Scnitzel Schnoo and Madtin Ah! Bisto Gravy, The Adventures of

Another early jaunt to the airport, another emotional hello after another hours wait...it could be worse though, we could have been the limo driver stood in Arrivals waiting for Mr A. Pickup - no joke, we were eager to go back to the airport in the afternoon to see if he was still waiting :) A Bart Simpson classic if ever I heard one.

We 'settled' into the hostel but since we were swapping rooms the settling meant packing up and leaving all of our belongings in the car until further notice! So even if Madtin and Stu had wanted to go to bed...they couldn't. So off out we went, in search of some fun and games...blue skies, good company - all is looking good! We stopped for breakfast and watched the clouds roll in, it did in fact start to rain while we were sat outside and the day didn't improve much weatherwise but on we trotted...to the Opera House, to the Bridge (a magnificent bridge specimen if ever I saw one), to the Pylon lookout (16 people died building the bridge), to Darling Harbour and finally back to the hostel for some curry and beer. Two down and the boys were ready for sleeps, so we returned to our luxury style room with plenty of floor space and air-con and that was that - first day in Sydney over!

Just for reference, in case people were wondering (because Madtin was) they do have schools here, they do have crisps here and the Harbour Bridge DOESN'T spin round! They also sell beer...so we brought as much as we could carry! Madtin informed us at this point that he had already fulfilled his beer and walking quota for the entire holiday - make of that what you will people ;)

Just a quick thank you for all the gifts sent over from the NU folk, we are now proud members of the toyvoyagers.com club - everyone meet Fraser, Fraser meet everyone (all will be explained at some point). And an extra special thank you to Ma and Pa Layton for the camera!

In between dreams

Our week in between Kit departing and Martin and Stu arriving (they have arrived by the way - for all of those concerned family members they have yet to notify!)...

So Kit left and to stop Amy and I moping for too long Alison moved into our room in the hostel. It didn't take too long for the room to look like a chinese laundry...or just a room with three girls living in it!

I spent the week working for an Irish company doing "reception" which looked a lot like data entry from where I was sitting!! Amy and Alison spent the week searching for work and eating Chinese soup from what I can gather :) Tuesday was Melbourne Cup day - ladies who aren't going to the races or even to Melbourne dress up to the nines and head down to the pub, so on my second day of working I ended up sipping champagne and watching horse racing in an Irish bar...and being paid for it! Can't be bad huh?

Friday night me and Ayms headed over to Bondi to say our final fare-thee-wells to Steve and Mark who we met in Melbourne and have sadly now moved on from Australia. Our new favourite mode of transport is the bus and we managed to navigate our way to Bondi Beach only to discover that we were meant to be in Bondi Junction (a few stops previous - oops, there we go getting lost AGAIN!)

So we found a bar had a drink, then got back on the bus to return to Bondi Junction...got to the pub too late to be let in and had to find another bar that would take us, (un)luckily we found the Tea Garden Bar which contained it's fair share of drunkards who didn't seem to mind all the broken glass on the floor! Thankfully Steve and Mark joined us just in time for me and Ayms to get tired and want to go home :) Not before a quick screaming rendition of Meatloaf - I would do anything for you though! Hope you had a safe trip guys and enjoy the next leg of the journey :)

Saturday we managed to drag ourselves away from the city and headed to Bondi again to check out the Sculptures by the Sea exhibition. It was one of the hottest days yet and me and Ayms forgot our suntan lotion (sorry Mums!) we did try and cower in the shade for the most part of it though and I even creatively used the exhibition brochure as a cool hat to cover me. The exhibition runs along the sea front from Bondi to Tamaramarama with 100 sculptures, it was pretty amazing all in all. We then headed to Coogee to catch up with Matt and his not-so-sane housemates. Sunday involved some sleep, some food and preparing for the incoming madness that is Madtin and Stu...

For reference I know how to spell Martin (and Marvin for that matter) but in one of the rare not-so-sensible comments from our beloved Martian he became and has remained ever since Madtin Gravy. I don't expect that anyone other than myself, Ayms, Stu and Madtin will understand the blogs for the next few weeks but stick with us please :)

She's a pie eater...

