Bondi Rescue!

Once I’d had enough of the city I took the bus to Bondi to stay in Surfside Backpackers. The great thing about staying in Bondi is that you have the best of both worlds- you can go to the beach but you can also take a 30 minute bus ride into the city. And it doesn’t have the problem of having to get a ferry like Manly does. The beach itself looks a lot smaller than it does on television; some people scoff at it being too touristy, but I’m a tourist and I loved it. The white sandy cove has a pavilion with juice bars, toilets and restaurants for the tourists, and often you’ll see them filming Bondi Beach Rescue. On my first day in Bondi I was lying down basking in the heat when all of a sudden there was a big commotion. “SHARK ATTACK” I heard someone say as thousands of holidaymakers and Sydneysiders ran across the beach to see what the fuss was about. A big crowd was gathered round the lifeguard’s tent along with TV cameras and sound-men and I was so curious I ran over too. As I peered over people’s shoulders I expected to see a bloody bitten off leg or someone passed out from a jellyfish sting, but instead there was a small stubby little man wearing a mankini. Yes people will do anything to get on Bondi Beach Rescue, and this guy was dressed as Borat. In Europe, exposure on a beach is no big deal, but in Australia of course he was escorted immediately off the beach by officials because of his indecent exposure. Bondi is a great place to watch the beautiful people on the beach, or take a stroll and look in the surf shops or buy some jewellery in the Bondi Markets. The big thing to do in the day is do the walk from Bondi Beach to Coogee which takes about 2 miles and is about 7km. The walk takes you to the smaller coves of Tamarama Beach and Bronte and then through a cemetery oddly enough right on the coastline. Is it me or does that seem even freakier to have a cemetery on a clifftop next to the sea? It wasn’t something I expected on my walk but I suppose If you died you might want to always have a view of the sea. I must say there were some ornate monstrocities- people with family vaults and tombs, with too much money if you ask me. I felt sorry for the poor buggers with the average tombstones laying next to someone with a gold statue and a vault. The walk then takes you to Clovelly and Gordons Bay, and finally Coogee where you’ll want to pass out from the heat and probably get the bus back. That’s what I did.

There’s not much to do at night in Bondi, you can go for a drink in Iceberg’s or Bondi Hotel, and there’s a cool bar on the corner called Ravesi’s, but everything tends to close rather early. So the main party is in the hostel and often it would spill out onto the beach. You can go on a night out in Bondi Junction though- I only did that once when the hostel had a free bus which took us to ‘The Gaff’ where we were plied with free drinks and I ended up dancing on the bar and joining a wet T-shirt competition. I did it for the money- they were offering $200 to the winner and I had taken no money out with me; all I wanted was $2 to get the bus home. My two Swedish roommates entered it with me and the rest is a blur- I remember us all being herded into this poky room and being handed a t-shirt and a pair of scissors- we were like pieces of meat going to the slaughter. I fashioned mine into what can only be described as a belt and we were plied with champagne to make us all a bit more slutty. I remember being paraded onto the stage and then looking down at literally a room full of men, ive never seen so many men in all my life. When we were announced by the DJ he asked Olivia what country she was from- “These girls are from Sweden!”. Well I didn’t dispute it with him, Sweden was definitely a better selling point than England.

I spent most of my days lazing around on the beach in the sunshine, and drinking goon in the hostel at night. Surfside is just one of those hostels that you can never leave and where you’ll make the bestest friends you ever had. It’s been known for people to stay there for months, and I think the drug dealer that they put up for free there has been around for a couple of years. I can’t really tell because he’s so messed up you can’t really tell what he’s saying. I’ve read some pretty bad reviews about it online, and I’d heard one or two stories about people paying and then having seen their room walking straight back out again, but you don’t stay in Surfside for the luxury. You stay in Surfside for the party. The hostel itself is on Hall Street just off the main drag, and you hardly notice it’s there because it’s down this little alleyway with a metal gate to keep the party off the street. Inside it’s got a surf theme with painted mermaid murals on the wall and the rooms are basic with a set of communal showers. They only have a small number of rooms on the one floor, but if they’re fully booked (which they usually are) they’ll usually let you sleep in the TV room. Most of the time it’s pretty quiet in the day and then people come out to play at night, it gets pretty rowdy and I feel sorry for the person who has to clean up our shit. It looks like there’s been a goon bag massacre at 2am when everyone’s cleared off to the beach.

