Adelaide

Arriving in Adelaide we strolled up to the hostel, thinking about the week that lay ahead of us.

Greg had received a phone call and found out some fantastic news. Originally his reasons for coming to Australia had been due to having been turned down for a PGCE course. But his parents rang telling him that they had received news that the course had changed their decision and wanted Greg to attend the course.

Unfortunately this meant he had to be back in England by July. Our plans were originally to spend a week in Adelaide and then look for farm work to qualify for our second year visas as well as replenish our funds. This news however meant that Greg and Matt simply didn’t have the time to do so.

We decided that Greg and Matt would go on to Sydney whereas we would head to Barossa Valley to look for work in the famous vineyards there.

We were all happy for Greg but were very sad that this meant our group would unfortunately be split up due to this good news. So we knew we had to make this week a good one to say farewell.

The hostel was nice enough. We shared a rather cosy family room between the five of us. Martin and George were rather miffed that they had to share a double bed but due to low funds they had to make do.

We ventured from the hostel to one of the local parks, armed with our faithful volleyball and mini Aussie Rules ball for a kick about/throw about. We realised that Adelaide is absolutely covered in pitches of just about every sport imaginable. There were hockey fields, football pitches, Aussie rules, cricket, rugby and I could go on.

We decided to take one of the empty football pitches and play a bit of two on two with one goalkeeper. We had been playing for no more than ten minutes when a group of locals came up and asked if we fancied playing a bit of five a side. Challenge accepted.

The Pomms vs. The Locals kicked off to a bad start for us as we found ourselves two goals down. We managed to fight our way back to two goals each. The Locals nearly forced their way into another goal, but a timely foot stopping the ball on the goal line by yours truly saved the day.

Returning on the counter attack Matt managed to do the Pomms proud and walloped the ball past the defence putting the score at The Pomms three, The Locals two. Unfortunately our defence couldn’t hold up against their next assault putting the score at three goals each.

This went on for about an hour until the score was five goals each. We had not expected such an intense match and were all covered in sweat. Another group of guys came along and asked us all if we wanted to turn the game into a full eleven a side match. We were tempted but pure exhaustion and the fading sunlight forced us to decline and we made our way home.

We treated ourselves to a pizza and headed back to hostel to ready ourselves for a night out on the town. Toohey’s Superdry was the drink of choice that night a tasty beverage.

We headed to a bar around the corner from the hostel named Havelock. The drink started flowing. Originally we were going to just stay in the bar, but we met some girls, few more drinks were had, and before we knew what was happening we were in a taxi heading to the centre of Adelaide.

Unfortunately I foolishly decided to go and get something to eat and told the rest of them I would meet them inside the club. Upon my return the bouncer decided I wasn’t allowed in. Now I was by no means sober but I was definitely not that bad. I decided to wait outside and texted and rang the guys but couldn’t get in contact with them. Eventually I called it a night and headed home in a huff. Not a good experience of nightlife in Adelaide.

The next day I decided to sweat off my hangover by going for a run. I thought having been around quite a bit of Adelaide I knew my way around. I was very wrong. What was meant to be only half an hour turned into two and a half hours. I can safely say I saw a lot of Adelaide in that time, and it is a beautiful place. The sun was beaming down; the parks were beautiful (as were the women), so what could’ve been quite a frustrating ordeal turned out to be incredibly pleasant.

The next day we decided to head out for more drinks and stay up to watch the FA Cup final live. We met up with the girls from the previous night and headed out on the town. We ended up at a sports bar where surprisingly there was a huge amount of people waiting to watch the match.

Now I know English people are guilty of taking football a tad too seriously at times and there is a lot of pride when it come to your football teams, but I didn’t realise the Aussies were that bothered about it. But it turns out they’re just as crazy about it as we are.

I saw glasses smashed, pitchers thrown around, people screaming and shouting, football chants and just about anything else you can think of. I was standing outside getting some fresh air during half time when I saw a Liverpool fan taking the mick out of a Chelsea fan with a walking stick. The Chelsea fan calmly handed his cane to someone else and chased after the culprit and gave him a sound hiding. Didn’t seem like he really needed the walking stick, but I like my teeth the way they are so I decided not to ask about it.

Greg, being a Liverpool fan, was sorely disappointed at the result. I, being a Newcastle fan, thought it was a good match but was just happy when the final whistle blew that I still had the full use of my legs and could use them to return to the hostel.

