Black Cherry Tim Tams

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- FOOD: Free cereal for breakfast (but no milk); no kangaroo for dinner for me - cheap Dominoes pizza instead; Black Cherry Tim Tams - THE BEST.

- AREA: King's Park from a distance in the rain; free art gallery with a mixture of good art.

- PEOPLE: Helpful ferry people; bitter Aussies at losing the cricket to the Brits!

- WEATHER: Rain


Mon 12th Sep: This hostel gets better - free breakfast. Cereal too although it was only after I'd poured it so excitedly that I realised there is no milk. Dry cereal is good though!
I had a faffy day wandering up and down the same stretch of road searching for my lost sunglasses (a lesson - don't buy expensive sunnies for travelling the world). The ferry people were very helpful but they were well and truly lost.
I decided to go to King's Park but it started to rain lots so just spent the day in and out of shops and internet cafes. A good find was the art gallery - it's free and has a mixture of old, modern, aboriginal, all sorts of good stuff.

My day went downhill again when I tried to find a restaurant serving kangaroo but with no luck (why didn't I have it in Alice Springs when I saw it). So I ended up with a bloody pizza from Dominoes - a cheap meal at only 6 bucks, a special price for backpackers. BUT... the day greatly improved when I discovered Black Cherry Tim Tams - WOOOOW. I went to bed with a big smile on my face.


Tue 13th: The TV was tuned into a channel where some very bitter sounding man was explaining how there was no way he would ever congratulate an English man (we'd won the cricket for once). Charming! He banged on for ages - I couldn't believe how outraged he was!
I couldn't escape cricket talk when I caught the shuttle bus to the airport. The driver was going on and on in the same fashion to the other Oz passengers, knowing full well I'm English but not holding back at all. "We won't hear the end of it", "I suppose it's good for the game - people would get bored if we kept winning", "They'll all get knighted now no doubt and have places named after them, us Aussies would just have a booze up", blah, blah.....
He knew my next destination is Singapore but still couldn't resist a snide "So you can go home and join the celebrations of this rare success now". I smiled sweetly thinking to myself "this rare success - along with the Rugby World Cup" but kept my mouth shut.


In general, I've found the Ozzies are a friendly bunch who use the expressions "How you doing?", "Awesome" and "G'day (yep, they really do)" a lot.
The women are awesome but I met far too many stereotypical Aussie men! The Australians seem to be trying very hard to gain their own identity and shake off the British influence - I don't think they need to try so hard as I found the country and people definitely has it's own identity. Maybe some of this is to blame for their bitterness at losing sport against the Brits!
I also noticed that they think they're the best at everything - wine, sport, anything. Perhaps this is just due to a high level of competitiveness though as it seems to go on between different states and even different areas.
I was surprised at how much racism against the Aboriginal people still exists.
The other big observation about the people is how many bloody Brits are there!!!

The country itself is just so huge that I only saw a tiny fraction of it.
It has such beautiful scenery - The Great Ocean Road, Blue Mountains, Rottnest Island, Uluru, The Olgas, King's Canyon, Sydney Harbour.
And such interesting wildlife, especially the cuddly koalas!
Sydney's nightlife was fab and I loved getting out of the CBD's and into the areas surrounding them which are so chilled out - Fremantle, St Kilda, Bondi.

I'm sad to be leaving Australia so soon. I have really loved the West Coast and would love to explore more of it. Along with areas I didn't even go to - the North, the East Coast.
3 weeks certainly isn't enough but I'm glad I've seen what I've seen and will be back some day to see more.

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