The kindness of strangers

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Lou: First of all, we've had a bit of a change of plans (again!) A few things all happened at once - the place we were supposed to be staying for free whilst we looked for work in Melbourne fell through, some good friends went to China and kept emailing us about how amazing and cheap it was, and we made some new friends who had traveled round India and were telling us how amazing and cheap that was. We also spoke to some people who'd just come from South America and told us to expect prices to be about 3 times those quoted in Lonely Planet for Argentina and Chile, which would have been our first ports of call...

So we had a think and figured we weren't ready to go back to the real world of work yet anyway and didn't want to use up loads of our savings staying in a hostel in Australia while we looked for jobs. So we decided to travel round Australia for a few weeks, then head back to Asia (instead of South America) where our money goes a lot further and go to China and India, and well that's about as far as we got with the planning!

In a bid to save money whilst in Australia we signed up for a program called "Couchsurfing" where basically locals let you stay in their house for free, yay! We weren't really sure what to expect as we turned up at our first 'couch' in Melbourne. As we headed to the address we thought we must have got something wrong as we appeared to be in the poshest suburb of Melbourne! But amazingly there was no mistake we really were staying in this lovely house with a pool and a hot tub! It was so nice to be in a proper home after 8 months on the road. Liam and Nathan, our hosts were two really cool and laid back guys and a great introduction to couchsurfing. Melbourne was a cool city, although it did remind us of Leeds! We explored the suburb of St Kilda, went for an Italian in Little Italy, wandered round the city and watched sunset on Brighton Beach. We also got down to the Great Ocean Road which had some beautiful beaches and stunning scenery. We saw the Twelve Apostles (well seven of them anyway) and we even saw a wild koala by the side of the road! However this was not our first encounter with Australian wildlife, no, that was when Spike the dog tried to eat some possums in the garden!

From Melbourne we headed to Launceston in Tasmania. We were picked up by Angela, our next host, who was brilliant, she kept feeding us for a start which meant she made a very good impression! Tasmania was rather chilly, but incredibly beautiful. We went to Cataract Gorge, which looked how I imagine the Canadian Rockies to look, and there we saw wallabies, peacocks and Tasmanian Pademelons running around. Angela also took us to Lake Louise (not quite as big as it's Canadian namesake but just as pictureque!), Brady's Lookout where there were lovely views over the Tamar Valley and Grindlewald, which was a little Swiss village (so obviously we treat ourselves to some Swiss chocolate!). We also met Angela's daughter Liz and went for a drink in the pub she works in to get a taste of a real Aussie pub.

From Launceston we headed to Hobart in time for the Saturday Salamanca Market. Here our hosts were James and Jordy, two young guys who were a right laugh and introduced me to Peep Show (surely that's the wrong was round!) James and Jordy are both really into their music and basically have a recording studio in their house! So we also got treated to some private gigs which was cool, most notably James' attempts at writing lyrics after the pub...

Jordy took us up Mount Wellington one day which had amazing views over the city, a lot like Table Mountain in Cape Town. We also went to the market, the docks, Battery Point a cool little suburb, the Royal Botanical Gardens and we tried to go to the Cadbury's factory but they wouldn't let us in! I mean I know I can eat a lot of chocolate but I didn't think news of this had spread to Tasmania! Also in Hobart we saw an enormous Dalmation! We'd already seen an Irish Wolfhound in Melbourne which was the biggest dog I've ever seen, it was the size of a lion! Seriously I think they make GM dogs over here or something.

After Tasmania we headed to Adelaide, where there were no giant dogs but we had a cat as a bedfellow instead! We stayed with Karen and Alex who treated us to our first Aussie barbie which was really yummy, especially the cheesy mushrooms! We had a wander round the city and went up to Hahndorf, a little German town in the Adelaide Hills, for some scones. (So we've now had Canada, Switzerland and Germany in Australia!) The next day we went on a tour of the Barossa Wine Valley which involved visiting the Whispering Wall, a big dam where if you stand on one side and whisper, the person on the other side can hear you. Our guide demonstrated this, and then played the didgeridoo from the other end! Mark also cooked us some kangaroo steaks for tea, which were delicious.

Our last port of call was Perth, here we stayed with Joe, a British guy who moved here 30 years ago, and his lodger Marco. Marco had a lovely (normal-sized) dog Flynn, whose favourite game involved decapitating monkeys. Perth was a really lovely city to wander round, very scenic with lots of parks, a big wheel and a huge river. We went on a tour to the Pinnacles desert which was really eerie, basically hundreds of pillars in the desert. We also got to stroke koalas, feed kangaroos and sit with a wombat in Caversham Wildlife Sanctuary! And we went sandboarding down the dunes at Lancelin, sadly not in the same league as sandboarding in Namibia, but we had a laugh sledging down the dunes. Then we took a 4WD trip through the dunes - if you ever wanted to hear a couchful of Japanese tourists screaming like little girls, I would recommend taking a 4WD trip through some sand dunes...

Signing up for Couchsurfing has been one of the best decisions we've made, we've met some awesome people, seen loads and had a great time. After a few jam-packed weeks in Australia we headed back to Bangkok, next stop China, til then...

Love Louise and Mark xxx

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Comments

[Becca]

Dogs
I think you'll find that your giant dalmation was a Great Dane of Harlequin colour! If it was the one in the mass of photos i just trundled through. xxx