Well that's another Christmas over*

I did it. I had a Christmas away from home. I am now an adult. Of course it was helped by being with Megann and her parents making a big huge special effort to make it like Christmas at home. There was ham as well as turkey, my mum emailed the pavlova recipe and they made it even though they had no clue what they were aiming for and my parents sent a tin of Roses over (which cost four times as much to send as to buy...oops). I even got to watch the Queen on You Tube (I am such a geek, this was after a blow by blow account from my dad!)

I got lots of nice presents too. Santa surely is a smart man knowing where I was. Another big excitement though is the skis that I bought in preparation for Colorado next week. Woo hoo.

See how excited I am?! And yes, I do know you need the other ski on for them to be truely effective. You also need to be on snow, not carpet.

Ahh, up close. They are the prettiest skis that ever lived. And I am seriously considering a move to the Alps in order to make full use of them. The boots also cleverly match. When we went to get them, the guy, Jeff, that served us in the shop at first didn't understand the importance of them matching, bringing out an orange lined pair, claiming 'well no one will see that.' I will know Jeff, I will know.

Anyway I still need to put on photos from before but my computer is still being stupid and forgetting wireless, plus we're busy doing other things. Just like you probably.

Oh and Happy Birthday Megann! And congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Bell. Finally!

*My Grandpa said this every Christmas Day. It got earlier and earlier every year. But never before HMQ.

Yay, flipping yay!

1. I made it to Detroit! Many laughs have already occurred. No doubt many more to come, I'm here long enough to unpack and everything!

2. My computer has now remembered it has wireless capabilities. There is still no rhyme or reason to why it should stop or start but for the time being it's working again so hurrah. Photos and stories soon, but it's late here so I'll just put this one on for now.


Waikiki in Hawaii and the last outing for my shorts and tank tops for a while. Hawaii is the new answer to the question, 'if you could live anywhere...'. A-maz-ing.

Seeing as I didn't get the chance to update my blog with the weather I've added it up the side for places I've been the past two weeks so as they get their moment in the sun, as it were. Only now can I say 'it's beginning to look at lot like Christmas'.

Grr, bloody grr

I'm not in Sydney anymore. And in between then and now I've been in Hawaii. Aloha. Well actually goodbyah because now I am in San Francisco, where it is freezing (except that it's not, it's like 10 degrees celsius or something, bodes well for later in the trip eh?!).

I'd tell you all the cool things I've seen and done and maybe even put a photo or two on but my stupid computer has once again forgotten it has wireless just at the time I am staying in a place with free wireless!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

These things just seem to happen to me

With Lynsey and Caroline gone our room now has new people. One girl, Cat, is from Glasgow and is travelling on her own and we get on really well. We just got two new girls today.

Oh. My. Goodness.

I’ve never met an über fan before, you know the sort you see on documentaries with walls covered in posters and things the star may have touched and all that, kind of like Michael Jackson’s weird fans? You know the sort of thing right? Well our two new girls are…wait for it…drum roll please…Delta Goodrem über fans.

I wish I was joking.

I’ll fill you in on the backpacking world, I am, after all, an expert now. When you get someome new in your room you find out all the usual stuff, names, where everyone’s from, where they’re going, what they’ve done etc etc. When I came in the über fans girls (plus their other über fan friend (thankfully in another room) didn’t even give me a sideways glance. So I interrupted them and introduced myself.

If you’re not aware (which I would imagine the majority of the western world is) Delta had a new album out this week. Well apparently today she’s singing a few songs and signing the album in the backarse of nowhere in the city. It’s at 1.00pm. So what did our new roomies do? Got themselves up at 3.00am to get themselves in line ready for the big event. I wouldn’t have thought there would be a mad queue myself.

Anyway, when I met them I had just come from a nice shower and was already in my jammies. Two minutes of being in the room with them I knew I had to leave again. So on went the shorts. Not before I heard these genius quotes though:

‘Delta will be so surprised I’m here. She just saw me in Melbourne two days ago.’
‘We know everything about Delta, even what her pets are called.’
‘I don’t like the video to that song, we should make our own one.’
‘I miss the metaphors in her songs, Bryan has done that to her!’

Dear, oh dear.

Independent Traveller

Lynsey and Caroline left me yesterday so I’m on my lonesome. But that’s ok, I think I get a different kind of experience now. For example I heard the two Swedish men behind me on the ferry to Manly beach practicing their English. ‘Vere are you going to?’ ‘Da beach’ and one that made me and the girl beside me laugh out loud, ‘Pints...pants...panties?’ but it turns out he was just trying to say ‘My ticket is in my pants’. I'm assuming he was using American English there.

I went back to Manly yesterday afternoon. I think that is now my new answer to the question ‘If you could live anywhere in the world...?’ It’s lovely.

