The end of New Zealand (for us at least)

Hey,

So since I last posted I think we've racked up around 2,000Km, a lot of petrol, a fairly decent hangover and some police interest. We have a lot to catch up on. :-)

I thought I would start today's blog though with a few pictures which we wanted to put on last time but couldn't...................

This is me in our attractive van!!


Some bubbling hot mud from Rotorua!


At the really nice Indian restaurant we found in Rotorua.


Kelly punching the punchbag at the cinema in Auckland. :-)


The sun shining on Auckland Harbour.

OK, so on to what we've been doing lately.................

We started in Dunedin, which I really like. I had an amazing time there last time I was here where we accidentally stayed out until 7am partying, however this time it was a bit more sedate. We got into our hostel but as it was a Monday night we just went for a wander around the 'Octagon', which is the centre of Dunedin. I couldn't help laugh every time someone said Octagon, which those who know Anchorman well will understand. For those that are not Anchorman fan, it doesn't matter. haha. We went for a nice meal in an Italian restaurant and wandered home. I discovered that I really liked Speights Ale and Kelly and I both discovered (again) why we don't usually order the 'house wine'.

After Dunedin we headed to Queenstown which I was looking forward to as I have a friend there from Sydney and we could stay somewhere for a few days and not have to be up and on the move again every day. The first thing we did was organise a coach trip to Milford Sound, which we enjoyed a lot, although it was a pretty long day! We were picked up at 8.15am and didn't get home until 9.15pm. We saw a lot of amazing scenery on the way though, and got a boat trip out on the Sound where we were followed by both common Dolphins and Bottlenose Dolphins. They are really playful creatures who followed the boat around and jumped out the water etc.

The next day we finally had a sleep in and a day to relax. We went out that night with Niki (aforementioned friend from Sydney I worked with before) and some friends of hers from Queenstown. It was the first day of the Queenstown Winter Festival, so we had some music, fireworks, drinks and dancing to celebrate. It was a really good night and much needed break from driving around all day every day from place to place. The next day however, my love-affair with Speights Ale was well and truly over. It was horrific. Somehow Kelly managed to escape the hangover, while I thought I was going the same was as Jacko!! I finally managed to get out of bed around 3pm and we headed off to Queenstown gardens to play some Frisbee Golf. Apparently it's a tradition in Queenstown, and it was quite fun. I finished a fairly lame 9 over par, although I'm blaming the previous nights excesses for that performance. We finished the day off with a 'Ferg Burger', another Queenstown tradition, it's a great little burger place which does fantastic food! It certainly cured the hangover. I wanted one about 11am but Kelly wouldn't go and get me one, I think she liked to see me suffer!

On Sunday we drove from Queenstown to Franz Josef. We stayed there for one night and took an hours walk to the glacier there. You can do an eight hour walk/hike up the glacier which is really hard work, but good fun. I've done it before so wasn't that desperate to do it again, and for those of you that know Kelly, you'll know that it's not really her 'bag' to walk up a glacier for 8 hours. So as I said, we walked for about an hour to the base of the thing before heading to our hostel.

The next day shall from now on be know as 'Unlucky Day'. We woke up, got ready to head off north but realised that our campervan had a flat battery. One of the internal lights was left on all night. I would like to blame Kelly, but I think I vaguely remember doing it myself. Anyway, was a bit of a disaster, but we soon got it jump started. We were heading for Westport and while on the way Kelly managed to pull out from a junction in front of a man in a jeep and then shout at HIM! Her outrage at him soon shifted to the police officer who stopped her for speeding no more than 5 minutes later though. She was stopped for doing "62Km/h and speeding up" in a 50Km/h zone. I have some sympathy for her on this one though as I was done for exactly the same when I was in NZ 4 years ago. It's because as you drive around, you do about 200Km at 100Km/h and then you turn a corner to a 50Km/h sign and the police sit there waiting as you slow down. I'm sure I wasn't speeding last time so I think it's just a scam by the NZ police to make money from backpackers, because it's not like you can argue with them. Anyone else who's driven round NZ been caught like this?? :-)

We got to Westport and soon realised that it's a bloody awful and depressing place, so we thought we would just keep going to Nelson. We drove about another 3 hours and arrived in Nelson around 10pm and found a hostel. And this is where I am writing this blog from. So there you have it, the last week or so condensed into a blog for you guys.

