So I'm now on the second stage of my trip, where I do it on my own and in countries that are quite a bit more established  >: )

So far it's been a pleasure to be left alone to walk along the street and enjoy the Opera house without someone trying to sell me something!

I spent the first 3 days at Manly, where I stayed nearly 5 years ago during my gap year in 2002. It's scary to think nearly 5 years have passed since then, but that's life. The pic below is of Manly beach, which taking into account that it's a couple of miles from Sydney's CBD, is quite impressive. It beats swimming in the Thames, that's for sure.

I pretty much decided to put Australia into my itinery specifically for New Year's Eve; I love the country, but felt I should spend more time elsewhere. As a result, I'm here for 2 and a half weeks; a week in Sydney and a week in Melbourne, with travel time between the two in the middle. This is enough to see a city however and it really is one of the best I've ever been too. The setting is of the largest harbour in the world and as the picture from the tallest tower in Sydney shows below, it really is impressive.

After Manly, I made my way to central Sydney and met a mate (Malick), who was over for the Ashes series. We didn't do a great deal to be honest, although we did have a meal or two at Darling Harbour however, which is pretty special at night as the picture below indicates:





New Years Eve was spectacular and the video footage I have of it, gives you an idea if you ever see it. I was near the Habour Bridge in the middle of a huge street party, where small lorries had whopping sound systems blasting the crowds with trance music. Everyone was in shorts and T-Shirts pretty much, although it wasn't anywhere near as hot as last year (42 degrees), as we were often told. The pic below shows the crowds at midnight and the bridge just starting a fireworks blast in the background.

It's also quite nice to get some excellent shots of the Opera House and Habour Bridge while I was in the area, which really are impressive landmarks for the city as shown below >: )

The next part of my trip in Aussie was catching a bus down to Melbourne. It can be done in about 8 hours at a push, but the bus I took was more of a tour and took 4 days. It takes a more scenic route through the countryside along the way and even gave us the pleasure of visiting Canberra, Australia's capital. It is quite possibly the most boring place (Capital city at least) in the world. I have NOTHING else to say about it.

We did a few walks through rainforest and up to the highest point in Australia as shown below (We were too lazy to go right to the top but we were there or there abouts  >: )

That isn't just low clouds you can see, but mostly smoke from the bush fires everywhere:

We got up early everyday, but this time it was for a nice reason; to see some Kagaroos in their natural habitat. When European settlers arrived, they asked the Aboriginees what they (the bouncing animals) were. The Aboriginees replied "Kangaroo", but Kangaroo meant, "I don't understand" which wasn't realised until years later.




When we arrived at Melbourne, we were pleased to feel as though we could quite easily live there. It seemed to have more depth to it compared to Sydney and the people were particularly friendly and helpful. We stayed in a place called St Kilda, which is by the beach and popular with backpackers, but the city centre itself is also excellent. The pic below gives you an idea of how nice it is:




With a couple of mates I met on the bus from Sydney (Chris and Paul), we managed to get tickets to the one day International Cricket. The stadium (MCG) could hold 100,000 people and had an excellent atmosphere on the day. A lot more happens in the one day Cricket matches so we saw a fair few wickets fall (but then don't you always when watching England play?).




You can't visit Mebourne and not visit Ramsey Street, a.k.a the home of Neighbours. The pic below is of me standing outside the house of Karl and Susan Kennedy >: )


It's actually a real street that people live in and isn't called Ramsey street.




You may also remember the children's TV program 'Round The Twist'? The pic of the lighthouse below is from that:




We saw that lighthouse while doing 'The Great Ocean Road', which is probably self explanitory. There is a fair amount of scenery that's worth a pic or two, but the one below has the best story.

The little island used to be connected to the mainland by way of a bridge, until an eventful day in January 1990. A number of visitors were enjoying their day walking across the bridge and enjoying the view, when a bloke noticed bits breaking off and falling into the water. He was a bit of a hero, shouting to everyone to get back across the bridge, as it was likely to colapse any second. The bridge colapsed and although no one died, two people were left stuck on the remaining island. The coastguards were alerted, but decided that they wouldn't rush with their helicopter, due to other matters taking priority, (the two people weren't going to die so it was no emergency).

This casual attitude meant the media and their own helicopters arrived before the rescue team, to catch it all on live TV. Strangely, the two people left stranded covered their faces when the helicopters got close, with a clear effort to discuse their identity. It turned out that although the man and women in question were married, it wasn't actually to each other, which made the media's interest a little inconvenient for their affair. Karma, I think they call it >: )






So that's the end of this particularly long post. Sorry it's been quite dull, but I haven't injured myself lately or caught food poisoning. I'll make sure the posting for New Zealand has a few funny tales  >: )