Boxing Day

Today Tom, Lauren and i had booked ticket to go to the MGC to watch the cricket (Australia verses South Africa). We walked to the stadium and picked up the tickets. The MCG is so well designed, although we were up in there the nose bleed seats we felt really close to the action. Tom wasn't feeling great because he'd had a bit much to drink the night before so he wasn't well and keep disappearing for half and hour at a time and coming back looking grey.

Lauren and i went for a walk around the stadium because i want to buy a radio to listen the commentary. Which was well worth it in end, its so much more enjoyable being able to see, listen and enjoy the atmosphere. Across from where we were sitting was the MCG's equivalent of the north bank at the vetch. Some of chants were really comical. This area of the MCG was the origin of all the Mexican waves. I had a really good time and we watched about 75 overs out of the 70. A really good day and the was made even better by the weather. Tom and i are planning to maybe go back the fourth day to watch the Australias bowl.

Christmas eve and day, Down under

Christmas eve was planned that we would go over to Laurens house on the other side of the city for a few bottles of wine. We headed over about 9ish . All the buses are free around Melbourne around Christmas time which is really cool. We arrived at Laurens a little late so we didn't get to meet her house mate. We hung around for a few drink and mince pies which were nice and then Smithy and I headed off.

Lauren had said that Chapel street near her house would be a good laugh to go for a Christmas drink so Smithy and i headed off. When we finally got to Chapel street it was dead. Lauren had offered if we wanted to stay at hers we were more than welcome. I wanted to wake up in my own bed so i persuaded Smithy to head back to Collingwood to stay at ours. We got the taxi back to Brunswick street and had a walked down there convinced there would be somewhere open and the nightlife bouncing. Oh how round we could have been. Normally you can't see down the pavement because of all the people, tonight you could see all the way down the street. We wised up and walked back to the hostel and went to bed. I'd had a few too many by now so i slept like a baby.

I awoke Christmas morning feeling what only could be described as "death". I'd heard of a miracle cure that could make things a whole lot better or a whole lot worse, starting drinking again. So i got out of bed, climbed down the bunk ladder reached into the fridge and grabbed me a beer. It worked, the first few sips were like drinking water from the tawe. After that i felt great. I finished the first, the second and so on, by lunch time I'd had about 8 or so and was well on my way.

Paul the owner of the hostel had organised a BBQ for all those who were staying over Christmas so that was ready to eat by one o'clock. We had that and continued to drink. Smithy and i had drunk about 14 bottles each by about 5ish so we started on the wine. Again, i was plastered but it was all good. I rang the family and loved one. Grandparents, Popsicles, Mumma, Bondy and most importantly Bex. I only had emails for Christmas presents, the four or so i had of Rebecca made me really really miss home and her. I'll explain what i think of Christmas away from friends and family at the end.

I sat on balcony with all the Irish guys telling stories of Christmas past and Christmas cultures in Ireland. I think there biggest culture is you have to be hammered and watch the classic Christmas films. Much the same as home really.

I stayed up until about 12 drinking and went to bed because we had an early start the next day to go and watch the cricket in Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).

My thoughts of Christmas in Australia.
If waking up in a room full of guys wasn't strange enough everyday, it being Christmas added to the mix made it worse. Hot Christmas's' are wrong, very wrong. A few things that make them so wrong are the fact that you don't have any desire to cuddle up to you blanket, walk around in your PJ's and slippers for a few hours. All you want to do i put on shorts and t-shirt and try and hide from the sun. Then you've got the added fact that you don't have your family ringing to wish you Merry Christmas and see what time your all planning on hooking up to have lunch.Arguments about the state of the economy and other political matters that really shouldn't be brought up on Christmas day (don't get me wrong, i love family Christmas day debates). Then there's the lack of the dinner. BBQ's aren't acceptable on Christmas day (apart from BBQing the Turkey because that rocks).

There are a few other things that make Christmas away from home wrong but i won't mention them because i don't want to seem ungrateful to all the people that are supporting this trip away. Oh, chocolate is one other thing i will mention. The lack of chocolate on a Christmas day is unacceptable.

Christmas is family time and i will appreciate it more next year when I'm home.