We stayed in the Holiday/Village/World (some combination of the three) in Byron Bay - which was nice, we had our own room to make a mess in and by the end of the week we had our own sandy beach effect going on. Unfortunately they made us check our culinary skills in when we first arrived...we managed to concoct meals such as hard jacket potatoes with frozen prawns, uncooked vegetables and overcooked curry. Damn the microwave and the one speed hobs!

This is definitely where it is at though...Cheeky Monkey's, the party bar and restaurant is right across the road from our hostel. The only place to dance is on the tables and beware of the odd evacuation because of bomb threats! Not to worry though, the Bomb Squad surveyed the area and proclaimed it a bomb free area!...off we went dancing again! Me and Amy also met a guy from the SPECIAL INESTIGATION UNIT of the airforce and since we have been taking the mickey out of this phrase for the last two months, unfortunately we laughed in the man's face...apologies to you .... Bob?!

Turns out the 'party' hostels on the east coast are a bit of a myth since once again this hostel shut its communal areas down at 10:30pm...drinking, playing guitar and well, making any sort of noise has to become and underground affair.

Kit boogie boarded his way through the first couple of days and I even joined him on one occasion for about an hour, until the flippers and cramp became a bit much and laying in the sun seemed a less painful option...don't worry though Kit, I haven't given up completely just yet :) While Kit was out riding the waves me and Amy strolled/hiked our way to the most easterly point of Australia! It was a pretty windy/unsheltered affair so we didn't stay too long.

We also learnt a new drinking game with too many rules for any normal (let alone drunk) person to remember. It was however the cause of Kit hugging every guy round the table at the hostel...not to worry though, the lads in Byron Bay were well up for it and one even came back for seconds. Oh, we also had the pleasure of eating in a restaurant where the waitress thought 10% of $30 was $20....genius. I had to pull out the maths skills out of the bag for that one.

Kit also managed a changing rooms style makeover while he was in Byron, he now sports boardies and thongs and neither of them are blue...imagine :) looking good mr Kit! He took up surfing for the next couple of days to complete the surfer bum lifestyle! Amy and I missed the entertainment on both days apart from the last 10 seconds of Kit getting out of the sea at the end of the lesson. By all accounts and the photographs though, he did a grand job!

We spent one whole afternoon searching for halloween costumes for the Halloween party at the hostel...we ended up going as Ghostbusters on holiday (our own normal clothes, a rucksack attached to a water gun by some hosepipe tubing!) We looked ace and even had a green balloon as Slimer until he burst for no particular reason...bustin' makes me feel good! We were the cause of a couple of mini water fights, one of which ended in me being pushed into the boys showers, oops! And Kit took part in a comedy drinking game which involved downing a mug of goon...nice! Him and his two lovely lady friends were just beaten to the post by toilet paper man and bill and ben the flowerpot men. To be fair the night started a little bit too early and although we made it to Cheeky Monkeys we didn't stay all that long and ended up at the 24 hour bakery eating pies at 1:30am!

We once again discovered the world is not that large-a-place when we ran into Shane and Brian in Byron Bay (those are the irish guys from Sydney) We arranged to meet them for a quiet drink after our 'farewell to Byron Bay' meal at an amazing Thai restaurant, mmmmm! It was a fairly tame evening since we still had to pack and prepare for the mammoth drive the next day...although at one point we were drinking cocktails out of jam jars, and they were free! The perks of being a traveller :)

Turns out Byron Bay to Sydney in one day is possible although the chances are you may go a little bit insane, I ended up dreaming about talking ducks that evening...and Kit - what was your weird dream about?! We managed to find a half decent curry house in Crows Nest which was our reward for having driven that far in one day! And we tried to drive over the Harbour Bridge but ended up taking the tunnel instead - rubbish signs again! Oh, and we stopped by Palm Beach on our way through (via a massive detour) thats the home of Home and Away by the way but we will have to head back there in the daylight to really appreciate it.

We managed to hook ourselves up with a pretty nice room in the hostel when we finally arrived in Sydney, although the luxury-ness only lasted for one night before we were moved into a small oven for the rest of our stay! Kit's last but one day in the wonderful world of Oz and I HAD to go to work for an afternoon, Amy HAD to look for work for the afternoon and Kit HAD to buy a body board!! In the evening we did our usual walk for miles and miles before finding somewhere to eat or drink, it was worth it though since we found a particuarly nice restaurant and visited the three monkeys pub recommended by our very own weathermanjohn (thanks!)