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Sydney in a Day (It'll Cost You Nothing)

It’s reasonably cheap to get from Sydney airport to the centre- I took the Skytrain which cost $15 one way but you can get a taxi quite cheaply too. I was staying at Base which is a few steps from the Town Hall and probably the most central hostel. Base as it turns out is a chain of hostels, and partly for that reason I’m not too keen on them. They’re everywhere up the East Coast and in New Zealand, but they’re rather impersonal and you don’t meet people that easily.

I arrived at 8am in the morning but wasn’t allowed to check in till 2 o’clock so they told me I could leave my bag in the luggage room downstairs. There wasn’t a lift though and the lady on reception watched me struggle downstairs with my bag without an offer of a helping hand. So at 8am I set out to explore the city- my first stop was Darling Harbour where I sat with a coffee and enjoyed the early morning sunshine. It was such a peaceful part of the city and is a great place to watch the sun shimmer on the water and observe the shiny skyscraper skyline behind it. Around the harbour are lots of bars and restaurants, Cargo being the favourite club by night. There is also the Syndey Aquarium and the imax movie theatre, as well as Skycity the casino, which trust me you'll end up in when you run out of money at the end of your trip . I wandered over to the Chinese Garden of Friendship which is a small piece of tranquillity in a bustling city. The garden was intitiated by the local Chinese community to celebrate Australia’s 1988 bicentenaryis a scaled down version of a private garden from the Zhang Dynasty era 3000 years ago. It was designed and built by Chinese lanscape gardeners and architects and contains the four key elements of fire, water, plants, stone and architecture. The landscapes feature waterfalls, mountains, lakes and forests. If you have some time, why not stop for some chinese tea and a spot of lunch in the cafe there.


I walked up past the Town Hall towards Hyde Park and the Botanical Gardens. Hyde Park is Sydney’s central open green space and was actually named after Hyde Park in London and was originally a racecourse and sporting ground. The tranquil setting is popular among office workers who want some fresh air, and time out from the concrete jungle. The central pathway links the Archibald Fountain and the War Memorial. The War Memorial is a 1934 art deco tribute to the Anzac soldiers who fell in the first world war. The memorial stands 30 metres above the pool of rememberance and there is a photograph exhibition underneath the building. My favourite place to relax is the Royal Botanical Gardens, which were first established in 1816 and are home to over a million specimens of plants and flowers.


I made my way down Macquarie Street to the famous Opera House and since my tummy was rumbling I decided to stop for a sandwich. "I'll have the ham salad" I said, thinking I would receive a ham sandwich with a little bit of lettuce and a slice of tomato. "Do you want everything? She replied. Well I watched in amusement as she piled betroot, carrot, lettuce, tomato and cucumber into my sandwich and piled it like it was a doorstop. It turns out the Aussies love their betroot and shredded carrot and they are the two staple ingredients of all sandwiches and salads.

Like many things in Australia the Opera House looked smaller in real life, but it looked beautiful against the bright blue sky with the sun reflecting off the many ‘shells’ covered in glazed off white tiles. It was in fact designed by Jorn Utzon from Denmark and its construction became almost as controversial as the design. In 1956 the New South Wales Government announced an open-ended international design competition and appointed an independent jury. The competition aimed to attract the best design talent in the world so didn't specify design parameters or set a cost limit. The main requirement of the brief was a design for two performance halls, one for opera and one for symphony concerts. Supposedly rescued from a pile of discarded submissions, Jørn Utzon’s winning entry created great interest and the NSW Government’s decision to commission Utzon as the sole architect was an unexpected and bold move.

After admiring the opera house and joining the throngs of people in taking hundreds of photos of the same thing, I walked along circular quay and up towards The Rocks. Australia doesn’t have much in the way of history, but the Rocks is where Sydney first began. In 1788, Australia's first European settlers-British convicts (POMs) and their overseers-claimed the land and built their camp atop the sandstone cliffs.

The Rocks eventually grew from an open-air gaol into a vibrant port community. It's a village which has a colourful past-filled with tales of rough gangs and gritty life can still be traced in the many surviving buildings from the last two centuries. But today the renovated former warehouses, sailors' homes, and dens of iniquity house a unique mixture of fine restaurants, boutique shops, and galleries. Cadmans Cottage, built in 1816, is the oldest surviving residential building in Sydney and was occupied by Governor Macquarie's coxswain, John Cadman and his family. It was an official building associated with the surrounding government wharves and shipyard. The water police took over Cadmans cottage in 1847 and later it was used by the adjacent sailors home. Restoration began in 1972.

