So back to Melbourne through the torrential rain to begin the goodbyes as everyone headed back to England, we also saw Jarlath and Pip off to their proper honeymoon in Fiji.
As usual it was really sad to say goodbye to them, if only we could teleport ourselves across the world to have dinner with them all the time.....boo to the fact that teleporters don't exist yet. Still we will see them next year for the wedding and hopefully before while we are in South America if they can find the money, though with the Aussie dollar as it is at the moment I recommended they do all the travelling they could!
So just me, Ronan and Steve left to our own devises in Melbourne. We had managed to get some free accommodation down at Nelsons Prom which Ronan's brother, Niall, had booked when it looked like the ash was gonna delay them by about ten days and now couldn't use as their flight had been brought forward.
The little town were staying in felt seriously like an off season beach resort, nowhere to eat, the shop closed at 4pm and no one about, not auspicious beginnings!
Next day we headed out to check out 'the Prom' as the as the Aussies call it and it didn't disappoint even though we weren't there while it was hot. We squeaked along squeaky beach, climbed one of the peaks and did a 20km walk as well which took us through another weird burnt out forest and lush rainforest as well, saw some pretty serious fungi to add to our fungi photo collection which I know you will all be dying to see the slide show of when we get back.
The 20km walk felt like good practice for all the walking we would be doing in NZ and I didn't die at the end of it, in fact I drove us the 3 hours back to Melbourne.
It was almost time for us to leave Melbourne, just enough time to say hi to Dave once more and partake in one last quintessential Melbourne activity, a gig in a darkened upstairs bar. Went to see Georgia Fields (http://www.myspace.com/georgiafields) who was fantastic, her and her band used all manner of bizarre instruments including a power drill, a great way to say bye to Melbs.
Getting back into practice for being backpackers we took the cheapo overnight bus to Sydney and arrived looking a bit worse for wear into seedy Kings Cross, we found our hostel and flopped straight into bed to sleep off the night's journey. Having fully recovered, we stepped out at lunchtime to see the city and found a fabulous sunny day, a little bit more summer to enjoy before we headed into the southern hemisphere winter.
Sydney is proper glam! If Melbourne is the slightly grungy cool kid in skinny jeans who likes bands you have never heard of then Sydney is the fabulous, toned, tanned, gay man who loves glitter and house music. Its a city that is fabulous and knows it! The harbour is really stunning and full of international landmarks like the bridge and the opera house.
We spent the afternoon with Ronan's parents eating fish and chips and drinking rose over in one of the little bays, looking back at the CBD as the sun set, very chilled. In fact sydney was pretty much all catching up with people.
We spent another sunny afternoon with my cousin Andrew who took us to brunch on the hip streets of Surrey Hills then gave us a guided walking tour around the city he has called home for a year now. We did another sun set down by the water and then drinks watching the moon on the water.
Our final day in Sydney I took Ronan to his first aquarium ever! I have no idea how he managed to get to 30 without ever having had this experience and luckily Sydney is a pretty cool one complete with sharks, giants rays, turtle and even Dugong (look a bit like a manatees).
The evening was spent catching up with some more friends, Aine and John, who took us to see the classy side of Sydney with cocktails in a revolving 18th floor bar and then dinner in the Rocks. In the end we had to call it a night at 11 as we had to be up at 4am to take our flight to New Zealand.
Waking in what seemed like the middle of the night we were off on the next adventure in the land of sheep and mountains, Aotearoa!
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