Going to Sydney for New Year

Travelled in a mini-convoy (OK, 2 cars) all day to Sydney, Caz bravely driving through a torrential rain storm, although she whimpered a lot. Neil and Chris were clearly riveted by our witty conversation!

For new years eve we went to the rocks where we had a view of the harbour, the bridge and the opera house for the huge frieworks display at midnight. It had a slight edge over the Bonfire Night fireworks at Buxton cricket club! It was much better than the pictures!

Xmas in Oz

Luckily for us, we're staying at Cat's house over xmas. Its great to get out of the hostels and enjoy the space and comfort of a big Neighbours-style house for a bit. Best of all, we've met up with old friends Cat, Kate, Heather and Chris and made a new ones in Paul and Helen, who live here as well. Went on a massive food and booze shopping spree and had Mr Bump crammed full of goodies. Caz and the girls went on a belly-busting chocolate shop trip and we stopped by at Ramsey Street for a nose around, just before a huge rainstorm.

Xmas day itself was a pretty English day: cold outside, grey skies, rain and hail. No chance of a hot barbie on the beach here! They say it even snowed up in the mountains... So we stayed inside and cooked up a good old xmas dinner, with a bit of kangaroo thrown in for a bit of Aussie flavour.

Boxing day was spoiled a fair bit by another miserable England performance in the cricket. We're going to watch day 3 & 4 so we're hoping for an England fightback, but we might end up drowning our sorrows instead...

Melbourne (28 Nov - xmas)

Did a Cannonball Run from Coober Pedy to Adelaide, had a sleep in Adelaide and got to Melbourne in time to pick up Caroline's friend Kate from the airport. Hi Kate! Poor Mr Bump was feeling a bit poorly by now. After a few days sightseeing Caroline and Kate took off for a holiday up the east cost, which I'll leave Caz to elaborate on later.

This left me (Rory) to get a job and fix up Mr Bump, both of which have met with mixed success. Job-finding effort was hindered by having to watch England get beat at the cricket. Besides a bit of flyering and putting up posters for the hostel, I did a couple of days labouring that were the hardest days work of my life. (Worse than courgette picking or a 19hr human resources/Courtyard slog). It was in an ex-curry house / soon-to-be trendy bar; me and Niall had to smash up brick walls with a sledgehammer and carry all the rubble down a narrow staircase to a skip. By the end of the day we had hit the wall in every sense and got a heap of sunburn and blisters in return for pretty miserly pay. As for poor old Mr Bump, he's had a bit of tender love and care from a mechanic and he should be ready for his next challenge.

Anyway, on a brighter note, Melbourne's a pretty entertaining city, a bit of a culture shock after the outback for me! I'm sure to get round to see some of the sights sooner or later, but in the meantime I've been happy to visit St Kilda and the beach and wander the city streets. Also saw a weird Aboriginal film at a really cool outdoor cinema in the park.

Coober Pedy and the calamitous Mr Bump

After visiting Ayers Rock, we set off back on the main highway. It was hotter than we had ever experienced. We stopped at a roadhouse to check over Mr Bump and found that the radiator/engine coolant was leaking out of an old leaking pipe in the middle of the engine. This spelt trouble, as it would cost hundreds of dollars to get towed to the next town (200km away) and get it fixed. Luckily for us, a bloke driving a caravan came over to help and ended up spending 2hrs fixing the car up, with the aid of a bit of garden hose that we got off a man in the pub at the roadhouse. The bloke did it for free and didn't seem to mind keeping his wife and kids waiting until after dark.... amazing, he must have been our guardian angel or something!

Next day we headed tentatively on to Coober Pedy, a weird opal mining town in the driest, dustiest part of Oz. Most of the houses here are built underground, so naturally our backpacker's place had underground rooms that were amazingly cool. Visited an old timer's museum and saw that the old miners who worked here had a really harsh time. A very eccentric town: heaps of rubble, scrap metal, beat up old machinery and mine shafts all over the place - brilliant!

Before heading on, we'd got Mr Bump mended and we rather pleased with ourselves for making it so far. So, as fate would have it, only 20km out of Coober Pedy, we had a tyre blowout. A quick tyre change and another visit to a garage in Coober Pedy and we were back on the road again, but Mr Bump was quite out of sorts. We pushed on to Adelaide and made it before midnight, just in time for some free apple pie!

The Red Centre: Tennant Creek, Barrow Creek, Alice Springs and Uluru

The Northern Territory: Kakadu and Katherine