Walking around Sydney is the best way to do it, and if your legs aren't too tired try walking past the Opera House and round the bay to Mrs Macquarie's chair. From here you'll get the best view of Sydney, with the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House in the same shot. This chair was carved out of a rock for Governor Lachlan Macquarie's wife as she was known to go and sit in this spot to enjoy a panoramic view of the harbour. Aussies are really into keeping fit and you'll see .

So in one day, by 3pm I had seen all the most important sights Sydney has to offer. Now all that was left to do was party. Base has a bar attached to it called Scary Canary and it was ladies night. Ladies night is the most biased night known to man, but I wasn't complaining. Within one hour I managed to drink 5 'champagne' and raspberry cordials and shut the door on my finger in the bathroom. I now have a nice black mark on my fingernail to prove it. An invention in Australia that hasn't quite made it to any other country I have been to yet is the Buzzer Device Thingy. When you order your food you get a Buzzer Device Thingy which you rest on your table and wait for it to buzz and light up. It's a nerve racking experience waiting for it to buzz and flash- you know it's going to do it but you don't know when. You stare at it like you do when you're waiting for your phone to ring, but when it finally does buzz you jump up with fright. It gets you every time. When The Buzzer Device Thingy buzzes and flashes you have to go an collect your food from the kitchen window, which I think is a rather lazy service, but I suppose it saves them from having to pay waiters and waitresses.
When I lay in my 6-bed dorm trying to get to sleep, someone suddenly started talking in Swedish. It took me a few minutes to realise that the girl below me was in fact talking in her sleep, whats more she was grinding her teeth and clutching a teddy bear; it was like she was possessed. Suddenly the German sat bolt upright. "Das ist gud" he said, before laying back down. Before long it was like a mexican wave of sleep talking in different languages. French, German, French again, Swedish, grinding of teeth, German again....they could have formed a band and had a hit single. It was ever so slightly creepy....

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Day 3: Kings Canyon and Heart Attack Hill

If enough people haven't already died from climbing Uluru, you can also have the opportunity to hit the bucket on Heart Attack Hill. We had to start the Kings Canyon walk very early in the morning to avoid the sizzling heat of the afternoon, and to get to the top you must climb this hill, which in fact is more like a mountain. Puffing and panting we climbed up the steps to see the breathtaking view over the canyon and Hello Kitty girl began to cry, it was just too much for her. Several people have had heart attacks as the name would suggest and our guide drummed into us for the millionth time, "You need this much water (pointing to a litre bottle) otherwise I won't let you go."

I was extremely peeved that I had to wear trainers- I'm a bare foot, even-if-you-get-glass-in-your-feet, kind of girl. I try to wear flip flops in winter in the UK and always regret it when I get muddy black water splashed up my leg. Azza said we had to wear closed shoes in case we stubbed our toe or something and the company was liable, then he would lose his job; stupid health and safety world we live in. So you can imagine how he flipped when he noticed one of the Japanese people wearing flip flops- another result of miscommunication. So by this point my feet were so sore and so blistered I wanted to rip my shoes off- I would have gladly paid the Japanese boy to remove his shoes and let me walk around with size 9 boats on my feet.

Once we were at the top the walk was pretty easy and we enjoyed the breathtaking view from the top into the valley below. I was a bit grumpy because of my enclosed feet and didn't really feel like having a photo posing awkwardly, but the Germans insisted "You have to make a photo, come on, stand there...."

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Big Rock Tour: To climb or not to climb?

Today was Big Rock day. A day devoted entirely to Uluru. At the ungodly hour of 4am we all packed away our sleeping bags and stumbled around in the dark to the bus to go and watch the sunrise over Uluru. Although not as mesmerising as the sunset because essentially it just gets lighter and lighter, it was still spectacular to see this big rock in all its glory. In the freezing cold I 'made lots of photos' with the Germans and watched as the big rock came to life.

