Simply Different!

Here's our latest blog, which covers our Christmas and New Year - and what a time it was! It's a long one but I wanted to cover Christmas and New Year in detail as it was without a doubt one of the highlights - I never expected Australia to hold so much for us - if the rest of the trip holds this many good times then we will be blown away! (Hopefully not in Kuta!)

After Fraser Island we headed down the coast stopping at various National Parks and camp sites trying to hit Sydney for New Year. We'd got a loose arrangement with our friend Matt (there's your mention you 'orrible man), to collect him from Wollongong, which we renamed Wollondong - and actually got confused with the name so were telling people we were heading down to the dong! Classic!

We had no idea what to do for Christmas but we couldn't be arsed with the massive crowds and the huge rip off that Christmas was making the camping grounds, so we decided to stock up on food, water, wine and beer and head off into the wilderness for an, off the wall Christmas, away from the commercial chaos (apart form alcohol) that we were used to. Just us in the middle of a National Park! It cost us $90 each for a weeks supply of food, including masses of meat for the Christmas Day BBQ and copious amounts of alcohol - Another bargain!

We got there Christmas Eve and set up our camp in the 30 degree heat, played stick cricket using the esky and an empty beer box as wickets (Hahn Super Dry - what a beer - no hangovers!) and lit a camp fire after going on the hunt and finding a pile of logs nearby! As it got dark, and after a slab of Hahn, we couldn't resist some of the meat we'd got for Christmas lunch, we'd got far too much, so we had burgers and sautéed potato (yes we are now culinary one stove, two pan specialists). After this, and to avoid the Mozzies (we were right next to a river - what a setting for Christmas), we retreated to the tent to play cards and sat up to wait until Christmas Day - we had no signal on our phones either, which made the whole wilderness experience.

We slept till quite late Christmas Day, 11:30am - I think is was because we'd freaked ourselves out in the middle of the night while going for a toilet break, seeing the massive eyes in the torchlight of a wild cat eating the remains of our tea! First job was to build a fire that we could keep going all day, just like back home, but for a different reason - to cook Christmas lunch on! We went gathering wood in true Ray Mears stylie, leaves and pine needles to get it going then small twigs, getting larger until the logs. The fire was as good as he could have built - except we needed matches! - However, thinking about it we should have used Rob's magnifying glass on his army knife.

Once the fire was lit it was time to hit the Hahn again, still sleepy eyed, but hey, it was Christmas and we were doing it so differently and loving it so much. We played a little more stick cricket, but due to the beers we soon started loosing the ball and had to go bush whacking in true Taipan country - either we are getting brave, or the beer made us stupid, but we did manage to loose 1 ball and find 4 - I guess that told us whether we should have been looking for our ball in the bush! God knows what we would have done if one of us had got bitten - mega!

After we'd fed the fire some more wood to get the hot plate hot, we carved our names into the picnic area we were near and wrote in charcoal - "Rob and Pete 25/12/2007". After this - about 3pm it was time to start our Christmas feast - it was so tasty, we'd got some superbly flavoured kebabs and seafood. We're used to cheap simple dishes - this was luxury! Its amazing how back home we spent so much on things, yet we have adjusted to this simple live easily and we are not bothered about the luxury - what life learning! We decided to have a true feast spending ages cooking everything two at a time so we could spread out the whole experience and take in what was happening. After lunch we played more stick cricket but after the litre of Rose wine it just wasn't happening, so we sat and talked for a bit around the fire about us, what was going on and what thoughts we were having about back home - but its difficult with so long to go to have any idea about what we want to do back home but we both have some interesting life changing thoughts! Eventually it started to get dark so we retreated to the tent, and played cards until we fell asleep. - What an amazing Christmas - I love been around the family and friends at Christmas, but this was definitely special as it was just so simple and stress free, at one with nature.

We headed down to Wollongong in preparation to meet Matt, and stayed a night at 7 mile beach. As we'd not had any mobile signal we hadn't been in touch with Matt so didn't know his plans were not to meet us until later, so we called Elaine and Jez - A Bradford couple living in Sydney. Elaine is the sister of robs mums friend from work. They had offered us their garage (carpeted with beds and a fridge with a toilet attached, minus Black Widdows! - so luxury for us campers) over the New Year, as they has 4 girls from Bradford coming up from Melbourne who had first dibbs on their spare room. Elaine said we could go there early and Matt could join us later getting the train up the coast. So that was it we headed up to Sydney.

Elaine and Jez are fantastic people and it was good to hear a friendly accent - we went to the pub with them on our first night for some beers and we bought them tea for letting us stay for free over the New Year - very generous!