We just today booked some accommodation for Fiji, we found a 5 star (yeah right!) resort doing a special offer so have booked there for 7 nights. I have to say I am really looking forward to just chilling out for a week or so in the sun and relaxing after driving around for 3 weeks in the freezing cold, even though I think NZ is a fantastic place and would definitely come back again.

So until next time, which may well be from Fiji in a weeks time, hope everyone at home is well.

Alan

P.S. Here are some more pictures we have taken along the way. Enjoy....................


A picture of the mountains from Milford Sound.


Upstream from 'The Chasm' - a stunning part of river on the way to Milford Sound.


What a traffic jam in New Zealand looks like (or a Welshman's Dream, take your pic!) :-)


A cute little seal we saw around Kaikoura.


The Haka before the New Zealand v France match.


A rock formation known as 'The Pancakes' due to the way the rocks are built up. Can anyone else see the beaver in the picture??


The lake at Queenstown. It's a really gorgeous country!


Kelly demonstrating a poor technique at frisbee golf. :-)
Kelly and Niki being particularly rude on our night out.


The fireworks to mark the opening of the Queenstown Winter Festival.


That's all folks. :-)

No photos, but good stories

Hey,

So I'm in an Internet cafe in Christchurch and didn't expect to be here so don't have my photos, which is a bit of a pain, but hey ho. I'll put them on sometime soon.

New Zealand (NZ from now on!!) so far has been great. Since I last blogged I have done loads of cool things which I've been dying to blog about so here goes.

On day one with the camper van (which has been named Candy Cane because it's a kind of truck name and Kelly strangely thinks she's a truck driver when she's in the van!!), we headed for Rotorua which is this town with loads of thermal activity (which means it smell of egg!). We found a campsite and parked up and went for a wander in town. First of all we went Zorbing, which is where you are put in a big plastic ball and thrown down a hill, it was great fun, although I did suffer from a bit of motion sickness for the next couple of hours - just a sore head really so not too bad. I then dragged Kelly round a Kiwi encounter animal park where we saw Kiwi birds - they are really really weird!!

After all that excitement, we went into town and found the best curry house I have been to in ages and took our seats. Kelly ordered a Mango Chicken curry and I couldn't decide between a Chicken Bhuna and a Lamb Rogan Josh. Luckily the curry gods were smiling on me that day as the waiter said they had a special on where if you ordered two curries you got a third free, so I got two curries!! Surely this makes it one of the best curry houses of all time! We left there stuffed and with a doggy bag and headed to the camp site where we sat in the hot naturally heated thermal pools which was great. Unfortunately though, we had underestimated how cold NZ actually is! I thought it would be fine to sleep in a camper van with no top on in a sleeping bag. For those of you back home, just imagine going to sleep in your car in mid-winter, it really was amazingly cold. So grumpy, cold and tired we headed for onwards.

We drove down past Lake Taupo and down the Desert Road to a little beach resort where we manned-up and booked another camp site. This time though we were prepared!! We both have thermal trousers and tops, we bought insulation for the van and the woman at the campsite gave us two huge blankets. That night was fine actually, Kelly even got too hot!!

