Melbourne is awesome!!!

Well, I know it's been a while since our last update, but what can I say, we've been too busy living the dream! We both agree that Melbourne is easily the nicest city we've ever had the chance to stay and I'm sure it won't be the last time we visit. You may notice I said 'both' as most of you will now know ozfest has now been reduced to only two. Gerard and our good friend Micky both decided to go home in December to have Christmas with friends and family and nurse their bank accounts. It was a sad day to see the lads go.

As I understand it both Gerard and Micky were very good at keeping their return home quiet which almost resulted in some very messy underwear from their folks! Gez walked out of a darkened room when his dad returned home to an "empty" house and nearly gave the poor man a heart attack! If only he filmed it, that would have been a classic Jeremy Beadle moment.

So myself and Shad found ourselves relatively alone in the big city. We manged to sign a three month lease in a share appartment on King Street which is right in the centre of the city, an ideal location for lots of partying sightseeing. We shared this very small appartment with five (yes five!) other people: Haga (Japan), Chisato (Japan), Alex (Oz), Lee (S Korea) and Hansey (India), which was a very international mix.

The flat was initially very quiet with everyone staying confined to their own rooms and the only social interaction being a passing hello on the way to the toilet or kitchen. So, in order to get things moving we did what we do best - we bought lots of food and drink and had a party! Instantly everyone came out of their shells and got to know each other, although let me tell you the language barriers were pretty difficult. Thankfully everyone understands the language of alcohol and games which held us together for the next three months!

So here we go with some pictures. We'll start off with Christmas in the appartment which was certainly a little different to Christmas back home. Without mum's cooking, turkey, a tree and all of the other home comforts we had to do our best to make sure everyone had a good time. A BBQ for dinner and lots of drinks were the order of the day!

Lee, Chisato, Haga, Danny, Shad, Chumbawumba, Mairi and Matia

Chisato, Shad, Mairi, Hansey, Max, Mitsubishi and Haga

Aww, look at those wee pressies! Who needs a tree when you've got a microwave!?

Two very excited little elves

Just look at those wee smiley faces

Shad was very excited about Christmas

Sarajh and Haga

Going out in style at New Year's

Haga, Hansey, Shad, Chisato, Lee, Max and Wee Jimmy

Haga and Danny share a moment

Lee doing his sales pitch for Korean Chilli paste! BUY NOW!

BBQ with Shad, Shoko, Haga, Chisato and Mokoto

Mokoto, Shad and Shoko big it up!

The lights of Melbourne at night

"You can see our house from here!"

Australian Tennis Open

Don't worry folks, there's more to come. Just thought I'd post this stuff just now so you can see some of what we've been up to. It's bloody hard work updating this things, especially when theres more travelling to do! We're actually in Adelaide at the moment, leaving for Cairns on Tuesday then will be heading for the Whitsundays, Frazer Island, Byron Bay, Serfers Paradise and Sydney before heading to Japan for a few weeks. It's gonna be awesome! I can see the last set of posts on the blog being a little bit late due to the travel plan so you'll have to bear with us. Stay in touch!

Deep in the Desert...

The longer we spent in the desert the more it became apparent that Scots just aren't designed for this environment! It was roastin!! Good fun tho. We made some great mates along the way and kept everyone up to speed with the drinking games!

The Olgas, Kata Tjuta

Walking through The Olgas

Salt anyone?

This huge salt lake was created in the 1970's when Britain used the area to test its atomic bombs. After spending about half an hour here we all ensured that we are now completely infertile and will probably die of some weird form of cancer.*

Yeah Micky's screwed

The rabbit fence. This is the longest fence in the world which stretches right across Australia. It's a bit retarded cos, as we all know rabbits can dig! Australians aren't turning out to be the brightest of people really.

Dereck our driver with the Italian lads Mattia and Angelo

Coober Pedy is a bit of a strange town. It would be a great set for a horror movie actually. Everyone in the town lives underground in caves. They can help pay for their home or strike it rich too because this is also one of the largest Opal mining regions in Australia.

Our accomodation which was very hostel like, cut out of the side of a hill.

Sarah, Shad and Gez in the batcave

A house we got a tour of which was built underground

PARTY! It was one of the girls' birthdays so we all went to the local Italian restaurants for pizza. What a laugh. We nearly managed to clear out the whole place cos we made so much noise!

Mattia and Danny in their elf outfits

King elf Sarah

Saying our goodbyes. Look at that sad wee face


*This is complete bulls**t. I think. We do know that the area was used as a bombing range however and apparently Britain did test atomic weapons in the desert, about 200km from this location. Lovely.

The Rock

It has to be said that Uluru and the surrounding sights were really impressive. For a big rock, it's pretty cool. We watched sunrise and sunset at the rock and spent a morning walking around it on a 9Km track. We were given the option of walking up to the top even though the local Aboriginals class the rock as sacred and ask you not to. In the end Gez was the only one of us who went up but said it was really worth it.

We also went to Kings Canyon and Kata Tjuta which were cracking. The last few days on this tour saw us doing more exercise that I think we'd done on our whole trip so far which was a welcome change.

Ozfest at King's Canyon

Wee Tam

The rare Pygmy Koala

Big Rock up ahead

Danny at Uluru

The rock nearing sunset

Gez is the fifth from the left

Kangaroo crossing

Sleeping in style under the stars

Danny, Sarah from London and Shad taking a wee rest at the rock (sorry, but we sat on it!)

Out of the tropics and into the desert

So against all the odds we finally made it out of Cairns to continue our travels through the Australian outback. We booked a few adventure tours which would take us south through the 'Red Center' via Alice Springs and Uluru to Adelaide then on to Melbourne.

The first part of our journey, with the Desert Adventurer was a really good laugh. Three days of driving through the desert to Alice Springs, stopping at sights and random wee towns along the way. The rainforests of the tropics soon gave way to sandy soil and nothing much else! We were driving on dirt roads for most of the journey and it was over 40 degrees outside. Good thing we had air con eh? Well.. I'll talk about that later.

Swim in the river anyone? I think Scotland should start donating water to these guys.

Ah, there it is.

Desert Kangaroo

I almost expected to see a giraffe or a zebra from here. Wrong continent though. Ah well, we'll just have to settle for tiny, stoned bears.

Our first drink in the Ozzie Desert! Cold beer is a godsend!

The Desert Venturer makes a pit stop

The BBQ pork was delicious!

5 star accomodation!

And our 5 star lunch in the desert. Sandwiches! They were class actuall. Damn, I'm hungry

"Just let me hold your hand!" "No, p**s off skippie!"

This little town was apparently famous for it's Dinosaurs.. which they chopped and used as bins and the like.

Country and Western ers

Look at the size of those termites!

Steve and Scruffy

Sunrise on the ranch

You would pee yourself too if this lad was touching you!!

Welcome to Nature Terrrrrrritory

Oh crap! About four hours outside Alice Springs the bus breaks down, in 40+ heat!!

Luckily Super Gez comes to the rescue and fixes the bus!

To Shad's delight!

Only in Alice Springs!

For our last night with the crew from the Desert Venturer we all went for dinner and then played drinking games well into the night.

The lovely Irish girls. T'be shure, t'be shure!

DRINK!!

As Gez confirmed, yes, three is the magic number.