Only in Melbourne.......

.....could I be living in a house 20 minutes walk from the city centre....for free!

So 3 days ago we went out on a mad drinking session in the city! At about 5am we found ourselvs sitting outside a club faced with the prospect of a 2 hour journey back to the car (involving at least 1.5hrs walking!)....the obvious choice was to sleep on the beach!

On the way to the beach we met a couple of kiwi girls who have a spare room in their house (!) We are now staying for 2 weeks til their new flatmate moves in! We all have beds and they wont take any rent money, we just cook them dinner every nite in return!

I'm gonna drive the great ocean road in a few days, should be great! Anyway, added some more pics to previous posts, enjoy!

EDIT 31/01/07

Forgot to mention that I went to a 'Hot Rod' car show the other day! took some pretty cool pictures, enjoy.....

Australia Day!

After making plans to go see some Australia day events, we woke up late and decided to go to the beach instead! After 30 mins we got a call from a couple of Danish girls who were at the hostel with us in Manly. Apparently they were in Melbourne so we went to meet them!

Did a lot of drinking on the beach with the girls and their friends then went to someones house for a BBQ. As the night rolled on we went back to the house of one of the girls friends and did lots more drinking! Met some cool Ozzies and talked a load of rubbish til we all fell asleep, was a good day/night.

Unfortunately that meant that, when I awoke this morning, I was in a random part of Melbourne with no clue how to get to the city, let alone the car (which was parked in a village, the name of which I dont even know!). It took me about 3 hours to finally locate the car so all is good and the hangover is passing....what will tonight bring!

I've uploaded the pics from Palm beach, Melbourne pics will come tomorrow...enjoy!

Anyone for tennis?!

Went to the Australian Open today!

A day pass is only 20 bucks (8 quid) and that lets you see all but the centre court! Watched Daniel Nestor and Elena Likhovtseva beat Stephen Huss and Monique Adamczak, then Max Mirnyi and Victoria Azarenka beat Nenad Zimonjic and Jelena Jankovic. Also saw a couple of other random junior matches and the main matches on a big screen in the middle of the arena. Its not quite as busy as Wimbledon always is but was good fun.

After a few days of parking the car in random streets at night, we have found the perfect place! Just down the road from shops, 1 min walk from the sea (shower) and right next to a park with toilets and a bench to cook/eat food. Unfortunately it is right in a posh area of town so we'll see how long it is before the police come and tell us to stop making the place look untidy!!




Me at the tennis



Me and Nige!

Melbourne!

So I didn't manage to make the drive in one day, but that was largely down to the fact that I only had 4 hours sleep the previous night....

We managed to get to a place called Albury after an afternoons driving and sorted the car out for a sleep at a rest area on the side of the motorway. The bed in the car actually worked great, loads of room, but about 5 minutes after the sun hits the car you boil, so we were back on the road again by 8am.

Half way into Victoria (the state Melbourne is in) we came across the longest, straightest road I've ever seen in my life....time to check out what the car could do! After reaching 180km/h there was a loud bang! But not from the engine, from the roof.....

I look round to see Markus holding the interior light (which used to be on the ceiling of the car) in his hands! What the hell is going on?! After driving for 2km without a clue what had happened, Filip sticks his head out the window to find that the surfboard which should have been tied onto the roof had been replaced by a broken bunjy rope....fuck.

So Filip gets out and walks back and we do a U-turn to go look from the other end. We then find Filip taking the board off the back of a lorry....according to the lorry driver who was behind us at the time, the board flew off and glided through the air onto the side of the road. After taking it out the bag, the only injury it had sustained was a big crack in the nose, which is an easy repair job. Even all the fins are fine....sweet!

Not much else exciting happened before we got to the city but driving through Melbourne was a mission. We aimed for an area with beaches called St. Kilda, just south of the city centre. I completed my first ever 'hook turn', where, to turn right, you actually have to begin by turning left then later right (look it up for a better explanation!).

Just looked round the city today and met up with Nige (Matthews) who is out here on holiday! The city is pretty spectacular.....much more so than Sydney. There are lots of crazy buildings, and random bits of modern art dotted all over the city! So far I've seen a big white model bear in a tree, a massive stone eagle, 39 big bells suspended on poles, a bridge that looked like a big metal fishing net and lots of other cool stuff!



Melbourne Arts Centre



Dunno how to describe this one really!



One of the tallest buildings in Melbourne



The bells, the bells!



Telstra Building



Flinders Street Station



What happened to this Library??



This building reminds me of a rubix cube!



One of the Channel 7 buildings



Imagine being in the box on top....



A random black animal!



One of the buildings in Federation Square



A cow in a tree!



And finally, our luxurious accommodation!

Surf Trip!

Went to Palm beach (the Home & Away beach) yesterday with a load of the guys from the hostel. It really is the most beautiful beach in Sydney, could have stayed there all day.... but we had some serious surfing to do and the waves weren't very good, so we headed down to Avalon beach. The only good surf there was near the rocks so, after deciding that we need the use of all our limbs, we headed to Bigalo beach.

