Boris, BBQs and Beaches

Delicious pizza in the winery

I couldn’t sleep so got up early and sat in the sitting room in my duvet and turned on the TV. For anyone who’s never been to Australia, you should know that both the television and radio is awful, the presenters are shit and the shows are shit.

I watched a variety of riveting programmes including how to fish, which scarves to wear with what outfit, a foreign news station and a cartoon about a rabbit with a sword.

Our plan for the day was to go on the Great Ocean Road but as it was Good Friday and sunny, the traffic would have been horrific and wouldn’t have been worth doing. We picked up Aaron, one of Boris’s friends, and were on our way to find some other beach which was supposed to be just as good as the beaches along the GOR.

On the way to find this beach we stopped off to look at the view from up high on a very bendy road. It was very pretty indeed.

Around the corner from this we stopped off at a winery to have some lunch. We shared three different pizzas with the firm favourite being the pumpkin one…how very strange. We also had some Pink Muscato which I can honestly say is the nicest wine I’ve ever tasted. The two boys were very generous and paid for all of it for us, even though we had only just met one of them, and the other we only met in Thailand. Too sweet.

We then went to do some wine tasting next door which was a lot of fun. Sadly we couldn’t afford to buy any of the wines and the people who worked there clearly knew this, so we left and went to a beach which had a super long pier.

The next beach along was creepily like an English beach. It had massive waves crashing down, soft sand and people looking really cold as the sun had disappeared. Also the sea was bloody freezing so people were running in and out trying to brave it but failing. Our drive home was filled with singing along to songs and looking at all the weird art along the road.

 We got ready in 15minutes and went to a bbq where Aaron was house sitting. The house was amazing and even had a hot tub but nobody could figure out how to work it. The night was spent drinking goon, chatting to some lovely Oz people, and eating Dim Sims which are like sausage rolls. We taught them the horse race drinking game too which they seemed to really enjoy.

On Saturday we got up and went to ‘Lazy Moes’ which had the biggest portions of food I’ve ever seen! I swear Bie’s and Nineham’s meals had about 300 chips on each plate and my bowl of pasta was full to the brim. It is the first meal that has defeated all of us, even Boris didn’t finish his pasta which I thought was a little lame of him, seeing as he’s a giant and I expected him to eat his and then all of ours too.

It was delicious though and a fantastic last meal to have in Oz. as we had an hour or so to kill before we needed to go to the airport, Boris took us down the road to a spot where you can park and watch the planes take off. If it wasn’t for the fact that we were about to fly, I would have thought it was a bit geeky.

All in all I had a spiffing time in Melbourne with both the room crew and with Boris and his friends. It really was a fantastic way to finish off our time in Australia.

Neighbours Tour

The following morning we had to get up extremely early (7.30) to go on the Neighbours Tour, and after a night of drinking goon and a couple hours sleep, it was quite the challenge.

The Kennedy House

Our Irish tour guide was hilarious which helped to keep us awake and listening as we drove along. First of all we went to see where they film all the school scenes and a lot of other outdoor moments you see in each episode.

Next we moved onto the actual studios where The Diner, Grease Monkeys and the garage are based. The car that has been used for a lot of iconic drive away moments was also there which for some reason I enjoyed seeing.

Every indoor scene is shot at the studios so every time you see a character going into Harolds café or into a house they are actually just walking to the door and then they go to the studio to film the rest. They film all the different types of scenes in bulk too, so all the Ramsay Street moments you see over about seven episodes are all filmed in one day straight after each other. Confusing to say the least!

We went to where Ramsay Street is based but sadly it isn’t actually called Ramsay Street which was upsetting. They put the road name up if and when they need it, just like each house number is different in reality to what you see on TV. They also have a different set of bins, make sure all cars are locked away, the gardens are perfect and that every curtain and blind is shut.

It’s quite the meticulous affair.

We had all the typical photographs whilst we were there. My favourite one was standing outside ‘Karl and Susanne Kennedy’s’ house underneath the wooden trellis. Classic.