The next day we headed to Wellington as that was where we were getting the ferry from to the south island. We splashed out a bit and got a nice hotel to stay in and were just going to have a quiet night, but then I saw signs saying that the All Blacks were playing France at the Westpac stadium. I asked the woman at reception where the stadium was and she said it was only a 5 minute walk, so we wandered over to have a look. On the way we said we wouldn't pay more than $50 for tickets each, and when we arrived the cheap tickets were sold out and the cheapest left was $82! We decided not to go, but then this French guy all decked out in flags and face paint asked if we were looking for tickets. He said he already had some but had won a couple the day before by catching a rugby ball or something. His tickets were face value of $110 each, and he wanted $80 for them. I managed to get him down to $65 though with a bit of tight Scottish haggling!! :-) We went and got some hot dogs and beer/wine and headed into the stadium. It was a good atmosphere, although with the rain and wind it felt just like Scotland! I think the best part though was the French releasing a Red/White/Blue Cockerel onto the park just before kick off, and the security guard taking about 5 minutes to catch it as it ran all over the pitch. Every time it evaded capture the crowd let out a huge roar and the security guard got more and more angry. Then with five minutes until the end of the game, a slim, drunk girl ran onto the middle of the pitch and started waving at everyone. As she turned round to wave to her adoring and applauding public, the security guard took his cockerel frustrations out by literally crash tackling her to the ground!! It was brutal, and there was a huge 'booo' from the crowd to let him know it was a bit extreme. So to summarise, the two birds on the pitch gave everyone more entertainment that then 30 guys!! Glad we went though, it was good fun.

We then headed for the ferry next morning, with Kelly being a old grump because I had to get her out of bed at 6am!! We arrived in Picton and drove down to Kaikoura which is famous for Whale and Dolphin watching. Unfortunately it was cancelled though as they weather was pretty bad for taking boats out, think 'The Perfect Storm / Titanic'. We had a good night though having fish and chips (pronounced fush and chups here) at the beach and then heading home to a warm room to play monopoly. Kelly still owes me $28m and is refusing to pay up!!

Today we've been to Hanmer Springs which is a lovely little town with hot thermal pools. We spent a couple of hours just lying around in 40 degree naturally heated water and relaxing before driving onto Christchurch, which is where we are now. Strangely we booked into accommodation and when we pulled up I recognised it as it was the place I stayed at last time I was here when I was traveling with the two Danish guys.

So that's you pretty much up to date with our goings on. Apologies for the lack of pictures, I know the blog is a bit more lively when it's not just me wittering on and you can laugh at the pictures.

So onto Dunedin tomorrow, then Queenstown, Milford Sounds and Wanaka. I'm looking forward to Queenstown as I remember some good nights out from last time I was here and I've got a friend who's living there at the moment.

I will put another blog on in a couple of days and hopefully remember my camera next time!

Until then, take care everyone.

Alan

P.S. Wait until you see Kelly's photos, she's become obsessed by taking photos of Sheep from the moving car! She also finds it funny to beep the car horn and make them all scared and run away every time we pass them! Girls!!

Greetings from Auckland

Hello all,

We arrived in Auckland last night and it's freezing here!! We went out for a wander and went to 'Love a Duck' Chinese restaurant which was appalling! Oh well, you live and learn.

Today we have been wandering around central Auckland, and it's a really nice city. We have been to the Sky Tower and the Viaduct Quay where we say the fattest seagull ever! It looked like it had been blown up with a foot pump.

Apologies that we don't have any photos to put up at the moment, we've taken some, but the internet cafe we're in has computers which look like they were used by dinosaurs.

Tonight we're going to take it easy, I've walked past a sort of gourmet burger place which has taken my fancy, and then we're going to go to the cinema to watch the new Terminator film - Kelly's choice!! ;-)

Tomorrow we pick up our camper van and take to the open road. And when I say open road, I mean roads covered in SNOW! The south island looks like it's absolutely covered in snow at the moment so that might affect our travel plans, we'll see. We have a couple of days on the north island first so hopefully things will clear up soon.

Hopefully we'll be able to provide you with a better update in a couple of days (with picture and everything!), and until then, take care.

Alan

P.S. Congratulations to my cousin Andy for passing his driving test, if anyone was thinking of going to Glasgow anytime soon, maybe give it a miss!

Also, congrats to Craby from York and Paul from Edinburgh (or more accurately their wives) as they've just become dads!!

Exciting few weeks coming up!!

Hey all,

Usually I start with an apology for not having blogged for a while, but I guess I should just start by saying that I will really only blog when we are up to something exciting. The last couple of weeks have been spent getting forms filled in for my new job, Kelly writing her CV, booking flights and accommodation etc etc. So nothing really blog worthy. However, the next four weeks should provide a bit more excitement which hopefully we can write about.