This time we were in luck and found some great waves so jumped in! It was one of the hottest days since I've been in Oz but for some reason the water was fucking freezing.....anyway, the surf was great and everyone caught a load of great waves :)

On the way back I realised that the petrol gauge in the car was on empty but I was sure I had half a tank left. After freaking out and thinking I had a hole in the petrol tank, we realised that it was just the petrol gauge that was broken. Annoying, but I can work it out using the mileometer (or kilometer-meter, or whatever you call it!), I thought.

Anyway, today we went to get a load of food and a couple of things for the car and magically it had fixed itself, even after a couple more drives it still works! Hopefully it will keep working otherwise you might read about an english guy being rescued from the outback after running out of petrol!

Off to Melbourne tomorrow, gonna try to do the drive in 1 day, its about 800km....to help I'm going to drink a lot of beer tonight and go partying....should do the job!

Here are the pics I promised the other day!



Look at the name of the club official!



The left side of the beach



The right side of the beach!



There was a boat race going on, all the colourful sails looked great!

I can see for miles!

Yesterday I went to Sydney Tower with a couple of my Italian friends, Edoardo and Simoni. The tower is about 325 meters tall and you can see all the way to the Blue Mountains on a clear day! The 360 degree views were amazing (see pix).

Spent the rest of the day cutting up bits of foam for the bed in the car, finishing it off with an old sheet the hostel gave me....which is unfortunately pink....anyway, at least I can sleep in the car for free now!

2 days to go 'til I drive to Melbourne....!



The target - Sydney Tower



The football stadium and cricket ground



We could see all the way back to Manly!



Darling Harbour

One Man's Junk is Another Man's Treasure........

Yesterday was a funny day!

Every month each suburb in Sydney has a day where the council will come and collect any large items of junk that people want to throw away, such as tables, cabinets, beds etc.

So, the perfect opportunity to find a mattress for the back of the car! Me and my friend Edoardo jumped in the car and went hunting for mattresses. In the rich areas it is amazing what people throw away.....we saw a pool table, lots of working TVs, a mattress that was still in the wrapper (too big for the car unfortunately), an exercise bike and lots of other random stuff!

We ended up taking a foam mattress which is great cos I can fold it up when I need to put the seats up and its the perfect size. We also couldn’t resist taking some other stuff.....my car was full to the brim with 4 garden chairs, a novelty sized ship, 3 pairs of skis + ski boots, 2 computers, a football, a small coffee table, plates, mugs, cutlery, a children’s bike and a big plastic penguin........

Today I bought a stove and a water tank so I'm pretty much good to go. I leave for Melbourne on Sunday with 2 Swedes, Markus and Filip. Will be good to see some new places and even better to surf some new beaches!

She's A Beaut!

The search for a car has finally ended! After looking at endless pieces of junk I luckily found a great car for a small amount of money! Its a 1988 Holden Commodore station wagon, automatic, with a 3.8 litre V6 engine (!). The engine is in good condition according to my mechanic friend and its only done 106,000km! In comparison, the last one I looked at was a year newer, had done 417,000km, was on sale for $3000 and had bits falling off it!

I paid a mere $650 for the car (about 250 quid!) and had to REGO it (insurance and tax), which cost about $600 so in total it cost me about $1300 (500 quid)! The pictures below don’t really show the sheer size of the thing. With the seats folded down you can easily sleep 2 in the back, probably 3, and there is a roof rack for the surf boards!

I worked my last day for the air con people yesterday and I've got a weeks rent paid up, so I'm gonna spend the week getting stuff for the car (double mattress, stove, water tank etc.) and seeing the bits of Sydney that I haven't done yet and then I'm off down to Melbourne! A couple of guys from the hostel are coming too so the driving wont be too boring either!

Next time I write I will probably be heading off, can't wait!



The car!



So much space....the car also randomly included a folding chair and two yoga mats....just what I need!

Happy New Year!!!!!

Still not used to the fact that its 2007, its not cold enough!

New years eve was great fun! We went over to the city so we could see the fireworks in Sydney harbour. It was a bit of a mission getting a ferry over but even more of a mission finding a good spot in the Botanic Gardens.....We left at 11 in the morning, got over to the city about 12ish, then joined the back of the biggest queue I've ever seen....The queue was to enter a part of the gardens called Mrs Macquaries Point which sticks out in front of the harbour and gives a perfect view of all the fireworks. After about 2 hours we finally got in and found a good spot. We then realised that the first fireworks (there was a show at 9pm and midnight) weren’t for about 6 hours and there wasn't actually much to do.....so we got on the drinking!

The 9pm show was pretty spectacular but the midnight show was amazing! There were fireworks on the opera house, the harbour bridge and numerous buildings along the city skyline.....its easily the best fireworks show I've ever seen!

Surprisingly, I managed to get a couple of good videos of the fireworks even though I was lashed....I'll upload them as soon as I can get them off my camera!

Hope everyone had a good new years eve! Happy 2007!!





Went to the city the other day and got some quite cool pics of the city as the sun was going down



The harbour bridge



The Opera House



Everyone in the day!



Marion and Gina



The biggest queue EVER



Opera House fireworks!



On the bus back to Manly, what a night!