Next was our very exciting journey to Australia.
We arrived in Singapore and got to the hotel. I'd found this hotel online. It was the cheapest hotel that wasn't a complete dump. Had a bed, shower, TV and even WIFI. All was good! We didn't think to check out what there was to see in Singapore first so we got straight on the WIFI and did some speedy research.
The area we were staying in was apparently the red light district. YAY. As we read on..."the houses with the big red numbers are brothels". We looked out our window and oop what do you know?! We were right opposite a brothel.
We made our way into the city centre where we saw the Sands Towers, walked around the harbour, saw the Raffles hotel, in which I bought a $25 cocktail. Yes Singapore is not cheap, but obviously that's outrageous for a cocktail. It was an official Singapore Sling. The Long Bar in the Raffles Hotel is where it was invented apparently so I had to get one for photo purposes.
The next day we were boarding the plane, got to our seat and looked to our left. Dave was pretty much next to us! Weird! After a movie filled 7 hour flight we arrived in Australia. The holiday had begun! I was in high spirits as I approached customs! "Australia is awesome" "Australians are cool" "Life is great". Then I met him.
The ugliest man I had ever seen. Fat, one eyed, bald. Ok maybe I could be overreacting, but this guy was so mean to me. I had put my customs card in my mouth for about 3 seconds because I had no hands to sort my 3 bags out. I suddenly heard an "excuse me miss, can you take the card out of your mouth, that how germs get transferred."
I apologized but that obviously wasn't enough for the knob head. Next thing I hear is him shouting across the airport to the guy I gave the card to "HEY MATT! SHE'S HAD THAT IN HER MOUTH YOU NEED TO GO AND WASH YOUR HANDS".
This would be funny if he was joking. But he was not. He basically said that I have shit in my mouth. DICK.
So that wasn't a great first impression but somehow I got past it. We got to the hostel. The famous BASE hostel in the centre of Sydney. I gave our room 3/10. There were no plugs! What's that about? The 3 points were for the fact that they had beds in the room. Here we hired the camper van that was to be our house AND burden for the next 2 weeks!
But before I move onto the van I will briefly go over Sydney. We went out for Paddy's Stag Do. Yes I know I'm a girl but I talked about boobs and fanny as good as the others. It was a fun night. We ended up in a weird bar that was full of slot machines...AND BIG BUCK HUNT! Oh how I've missed you. The days on the Winston Churchill came rushing back to me. Of course I had not lost my game. I totally beat Paddy!! And to make it better BIG BUCK HUNT is in every single Australia bar. YES.
We saw the sights of Sydney, spent a day in the gay area, and spent ALOT of money. I was told Australia is expensive but I didn't realise just how expensive. Scooners (not even a pint) of beer cost approx $7. I got a Vodka and Coke for $10.
So a few days later we started our journey to Bundanoon. It was only around 2 hours away and we got there without a problem. The house we were staying in WAS AWESOME! 5 bedrooms, massive living room and kitchen and balcony. The guy who rented it out was awesome! He took me and Dave for a walk to an amazing spot and also let us stay another night for free! Thank god as we were all hungover from the wedding!
Patrick and Carolyn! So beautiful!!
So the wedding! IT WAS AMAZING, not only visually but the whole day was just lovely! The ceremony was beautiful then as we waited for the important people to have photographs us other guest were left with cheese, crackers and brownies! JACKPOT! The important people then arrived and the party started. We all had places where we had to sit and to my horror I realised I wasn't sitting with Matt. I didn't know anyone! I was going to have to make friends quick! And after one bottle of wine I had managed to make friends with everyone on the table, even if they didn't want my friendship. Another awesome thing was that the wedding had a props table. The theme was 1930's so everybody had a lot of fun trying on the fake moustaches and hats. They made for some pretty interesting photographs!
The wedding finished at about 10pm, but of course for us binge drinkers we needed to carry on the party. We collected up all the half full bottles of wine off of the tables like massive pikeys and we went on our merry way. I caved at about 3am but the boys went on till around 5. The next day was not too pretty.
The day after, we left the house and made our way to the capital city. Canberra's ok. Not much really going on. Nice shops, bars and museums. Massive lake. We only spent one day there before continuing on our journey to the Great Ocean Road. We were driving for around 6 hours before stumbling upon a little town named Benalla. This was Dave's favourite.
Benalla was basically the town from The League Of Gentlemen. We parked up in a car park in what supposed to be the town centre. We decided we would sleep here for the night. Matt and I went out to search for a shop, leaving Dave alone in the van. We found that nothing was open. It was 9pm and nothing was open. Finally we saw a Woolworths (which in Aus is a supermarket), stocked up on red wine and went back to the van.
Halfway into a bottle of wine an air raid siren started up, scaring the absolute shite out of us! We still to this day do not know what it was for. Was there an air raid? Flood? Or maybe the weird townsfolk were all awakening from their coffins because the siren signified dinner time. I don't know but we weren't going to hang around to find out. We left pretty sharpish and stopped at a service station for the night.
The next day we drove 4 hours to get the Great Ocean Road. We didn't pick the best day to drive it as it rained. Also I drove the entire road to the hostel and I was pooing my pants! The road was constantly winding with an epic drop to the left side or the van. As is got darker I became more aware that I was driving a camper van on a dangerous road. And to make it better there were signs for kangaroos everywhere. That would have been all I needed!
Turning a corner, an animal walked out in front of my van. I have no idea what it was but it definitely wasn't a kangaroo thank god! At first I thought I'd missed it because I had slowed down to a speed where it could walk behind the front wheels. Thinking it was safe I sped up slightly and then 'crunch'. Oops.
The Great Ocean Road is AWESOME. We visited the 12 apostles, which are 8 columns of rock. They were made by the sea eroding the cliff over many years. There are only 8 because 4 have fallen down over time. The next stop was Loch Ard Gorge. This is an area where 2 people famously survived a shipwreck. The man washed up on the shore of the gorge and as he was building a fire he heard women’s screams. He swam to where she was and pulled her to safety. There is no happy ending love story here though. They went their separate ways and probably never spoke again.
The next day it was time to head for Melbourne. We stayed in a place called The Coffee Palace in a town just outside the city centre called St Kilda. It was a very arty/studenty hostel, which was a lot of fun. The first evening I walked down to the pier to see the penguins. YES I said penguins. If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Melbourne's on the south coast and next stop south is Antarctica! They were so cute! They live in the rocks and go out swimming all day then return home at dusk. It was so cool!!
Matt thought it was hilarious that he got a picture of two penguins having sex.
The following day, Matt was too hungover to eat speak so me and Dave moseyed on down to Melbourne city centre. I much prefer it to Sydney. Very relaxed, again pretty arty. If Covent Garden was going to be a city, I think it would look like this. Dave and I didn't do much, just walked around taking photographs. We did watch a street performer for a while who was constantly taking the piss out of peoples clothes whilst standing on 5 bins piled on top of each other and having machetes thrown to him by an 8 year old kid. Weird!
Matt finally emerged from his coma and we went out again that night. And that's when it ended with me getting a $10 vodka and coke! That was definitely the end of that night!
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