Saturday looked a lot like us getting up, packing, going to Macd's and taking Kit to the airport for another emotional g'bye...it was definitely worse the second time around :(

We miss you Kit...come back! xx

I am so over lookouts

Monday morning arrives all too soon and our first challenge is to fit all our luggage into the car...a bit of a space saving exercise and we finally fit everything and everyone into the car! Kit and Betty got on so well that Kit started to splash out on the 'quality' unleaded petrol (Gem means 'Premium' ;-) KC) to feed her - once again the budget has gone out of the window! :)

After filling the car with petrol we found a McDonalds from which we purchased some quality junk food (just going through my reciepts, here!) On the bill we appear to have a Quarterpounder with cheese meal, 6 chicken nuggets meal, two cheeseburgers, some BBQ sauce and a pot of sweet chilli sauce. What would you do without me filling you in on the finer details?! I'm offerering a prize of a deluxe weekend break in Norwich, complete with sofa and sleeping bag accomodation to anyone who match up all 6 items to the correct traveller! Answers in the comments section, please. KC

Our first day we spent driving through the very green Blue Mountains...we are so over lookouts right about now! Another one of Kit's hunches meant we took more than four hours to go what we thought would take two hours and we finally arrive in Newcastle...check the map and we have gone all of 5mm! It wasn't all bad though - we got to do some star-gazing along the way! (Yeah, it was amazing - totally different stars to the ones we see back home and not a cloud in the sky! KC) By the time we had arrived and settled into the hostel is was about 9pm - perfect time to get some dinner before going to sleep...wrong again people, restaurants here shut at about 6pm and you are left with takeaway pizza or bed on an empty stomach - you gotta do what you gotta do :)

We left Amy in bed the next day in an attempt to recover some energy, she is currently on about 50 paracetemol and 27 hours of sleep a day ;) Kit and I headed out to discover the sights and sounds of Newcastle, we visited the beach which was the equivalent of an intense all over exfoliating session - the wind/sand combination got too much after a while not to mention the toxic looking blue jellyfish that line the beach and make swimming in the sea completely impossible unless you want to spend the next part of the day bathing in vinegar, which some people apparently did?! We headed back into the town for some lunch, a haircut, we tried to find the fort and instead discovered some pac man grafitti which was far more interesting anyway! We visited a very helpful chemist who diagnosed Amy with a middle ear infection and gave her a food ice pack!!

We dined out in a posh-ish restaurant that evening where Kit felt the need to throw his credit card away - who needs money huh! Luckily we were all such good hide and seek candidates when we were younger that we didn't have any trouble tracking it down!!

The party on the road continued the next day...we headed to Port Macquarie via Nelson's Bay which held the promise of dolphins, but no :( Instead we ate...Kit had pancakes, Amy had scrambled eggs and I had scrambled eggs and sausages minus the sausages. We drove a fairly long distance out of the way to visit Seal Rocks which neither had any seals on it nor looked like a seal - however Kit seemed to enjoy risking death by clambering all over the rocks so all was not lost! Mum, I swear it's all lies! KC

We arrived in Port Macquarie and settled into our next home...cooked up a storm on the BBQ in the rain and headed out to the trivia night at Down Under in the town. We actually won something!! - $10 to spend on drinks in the bar which was enough to buy a round of JD, Vodka and Scotch - prices to rival Vietnam here! Although considering how drunk we WEREN'T after 7 or 8 rounds i.e. we weren't raring to get up and join the Karaoke clan, we are not convinced the alcohol content was that great. The locals however were all over it and loving it...we on the other hand were loving the 'Wayne and Waynetta do singing' as our free entertainment for the night.

