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Published: June 23rd 2008
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The Koala Bear ahh...Hello everyone,
So, a little catch up of what we've been up to since the Blue Mountains.
As Ben mentioned, we were going to rent the spare room from a guy we found on Gumtree. It would mean saving a bit of money, so we headed over to his place in another district of Sydney called Newtown. Turns out, perfectly nice guy, but the place was....dirty, basically. I think it was my fault, but we kind of agreed to stay and paid him a weeks rent upfront. I think we were both just weary from carrying our backpacks and just wanted to settle somewhere. Anyway, after about an hour we realised just how unclean the place was. Ben went to have a shower, and saw 3 spiders in the shower and one beast of a spider in the window. I was too scared to go in the bathroom! The kitchen was really unclean too and one of the perks was supposed to be using the kitchen there so we could save on food costs....bugs in and around the fridge area...mmm!
To cut a long story short, we stayed one night and then made some excuse about having a
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and another friend nearby who said we could stay with them. Luckily he was really nice about it and gave us our money back, so we went back to the Jolly Swagman's hostel where we were staying before the Blue Mountains. It's clean and comfortable - a bit noisy at times, but it's fine really and in a good location too.
We went to Wildlife World on our first day back here. Saw some Koala's which made my day! They are unbelievably cute. Apparently they have really small brains too, which made them even more endearing to us!
At the beginning of Wildlife World, there was a 'touch and learn' section (blatantly for the kids, but hey!) and there was some 'bug expert' with little containers with various bugs in - cockroaches, beetles, giant stick insect things etc....so we touched and learnt a little, then moved on. We got to see 'The World's Most Deadly Spider' and 'The World's Most Deadly Snake' etc....really comforting stuff as they all originate from this country!! After staring at the Koala Bear's, we were about to leave when I saw something green out of the corner of my eye on Ben's jeans. I looked
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At the Harbour waiting for the ferry again and he had this massive green bug thing on his leg! It was kind of like a stick insect but much bigger and fatter. I immediatley pooed my pants, and tried to tell Ben, but I couldn't get the words out. Seeing the look on my face, he assumed he had a deadly spider on him, so then he looked a bit panicked. I tried to speak, but nothing was happening! In the end, I got one of the staff members assistance, and she picked the bug thing off. We're still not sure how he got there, but we presume from the touch and learn thing. Doesn't sound that bad I bet, but we were both a bit freaked out.
A couple of days ago we got the ferry to a small town called Manly. The ferry journey provides great views of Sydney Harbour, with the bridge and opera house. The town itself has a nice beach and a good beach for surfers, so we sat and watched them for a while and ended the day with freshly caught fish and chips. Yum.
Yesterday, we went to the Good Food and Wine Show. It was the equivalent
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leaving the Harbour for Manly of about 12 quid, but there were free samples of food and drink at every stall, so trust me, we got our money's worth (Mum, you would be proud!), and didn't need to buy breakfast or lunch! The star attraction of the event was the legend Gordon Ramsay! He was doing 2 or 3 seminars a day - cooking a three course meal in front of a live audience. That was good fun, he was like a stand up comedian for the first 10 mins, abusing the likes of Jamie Oliver, Anthony Worrall Thompson, Dannii Minogue etc.... I thought he was popular in the UK, but they were going nuts for him over here!!
Anyway, we're hoping to go to Bondi Beach tomorrow as Weds we say goodbye to Sydney and fly to Cairns.
Lots of Love
Maria and Ben
xxx
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Helen
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Your dream has come true!!
I'm so excited you saw Gordy, that's amazing!! Did you get up close to his craggy face, ha. Have been looking at your pics in my lunch hour and am getting Australia-sick pangs, I want to be back there! Love you loads xxx