On Tuesday we are heading to New Zealand for almost three weeks to drive around the country in a camper van! It should be freezing! We are doing both islands, so it will be a whistle stop tour to be honest. I've done it before with a couple of Danish guys I know and had a great time, so I'm really looking forward to it. After New Zealand, we're heading to get some sun in Fiji for 10 days. We have yet to book some sort of accommodation for Fiji, but Kelly's been there before so she's in charge!! :-)

As I've said, we'll try and blog as much as possible when we're away, but we're not taking the laptop so it will rely on being able to find internet places on the road, so please don't be too disappointed if we don't put up a new one every day.

In the meantime, here are some photos from last weekend. Our friends, Chris and Sam, from Malaysia are now in Sydney and loving it. We went out to Manly for a 'few drinks' and ended up getting pretty drunk. On the way home we got off the bus and saw a Karaoke bar right beside the bus stop called 'Ding Dong Dang' and decided to wander in. This was a mistake. We ended up spending about $150 and drinking for another two hours!! It was great fun though, we had our own little room and spent two hours singing (read yelling) our lungs out.

Here are some of the dafter pictures from the night:

The night started off so well, just a few friends having some quiet drinks...............

Then Chris met a friendly tramp on the ferry back into town!! bwahahahahaha!!

Yes, the woman in front was taking ages so Kelly decided to bash her head in with a wine bottle! Luckily we managed to talk her out of it! ;-)

Good god!!!!

Which direction is the beach??

We had rehearsed this move before hand.........



So I hope you are all well at home, and unless we all get nuked by North Korea, we'll continue blogging while we're away in New Zealand and Fiji.

Take care.

Alan

Employment Update

Hello people,

This week Kelly and I have been mainly living with my friend Matthew and Verity up in Dee Why. They have a tiny little kitten which kept us entertained day and night!!

We have moved back in with Ben today in the centre of Sydney. Although we will not get to enjoy Ben's company for much longer as he is off to New York on Sunday to seek his fortune!

This week has mainly been work related from my point of view. I had a meeting on Tuesday with the main guy in the company I really wanted to get work with when I came over here, and he offered me the job I wanted. It was all going swimmingly until the Australian Government stuck a spanner in the works. I had a start date towards the end of June, however rather than a few weeks to get the visa sorted, the Government now make it take 8-12 weeks. I went in today to speak with the company and the have confirmed my employment offer and given me my contract. My new start date is 1st September (or hopefully earlier if the government get the visa sorted sooner). So Kelly and I are thinking of things we can do for the next 3 months. So feel free to comment on here or send us emails with suggestions. Maybe we'll do a poll!! :-)

We have some new photos which were taken this week, and we're going out this weekend, so I'll stick a longer blog on over the weekend with some photos.

Have a nice weekend everyone and don't do anything I wouldn't do.

Alan

It's the weekend.............

But then again, it's always the weekend for Kelly and I at the moment!! :-)

Still, Friday's always seem better than Monday or Tuesday's whether you're working or not.

This weekend we're busy with sporting events, which I know Kelly is really looking forward to. Tonight we'll probably have a quiet one with Matthew and Verity who we're living with at the moment in Dee Why. On Saturday we're going to Shark Park to watch the Cronulla Sharks take on the Dragons. My mate Nathan got me into Rugby League last time I was here and I'm a Shark fan (for my sins). They've lost 8 in a row and are bottom of the league, so this could be a pretty awful match to go and watch, however you are able to drink beer at the games over here, so it's not all bad!!

On Sunday we're meeting some friend of mine for dinner before heading to the casino to watch the Rangers match. It's the last game of the season and a win will guarantee us the league title. Kelly couldn't care less, but the fact that I'm going to the casino to watch it means she's coming too! haha.

So there should be a more exciting blog after the weekend when we have been out at these places and taken photos etc. I will try my best this weekend to keep Kelly away from any water features in case she jumps in them again!!

Hope everyone back home has a good weekend.

Talk to you again on Monday.

