We spent Xmas day at Adam and Barbara's house, swimming in their pool and eating ridiculous amounts of food, followed by a potent combination of beer, gin, pimms and homemade vodka (although not all in the same glass). If you got a drunken phonecall from us on xmas morning, now you know why.
After xmas, we drove down to Byron Bay with Adam and the three of us spent a couple of days there, hanging out on the beach, eating, drinking and bodyboarding. Surprisingly, our cheapo Woolworths tent survived a big storm on the second night, although the boys were a bit more worried about the snake that had taken shelter in the gents toilets.
We flew straight to Sydney from the Gold Coast and met up with Bobbie and Stuart and their friends Claudio and Sally, also ex-Brightonians, who very kindly let us all stay in their flat in Maroubra for New Year. The six of us headed into town to see the fireworks over the harbour bridge and met up with lots of our friends from Brisbane who were also in town and, by coincidence, had decided on the same spot to watch the show. The fireworks were great but we then spent three drunken hours wandering around Sydney trying to get home. On New Year's day, we were too hungover to do anything except stumble to the beach for our first swim of 2009.
On Sunday we had fully recovered and met up again with Paul, Simon and Atul. After a proper breakfast of bacon, eggs and a skinny latte (yes, you Paul), we walked along the beach from Bondi to Coogee, stopping off for a swim at the end. On that evening's news we heard that these beaches had been closed later that day due to a shark sighting.
Our New Year's resolution was to leave Brisbane and move somewhere different for the rest of our time in Australia. However, despite liking Sydney's beaches, we weren't really that taken with the city itself, and so we decided to give Melbourne a try instead. With only one month left in Brisbane we tried to visit all of the local attractions that we had missed so far. We went to the Lone Pine koala sanctuary and had our photos taken with one of the fluffy little guys, and Graeme also got a photo of himself with two kangaroos getting it on - possibly the highlight of his trip so far.
For the Australia Day bank holiday weekend we decided to hire a 4wd again with Adam, Paul and Paul's friend Billy, and go camping near Rainbow Beach. Being Australia day, and baking hot, half of Brisbane had the same idea and the 15km stretch of beach was packed. In the late afternoon, about half of the people on the beach showed up to watch two utes burn themselves out after their fuel tanks dramatically exploded; rumour had it that the owners had been trying to siphon petrol onto their campfire.
The next day we awoke at 6am to find the sun pouring into our tent (which we had cleverly pitched facing east), accompanied by armies of random giant biting insects that looked like they came straight from a 1950's B movie. It was hot and we were in desperate need of a swim but our cossies were locked in the car and no one knew where we had put the keys, so we decided to go bodyboarding in our pyjamas. After locating the car keys (in Debbie's handbag) we spent the rest of the day fanging around Rainbow beach, stopping for a last swim in the sea before heading back to Brisbane. Just after getting in the water, Graeme was swept off his feet by a huge wave and suddenly sucked out to sea by a rip tide. Luckily, after a minute the rip had taken him sideways to a shallower area where he could reach the floor again and walk back to shore. From now on, we are only going to swim between the flags!
We celebrated our last night in Brisbane with a BBQ at the house in Kelvin Grove. James and Dave had returned from Africa, and had invited some other friends, including Wookie, who we had also met back in Central American trip, and we worked our way through two crates of beer and played Guitar Hero Rock Band all night. We were so hungover for our flight the next morning that we accidentally packed a penknife in our hand luggage and Debbie looked so rough she was selected for 'random' explosives testing (damn, I knew I should have shaved my beard off!).
Since arriving in Melbourne we have managed to find a big, clean room which admittedly looks like it hasn't been decorated since the 70's, and we are looking for temp work. We have also been to see Rusko DJ in a club made from old shipping containers. Melbourne is currently in the middle of a heatwave and it was 46 degrees yesterday. The government is warning people to stay indoors. Screw that - we're off to the beach!