Meet the Lakers

Today I planned to go to Melbourne to ring the loved ones and send postcards. I got to the city about 8 and I could put money on my phone, so I wonder around the city like a lost lamb for an hour looking at all the churches and sky scrapers. After I had hung around and made some phone calls Woody called and said he was heading into the city to do some shopping and offered did he want him to show me the sights and sounds. Tom and Lauren had also planned to come into the city later that morning. I went to meet woody at the tram station. We wonder around for a bit, bumped into Tom and Lauren a few times so we agreed to meet in the roof top bar in the centre of the city around 1ish. The roof top bar is a really nice place to have a casual drink around midday. Its 7 stories up and there’s loads of bean bags to chill out on enjoy a beer. The view is a 360 degree view of the city centre of Melbourne. Woody and I later split up from Tom and Lauren again to leave them to move stuff out of Lauren's old house. Woody and I ended up getting a train back to his house we I meet his parents. They were so nice, they gave woody and I a lift to the biggest shopping mall in the Southern hemisphere, they shouted me a lunch and an ice cream and even bought me bicarbonate of soda to shop me new shoes from smelling. When we went back to Woody’s place I spoke with his old man about beach cricket and general cricket. He said the best time in the whole of the year to go and see the cricket is Boxing Day, Australia versus South Africa in a test. He thinks there should be about 90 thousand or so people there doing the same thing I intend on doing, getting steaming all day and watching some world class cricket. I can’t wait. We spoke about cherry picking and the slave labour it is and they suggest that when Tom and I get back from Tasmania where we plan to pick fruit in the New Year we could go to their beach house in Philip Island for a week just to get over the hard work. Sounds like an offer I would be insane to refuse. That evening we went out for a beer, but because woody is skint we ended up back rather early. I had a really good day thanks to the Lakers. On and by the way……..
Merry Christmas to all the readers and a happy new year!
I hope to see a few more people commenting in the New Year.

Off to Melbourne

Tom and I had been offered a lift to Young by Stuart who was now in a better mood. Smithy and Lauren had decided to hitch-hike from young to Melbourne which is about 600 to 700 kilometres. We got the bus to Cootamundra and sat about for roughly half an hour. We ordered a burger from the station café and when it came it was unbelievable. It had so much filling some rather strange but it was definitely the nicest burger I’ve had since I left Wales. Some of the more interesting ingredients in this burger were pineapple, grated carrot, egg and even beetroot. We ate our burgers just in time for the train to come to arrive. Tom and I got aboard, got the sleeping bag out and had a sleep for a few hours.
When we arrived at Melbourne roughly 7 hours later we found out the Smithy and Lauren had had a spot of luck and was roughly 30 mins behind. Tom and I got a taxi to the hostel which is just off the wind street equivalent called Brunswick Street. We checked into the hostel, well kind of, a really cool Irish guy opened the door for us and told us were staying. As I write this we are in our third day off our stay and I still haven’t paid or meet the manager.
That evening we rung an old friend which we had made in LA and road tripped with, Woody. He was ecstatic to hear that we were in Melbourne. Woody and a friend of his drove over to come and have a beer with us. We walked up and down Brunswick Street looking for somewhere to have a pint but because Tom and I had left our shoes in Young because they stank and they were totally trashed.

End of cherry picking for now

So we stayed in young a few days after picking because we awoke the following morning to Stuart shouting that we all had to get up and pick a few lugs for his son to make a few dollars. I thought sure this won’t take anytime at all, little did I know that the few lugs had to be spot picked (spot picked is when you strip a tree of the cherries but don’t put any bad cherries, this take at least an hour or more to fill a lug) today was going to be a long day. We picked about three or so that day, this meant we had to stay a day extra, miss our bus to Melbourne. We had a few beers to celebrate the hardest day picking.
On the last day we had a few photos with the last surviving members of the back creek team.