Al

P.S. I'm glad that 'Flaunt it on McIvor' won the vote on the blog. It was my favourite too!! :-)

Hello,

It's Monday and we've had an eventful weekend. Firstly, we went out on Friday night for a few drinks at Darling Harbour to watch the Harbour Lights display. Kelly and I got there at around 6pm and secured a good location at 'Home Bar' right at the water with $3.50 drinks until 7pm. All of our friends came and joined us and we had a few drinks and then at about 6.45pm decided to stock up on drinks while they were still cheap. I took peoples orders and went to the bar. I got Kelly 3 vodka and lemonade, Jane two Gin and Tonic and then she asked me how many beers I would like. I thought for a few seconds before answering "fifteen". The response was "I can't sell you fifteen beers because it's against the 'responsible sale of alcohol' law. I'll sell you five and you can get your friends to buy the others" - very responsible!! Anyway, drinks procured we settled in for the fireworks display, which while being no Edinburgh, was pretty good. They had four guys on jet ski's flying around the harbour firing flames and fireworks off the back of the ski's and there was a pontoon on in the middle which had the more spectacular fireworks.




We left the bar around 9pm once the dust had settled from the fireworks and the crowds had dispersed. Kelly decided to down the last remaining Champagne, which was all well and good until we got about 2 minutes down the road when we got to the water feature and fountains. There was about 10 of us walking to Chinatown for food, when Kelly dragged Matthew by the hand towards the water. Now, in fairness to her, I thought the little water feature looked around an inch deep and I could see what she was thinking, she was going to run through to the other side. The water wasn't an inch deep however, it was waist deep and she plunged deep into the water while we all stood there with a sort of 'what on earth' look on our faces!! Here is a picture of her post jump...........




Once she had managed to dry her boots using a toilet hand dryer and buy some new socks from Chinatown it was on with the night! We had a fantastic Chinese meal before heading off to a few bars round town. There was a 3am finish and a lot of sore heads and dodgy stomachs the following day.

We moved from our friend Ben's place on Saturday up to my mate Matthew's place in Dee Why. It's about 30Min's from the city and it's right by the beach. He also has a little black kitten who is about 4 months old and probably the most energetic little beast I've ever come across!

Kelly spent yesterday with Sita at the Sydney fashion show having a good time and spending lots of money while I continued to recover from my hangover.

So that's about all we have to report for now. Hope everyone back home is good.

Alan

P.S. I have started to hear from those back home who are being made redundant from NU (soon to be Aviva!!). I know it's a nightmare for you guys back there, you'll be alright though and leaving NU isn't the end of the world. They'll end up with the workforce they deserve and from what I've heard so far there have been some questionable decisions on who is staying and who is going!! Enjoy the leadership!!

Plans for the weekend.........

Hey,

The last couple of days have been fun. On Tuesday we went out and visited the Sydney Observatory and then went wine tasting. It was a really good day, and the wine tasting is a great idea, it's self service and we both left a little tipsy!! Here's a picture of Kelly, firstly at the telescope and secondly sampling the delights of Australian wine:

After that it was time for her to navigate us home while drunk................

Well, it's Friday, the sun is shining and all is well. I am just back from an interview which I think went pretty well, so fingers crossed on that.

Tonight Kelly and I are going to Darling Harbour with friends for a few drinks and to watch a firework display by people on Jet Skis. Sounds like a recipe for disaster if you ask me, might see some explosions!! :-)

Tomorrow we're moving to stay with my mate Matthew up in Dee Why. It's a bit further up the coast, about half an hour from town. It's right on the beach so it will give Kelly a different perspective of Sydney which is good. I can't wait to get back in the surf, the water is 23 degrees at the moment!!

So expect some more photos and stories after the weekend!!

Have a good one everyone, and hope everyone at NU gets what they want on Monday in terms of redundancy or keeping jobs etc.

Alan

P.S. Dave, your comments about Rangers on the previous blog instantly incurs a two week ban from blog comments!!!!

THE BLOG IS BACK !!!!