The final part of the tour was going to meet one of characters for a meet and greet session. The problem we had was that we went over Easter so pretty much everyone was out of town as Australians don’t celebrate the weekend in the same drunken stupor as we do. This meant that our tour guide had to ring ‘Karl Kennedy’ (he organises a lot of the tour stuff) to find somebody last minute to come and meet us.

As I haven’t watched Neighbours for years I was worried I wouldn’t have a clue who they were but luckily I knew who ‘Janelle Timmons’ was, meeting ‘Harold’ would have been the ultimate but it was still good anyway. I even got a signed message for my friend Suzanne who’s a big fan of the show.

The weirdest thing about it was that when we were stood there chatting, ‘Stingray’ walked right past us with his girlfriend! It was a strange coincidence but totally awesome, I bloody loved ‘Stingray’. (apparently he lives with ‘Boyd’ and ‘Dillan’ in St Hilda now).

I had such a good morning even though I haven’t watched the show for years it was still really fun and interesting to see how they actually film the different scenes. It made me really want to watch neighbours so that I could spot the things we were told about but sadly we don’t have that luxury.

Ramsay Street

When we returned to our hostel it was 11.30am but it felt like 6 in the evening as we had been up a million hours. We woke the boys up and went to find the markets where we had some lunch. We finally discovered what a ‘barek’ was, it’s a sort of filo pastry roll with different fillings in, very tasty indeed.

After lunch I got a coke from Macca’s and the rest of the gang got 30c cones, as we were having a nice peaceful time consuming our goods outside, suddenly some guy starting screaming and swearing and chucked a chair against the wall. He then took his top off and stormed down towards the bin and chucked it in the bin, he then came back towards us and kicked some chairs and swore some more, the then picked up his uneaten Macca’s and threw it down. He was absolutely crazy, it was a brilliant show though.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in a park, looking around the docks and generally having a great time. Our new best friends (the boys from our room) were so funny, we just spent the whole time laughing, it’s a shame they couldn’t travel the rest of our trip with us, that would have been ace!

We heard about a place where they did £5 pasta and pizza so trekked off to find it in the evening, it took us bloody ages and when we got there the pizzas weren’t that good, and the boys were still really hungry so it wasn’t really the hike or saving of the dollah. I thought my pizza was really nice though, it may have been because of the four different sauces I had on the go.

On the walk home we witnessed a horrid fight between two very drunk guys with a woman trying to break it up. One of them smashed his head against Subaru which set the alarms off and the woman was shouting she had broken three fingers, but somehow it was a really funny fight. They were taking swings at each other but completely missing as they were that drunk, and they kept stumbling around all over the place which is what made it so funny. It may be one of those ‘you needed to be there’ moments though.

When we returned to our room we had to pack the last final things away as an old friend from Thailand was coming to pick us up as he lives in the suburbs of Melbourne.

It was extremely sad saying goodbye to the guys, it felt like we were leaving people we’d known for years. We drove off in Boris’s bat-mobile waving goodbye but  looking forward to spending a couple of days in Boris’s lovely one storey house.

 

Melbourne

After a while of getting lost around Melbourne, we finally made it into the centre where there was supposed to be a wide variety of shops and food places etc, but there really wasn’t much there. Well not a lot for a city anyway.

We jumped on and off the free tram that runs around the centre a couple of times so that we could go to a park and see other bits and pieces. We ended up stumbling upon a massive dragon boat racing competition in the harbour which was pretty unusual.

Whilst we were there we treated ourselves to an ice-cream. Normally this would be an easy thing to do, but apparently we’d came across the most confusing ice-cream van in the world! Long story short…Nineham’s chocolate ice-cream had no dairy in so was like a crap sorbet, my plain Mr.Whippy tasted like raspberry and Bie’s I think was nice. So confusing it made my head hurt.

In the evening we went back to our room where we met the other people staying in our 10 bed dorm and we were very lucky that they were all really nice. There was two English guys, three Americans, one Dutch and a random guy called Basil.

Now it is no secret we are not such fans of Americans as the experiences we’ve had have not really been the best. So I was extremely surprised to find that I loved them all! They restored my faith in the whole race.