When you visit Ayers Rock you will be faced with a very difficult dilemma, to climb or not to climb. The aborigines prefer it if you don't climb- it would be like climbing on a church roof for a Christian. I would personally reccommend you don't climb out of respect for their beliefs, but I must say it is ever so tempting to see the view from the top. It's not for the faint hearted though, our guide told us you must be exceptionally fit. If anyone was still thinking of climbing it they were soon put off. "Around 35 people have died climbing it" our guide Azza said. Some people have had heart attacks and died and some have just simply fallen off. It's a steep climb and you have a rope to help pull you up. It's even more tempting to climb when you are told that the climb is barely ever open- if there's the slightest bit of wind or bad weather they don't open it. Azza informed us that that the last 20 times he had been there the climb had only been open once. "If anyone wants to do the climb you stay on the bus, if not then come with me."


So we did the base walk instead, which is actually just as satisfying. It takes around 2 hours to walk around the base and in the heat that is plenty. I wasn't prepared for how lush and green the base was, I had imagined it to be this big red dusty rock that rises from the ground, but in fact there are lots of trees and shrubs which makes it more beautiful. There are specific 'mens' and 'womens' areas as you walk around the rock; aboriginal men aren't allowed to visit the women's sites and vice versa. There are also sacred areas where you aren't allowed to take photos and if you do there is a hefty fine from the park ranger. It became a subject of much debate as there are no sign-posts to tell you where one sacred site ends and another begins. It became a matter of guess work as tourists tried to decide where they could and couldn't take photos. Up close the rock looks quite different, with large craters as if someone has taken a big bite out of it. It became clear that there had been some misunderstanding with the Japanese tourists. About half way round the walk one of them said to me, "Is this where we do the climb?" I told her that you were supposed to stay on the bus if you wanted to do the climb "Oh, we wanted to do the climb but we thought he said you get off the bus." It was probably a good job they had misunderstood. When I saw people coming down with big grins on their faces holding their thumbs up it really did seem so disrespectful- any educated person would no that you don't trample all over people's beliefs.

The cultural centre contains lots of information about the aborginal 'dreamtime' stories but what is most fascinating is the 'sorry' book- a book filled with hundreds upon hundreds of letters from people saying how sorry they are that they climbed on the rock or that they took rocks from it. There are countless stories of people who have had terrible luck after taking rocks from Uluru- deaths, cancer, illness, failed marriages....Below the book are rocks people have sent back in the hope that their luck will change.

After a while at the cultural centre we went back to the rock to do the Mala walk, where we were taken to various sites and told about aboriginal culture and customes. Our guide told us about the complicated tribal marriage laws amongst aborigines. Who they can marry depends on skin colour, and the complex system of skin colour groups determines who can marry whom. While it may be determined at birth who you would marry, love marriages were not uncommon as long as you married within the right skin group. It is taboo to marry within your own skin colour group. Like a typical girl, someone piped up "So was there ever a Romeo and Juliet story?" Well yes in fact, there was. Azza told us of two starcrossed lovers, who fled into the outback because tribal law forbid them to marry. For 40 years Warri and Yatungka lived in the bush off kangaroo meat and bush fruits. They lived a poor existence, but were happy and in love. In 1977, however, a severe drought meant they were close to starvation, and they had to leave. Tribal elders sent out a search party, and they eventually agreed to come back to town. However, they yearned for their nomadic existence, and in 1979 they died within weeks of each other.

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Big Rock Tour: Sunsets and flies!

At 6am, with a hangover from hell after my St Paddy's Day shennanigans, I jumped aboard the Adventure Tours Bus. People tend to think that Alice Springs is somehow quite close to the big rock, like how Americans think London is somehow close to Manchester, but in fact it takes several hours on a bus to get there. I immediately went straight to sleep as I usually do on all forms of transport (it's the gentle rocking motion that sends me to the land of nod), and when I woke up I got the distinct impression that everyone had been looking at me. I always feel quite violated when I realise that people have seen me sleeping with my mouth open, drooling. They look at you as if to say, you lazy bugger, you haven't been paying attention to anything. It appeared we were at a camel farm. I don't know whether it's just me, but on every single trip I ever go on we seem to be taken to a camel farm. They're gross animals really, but for some reason everyone's fascinated by them. It appeared I was on a bus with the whole of Japan, and they were the first ones to have a photo with the camels. Now you're probably thinking, camels aren't native to Australia, so why the hell would they take you to a camel farm? Well they were brought over in the 1800s because they suited the dry arid climate of the red interior for people to explore. Camel studs were then set up to breed camels, and they were used in the construction of the Overland Telegraph Line. Camels were used to transport goods in the dry areas, but with the introduction of motorised transport in the 1920s, the days of 'working camels' were numbered. Large herds of camels were released and they have established 'free range' herds in the semi-arid desert of Australia.