The Great party

Stuart popped over to see us all in the morning and asked which pizzas and beers we wanted. We order 20 pizzas, 6 crates of beer and a box of goon (cheap wine to you and me). We started partying about an hour before the rain started. After a few ideas I had the excellent idea of making a beer bong (a funnel and a plastic bottle connected). At this point the beer was doomed. We decided the nationalities on the farm would race. This meant the French, Aussies, Canadians, Germans and the mighty welsh would face off. Obviously I was the one doing the beer bongs for Wales. We all did a few and a couple of people were close to being sick. The Aussies won, Wales came second and the French came last. About three hours after the beer had been delivered it was all gone. I had completed 5 beer bongs and I was well on my way, leery could describe it best. We started doing wine beer bongs, about 2 hours after that I was in been with the spins. Good times! Have a look at some of the photos from the party.

A few days off

So after working for 4 days the farmer popped over and informed everyone that we would be having two days off to let the next variety of fruit ripen. The first of the two days off we spent chilling out around the camp site, playing cards, scrabble and even a spot of cricket which was a good laugh as everyone played. The weather was hot so naturally that meant we were having a few beers too.
That evening we planned to go out for a drive to water hole (koorwatha falls about 50 kilometres away. We left the camp-site and headed there in three vans and a 4x4. It took about 50 mins to drive there, the drive was along all types of roads the last was a dirt track. All the vans were getting thrown around so I was glad to be in the Germans 4x4. Only Smithy and I had been able to get a lift so when we got there it was about a 10 minute walk through the bush to get to the water hole. One of the farmers sons had mentioned because it was such a war and clear day that the snakes would be out. He’d also mentioned that he’d seen a brown snake that morning and they’re deadly. Once bitten by one of these beasts you’d have roughly 15 minutes before you were dead. Knowing that, made me rather anxious while walking through the long grass knowing that the nearest hospital was at least an hour away. There were about 16 or so of us, all were carrying various stuff, and I had been tasked to carry the cooler box full of ice and beer which got heavy after about two minutes. Smithy was in charge of the bongo and the guitar. We walked to the water hole and had a beer. The sun was beating down hard that day so we planned to get the jumping under way. Heath, Joel and Paddy all climbed the rock face and then jumped. Joel jumped first and no one had been in the water to test the depth. He didn’t hit the bottom so the other two boys jumped. After a while I started to get abused by everyone for not jumping yet (sounds like home and work, funny that). I got changed and jump. When I hit the water I thought the back of my left leg had fallen off because I sort of assumed the fetal position. Not a great idea from the height of the jump. After a few hours when it started to cool down we all decided to head back. We hopped back in to the vans. We stopped at the bottle shop on the way back to get a few boxes of beer for good old knees up.
The second day of we had was just as hot as the first so we planned to go to the local swimming pool in Young. This pool was like no other I’ve ever been to. It was so chilled out, they had a diving board which was a really good laugh (see photos) they even had a BBQ which was free. We spent a few hours at the pool which was nice.
When we got back to the farm we all chipped in and paid for Pete to cut matt a mullet. It was the dirty most horrible mullet I’ve ever seen. Shows what being bored on a farm in the middle of now-where can do to you.