Anyway, we all went out as a room of 9 (Basil had vanished) to the bar which was joint onto our hostel. Many a goon had been drunk by this point so we don’t know why but we decided to talk to each other under the table instead of on top. It was very funny indeed. We tried to find somewhere else to go in that area but failed so went back to the hostel bar/to bed.

The next day we went out as a big group again to get lunch and see more of the city. We were going to go up the Eureka Tower but it was too expensive so just walked around a lot looking at things and just generally taking in Melbourne.

The boys did a spot of busking which attracted a fair few onlookers, they also rolled down a very steep hill and did a lot of planking. They also taught us the game of ghosting where you copy somebody as they’re walking along but they have no idea you’re doing it. Very funny to watch.

One of the guys in the room, Dan, had pinky promised the night before that he’d cook me carbonara as I love it so much, and he kept to his word and made a blimin delicious tea. The other girls were jealous but then we all ate some chocolate cake. The other guys went to Taco Bill and came back to the room with massive sombreros. The goon drinking quickly commenced and we introduced them to our new favourite drinking game, Horse Racing. They were big fans of it so it was played many many times.

In return they showed us their dance which we have on video, it was very fun to do but sadly its hard to make it out properly in the video as I’m doing it as I’m filming. We left to get some drinks in the bar downstairs but was very rudely refused entry as Anthony, Ben and Pumba had chucked a glass of water out of our bedroom window. The bouncer realised it was our group and went on a rant about how somebody could sue the hostel for there being a bit of water on the pavement outside. He was an absolute idiot, so off we went into town to find another bar.

Our new roommate Scott (Scotty doesn’t know) Came out with and was absolutely smashed, so he spent some time going up and down the road on a office chair. We eventually found a bar to go in but to actually get into it you had to go up an escalator, very strange.

The idea was to move onto somewhere else but we found out there really isn’t anywhere else to go during the week so we had to stay there. It was very empty so most people congregated in the smoking area where they were showing a curling competition on TV.

 

Sydney

The day had come to hand Harry back into Autobahn, and to be honest, it couldn’t have come sooner.

I’m not saying we didn’t have a good time cruising around in a camper but it got a bit tiresome, especially in the heat. So it was nice to say goodbye in Sydney and know that all we had to worry about again was where we were next going to buy goon and what bikini to wear. This wasn’t before we were pulled over by the police on our drive down to Sydney though.

I was made to say 1-10 and was breathalysed. I wasn’t drunk so it was all ok but it was still a bit scary to be pulled over when driving a hired car in a foreign country. To be honest I think he was just bored sat at the side of the road and wanted a chat because he stood by our camper talking to us about England and our travels for quite some time. Silly Australians.

After dropping off Harry to Autobahn we walked to the nearest train station and found our way to the area of Kings Cross which turned out to be a red light district.

When we left the train station to find our hostel we only had a couple of minutes walk until we were at the address we had written down, except in reality that was a sex shop and most defiantly not a hostel. So we carried on walking and found our real hostel ‘Brados’ around the corner.

We had the friendliest arrival we’ve ever experienced travelling. The staff were so friendly and helpful, and Forest (one of the owners) planned out our whole stay for us so we knew exactly what to do and when which made it so easy for us just to enjoy ourselves and not waste time trying to plan things.

Harrys Pies!

Our first day was spent checking out the city centre and just getting a general feel for things. We once again found the shopping situation confusing and annoying as there weren’t really any shopping malls and the main street of shops didn’t really have many shops. Nether the less I managed to find a top I wanted which was very exciting as it was something new we could all wear.

We had a lovely time people watching and eating tea whilst over looking the water in Darling Harbour. After this we went back to our hostel and got ready to go out to a bar/club called ‘Soho’ with basically just the people who worked at the hostel. We some how managed to pick the night when nobody was going out once again, but we had a good time and danced about all night.

When we got up the following day we went down to reception to ask how to get to the Opera house and things, but instead of it being a five minute conversation, we stayed there for well over an hour laughing at a certain situation which had occurred in the hostel.