On the bus, I was next to this peculiar girl from Japan, who seemed to have purchased a fluffy, furry, toy camel backpack. Apart from that backpack, everything she owned was Hello Kitty. By this time we had all purchased these hilarious fly-nets that you have to wear to protect your face. They're sort of like net sacks for your head with an army print top and a tie around the bottom. They almost look like something you could suffocate with or perhaps you would wear if beekeeping. What a sight it was to see a bus load of people trying on their fly nets as if they were the latest fashion must-have.

After driving for several hours, just as I was in my comatosed state again, I was woken up with a jolt- there was a screeching of brakes and the bus swerved as it ground to a halt. "What the fuck was that?" Our driver, Aaron, jumped out of the bus and ran down the street. "What the hell is he doing??". I really did think he had gone mad, he was quite a grumpy soul and we thought he had maybe thought it was time to call it quits and run off. He summoned us to get off the bus. He was crouched down in the road holding something. "It's a thorny devil" he said "They're extremely rare." I don't know how the hell he spotted it in the middle of the road, it was barely the size of his hand. It had a camouflage body with thorns all over its body. I felt sorry for it as we simultaneously all got our cameras out and started snapping away at this thing we'd never heard of.

It really is quite mesemerising when you first catch a glimpse of the rock. You're driving along, with nothing ahead of you but road and shrubs, and then suddenly to the left you spot it in the distance, rising from the ground. We weren't going to the rock though, we were heading to the Olgas first, and everyone hung out the window taking blurry photos in case this was the only glimpse they would ever see of the magical rock. In many ways the Olgas or Kata Tjuta as you are supposed to call them, are more impressive than Uluru. This collection of giant red domes looks so impressive against the bright blue sky. The 36 domes are composed of conglomerate, a sedimentary rock consisting of cobbles and boulders of varying rock types including granite and basalt, cemented by sandstone.

We stopped to do the Valley of The Winds walk which takes around 1 and a half hours round-trip. One thing that will stick in everybody's minds about the Big Rock trip is the flies. The flies will literally try to drink from your nose and mouth. Don't even think about eating anything, as you will find yourself eating them. The fly nets work but they're quite uncomfortable in the heat and they do look rather silly in photos.

All this applies of course, unless you're me. Everyone was covered in flies, but for some reason they just didn't seem to like me. I know I should think myself lucky, but in fact I was quite insulted that they didn't. Am I not tasty enough?? I took my fly net off because I didn't want to wear it in the heat, and soon realised that I completely repelled the flies. I've never been bitten by mosquitoes either- I can walk through whole swarms of them and not get one single bite. Maybe I should be tested so they can invent a new brand of skin repellent.

Don't expect to be the only one's watching sunset at Uluru. When we arrived I was quite shocked at the number of people, tour buses and campervans parked up to watch the big event. Champagne glasses were klinking, camera flashes were going off everywhere, and elderly people had even set up their deck chairs and tressle tables. I must say it did take away a little of the speacialness of the event, but it was still a spectacular view and a spectacular sunset. It was awe inspiring to see the colour changes in the rock as the sun set, from a bright orange to a dark red, to a kind of purple colour with the horizon behind it displaying all the colours of the rainbow. We stood and drank our cheap 'champagne' from plastic mugs whilst the Germans insisted on 'making a photo' with me. You keep taking photos, egged on by everyone else, in the hope that you'll get the perfect shot. In fact when you look back at them on your digital camera you have a million different photos of the same bloody rock. "But this one's ever so slightly different" you tell yourself. I must say by the end of the tour I was all rocked-out. After the perfect end to a perfect day, we lay in 'swags' or aussie bedrolls under the stars.

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St Paddy's Day in Alice Springs

I knew I was going to like Alice Springs. I expected it to be like going back 50 years, with crocodile Dundee walking through a set of swing doors wearing a cork hat and starting a bar fight. I wanted to see the real outback- small town Australia complete with hay-chewing cowboys.

