Tinkerbell, Kangaroos and Dr Karl

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Our first job, according to James, is to inform you that leaving New Zealand one must pay a departure tax of 25 dollars, he insists it is outrageous. You are informed.

Next. We arrived excitedly expecting sunlight and moonbeams, having be told that Victoria was currently experiencing a massive drought, quite the opposite was once again true as for the next week and a half it rained daily. We truly drag the weather with us. Our first hostel was... euh. We walked up a few flights of dirty stairs (I was later to realise that my hat was, during this time, being stolen) and into our dank smelly room to find it full of oddballs. All of the lower bunks were taken, so we picked the nearest two by the door, only for me to be tutted at for having the nerve to try climb the stairs to make my bed. James' bunk had no stairs, he could only get out at one part of the bed that was bar-less, which the boy below him felt repeatedly compelled to move his wash basket in front of as an obstacle for james to jump over every morning. Worse still was a boy in the corner with horrific taste in music and a laptop to constantly blare it out of, but yet worse was the boy who felt a constant need to stare at me. Not even mildly attempted to cover it up, he'd just walk in and stare at me directly all the way over to his bed, and continue once he'd got in bed. And it was enhanced by his breathing difficulties, so he came across as even more stalkery with his heavy breathlessness. Odd. Outside of our hostel window was a main road, next to some tram tracks, next to the railway lines. Not too quiet on a night-time. After our pre-booked time there was up we moved swiftly on to a lovely hostel up the road, which dished out the free wine like it was going out of fashion and fed us fat on lovely pizza. I mean, we still shared a room with weirdos, but they were laughably weird rather than 'he's going to come and kill me in the night' weird.

Melbourne got pretty boring pretty quickly, but we needed to find us a van to live in and drive up the east coast in. Which took a while as most of the vans we came across had tape holding the engine together (which despite not being mechanics we suspected to be a bad omen). Our highlight of the Melbourne stay was 'Neighbours Night'. It was spectacular. Neither of us expected to enjoy it quite as much as we did, but everyone was so excited to be there that it just kind of rubbed off and we fully submerged ourself in the hyperactive frenzy of excitement as 'Dr Karl', "Janelle', 'Connor', 'Darcy', 'Libby' and 'Michelle' came out to meet us. James started out all 'I dont even watch Neighbours' til Dr karl called him 'big man' and then spent the rest of the night telling anyone who'd listen. When Janelle came out I went mad. James shouted me over to point out she'd come to our table and I came bumbling over in a daze of happiness and gushed out 'Janelle! You're my favourite!' in the campest voice imaginable. She's not my favourite. Never was. I was just really really excited. Absolute moron. We stayed to watch Karl's band play and they were surprisingly good actually, Karl certainly knew his audience and played up to the crowd. Darcy wouldnt go home. I wouldnt be surprised if he's still there. All in all a fantastic night. James kissed a lady. They even went for a date the next night, but I think she intimidated him a little. He hid from her every day afterwards.

We finally managed to get a van, its big and blue and has a massive set of scratches denting into one side, but she drives and she's pretty spacious compared to the other vans we've seen on our travels. We've called her Tinkerbell as an ironic tribute to her monstrous bulk and moody temperament. We headed towards the Great Ocean Road first, which was in the complete opposite direction of where we'd thought it would be, and spent our first night parked behind a 'Sleeping in vans here is prohibited-$100 fine' sign in freezing cold weather with numb toes and got little sleep. I think I managed an hour. The surfers' vans kept cropping up and we had to bomb it into the front to make sure it didnt look like we were sleeping. The rain all the way along the Great Ocean Road didnt make for great tourist viewings and we finished the road within the day. It is, however, beautiful and Im glad we got to see The Twelve Apostles, it just would have been better if we'd been able to stop and play on some of the beaches along the way. We attempted to park up by a field of cows to sleep, the cows were intent on giving us away to the farmers, they all came for a good peer through the windows and noisily announced our arrival to anyone within five miles of the vicinity. Unfortunately people kept stopping alongside us to check we were okay and hadnt broke down so we guiltily accepted it might be time to check into a proper campsite. After another restless night of numned toes we decided it was time to drive as far north as possible until we found some sunshine.

Our first port of call was Canberra, its nice and pretty and small, no real need to spend any more than a day there so we headed off to Sydney pretty quick to get proper tourist photos of us outside all the Australia paraphenalia. Sydneys a bit of a nightmare for the ole driving, we spent more time getting round the city than seeing the sights and there's toll bridges everywhere you turn. However, the skies were gradually getting clearer so we continued on up to Port Macquarie where I finally saw some kangaroos. I was well chuffed. We were driving along the road when a whole field of em just popped up and they all posed beautifully for the camera when I ran at them with it. The next day we went to the Billabong Koala sanctuary and got to feed some kangaroos there too. They're not sloppy or anything either which is pleasing. We got to see koalas too. And James made friends with some birds which only knew the word 'Hello' but only felt the need to shout it when you were walking away cos they knew you'd come back if they talked. I thought it was James initially cos whenever I turned my back something shouted hello in a ridiculous voice, but whenever I turned back they stopped. Some peacock nearly assaulted us in a frenzy of hunger under the presumption we had food, thats about all from there. We travelled on to Grafton which is a bit of a creepy hick town, but there wasnt much there to speak of. We are currently in Byron Bay, which is not only beautiful but actually sunny. Indeed we spent the day on the beach yesterday. I have been reminded of a little hiccup along the way to Byron Bay, in which we stopped to look out over the sea and I was sent back to get James' camera, and in doing so I might have maybe left the keys in the van before locking it and closing all the doors. James was less than impressed. Particularly as I have a tendency to find potentially disastrous situations hilarious. And all the mechanics in the next town we walked to were closed for the whole weekend (it being Saturday), but luckily however it would appear that everyone in Australia knows how to break into a car. Having collected the necessary materials one apparently needs to break into a car, we set to work. It wasnt going so well until a little boy ran up to us to ask if we'd locked ourselves out, we confirmed his suspicions. His initial suggestion was to break the windows, closely followed by 'Why dont you just take a tyre off?' (at this point I began to doubt his skills in the field of breaking and entering/mechanics) when by a stroke of luck his father and grandparents arrived, who appeared to have far more experience in life of having to break into their own cars, (apparently Im not alone in my idiocy) and with a lot of generous persistence they eventually managed to open it without having to break anything. We live to fight another day and have learned a new skill from our Australian counterparts to fall back on should our career choices ever fail us. As for now, we shall head to the beach and then carry on heading North to Brisbane (try and find Agata wherever she's hiding) and then onto sunny sunny Cairns.

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Photos

Dr karl
He loved it

Me and darcy
Does the man have no shame?

Big fat shiney moron
"Janelle! You're my favourite!"

James feeding said kangaroo
I called him fatso