Off to the back of Beyond

So to get to young we had to get a train to Cootamundra and from there we had to get the bus to Young. The train left on time at 7:45 and we got to Cootamundra about 12:50. Unfortunately we had an almost 2 hour wait until the bus would depart so we walked to get some lunch. I had half a roasted chicken and half a loaf of bread, a good hearty meal even by my standards.
We got the bus to young which only took about 50 minutes. We got there unloaded our bags and walked into town to find a place to say. The cherry picking season was about to start a day later so there was no where to stay. Luckily Smithy saw a mate from Sydney and he informed us we could stay in a cattle shed on a race horse track for $3 each a night. We walked up there in the baking heat which took ages.
We got there and saw the French guys who had given us the directions and another group that could be only described as drifters. Basically your typical type of person that got drunk all day and fruit picked when they could be bothered or needed money for more booze. We only stayed there a night because Smithy nor I felt comfortable with leaving our bags with all our worldly belongings in. That was the first night we slept in our single skin tent and believe me, it was hell!
The month of the fruit.
Last night was terrible, no sleeping bags, only every item of clothing i had in my bag on to keep me warm. We got up early to walk down to the ready workforce building to pickup details of our placement. We arrived about 10 minutes after the building opened and had an offer for work by about 9:15. We were given the address so we needed to get supplies. First stop was the camping shop then the supermarket and lastly the Op shop (charity shop to you and I). I spending broken down to roughly the below.
Camping stove and pots and pans: $22.50
Food for three days for three people: $20
Sheets and pillows from the op-shop: $10
Only buying two sleeping bags for three people and making the same mistake as Yosemite: PRICELESS!
We headed back to Workforce and waited for another Tom from Chile who would be on the same placement with us to arrive and share a taxi. When he did arrive we got the taxi, which was creaking with the sheer amount of baggage and food and got it up to Bill Smithers’ farm. It was about a $40 taxi ride. We unloaded the taxi accidently stealing the taxi drivers uniform jacket, setup the tent and got taken up the fields to get on with the work.
Fruit picking isn’t easy, it hurts your fingers. We were warned by the drifters in the cattle shed to watch out for red back spiders as well as another five or so various spiders and snakes that could potentially kill us. I was starting to this wasn’t such a good idea. Bill taught us how to pick to pick the cherries and we were away. We work from about 1pm until roughly 6. We headed back down to the tent thoroughly pooped. Finger was killing but we hadn’t even started yet. We slept like babies that night. When we awoke the next day we all had agreed that last night’s sleep was much better. Tom, Smithy and I got up about 6:30, had breakfast and headed up to the field to start picking again. Today was hot, when i say hot i mean a good 35 degrees of head. We used the spare t-shirt to FASHION turbans. Our diet for the picking in this farm was to be cereal for breakfast , crisp sandwiches for lunch witch Simthy had kindly introduced us to (much like Woody and the foil packs). For tea we had pasta pasta and pasta. Things were good. That day we picked 27, we were lucky because we were allowed to trash the tree which normally is a big no go but because he planned on knocking them down we were allowed to rip the buds and even snap the branches.
The day after we got up well early but when we got to the fields, we quite simply couldn’t be bothered. We finished picking the row and the farmer had told us to move up to the corner of the field where there was a retched stench. We all thought it would be the toilet block from the next farm. When Bill came up later to pick up the lugs (which i will explain later) he informed us that the horrific stench was an inquisitive horse that had got bitten by a snake was rotting about 50 meters away, Nice! We picked the two rows by the rotting horse; we were then instructed to head up to the back of the field about 1last day5o meters away from the farm house and packing room. We finished the day with 21, which wasn’t bad because we started the morning by only completing 8 lugs. We headed back to the farm about seven, cooked tea, had a shower and went straight to bed. Tomorrow was to be out last day on Bills farm so we had a beer to celebrate.

A few days in Sydney

The next day I woke up without a hangover so Tom, Smithy and I went for a walk around the botanical gardens and to see the opera house. When we got to the opera house a film crew were setting up for the Australians dot talent final. We watched one guy practice his song (Sex is on fire by the Kings of Leon) and walked back. On the way back through the botanical gardens we say loads of bats hanging in the trees and loads of cool birds. That evening we went over to the kanga House for a few drinks with our new mates and a few guys we had played football with the day before offered did we want to go to a house party in an area not far from central station. When we got there it was more of a gathering of friends all of which were Swedish. We only ended up staying about half and hour and headed back to Kings Cross to go on to a pub. Tom went home so Smithy and went to a little pub, had a two pints and headed back to the hostel. Went straight to bed when we got back.
Smithy had managed to get us a fruit picking placement in Young. Young is a little town of about 12,000 people about 400 kilometres inland from Sydney which we planned to head to two days later. Knowing this Tom and I got up early and went for a walk around Sydney to see the sights. The weather wasn’t great but the banter was in full flow. A lady that we where stood next to at a pedestrian crossing asked did what we where we looking for. We planned to get cheap T-Shirt because we assumed fruit picking would be a messy business. She recommended if we wanted to get cheap clothes we should go to a part of the city that was the opposite from where we were. Tom said we should walk because it was a nice day and that way we would get to see more of the city. We walked through some of the cities parks and through china town. When we got to the market area it was teeming with activity. Lots of street performers were out as it was the weekend. Beat boxers, people playing the drums and even a Chinese man playing a traditional Chinese instrument that could only be described as a two string violin. We Wondered around the market looking for cheap T-shirts and even cheaper fruit. We found both, the T-shirts were about a £1 each and they were terrible. They must have been in fashion about ten or so more years ago. They were covered in luminous koala beers, kangaroos and wombats. We got a few oranges which were also really cheap and strolled back through china town the business district and back to the hostel. We chilled out for the rest of the day trying to catch up on my blog (Thanks to Cathy for the gentle shove).
That night we went to bed early because we had to get up about 6:30 to get the train to Cootamundra. This didn’t mean we got much sleep, two Irish guys from the hostel must have been determined to not let anyone get a good night sleep because they were up drinking until we left. They made one hell of a racket. When we got up to leave i spoke to one of the guys and he had told me that his mate was playing on the roof and had fallen off, he had broken his arm, cut is hand and split his thumb. There was blood all over the floor. Silly Irish boys.