I flew into Alice Springs and all you could see for miles and miles was red dusty barren landscape- you couldn't imagine a civilisation in the middle of the outback. But then out of nowhere appeared this cluster of shiny silver buildings, like an alien colony on the surface of Mars. Alice looked so out of place it was surreal.

I had booked to stay with Alice Lodge Backpackers, but the main ones people seemed to stay in were Annie's Place, Toddy's and Haven. All the hostels offer a free shuttle service from the airport but don't be fooled into thinking you'll get a free ride back to the airport, it's usually about $10. Alice Lodge was one of the quieter hostels, but because this is the base for doing the 3 day Ayer's Rock tour, none of the hostels were particularly party places. The hostel had good facilities, with a swimming pool (essential in the outback heat), free internet (which is rare) and a kitchen with plenty of pots, pans and utensils and some free food (also rare). My room was clean and comfortable, although a little cramped, but they had decent mattresses and duvets, or doonas as the aussies like to call them. And it had hammocks, which is the main thing that matters to me.

I lounged in the 40 degree heat for a while in my hammock then took time in the afternoon to walk into town, which was about a 10 minute walk across the bridge over the dry river bed into the centre. Alice had warned me how backward Alice Springs is, but I was a little surprised as it had a Woolworths and a Coles which isn't very backward at all. It actually had some nice cafes and aboriginal art galleries. A lot of aborigines can be seen wandering around the streets, but the sad thing is many of them have lost their way in today's modern society and hang around on street corners drunk or on drugs. You always see big groups of them, and in aboriginal culture they share everything, so it is quite normal to see a group of them driving a car around town, then a different group driving the same car around town the next day.The car isn't your car, it's everybody's car.

It just so happened to be St Paddy's Day. It's a weird thing is St Paddy's Day, because even though it's an Irish holiday, it's not that much of a big deal in Ireland itself. Yet all over the world it is this one massive, boozed up drinking festival. Wherever you find an Irish pub in the world you will find people in massive hats drinking pints of guinness. I had even met people on my trip who had booked flights not realising it was St Paddy's Day, and after realising their fateful mistake, had to pay a fortune to change them. So on this great day me and an ex investment banker from Switzerland, and an Indian girl from Sweden who I met in the hostel, decided to head out to the only bar in Alice, Bojangles. Bo's, as it is affectionately called, may be the best bar in the world. It is far superior to all other bars I have ever been to and I'll tell you why. For a start it has real saloon style swing doors. I insisted on walking through them many times because of the sheer novelty. I couldn't decide whether the bouncers were employed to keep unwanted people out of the bar, or whether they were just employed to protect the doors.

Inside it's a weird mix of backpackers and aborigines, and the bar itself is absolutely bizarre, with boots hanging from the ceiling and a tank with real live snakes in it. There's even a coffin which says on it 'How much to touch Ned's Nuts?'. You open the door and inside is a knight wearing armour, with nuts coming out of his privates. Real nuts of course, the ones you eat. And I was hungry. I'm ashamed to say I've never tried Guinness before in my life. They didn't have any on tap in Bo's but I bought a can and I have to say I loved it. Ironic isn't it that I travelled all the way around the world to try the Irish drink, when I live only across the pond back home. That drink definitely is a meal in a glass though. By now you're thinking, "Wait. This bar is awesome. I want to go." But no. It gets better. When I went to ask where the toilet was, the guy said to me, "Just make sure you wash your hands." I wondered what he meant, thinking it must be disgusting in there. But you'll never guess what happened next. When I went to turn the tap on to wash my hands, water came out of a tap in a different sink! I spent the next half hour trying to work out which tap turned on which sink. So that, my friends, is why Bo's is the best bar I have ever been to.

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The Best Places To Get Wasted in Australia

1. Cheeky Monkeys, Byron Bay- Wherever you go in Australia you'll always hear of this bar. Where else can you dance on the tables, see people playing twister in their underwear and win prizes by attaching clothes pegs to your face. And make sure you get a flashing cup.
   
2. The Woolshed, Cairns- The Woolshed is Cairn's answer to Cheeky Monkeys. You get free meals in this bar if you stay in certain hostels- they're decent and they don't give you food poisoning! And they even have goldfish racing.
   
3. Scary Canary, Sydney- A good place to start a night out in Sydney is the Scary Canary, attached to Base hostel. Lots of good offers and themed nights, plus the occasional live music.
   