Hello all,

Firstly I suppose I should apologise for the lack of blogging over the last couple of weeks. I have spent a lo of the time job hunting which I didn't think would be that interesting, and then when we do exciting things, we're too busy doing them to blog about it. It honestly takes quite a while to put a blog together, especially uploading all the photos!! I'll try and get one on every other day from now on. :-)

So, since the last time I blogged we have been up to quite a lot actually. There was Anzac Day, there was a trip to Melbourne for a couple of interviews, we drove the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide and there was the trip back to Sydney.

I’ll try and do this blog in sections so you don’t get too overwhelmed and bored by it as I reckon it’ll be a big one as I try and catch you all up.

So, here goes, first thing’s first:

Anzac Day:

Just to give you guys back home who might not know what Anzac Day is a bit of an overview, it is essentially a day where all Australians get up early for the dawn service to remember their soldiers who were lost in battle in Turkey about 90 years ago. Following that, everyone heads to the pub to spend all day drinking and playing ‘two up’. Two up is basically a pretty straight forward game where a circle forms around a guy throwing two coins in the air and the people bet before there are thrown on whether they are going to land on heads or tails. It’s a game of 50/50, which does make me wonder why I never win!! It was a great day with a load of our friends while the sun was shining. Here are some photos from the day………..

Melbourne:

We flew to Melbourne and spend a couple of days down there while I had two interviews to do. We stayed in St. Kilda which is a really nice part of town, full of funky little bars and nice restaurants. On the first night we went out for a great Mexican dinner with a guy called Bruce, and his partner Victor. Bruce works for Norwich Union here in Oz, and I met him last year while he was over in the UK office, and it was great to be shown around by a local!! I also met up with Jose, a guy I met in Airlie Beach (right up the east coast of Australia) about 4 years ago, which was really cool too.




The next day we went round Melbourne on the tram and saw all sorts of weird buildings and art. The Melbournians (not sure if that’s what they’re really called!) are really into their funky colourful buildings and modern art, so it was cool walking around the city and seeing all those things.

Kelly also managed to get me up the Eureka Tower, which has amazing views right across Melbourne, but it's amazingly scary up there! The lookout is on the 88th floor, which is just unbelievably high. There are some photos below, but they don't really do justice to how high it was, or how scared I was!! Even Kelly wouldn't go right to the edge of the floor and that's saying something.

We finished the day off by going to the casino and playing the pokie machines and Roulette. I turned $10 into $50 playing Roulette, and then lost it all. It’s true, the house always wins!!

The Great Ocean Road

We picked up a hire car in Melbourne and drove down to Torquay. We stayed down there at a really nice B&B over looking the ocean before setting off to drive the Great Ocean Road. This drive is right along the coast of Victoria and it has some spectacular scenery along the way, including Bells Beach (where some Surfing tournaments are held), Lorne, The Twelve Apostles and the Loch and Gorge. It was lovely to spend the day driving between all the little towns like Lorne and Apollo Bay and seeing the sights along the way.












We got to the end of the Great Ocean Road by around 7pm, but decided to drive a bit further as we wanted to get to Adelaide early the next day. So we drove another 200Km and got to Mt. Gambier for about 9.30pm. It was pretty scary driving in the dark with all the Aussie wildlife up and about. I saw a Koala slowly crawling across the road and we saw a couple of Kangaroos hopping around at the side of the road. We spent the night in Mt. Gambier before setting off the next day for Adelaide.

Adelaide

The drive into Adelaide was through some great countryside, and wineries. We arrived mid-afternoon and found somewhere to stay on Hindley Street, which is like the red-light district of Adelaide, but pretty tame. Just lots of people and lots of fairly seedy bars……….think bars with cheap drinks and mechanical bulls!! It was fine though, we were on the corner of the main road in Adelaide and just a 2 minute walk from Rundle Mall where all the shops are.

We went out with my friend Deb (see below) on Saturday night in Stirling, which is a little village about 30mins on the bus from the centre of the city. The pub was good fun and we ended up getting pretty drunk! We got the 10pm bus into the city which was FULL of 18 and 19 year olds all drinking and heading into town for a night out. It’s pretty safe to say that Kelly and I felt old on that bus ride! Mind you, we did end up going out until about 2.30am before stumbling back to our hotel room!!