The next day we returned to looking for farm work. We found a hostel in the famous Barossa Valley that was going to be looking for people to prune in the vineyards, so Martin, George and I decided that’s where we would head next.

It came to our last night together as a group of five in Adelaide and so we decided to head out and treat ourselves to big fancy meal. After searching around the restaurants for a while we decided to go into an Italian looking restaurant.

The rest of the lads ordered the veal, chicken schnitzel, lamb chops and chicken. I went all out and ordered a 450g steak covered in cream sauce and king prawns. It was a fantastic meal. All the lads gave it a big thumbs up and we struggled to make our way home with such full stomachs.

The next morning we woke up and headed for a final coffee together. We hugged each other goodbye and headed our separate ways. Martin, George and I headed to the coach station and headed further into the mainland on our way to Barossa Valley, the home of Australian wine.

The Campervan Trip

Well I feel it’s about time I spoke about the week that followed the fortnight in Melbourne. After hearing about ‘The Great Ocean Road’ we decided that we should drive along this apparent paradise and then onto Adelaide. The only problem was the fact that this would mean spending a total of 8 days on the road to make sure we saw everything. So we couldn’t sleep in any old car. No. What we needed was something a little bit bigger. This led us to an amazing vehicle that we named Chuck.

He was a campervan, an aged machine that had quite obviously been through a lot. Now why would we call it Chuck? Well that would quite honestly be because of the amazing decoration all over the van. Chuck Norris featured on both sides with various quotes all over the van, my favourite being, ‘Chuck Norris featured in the film Twister. He played the Tornado.’ We knew right there and then that this was going to be an interesting trip.

We realised quite quickly that although there was enough space to for all 5 of us to sleep in the van, this wasn’t without some…discomfort. There were 2 hammocks that hung from the roof of the van whilst the other 3 slept underneath. Due to the size of the van this meant that any movement resulted in someone being hit in some way. This, and the actual lack of comfortable bedding, resulted in 7 nights of pretty terrible sleep. However the trip was more than worth it.

Our first destination was Torquay, also known as Surfer’s Paradise. The beach was beautiful and the waves were enormous. We spent 2 days here just throwing ourselves through the waves, the weather wasn’t even that great but the beach was just so amazing we just didn’t care.

At night the view was even more spectacular. It was here we realised how clear the sky was. You could see all the stars glinting in the sky, an incomprehensible amount of them shining with various strengths. The sound of the sea was like nothing I’ve ever heard; deafening in its volume, but with such a calming tone.

It was with high hopes that we set off the next morning, hoping we would see more beautiful scenery like this.

Whilst passing through a quaint little town called Lorne, we stopped off for a quick lunch. It was here we realised how much Australians love cake. Popping into a bakery hoping to get a sandwich our eyes were drawn to the enormous pastries and cakes that decorated the shop. The temptation proved too much as we gave into our stomachs and gorged ourselves. Unfortunately it was here that disaster struck.

We left Lorne with full stomachs and headed onto our next stop, Apollo Bay.

Unfortunately we were followed. As we gazed up at the sky we uttered the immortal words, ‘Ah bollocks man!’ The sky was a miserable shade of grey. The brilliant Australian weather we were promised was nowhere to be seen as we pulled up to yet another one of Australia’s greatest beaches.

We were determined that this would not ruin our day, and so we marched onward towards the nearest surf store. There we hired some wetsuits and surfboards. Although completely untrained in the art of surfing we were decided that this was a perfectly logical idea. Looking rather fetching in our skin tight wetsuits we threw ourselves into the waves. The first thing I saw was Martin, Greg and Matt attempt to mount a wave that must have been twice as big as me. Needless to say they disappeared from sight and all I saw of them was their surfboards fly into the air. The rest of the afternoon generally revolved around a lot of sights much like this one. But I have to say…it was damn good fun. Even when the heavens opened above us it could not take the smiles of our faces. It has definitely made me determined to learn to surf properly.

Our fun filled day regrettably ended on a rather sour note as we discovered, much to our dismay, that whilst we were busy being tossed about in the sea ol’Chuck had received a parking ticket. But even this blow to our finances was not enough to diminish the fun we had that day.

