the MCG

Hmmmmmm. Well lets not talk about the result...

But Melbourne is a pretty cool place. The CBD isn't the most exciting of places, but we stayed in an area to the north called Fitzroy in a converted Nunnery, called funnily enough, the Nunnery. Very eclectic place, full of old pews and a huge cat called Brother Francis. We also went down to St Kilda, home of the famous (if you've watched Neighbours) Luna Park, where I managed to talk Rach onto the roller coaster.



A cheesy smile - and the entrance is pretty bad too...

The MCG itself is amazing, and it wasn't even full at 79,400. The crowd were in great form, although a few of the Aussies at the end of it were getting annoyed at the Barmy Army as the Aussies only have 'Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi as a chant and I think they were jealous!



The Aussies in at Bat

The police weren't playing along though, they hauled out a 12 year old kid for blowing up a beach ball amongst other things... To say they're killjoys is under emphasising it.

So we're back in Sydney now. We were going to go up to the Northern Beaches, but the weather is rubbish (yes, you can all laugh if you want, but I refer you back to my previous post and Christmas lunch...) so we're not sure what we're going to do tomorrow, but NYE is slowly being planned. Apparently it's the 75th birthday of the Bridge, so it's an extra special firework show this year.



Taken on finals to Sydney this afternoon.

Some stats

Number of trams ridden on in Melbourne - 4
Number of Neighbours cast seen - Disappointing 0

Sydney (Part III - Christmas Day)

The view for Christmas Lunch



The Lunch and participants

Sydney (again)

We've moved on alot since Noosa and we've not had that many chances to update the blogs. Internet access here in Oz is pretty bad to be honest, not as available/user friendly as SE Asia...

Anyways, from Noosa, we moved onto Brisbane, via Australia Zoo (Crikey!) which was pretty cool. The bird show and croc shows were really cool and we got to see a Koala Joey, which made Rach go all misty eyed...

We spent two nights in Brisbane and went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary where Rach and I got to meet Dudley the Koala at close quarters. He didn't seem too bothered and promptly fell asleep on both of us...

Since then we've stayed in Lennox Head, close to Byron Bay, which is stunning. It's also home to Cape Byron, the eastern most point of Australia. From the eastern most point on the cape we saw dolphins, turtles and rays swimming around just off shore.

We've also spent a night in Port Maquarie and Newcastle, before arriving back in Sydney this morning, where we've said goodbye to Paris (the Toyota Yaris) who's taken us down the coast.



Dudley obviously had a hard night out on the town the night before...

Some Stats

Distance Travelled in Paris - 3,775.3 km (2359 miles)
Number of Koalas seen in wildlife parks - lots
Number of wild Koalas seen - zero (not through lack of trying)

Noosa

'Lets go surfing now'
'Everybody's learning now'
'Come on everybody with me'

his own island (Fraser Island)

We've just arrived in Noosa, having been on Fraser Island for three action packed days. I have had a rather childish wish to visit my own island for many a year now and I'm glad to say it outshone all my expectations.

For background, it's the worlds largest sand island at 125 km in length (including a 75 mile long beach!) and is the only place in the world that has a rainforest growning in sand. There are a few ways of going over, with self-drive being the most popular, but we went for a guided tour as it worked out about the same price but with no tents... So off we went in a 10 tonne 4x4 truck with the craziest ranger guide imaginable - a cross between Steve Irwin and Shane Warne and Michael Schumacher. At more than one point the only thing stopping me from hitting the roof was my seatbelt.

The first day included lots of walks through the rainforest and swimming in lakes with the purest water in the world. And then it rained (first time we've been in a rainforest and its been raining actually)

Second day included a very long drive at high speed along 75 mile beach, a visit to a cool shipwreak, swimming in rock pools with the waves crashing over us and a flight on Air Fraser Island (it really exists!) This was a bit of a spur of the moment decision and started off as a nice sightseeing flight. We were soon joined in close formation by another Air Fraser Island 'plane, which was very cool. At this point the pilot asked if we had our seatbelts on before racking us into a 90 degree right bank (the plane was on its side) and diving down to buzz our bus at 3 metres (9 feet) and 150 mph. This was then followed by a 2 G pull up (not that bad) and a zero G bunt over the top. No wonder they don't serve any inflight food...

Finally on the third day we walked 1 mile across some sand dunes and bodyboarded down said dunes into a lake. I was very sad to leave to say the least :(

Some Stats

Number of Dingos seen - 2
Number of sharks seen - 1
Number of swims in said shark infested water - 1

The Whitsundays

(Although we've already left!)

We spent a day on Maxi Ragamuffin - a 22 metre ex-racing yacht crusing through the Whitsunday islands. We only did a day as we're slightly pushed for time and also the thought of staying on a racing yacht might be nice, but there's not much room on them, so we went for a one day sail.

We sailed up to Hayman Island, apparently one of the most exclusive resorts on the planet, and went snorkelling in Blue Pearl Bay. Saw some more Nemo fish and some incredible 4 foot wrasse fish (which scared the hell out of us when they first came into vision). Apparently some people found a turtle to snorkel with, but we didn't find it. We did see one later on, just before we set sail back to Airlie Beach. The wind got up on the way back and the crew developed evil smiles on their faces, as it meant that they could properly hoist the mainsails, which we were all roped (bad pun) into. Rach hoisted the main sail and I had to lower the jib at the end of the trip. With the sails up the boat leant over to the deck, which was quite disconcerting to start with, but then the crew were saying that they've had half the boat in the water so there was no danger of the thing capsizing.

We've also passed through Rockhampton, learning to throw a boomerang in the process and getting a kilo of steak for $10! We're now in Hervey Bay, waiting to go to my island tomorrow (Fraser Island)

No piccies as once again, you can't upload anything on the computers we're using, sorry.

Some stats

Number of Turtles seen - 2 (Not clear if teenaged or indeed mutant)
Number of km's driven so far - 2150

Far North Queensland

A quick update as I've got 12 minutes online...

From Cairns we travelled north to Port Douglas, a really nice little place full of very expensive resorts and a nice backpackers place called 'Dougies'.

We wandered up towards Cape Tribulation (called that as it's where Captain Cook's problems started) to go through some more Rainforest (leech free). We then spent an afternoon feeding Kangaroos, Wallabies, Emus and Ducks. Rach also got to get up close to Riley the Koala, which made her very happy (Rach - not sure about the Koala - photos to follow at some point)

We're now in Mission Beach, South of Cairns and have spent the day on Dunk Island, a very exclusive resort, which we caught the boat to for the day. Nice though!

We're off to Airlie Beach and the Witsundays next, with a sailing trip on a Maxi racing boat already arranged.

Some Stats

Number of Kanagroos fed - 1
Number of Emus fed - 1
Number of Wallabies fed - 2