I walked along the beach and then thought I’d get fish and chips and eat them along the front watching all the surfers. This was a good idea til I realised all the seagulls would be there. If you know anything about me you’ll know I hate, hate, HATE birds and winged creatures in general. So I sat there very carefully taking one chip out at a time and cutting a little piece of fish and eating it. It was all going so well. There was only one seagull that realised that I may have something of interest to him and he was easy to get rid of with a wave of my hand.

That was all until I took out the last bite of fish. As my hand moved from my lap to my mouth some cheeky little beast of a seagull swooped across me and grabbed it. I felt his wing on my face! Gross gross gross!

I’m sure you can imagine the scene that followed but if not it involved me screaming and running, chips flying and about a thousand seagulls where I had once been sitting. It took me about an hour to get my heart rate back to normal. So no more al fresco fish and chips for me.

Anyway, here are a few photos for you to enjoy.


We went to one of the cathedrals and there was a navity scene outside. So that would make this woman Jesus' body guard then? Hands up if you thought that would be a cooler job?


Burt Bacharach was in town.


Ok, here's the tourist photo!

Twenty reasons why we’re not backpackers

1. Lynsey has nail polish remover with her.
2. We need GHDs with us.
3. We’re staying with more people that we know on this trip rather than hostels.
4. When we do have to do hostels we don’t do dorms.
5. Tina has suitcases. Massive ones at that.
6. We haven’t used the kitchen in the hostel.
7. We wouldn’t use the kitchen in the hostel.
8. Caroline spent $12 on breakfast.
9. Every meal has been out.
10. We get taxis.
11. We want an iron because we care about how our clothes look.
12. We have 80 tops between us.
13. Tina wants a pedicure.
14. A typical meal is a steak sandwich, cocktails and dessert.
15. We hire cars.
16. We bought the photos they took of us at attractions.
17. We don’t like the one ply toilet paper in the hostel.
18. We don't think hair balls in the shower are acceptable.
19. We buy bottled water.
20. We would never walk around barefoot.

Stop 4: Sydney

We made it to Sydney! We started out yesterday morning on the 1000km trip and arrived in our hostel this evening. Woo hoo!

I've discovered that roadtrips are only good when you have good music. This should be a word of warning to you all: You should always locate the iPod FM transmitter in your luggage before embarking on said 1000km trip. Furthermore, if that roadtrip goes along the Gold Coast where, to quote Lynsey, the only radio station is 'Shite FM' then knowing exactly where that FM transmitter is paramount.

Yes, that's right somehow in all my luggage I could not find it so yesterday was a day of pain while we searched for a half decent radio station. I didn't think it would be so easy to have 8 hours of songs that none of us had ever even heard before, but apparently it was. Like, I mean never heard before, not just unfamilar songs. Honestly they were crap songs. It put us all in a bad mood!

But thankfully after a total reback of the big suitcase I found it! Hurrah! So today was a much better day. But we're pretty tired now so it might just be a shower and then bed so we're fresh to explore the city tomorrow. No doubt I'll keep you updated.

Stop 3: Brisbane*

I’m only a week into this adventure but here I am at stop three already. But before I tell you about it, I’ll finish off Melbourne with some photos.

The MCG
Ok, so I kind of dragged Lynsey and Caroline here but I think they nearly enjoyed it. Although I knew that the cricket museum at the end was pushing it.


Dennis Lillie and I bowling. I think he needs to work a bit on his action, look at me, I’m the pro.


The view across the city was amazing. On the right is where the Australian Open is played.

On Wednesday we hired a car and drove along Great Ocean Road.


That’d be the Great Ocean then.


We made it all the way to the Apostles. This brought about the funniest quote of the trip so far.

Caroline: Is there a place where you can see all seven?
Lynsey: Seven?! What about the other four?!


We drove all the way to Port Campbell which is a little bit of what I imagine Summer Bay to be like and watched the sun set.

On Thursday all my dreams were realised when we went to Ramsay Street. Oh yes!


Erinsborough High.


Oh my goodness! The Robinson house!


Harold wasn’t in.


Seriously, me on Ramsay Street.

So now we’re in Brisbane for a few days. Today we thought we’d try to beat the weekend crowds and go to Australia Zoo, the one that Steve Irwin owned. I wasn’t really that bothered when he died. Although I knew who he was, I had never watched any of his programmes but walking round the zoo today made me sad, over a year later. His picture is up everywhere and you can just see the passion and energy he had for what he did.



Me and the family Irwin.


Give him the meat, give him the meat!


I got to stroke a koala!

So there we go, that's Australia thus far. We head to Sydney soon so no doubt I'll be blogging again soon.

*Or as we like to call it Bris-bain, which sets us off on Boycey impressions of ‘Marlene’.