After returning to the road we saw many amazing examples of Australia’s beautiful land. We pulled over to Mait’s Rest, a small bit of rainforest just off the road. It was as if I’d stepped into Jurassic Park. The whole scene made me think a raptor was going to jump out of the trees. The place felt so alien to anything I had even seen before that it almost didn’t seem real. There was one amazing tree that seemed as if three trees had entwined together creating a giant throne. I doubt I would have liked to meet the being who sat in it.

Leaving the rainforest behind we returned to the road where we saw our first examples of Australian wildlife. Now we had seen many signs warning us that Kangaroos regularly just leapt across the road willy nilly, but we were not quite prepared for when we saw a wallaby just chilling out by the side of the road. This went doubly so when two emu’s ran across the road at such a point that Chuck barely missed them.

Despite our narrow misses with the natives we arrived at a landmark known as the 12 Apostles and another known as London Bridge (no not ‘The’ London Bridge). These were all examples of the terrifying power of nature. All these landmarks were once part of the mainland of Australia, but now they were giant mounds of rock that the sea had battered into submission. The sea had managed to divide and was slowly conquering these landmasses, battering them into dust, eroding them into nothing. Of the 12 Apostles there were only 8 left that stood tall, the other 4 were either completely gone, or were very nearly there. It was a rather sobering sight.

From there we headed onto a place called Griffiths Island, a nature reserve. We thought this would be a fantastic chance to see the Australian Wildlife up close. Well this was true…however I wasn’t quite prepared for what I actually came across.

Now I need to state for the record, I hate birds. They’re disgusting creatures. As much as this island had its fair share of wallabies and other creatures, that majority of its population was birds. On top of that it was covered in dead birds, it was foul. It was a beautiful island covered in long grass, and beautiful foliage; but it was impossible to ignore the sheer amount of dead birds and mice. At one point we came across a wallaby, well by a wallaby, we came across the bottom half of a wallaby. We could not even begin to fathom where the top half had gone, and to be honest the sight was so grotesque that we decided to move on quickly.

After leaving the island of death and decay we swiftly drove into Southern Australia, we were finally nearing our destination Adelaide.

We briefly stopped in Portland for fuel for Chuck and fuel for ourselves in the form of a McDonalds where we met a lost little soul in the form of Stiffy. Stiffy was a lovely little dog who took a shine to us as we were eating outside in the lovely sunshine. At first we believed he was waiting for his owners who were inside. It became clear however that this was not the case as he started running about following all sorts of people then coming back to us. It dawned on us that he was actually lost. At one point he ran through a busy car park, at this point Martin decided to take action. I, Matt and George stayed with Stiffy and made sure he stayed with us whilst Martin and Gregg went to the vet nearby to ask if they knew anything about him.

Martin soon returned with a leash and being the Good Samaritan he is took it back to the vet where they said they would look after him. We left Portland feeling better for our brief visit and hoping Stiffy would either find his way back home or at least to a caring family. He was a nice dog.

Immediately we noticed the weather was considerably warmer, although we were very conscious of the fact that we were getting closer and closer to the height of Australian winter. So we took advantage of lazing about in the sun or kicking a football about whenever we could.

Whilst doing this we realised something. We were in the middle of nowhere. Fields stretched on forever, no sign of civilisation, maybe the odd petrol station or roadside café, but other than that it was just us, our van and the open road.

This unfortunately didn’t come with its problems. We pulled into a campsite for the night. The sign as well as the brochure claimed it was four stars, so we thought it must be pretty darn good. It didn’t look like much but we thought, well maybe the facilities are good. The tap water was a dull brown colour. Ok, we thought, this isn’t too good. We had a look at the showers, same problem. Well at least there was a barbecue so we could cook ourselves some sausages. Well we eventually got it working, but only after essentially making our own fire inside it.

Well the next day we drove swiftly on getting closer and closer to our destination.

Stopping in a small town we came to terms with it being our last night with Chuck. Despite all the hardships, the uncomfortable sleeping, lack of space and the fact that it was pretty much on its last legs; we had all become attached to this big hunk of junk. We had one hell of a trip.

We decided to spend our time wisely and play some football, as well as attempt to play some Aussie Rules (failing miserably), and then we went to the local cinema to see ‘The Avengers’ (good film, but Australian cinema prices are insane). We slept soundly knowing that tomorrow would bring on our arrival in Adelaide.

Driving on we arrived in Adelaide. Parking up next to the hostel we sorted out our accommodation and then we waved goodbye to our faithful companion Chuck. It was a sad parting but it was with high spirits that we embarked upon the next leg of our Australian Adventure.

