Australia

Time to meet my second family.

As I had already met Danny and Shea, I had a very rough idea of what I was getting myself into.
They were so welcoming to me and I really appreciated that. The whole families sense of humor was fantastic and that trait definitely comes from their father, Tony (- whose real name is Ronald!?). The first time that I met Tony and Nancy, after putting my foot in my mouth and asking Nancy if there was any cleaning that I could do for her! (which luckily was received in good humor), Tony spent around 2 hours trying to teach me how to speak with an Aussie accent and get rid of the pommey one.
Tony's birthday party was mad. Such a huge family that it was quite overwhelming. But then I got used to it pretty quickly as they all treated me like a friend and we had a wonderful evening, that ended up with a karoke machine at 4 am!.
Loretta, who we spent so much time with during our stay in Oz was a fantastic hostess. It was wonderful for us to be able to stay with her whenever we were in Melbourne and then leave most of our stuff there when we weren't. Out of all the family members, its Ret I miss the most.

The first place we went was to Cairns to see a family friend, Moose. He showed us a wonderful time and was very easy going. We took a trip to Cape tribulation, stopping off at Port Douglas on the way for a few days and met a big group of Brits who two of which we met up with in Cairnes to go snorkeling with on the Great Barrier Reef.
The Reef was amazing, a totally different world down there!.
After a few days in Melbourne after Cairnes, we were off to the Great Ocean Road again to spend some more time with the family. We stopped off at Tony and Nancy's again and spent the night with them in Port Arlington and the next day we were off to Lavers hill to see Julie and Paul Yates. We spent three wonderful days with them, the girls took one day off from school to be with us, when we went to waterfalls and did rainforest walks where we go covered in leeches!. We took out the horses that they own one day. It was my first time riding a horse and I was pretty excited. Maurice had ridden before so knew what he was doing. Unfortunately though Maurice's horse went a little wild and took off up a hill, when Julie and I got there Maurice was standing there looking lost and there was no horse in sight!. He had either fallen off, or tried to jump off and the horse had bolted. Julie left her horse with Maurice, and went to look for Maurice's. While she was away, to make things even worse, Julie's horse stood on Maurice's foot, although he didn't seem to notice it at the time he was more worried about how he came to be on the ground and kept asking if he had fallen off. Eventually we got down to the house and he went straight to bed, still asking the same questions. Luckily an ambulance rescue team were going to be having dinner at the Yate's restaurant that night, so one of them came up to check him out and give some advise about what to do for him. By the next morning he was fine.
A few days later we drove to Warnambool with Ret who had joined us in lavers Hill. Warnambool is where most of the family live and its a lovely quaint place at the end of the Great Ocean Road. We visited Tower Hill to see the kangaroos, Emu's and Koalas. Port Fairy, where we stopped for a counter meal in the pub they used to own and we walked around Griffith Island. That evening we had a BBQ at Cathy and Phil's place with most of the Warnambool family and then Maurice and I went for a few drinks on our own.

We stayed with Adrian and Angela in Perth, where we had a relaxing time sitting by the river trying to catch fish but not succeeding, only succeeding to catch the sun. Another day we were riding bikes with his two boys (Darcy and Linden) round the river and BBQ-ing by the river in the evening. We had a wonderful time with Adrians family.

We stayed with Gina's family in Waroona, where we had Christmas. On Maurice's birthday we went to a special water spot, where the family goes to cool off on the hot days. It was beautiful, mini waterfalls that you could sit in and lovely cool water. We met the John Butler trio at this water spot and the kids went mad over him - I dint realise who he was until we got in the car and they started singing the song!. In the evening Maurice went crabbing with a friend of the Didio's and caught a few, and in the evening we ate them all. So fresh and juicy.... yum.
Christmas day was the stangest thing for me. It was 40 degrees and baking hot and we had the full Christmas dinner. Sitting there eating turkey with the trimmings was hard to do in that temperature!. It was my first Christmas spent with kids, and it was wonderful to see the excitement in their eyes on Christmas eve and Christmas day. I woke up early enough to see the kids open their presents from Santa, paper everywhere and toys played with almost straight away..wonderful.

