from Surf Camp and with kick off being at 4.30am I decided that sleep would not be of any point, thus from meeting Danny in Kings Cross to the pub we had to sidestep various 'ladies of the night' as K.C is as I know now the seedy area of Sydney. At 3-0 I felt the decision to watch the game was much the right one, especially looking at the faces of the German men sat at the next table...an hour later I felt as though fate was mocking me, or at least about a dozen germans celebrating like it was 1999 (Oh wait....)...another bad experience in Sydney included buying McDonalds 'cookies' which turned out to be rubbish biscuits thus ruining both mine and Tarina's nights as she made the same schoolboy error. But on the whole Sydney=very good, especially on the food front...Kangaroo burger and the epic Harry's pies (a pie topped with mash and mushy peas :D). Another thing of mention in Sydney was world bar where they served you cocktails in teapots, a nice little feature I thought.

Melbourne and Sydney part 2 (the end of Australia)

We left Sydney on a Greyhound bus at 8.00pm and arrived in Melbourne at 8.00am the next day. By 11.30am we were sat in the MCG eagerly anticipating an Ozzie rules game whilst the girls from Adelaide who had unluckily sat behind us were given the task of explaining the rules to us. Only three quarters of the Oz Experience contingent in Melbourne ended up at the game...me, Tamara and Tom met before the game and Fiona from Durham said she would meet us later....turned out a lot later as she went to the wrong stadium and ended up watching the wrong match. We ended up cheering for Adelaide in the game against Melbourne and after tasking the lead for a large period of the game threw it away in the last quarter so we returned home disappointed. Only English people when it comes to sport can go to a stadium with no pre-conception of even knowing the rules or the game and leaving the stadium thoroughly gutted.
The stand out of Sydney was visiting the Neighbours set where we met the legendary Dr.Karl Kennedy and also saw Susan,Donna,Ringo and Lucas whilst seeing a bit of filming...a good day was had by all!!
We also visited Mirobbim in the suburbs of Melbourne and had a pub lunch with Olivia's gran's sister-a strange one for me more than Tamara but a really pleasant day.
Other things of notice in Melbourne was the bartender in Nomads whom had a slight resemblance to me and a place called the Pancake Parlour which had no resemblance to me but served ridiculously nice pancakes.

And soooooo it was back to Sydney for two final days which involved just tying up loose ends,a final night out in Sydney,a barbeque at a gorgeous house belonging to a family member of one of the girls of Oz ex, Verity. This was finished off with a trip to the Sydney Football Ground to watch an NRL game-the Sydney Roosters v Canberra...Roosters or mainly Todd Carney dominated the show; before rushing back to a pub called Maloneys on Pitt Street to watch the Manchester derby. This was the sweetest way to finish off Australia, mainly to see the sweet look of devastation on a city fans from Oldhams face who had been annoying everybody in the pub and claimed in the first half that 'Paul Scholes USED to be a footballer'; he swiftly left after the game :D

And so I'll leave you now and go to New Zealand for my final leg 😞

Hope everyones well, James xx

---