We lost Kit to the sea the next day along with his boogie board (body board!) while me and Amy tried to make whatever we were doing not look like shopping :) We popped into the Koala hospital and kidded ourselves that we might actually wash Betty Boo but opted for videos and beer instead! Kit made us watch Sliding Doors, he claims it's like his favourite film ever ;) We also watched 'The Castle', which I would recommend to anyone who's into an underdog story or two. KC

One more day on the road and this time we had the immense pleasure of seeing the Big Banana, Australia's oldest fruit-like attraction at forty years old...DO NOT GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO SEE THIS "ATTRACTION", it's pants. We also by-passed (I think Gem means passed-by, but I'm just getting picky now! KC) the Big Prawn and my favourite of all of them the Ayers Rock replica come petrol station come hotel! (I got told off for calling it Ayer's Rock when I got back, I wonder if the politically correct internet police will be after us?! KC) The lonely planet advised leaving all cynicism at the door which Kit and Amy bought suitcases of and they couldn't quite shake the feeling they were in some sort of mad twilight zone, aye well :)

We made it to Byron Bay and then refused to go any further! And who would want to? Ahhh... could there be a better surf / party / sunburn spot in the world? If so, I've yet to find it! KC

Smooth as a gravy sandwich

Kit 'I only go to the gym so I can eat more' Cecconi joined the terrible two in Sydney three weeks ago as most of you know, 24 hours on a flight, a teary hello at the airport, a very successful introduction to Betty Boo and four breakfasts later it's like we have never been apart! - but in Australia instead. So, it should be a lot sunnier than home and beach activities should be on the top of our list things to do...wrong! The clouds have rolled in over Sydney since we arrived and we have planted ourselves in the middle of the city - a fair distance away from any sort of beach front unless you want to swim in Darling Harbour?! Which, incidently, is totally illegal - how not fun is that?! KC

STOP...Hammertime...

We stayed at the Billabong Gardens, a particularly nice hostel with a pool (unheated, exhilarating fun! KC), a cheap home for Betty, free internet, large tele room, good kitchen and outdoor chilling out areas...these would be incredibly useful if they didn't shut at 10:30pm and you were banished to either the pub or your room?! I don't think we knew how good we had it in Melbourne until all the hostels since then seem to close their common areas at nightime...I guess it's an attempt to keep the place quiet for all those people trying to sleep, in reality it means people rock up at 1, 2, 3am a little inebriated and totally inconsiderate of all those that went to bed hours ago! We shared a room with Shane and Brian/Bream from Ireland and an Aussie guy called Michael who seemed to be a permanent resident of the hostel.

We visited Australia's number 1 attraction - not Steve Irwin's zoo...not the Whitsundays...
not Fraser Island...not Uluru, but the Sydney Aqaurium! We saw such sights as a platypus
(singular because I cannot figure out the plural...numbers girl me!), a dead looking crocodile, some weird looking sea cucumbers and we found Nemo! It was thoroughly enjoyable as aquariums go and since we were trying to avoid the bridge and the opera house until the blue skies had returned it fitted in well.

Having not found a dance mat in all of Australia or Asia for the last seven months (excuses, excuses), Kit found one on his first day here (he used the force to find the flashing neon lights of the arcade)...the competition resumed and by jove ol' chap...Kit is a human dance machine!! Me and Ayms definitely need to practice some :)

Kit, the superstar that he is managed to bring a few vital items with him...some Minstrels
(mmmmmmm, thank you!!!), some giant buttons, some alcohol, a 12 year old lonely planet
(which prompted the debate 'is it or is it not more useful than mine and Amy's non-existent lonely planet?') with some pressed flowers in it - "Are you carrying any illegal substances into the country today Mr Cecconi?", "No", "Did you pack your bags yourself Mr Cecconi?", "Yes"...hmmmm! And let's not forget the all important guitar along with an eighties music book! Happy days as a wiseman once said :) ...The alcohol lasted an evening, I think Amy ate all her buttons, the Minstrels are still going strong (melted and reformed a few times over but still!), the lonely planet was banished to a dark corner as soon as possible along with the pressed flowers and the guitar has made many an appearance now all over the east coast of Australia - this is the lyrical genius of Kit and Gem thus far...

We've got a car,
And a guitar,
And some sandwiches,
They have potato salad in them (it's all true!)
STOP...Hammertime...

The rest of our time in Sydney was spent visiting the Chinese Garden, dressing up and taking silly photos, wandering around the Royal Botanic Gardens, visiting Mrs Macquarie's chair, the Opera House and the tower with views all over Sydney...that was a fun day when we went in the tower it was blue skies and sunshine, by the time we got to the top of the tower it was more like grey views all over a grey Sydney with plenty of clouds in sight! Oh and to top off the experience, our little camera broke as well...probably from overuse?! :( That was the day that Kit killed a fly, we think it was just karma that these things went wrong! (Let's not forget the two cockroaches that I also put to death, with the heel of my shoe! KC) Oh, we also got served by David Starsky at the Opera House bar and Amy saw a famous person but still hasn't figured out who she is!