When we arrived back in Melbourne we met up with Kosta and Malou and we drove to the middle of no where (aka whoop whoop - aussie slang) where we were to spend the next 6 days at a hippy new years eve festival.
The whole idea of Confest is a non profit organisation, so that anyone that comes to hold a class does not charge anybody for their time or technique. On arrival we paid 5o dollars for a ticket and then 2 hours of our time volunteering around the site helping different parts of running it.
Every night a blackboard is written on for classes the next day. There is always something going on, wether it be 'sun worship' at 5.00 am in the Fairy Circle or 'Hypnosis' at 1300 on the beach or 'spontaneous choir' at 1700 in the mud bath. Not only did they have classes like these to do, but it was located on the river, so all times of the day there are people playing and swimming in the river, relaxing in the mudbath, sweating in the steam tent (!), free massages a massage tent or painting their bodies in the art tent.
Kosta and Malou had been before and so knew what went on, but for Maurice and myself it was quite intimidating at first, being surrounded by all these hippies, sitting in a class and talking about yourself. But we got used to it quite easily!. Maurice's introduction into naked hippies was when Maurice, Kosta and I were sitting on a log on the beach when a big group of people came down, carrying a long haired naked guy as if he was on a crucifix (as they had put him in a trance to make him feel worshipped or something) and they decided to put him down on Kosta and Maurice's laps. When he came out of the trance he looked up so bewildered at Maurice (his head was in Maurice's lap) and finally moved off and gave him such a (naked) contented hug...Maurice was very taken aback and it took him a few hours to recover!.
The next time I go I would like to take part in more of the classes, as this time I mostly really enjoyed taking it all in, taking photo's, walking round and round the camp people watching. New years eve was wonderful. We went and watched the fire twirling and then at 1200 (after getting completely lost in the dark) we found our way onto the beach, where we all painted ourselves with fluorescent paint and danced to the beat of the drums. New Years Eve lasted so long that evening, from around 2200, people would walk past and say, "I may not see you at midnight, so happy new year!"and then its hugs all round...Beautiful. Anther Confest tradition is the "hugglepuddle" where when you first arrive on the camp and you have been there before and made loads of mates that are there again you shout "HUGGLEPUDDLE!" and you will be completely surrounded by people hugging you!.

I loved Melbourne. The different food, the different cultures, the night life and the shopping. The way the Melbourne is set out with a different street for a different type of culture and cuisine was wonderful. I met most of Maurice's friends, it was great to actually go and see these people and places that he has told me so much about. We had some great times with Kosta, Maurice's best friend and Glen and his family. We spent some days at Prahran pool with friends and a day in the botanical gardens with friends and their kids for a picnic.

The next time we went to Warnambool, we went because Paul Yate's father had died and there would be a funeral for him. We stayed at Barry and Lou's place and the next day, when the family were at the funeral, I babysat for the twins and Joseph. I had a fantastic time witht them and also had a lot of help from Joseph. The twins are the sweetest things, Jack and Matilda. But he cant say Matilda, so he calls her Jack...How cute is that?!. We stayed for a few more days in Warnambool - took Joseph and a friend to the movies and relaxed around the town.

Maurice has a friend called Terry who lives in Adelaide and just out of the blue we decided to go and see him. It would be a good chance for us to get away on our own. We arrived in Adelaide and Terry picked us up from the airport and took us into town. He offered to take us to his place where we could stay, but we preferred to be on our own, so he dropped us off at a hostel. We were in Adelaide for a couple of days and it was so peaceful. We went into the city and walked round this wonderful food market where there was samples of everything everywhere, so we didn't need to get lunch, then on the way back to where we were staying, we stopped off at the horses and lost a few dollars on them!. That night we ended up in a pub and had made some friends who sang us this song:
"I love to have a beer with Maurice
I love to have a beer with Mo
I love to have a beer with Maurice coz'
he never drinks too slow.

We drink at the town and country,
where the atmosphere is great
I love to have a drink with Maurice
Coz Maurice is me mate

We drink in moderation,
where the atmosphere is great
I love to have a beer with Maurice
Coz Maurice is me mate"

Then they sang it for my name and all of their names and I sang it all over again on the way home!.
We went to Terry's restaurant and saw the location of it and really regretted not staying with him as it was such a wonderful location. Next time.

I had a great time in Sydney. On the first day there we went to the Opera House and although I hadn't thought of it before, I was really excited to go and see it. And it is wonderful. As the Australian Open Tennis was going on that week, there was a big screen just outside the opera house so that people could sit on the steps and watch the matches!. We were staying just off Kings Cross where there was a lot of nightlife but has, in the past few years lost its more seedier image and is becoming a cool place to live and stay.

We took a harbor boat trip and went to Bondai beach twice, where Maurice taught me to body board.

On Australia day, Maurice and I walked from Kings Cross to the Opera House and took in all the different things going on in the city. The Harbour bridge area was jam packed with people, bands, food stalls, markets..... . We spent ages walking around and around. We knew we would have a drink that night and decided to go back to Kings Cross area to drink as the pubs were too uncomfortably crowded in the inner city, but we turned a corner and who is standing in a pub, but Dana, Stephan and Scottish kevin , from Denmark - Nyhavn!. We had a great few hours with them, and Dana and Stephan left, leaving Kevin and us to go to Kings Cross. We had a great night with him, and woke up the next morning pretty hungover.

The next day, I left Maurice to look after his head and took the train to the Three Sisters, up in the Blue Mountains. I had a great time up there, it was cold, but a great long train journey up there, then I took a little hop on hp off bus round the area, did tons of walking up and don waterfall, and then arrived at the Three Sisters (basically a rock formation off a cliff that has an aborigional tale behind it). It was possible to go down the the rainforest below, so i paid to go down there by a replica of the coal mining trains that used to be in use in the area, and up by cable car. The train was the funniest thing I have been on, you start off by sitting down on this small train and it starts to move, then suddenly you are vertical going down this mountain! the funniest thing was the music they played was the Star Wars theme tune! .

We ended back in Melbourne and said our last goodbyes to friends and the boarded the plane to Singapore.