Melbourne

Well my time in Melbourne is drawing to a close so it feels like a good time to write up my first blog entry.

Myself and the boys landed in Melbourne on the 13^th April at around 1am. The flight was 22 hours long, 22 HOURS LONG! I watched 4 films in that time, that’s an insane amount of time to sit still and do nothing for. At one point the bloke next to me was so bored he tried to teach me a little bit of Arabic. Needless to say that didn’t work so well as he couldn’t speak English so the majority of the time I had to sit there smiling hoping he would get bored so I could get back to watching The Three Musketeers (and yes I know it’s awful but I’m not one for abandoning a film halfway through).

But yes finally the flight was behind us and Martin, Greg, Matt, George and myself headed into the city of Melbourne to explore this great city.

Now first thing that has to be said for Melbourne is it is beautiful. I know this sounds very cliché but the fact of the matter is that it is a sprawling city with some of the most beautiful parks I have ever seen as well as a fantastic seafront. Believe me laying down in the sunshine on that beach is about as close to heaven as you’ll get. Annoyingly the sea is still pretty cold, not as bad as the North Sea but still cold. I have been informed that this is unique to Melbourne and things will change when we move on to Adelaide.

But despite the cold waters the weather is fantastic. Mind you after leaving Newcastle during a heavy rain that turned into snow that then turned into sleet, anything is fantastic. But in all honesty I find it truly amazing that people manage to do anything other than just laze about all day. We’ve spent the majority of our time here throwing a ball around or just lying down and reading.

Mind you in the evenings there has been the odd boozy session. Not an insane amount but definitely more than a tipple. There was one night where Greg did have slightly more than a tipple, it ended in him rather hilariously vomiting in his trilby the next morning outside McDonalds. Deary me what a sight.

On the more Touristy side of things we have seen all the sports grounds including the Rod Lavers Arena and the Melbourne Cricket Ground, and they are enormous. We’re slightly annoyed at ourselves for letting the opportunity to see an Aussie Rules match at the MCG fall through our disorganised fingers, but we vow we will see one and soon.

We have all decided that we will follow and Aussie Rules team and actually understand how a game is played before we leave the Southern part of Australia (it’s apparently not as popular up north). However after catching a snippet of a match the other night I wonder how close anyone is to understanding the game as I sure as hell had no idea what was going on. I shall be following a team called Collingwood as they are more commonly know as ‘The Magpies’ and being a Geordie this has obvious reasons for drawing my support.

Keeping in the tourist vein but veering from sports we ventured to Melbourne city centre and went up to Skydeck 88, the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. Now this isn’t that big an achievement really considering the fact that the southern hemisphere isn’t famous for its tall buildings as it tends to build out rather than up due to the vast amount of land they have available. However it is still over 88 storeys high and therefore gave us an incredible view of the surrounding city. I had a terrible moment of vertigo and had to take very small baby steps around the place.

When we returned to earth we made our way towards a casino, we weren’t intending to gamble but we had heard it was something to see. We walked along the riverfront seeing all the fantastic bars and restaurants, but one thing that seemed strange were the pillars dotted along the way we walked. We thought they must just be decoration, but then we heard a hissing. That was when the pillars began to breathe fire. Now this wasn’t just a simple fire on top of a pillar, this was a series of fireballs. This lasted for about 10 minutes, each fireball bigger and more intense than the last, but then suddenly it stopped, and we made our way onwards to the casino.

The casino was very impressive, full of marble staircases, dazzling chandeliers and a fountain. We walked along the game floor and the roulette table nearly drew me in but I resisted the temptation, the phrase ‘the house always wins’ echoing in my head.

Returning to the present, we have only a few days left in Melbourne as we have booked a campervan to drive along The Great Ocean Road to Adelaide. It will be a whopping 8 days drive but we have heard it is a once in a lifetime trip. I just hope it’s worth sleeping in a small van with 4 other blokes for 8 days and eating nothing but tinned goods. I have the confidence if nothing else it will be an experience to remember.

This is Charles Stephenson, signing off.

The Curious Case of the Geordie in Australia

On the 11th April I, Charles Stephenson, fly for pastures anew. After many potential setbacks I have managed to come out the other side ready and raring to go. Where? Why Australia of course! For those of you who are interested I shall be trying to update this once a week (trying being the operative word) and I shall hopefully keep you entertained with my activities abroad. Speak to you all soon!