It is definitely the time to be seeing old friends, since Mel and Graham (from Norwich ) arrived in Sydney at the same time as Kit, We visited Manly altogether, got attacked by flies...the story goes, Kit has been having some directional hunches since he arrived here and we are not sure if it's because the sun is in the wrong place or if it's the water going down the plughole the other way (Johnboy maybe you can shed some light?!) but we have learnt to generally do the opposite of these hunches. We were a bit naive in the early stages of the holiday so Kit led the way at Manly and we went round the houses (and the flies) in order to get to the main beach which turned out to be pretty much opposite the ferry terminal! D'oh! OK, let's get one thing straight... Whilst my 'hunches' on which direction to travel in may have been erroneous, I would like to point out that the poor standard of Australian maps and signs was not at all helpful in this regard. Mel should recieve full credit for later deciphering the map's code and leading us, eventually, to Manly beach. And a jolly good beach it was too. KC

We also managed a night out on the town with Mel and Graham...a struggle at first since we couldn't find anywhere to go (this is Sydney right?) but after walking a million kms we stumbled across some bargainous $10 steaks and an irish bar which kept us going into the early hours!

We also took the ferry to Watson's Bay to taste the delights of the famed Doyle's fish and
chips...a bargain at $32 each! Surprisingly it was a fairly cheap day for everyone bar Kit's mum...since she sent Kit away with a few extra bucks so we could go for some nice food...thank you thank you thank you!! All in all we spent $173 on fish and chips....who knew it was possible?! Mmmm... Jumbo prawns with beer batter, stuffed with spinach and pine nuts... Mmmm... to die for! KC

STOP...Hammertime...

Another Friday, another night out on the town...this time with Brian, Shane and Caroline - it was another evening of wandering the city looking for somewhere remotely inviting (i.e. not a strip bar) so we ended up in a bar full of middle-aged people dancing to a middle-aged band, once we decided this wasn't for us we hit the streets again and headed for O'Malleys where the middle-aged contingent was definitely present but not in such great numbers. In our confused (drunken) state we tried to squeeze five people in a four seater taxi without the taxi driver noticing?!?! Unsurprisingly we didn't succeed :) On the comedy side of things we had lost Brian at this point, turns out he had gone to wait for the train to get home, fell asleep on it and ended up riding from one end of the line to the other until about 10:30am!!!

Saturday night fight night came and went and was pretty uneventful aside from our little jaunt to Coogee (the place doesn't even exist in Kit's lonely planet book!). We waited for a bus for about forty minutes then realised Kit's bus timetable reading skills were about as off as his map reading skills (sacked once again mr Kit)....so then we tried the train, another twenty minutes and one finally arrives to get us into town at which point the idea of trying to find another bus stop drives us to catch a cab...another half an hour and we finally make it to Coogee.

We went to a bar which you could easily mistake for a bookeepers/shopping mall/family pub....there we met up with Hazel (Happy Birthday), Matt and a few others. Once we had exhausted all the fun to be had in that place we headed out to find a house party we had been invited to...another trek in the rain and wrong direction (Just to clarify - this was not one of my directional hunches, I had been sacked as navigator days beforehand! KC) and we finally got there to be greeted by Steve (Scottish guy from Melbourne) and all his uni buddies. The place was over-run with Scots, flaming Barcardi, drunken darts and a broken guitar, which Kit kindly gave a lesson on to a drunken girl even though it only had four strings and she'd had enough alcohol to wash away all sense of rhythm!

STOP...hammertime! Then Amy got sick :(

On Sunday we had the pleasure of meeting Amy's friend from school, Alison...she arrived back in Sydney at the weekend and we went to meet her for dinner and some drinks over in Manly.This was a good pre-evening activity for three people about to start the road trip of a lifetime :)

OK, blog competition time again... Is there anyone out there who can name the James Taylor song that contains the lyrics in the title of this blog? Kudos is the prize up for grabs here, in bucketloads! KC...POINTS DO NOT MEAN PRIZES BY THE WAY!