Off to Australia

Stop number two.... Australia.

We got to the airport in plenty of time so we checked in and relaxed. Tom and I watched a film on his laptop and next time I looked up we saw two airport cops standing in front of us. Some silly guy had left two of his bags in the departure lounge and the police had come to investigate why. The dude was nowhere to be found so they had the dog sniffing the bags. After about five mins the police started looking through his bags looking for ID. The dude came back after about fifteen minutes and they had a stern word with him about the dangers and so on.
The flight went ok, Air New Zealand are really good, plenty of leg room and free booze and even a choice of meals. We watched a few films but I mainly slept for nine out of the thirteen hours. We got our transfer in Auckland and slept again on the transfer flight.

Summary of America

This entry is just my thoughts and feelings that I have gathered about America in the last 56 days. So first, i was always under the impression that America was customer service is there number one priority. After my stay i now believe this isn’t the case for the following reasons. The hostel staff in all bar one of the hostels we stayed in where largely very unhelpful. The information booth at Pier 39 gave us the same impression. The staff at restaurants and bars got really annoyed if you asked for a different drink or to have your meal served a different way to than the usual requests they had. Secondly tipping, i HATE tipping. I know its part of their culture but when you don’t have enough change to tip them, which doesn’t happen often because the larger half of your change is made up of one dollar notes. They get really annoyed and even arsey. If you don’t tip at a bar, the bar staff will ignore you until you end up shouting at them. The last thing, TAX, I hated the tax system out there. Why not just add the tax to the final price. For example you see a deal on beer, $10 for a case say. When you get to the counter you end up paying another $4 for tax, it got me every time. Same with most food.
On the bright side, California has awesome weather we were sun bathing on Pacific beach on the 13th of November. The public transport out there is cheap and reliable. Metro buses, Trains and trams always ran on schedule. We also meet loads of cool mates, some I’ll never see again, and some I’ll see in Oz in a few months.
56 days in America was plenty, I sometimes wish we’d gone to more states but i plan to go back at some point to drive from the east to west coast.

Back to LA for the last time

Today we had to get up early after the carnage last night of Tijuana. The lady that took us on the tour last night would be working check out this morning so last night I managed to persuade her to let us check out before 11am instead of 2 am without losing our deposit of 20 bucks. We got up packed our bags and said goodbyes to our two Irish mates, Sean and Steve. Tom and I walked to the bus station and booked ourselves on the 12:25 bus. We sat down and waited, i carried on reading this book that i picked up in San Fran which i was well into. The bus ended up being about an hour and a half late. We got an and about two hours later we got to the down town bus station in LA. We had to wait about an hour and forty five mins to get the transfer to the Hollywood greyhound station. After we had waited all that time we got the bus for about 15mins and got off. I really can’t believe that we waited all that time for such a short ride. Doh! When we got to Hollywood we walked back to the hostel our stay in America started in. Funny it would house us for our last days of travelling in America. We popped out for a Mexican as we hadn’t eaten all day. The place wasn’t far away so we walked there. When we got back to the hostel we meet three guys from the last hostel we stayed in San Diego. Tom and i ended up having a few beers with those guys and a few more people we meet. Ended up going to bed rather drunk.