4. Beaches, Airlie Beach- Beaches is a giant outdoor pub attached to Beaches hostel. Chat to the people who've just come off their Whitsunday Sailing trip over a pitcher of snakebite and then head over to Mama Africas to dance until dawn.
5. Bojangles, Alice Springs- Quirky bojangles is a saloon style bar complete with swinging doors, snake tank, boots hanging from the ceiling and you can throw your peanut shells on the floor. But wait. That's not the best part. The taps in the bathroom turn on the water in a different sink. Cool or what...
   

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6 random things I have noticed about Australia

Although Australia is an English speaking country it is by far the most random country I have ever been to:

1. They are obsessed with meat pies. Everywhere you go they have meat pies on the menu- it's like they think it's a traditional English thing to eat pie, but we don't have nearly as much pie as they do. It's like they're hanging on to a small relic of their ties with England.

2. Their other big food is Schnitzel- I got it confused with Strudel for a long time, so I thought people were ordering an apple pastry, but schnitzel is like breaded chicken, and they have it in sandwiches, as main courses, in fact generally with everything. God knows where they discovered their love for schnitzel, I think it's a rather random trend to follow myself.

3. Everywhere you go you can only get SPF 30 sunscreen. Thank god I'd taken some of my factor 8 with me. Having said that their sunscreen is the cheapest thing on Earth; they even sell it in value squirty litre bottles.

4. Their drinking laws are retarded; they drink more than any other nation on the planet, yet you aren't allowed to drink on the street. What's more, oredering a shot in a bar is a sin.

5. In no other country apart from Australia would you hear adverts for erectile disfunction during the day.

6. Their news is never really news because nothing ever happens- "local lady moves house" is probably the most controversial thing that happens.

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10 Ways to Save Money for more Booze

1. Don't buy the cold drinks from the fridges in Oz, they're twice the price as the ones on the aisles
2. Only buy the home brand food in Woolworths
   
3. It's all about the free coupons you receive in the hostels- go on a pub crawl with all the coupons you have
4. Stick to a diet of 5o cent noodles till you can't even bear the sight of them
   
5. It's all about the 5 dollar meals in bars, and in some they even give you free food if you're staying in the right hostel
   
6. Win money in competitions in all the bars you go to- you'll wake up the next day realising you won $200 in a wet T-Shirt competition
7. Instead of spending money on the internet in hostels, go to the travel agents in the street who offer free internet
8. Shop around for the best deals on all your excursions, chances are you'll find something cheaper.
   
9. If you're really strapped for cash offer to work in exchange for accommodation.
10. See if you can sleep in the hostel TV room for cheap.
    

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Goon!

The most important thing I'm going to tell you about, and the main theme of this blog, is goon. Goon is a 4 litre boxed wine and extremely cheap- around 9 to 15 dollars for the entire carton. You'll see it everywhere you go; forget Ayers Rock, forget the Kangaroo, forget Kylie's backside, Goon is in my opinion the national emblem of Australia.



The great thing about it is it has two purposes 1. to get you wasted and 2. once you're wasted you can use it as a pillow to rest your weary head. Goon is perhaps the most disgusting wine you'll ever taste, and suspiciously says on the box 'may contain fish and egg products'. One question I want asnwering is how the hell do you get fish and eggs in wine? And what kind of fish? I can just imagine someone at a wine tasting table, uttering "Hmmm...yes....well I get an aroma of tuna in this one." Apparently it's something to do with the refining process, and I would love to go on a goon wine tour to find out how they make it. Another piece of advice- only buy the 'soft fruity lexia' and NEVER buy the red goon. You see, goon should only be drunk in one way, and that's by taking the bag out of the box, lying on your back and somebody feeding you goon shots. And red goon is going to stain. Everywhere you go in Oz you'll see people with a bag of goon in their hand.

Even better is the number of games you can play with it; you can play Goon of Fortune where you hang the bag from a rotating washing line and whoever it lands on has to drink. Then there's a game you can play with the box, where you have to pick the box up off the ground using only your mouth, and then you keep ripping strips off the box untill everyone's out. My first encounter with goon was when I was staying at Surfside hostel on Bondi Beach. A Canadian only known as "the goon man" would literally walk around forcing people to take goon shots. And if you didn't he would follow you around untill you did. I had many a fun time kicking the bag around in a game of goon football. It's the best piece of advice I can give you in Australia because it's going to save you a hell of a lot of money.

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