We headed into Sydney for a walk around to take it all in and look at the sales - we thought we may need something smarter than short shorts (we don't want to be untanned down to our shins by wearing boardies!). We had lunch in Sydney, which is such a great city - it had such a great feel to it. We then met Elaine and Jez in a Sydney FC supporters pub to watch Sydney take on Adelaide at soccer - the fans are quite hardcore and the atmosphere was boisterous, but nothing like the crowds in England.

The following day the girls were arriving but by the time me and Rob had got back from the beach they had arrived, after a 10 hour drive, and hit the town. The 4 had turned into 5, Gemma, Louise, Sarah, Ginge and Harris.

The day after, Matt was arriving. We waited for Matt and headed for the beach - which was very nice but the waves were small, we love playing in waves and body surfing them into the shore. However, there was a storm brewing off Fraser so we were guaranteed some big waves after the New Year - Fraser Island had been evacuated!

It was really good to see Matt as he is a good guy who likes to have a laugh and was the last person to see us off in the UK, taking us to the airport. He even said he'd collect us when we get back, nice one!

When we got back from the beach, Elaine and Jez had got a BBQ going so we all sat out and had a few beers and an early night in preparation for the New Years Eve celebrations. We had no plan of what to do, but knew we wanted to see the display but had no idea where to get the best view or when to go - luckily the girls were planners and had everything planned - including an early start - 8am! As we had no idea we decided we'd go with the girls as they seemed to have everything covered. Entry times, train routes, food, water... we had nothing. Oh well 'If ya don't know, go with the flow!' and we did.

When we got to the Botanical gardens there was a 2 hour queue in the hot morning sun and once the park had 22,000 people in they would shut the gates, we just hoped as we got close we weren't 21,999! Rob and I managed not to burn - we're quire brown now so I think our skin is more used to the Aussie sun - the girls looked very pink the next day!

Once we got in and had picked our spot, a nice shady spot under a tree on a grassy verge just at the top of the stairs down to the harbour front and infront of the bar, we just had to wait for the bar to open - at 2pm! Needless to say we were all a little thirsty by the time the bar opened.

Although we were in the park for over 12 hours the day went fast as we all had a good laugh getting to know about each others travels and catch up with things back home with Matt. A few of the girl’s friends turned up Aaron, Eamon and Christine. Aaron was a real good laugh and he spends a lot of time in Leeds so we hope to meet him when we get home.

The atmosphere was electric - 22,000 people all waiting for the same thing - it was like a festival with so many people having a good time yet like Cafe Del Mar everyone waiting for the grand finale in a loved up mood - it was really unreal and I’ve never experienced anything like it.

Our phones are crap and even during the day we couldn't get a service to wish people a happy New Year - we're not even sure 4 days after that our phones are working as Rob got a text yesterday from New Years Eve!

By the time the 9pm show started we had all had a few beers (we were getting 4 every time we went to the bar) and I managed to find an optimum spot just as it started, as I was on the way back form the loo. I was in the middle of thousands of people in awe at the kids display - I just thought what the hell is the midnight one going to be like and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck!

Not long after the kids display, we headed down to the harbour front, right opposite the bridge with the Sydney high rise buildings to our far left and the Opera house to the left of the bridge - people had paid thousands for a view like this and we were just there for free! Some of the people who were sat on the slope took a disliking at our good fortune and started throwing drinks over us, so there were nearly fireworks before midnight when security had to calm the whole thing down.

At midnight the display was unbelievable - I’ve seen it on TV and the TV does nothing for the atmosphere of 22,000 people going wild all wishing each other happy New Year - what an unforgettable experience - it was a long hard wait but worth it for the 12 minutes at the end!

After the fighting our way out of the crowds in the park we were all a bit jaded so headed home.

New Years Day we headed to the beach and the storm had produced some huge swell - about 3m the lifeguard board said. We went straight into the sea drawn like moths to a light and immediately felt the strongest rip ever - I'm surprised the beach wasn't closed - but then again it was a bank holiday and..... tourism pays! We managed to get out of it but people were been dragged back into it before then, the Baywatch style rescue started - the life guards were in the water pulling and pushing people out of the rip and for the rest of the afternoon the made a man line into the sea stopping people drifting out with the rip.Most of the life suars seemed like girls, so it was really like Bay watch! We caught some good waves here and I even managed - I don't know how - to get sat on the top of a wave and ride it until it broke - more stoke! The face of some of the waves was 2m+ crazy but good exercise, especially for the lungs and fun.

That evening we chilled out as Matt and the girls were leaving the following day and watched some Australian comedy - which I’m sure would go down well back home - it was quite amusing.

Those of us that could manage to leave our pits hugged good bye to the girls, who said we could use their garden in Melbourne, before we had to say good bye to Matt for him to go down to Wollongong - We got to the platform and his train arrived so we didn't get chance to say thanks for the company and the good time - Cheers Matt - see you in sunny England next November - at Manchester Airport ;)