Long story short somebody had produced the biggest poo known to man and blocked the communal toilet. Forest on reception was actually sick when he saw it and kept on heaving when he was telling us about it, it was hilarious! We thought he was exaggerating so went to see it for ourselves and found it really was huge. None of us could understand how a human could make such a thing, but apparently someone in the hostel could, and did. It wouldn’t flush no matter how many times they tried.

In the end it was named the super turd, and destroyed by a brave brave man who worked there. After all this drama we left to see the sites like proper tourists.

We walked to and through the Botanical Gardens to get to Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The Opera House is exactly as I remember it from when I came years ago, it’s one of the few things I can actually remember clearly. When I was a kid me and my brother tried to climb up the side, so this time we all touched the side and pretending to try and climb it. I don’t know why but people seem to like to touch it.

From there we stood and looked at the bridge and took the mandatory photographs of it. Originally we planned to climb up the tower on the bridge but when we saw it from across the water we realised there wasn’t much point as all you’d see is the Opera House but from a different angle. To climb over the whole bridge it costs $200, what a rip-off. After this site-seeing we went back to the Botanical Gardens and lay around for a while.

As we were walking around we saw FOUR different weddings going on. That’s crazy! Each one was very different so of course we had to critique the dress, the bridesmaids outfits, the layout etcetc, and in case you’re wondering, the third wedding we saw was our favourite as the dress was nice and she was pretty, even though the groom was very short.

Above this wedding there was a plane flying around writing letters in the sky. We thought it was some romantic gesture from one of the grooms or something, but then we realised it was just an advert for a carpet company. It spelt out ‘Deco Rug On Sale’, not so romantic after all.

On the way home we stopped off at the world famous Harry’s Pies to have an afternoon snack. We’ve got into the habit recently of having ‘afternoon snacks’ which are really more like meals, this is why I’ve on weight travelling instead of losing it like everyone says you do.

Me and Nineham both had a vegetable and cheese pie with mash and gravy. She also had mushy peas but they disgust me so I asked for extra gravy instead. Bie was weird and chose to have a curry pie. It was delicious but quite hard to eat as it came on a flimsy little plate and just a plastic fork. Of course this meant that I dropped some pie into my lap, as well as dribble gravy down the front of my dress. I really am a catch.

Saturday Night- Meeting Chris

 We were very excited to go and see some fireworks in Darling Harbour so we left early and took our goon with us and were eagerly awaiting them on the bridge. We stood there for half an hour or so and then saw that everybody was leaving. We then found out that a sign had been put up on the ground saying that there would be no fireworks tonight. We were pretty bummed but it did mean we could go and meet Twitchen (a friend from uni) earlier.

So off into town we went, all a little giddy from the goon drinking, to find Chris and his friends. It was so nice to see a friendly face from home, it kind of made me forget that I am the opposite side of the world at the moment. We spent the rest of the night with them drinking away and having silly drunk conversations. It was quite a random night but very fun, and was lovely to see Chris again

Bondi Beach

Sunday was spent recovering and lying on Bondi Beach all day. Getting a train and then a bendy bus when hung-over really isn’t a fun thing to do, but I survived and had a lovely day sunbathing, and I didn’t even burn!

The lifeguards uniforms were the funniest uniforms I’ve ever seen. They wore tiny little Speedos saying ‘Bondi’ on the bum and nothing else but a yellow and red cap which is attached under the chin, much like a party hat. At first we thought it was a joke but soon realised this really was there uniforms. Hilarious!

It started to cloud over so at about 5 o’clock we popped into Macca’s to get a drink before going home. There was three Asian people in there eating burgers and chips but not in the normal way. The woman put her head down to the table and took a chunk out of the bun of her burger without touching it with her hands.

If this wasn’t weird enough, the guy took out the burger and ate it whole, leaving only lettuce and sauce hanging out of his mouth for a while. Then the woman got her napkin and picked up about ten chips and took a bite out of all of them at the same time. It was the most disgusting but intriguing sight. I wanted to go over to them and ask where the hell they were taught to eat like that, especially in public, as it really wasn’t normal or nice to watch.

When we got home we just made some crappy pasta and watched TV in a room that smelt like arse. It was nice to watch some normal TV shows again, we really miss TV.

We then packed up our bags ready to catch our flight to Melbourne the next day.