The first picture below was the first I took in Adelaide, I had nipped to the toilet in the hotel room, and when I came out I found Kelly standing on a chair, eating an apple and watching TV. As always, she had a reason for her bizarre behaviour, but it's still pretty weird! :-)







The next day was spent recovering and having a wander around the centre of Adelaide (see the Pig in the bin above!!). We also thought we would be pretty touristy and go to the museum, which was interesting - lots of information about Aboriginal culture and what sort of horrible things are in the ocean over here! An early night was had as the next day we had a road trip back to Melbourne so we could fly back to Sydney.

The Road Trip

We were up fairly early to set off on the 500Km trip towards Melbourne…. We drove for about 100Km before getting hungry and stopping in a little town where we found a pie shop. But not just any pie shop, this was an award winning pie shop!! There was a 67 year old Aussie bloke running it that loved to chat, and he told us all about making pies etc etc. He was a nice guy and his pies certainly were good. There were loads to choose from and I opted for a ‘bloody good pie’ – which was aptly named to be honest. It had steak, mushrooms, bacon, sun dried tomato’s and a few other things, and it’s safe to say it was the best pie I’ve had since I got here. I asked the guy if he knew anywhere we could see Kangaroos and he told us there was a place just 2mins away, so we drove round to this field and saw loads of them, I went to turn the car while Kelly tried to sneak up on them. As readers of the blog will remember from the Kyoto blog with the squeaky floor boards, Kelly’s not the most stealthy of creatures!! She did manage to take some photos from her first experience with Roo’s though, and here they are:



Just after our pie stop, we reached a town called ‘Keith’. Kelly found this hilarious and made us stop to take lots of photos of shops and signs with the word Keith in the name. It was pretty funny, and here are some of her favourites:






After that it was full steam ahead to Ballarat…………or at least it was until I had looked more closely at the map. Ballarat is right on the way to Melbourne and the Airport, however I noticed with a slight detour we could head up to stay in a place called Bendigo. My motivation for doing this was because on the map I spotted the ‘McIvor Highway’!! I couldn’t believe it!! So we headed up that way while Kelly looked through her book of motel accommodation (that she liberated from the previous motel) and found that there was one on ‘McIvor Road’. So we promptly headed for Bendigo, got booked into the hotel on McIvor Road and headed to the pub next door for some cracking food. The next day we set off down the McIvor Highway towards Melbourne, however not before I stopped and took a few photos while Kelly sat in the car and cringed at me and moaned that I was stopping every time I saw anything remotely connected to ‘McIvor’………..I didn’t care though, I was on a mission, and I think you’ll appreciate some of these photos:






See the poll to the left for your chance to vote on the best McIvor sign. :-)

So after all that excitement it was back to Melbourne, flight to Sydney, and we are back here now. We had a night out on Friday where we got a little drunk and ended up and my mates Nathan and Kacey’s until about 4am playing guitar hero. We had drunk a LOT of redbull so there was quite a lot of spectacular guitar and drum playing going on.










Then on Saturday night we went out for my mate Matthew’s 30th birthday, which was good, although I think the best thing about the night was going to the pub to watch Rangers beat Celtic and go top of the league……….beautiful!! Now we just have to win our last three games and it’s all over…..

OK, there you have it, that’s our last couple of weeks wrapped up into a quick blog. Thanks for all the emails and messages asking where the blog had gone, I didn’t realise so many people were reading it. I’ll make sure I keep it updated more often, however you may have to put up with some pretty mundane stuff while I’m job hunting.

We are fine over here, hope everyone back home is doing well.

Talk soon.

Alan

P.S. Thanks for all the comments on the last blog. In response:

Tom: I wanted to go on the Ramsey Street tour and 'meet the Neighbours', but I wasn't allowed.

Rob: Yeah, my attention span sucks, I know it was you that posted! ;-)

Luan: We're both fine, York races is good, but after much discussion on the matter, we're going to stay here.

Anonymous: Worst comment on the blog ever! :-p