Good-O

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Trip Start Jul 18, 2006 Previous
Entry Trip End Jul 17, 2007

  Melbourne, Australia
Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Hello everyone!

Sorry it's been so long since we wrote on this thing! We've been in Melbourne since January now and  it's time to move on before we start putting an 'O' on the end of every word.....

We've been working hard to fund the rest of our trip (only 3 months left now). We  are actually working for the same company but different parts of the building and different hours. It's mind numbing admin stuff but it's money at the end of the day! Everyone is really nice although they say Beth is starting to sound Australian so she's keen to leave the country...soon... They really look after us even though we're temps (treating us to meals/lunches/ double paid overtime/ Borders vouchers and cupcakes!) So we've been really lucky. I think Beth will miss the company more than Aaron, our teams are really different. Beth got fined by the police for not wearing her bike helmet (she was going from one shop to another-about 5 metres- in a road so busy the traffic is stationary) and her team all chipped in to pay it for her. You don't get much nicer than that!

Our house is fun, the wierd German girl moved out thank god- there was only so much German nakedness we could cope with and a nice English girl has moved in- she has a lot to live up to! The irish girls are still here and so is Sean so Aaron isn't totally swamped with female company! We had our leaving party last saturday, it was messy..... we'll miss everyone but we're ready to move on! Lucky Ireland isn't far away!

Over the Easter weekend we hired a car and went to Philip Island to see the Penguins. We had the Ultimate tour so went down to the beach and watched them through (c*ap) night vision equipment. They're the smallest breed of penguin so were extra cute. All the money the centre makes goes into researching ways to help the penguins so Beth used this excuse to raid the gift shop (some things never change). We also went to a Koala santuary where you actually had to search for them coz they're really hard to see. We saw one up close eating and again, we wanted to take it home...
Philip Island was really beautiful, surrounded by the ocean (obviously) and we had such great weather for Autumn. We spent the evenings drinking Goon (4 litres of wine in a box) and BYO wine to restaurants (messy...). Everything pretty much shut at about 9pm and the island is so spread out you can't get anywhere either. So the rest of the evenings were spent swinging on swings, and climbing on various other playground equipment!
On our last day we went to Churchill island and decided to walk so that we could have a drink. What a mistake in the blazing heat, in jeans and about 5 miles later we get there. We watched a live band and there was vintage cars and Beth somehow became a member of the Victorian Ferret Society.......hmmm.... 

The best thing we've done is visit Ramsey Street where we got to meet Libby Kennedy before the tour! Beth asked her if it were true Susan Kennedy is a lesbian with lesbian tattoos on her arms. She assured us Susan was no lesbian and she'd heard the tattoo rumour so many times. Glad we were put straight- rumours can be nasty! The street in actually tiny and makes you weep when you see a car pull up and don't see Harold or Lou getting out the car..... rumour has it at the moment that it's getting axed in Oz so they've demanded triple prices for the BBC of which the BBC will not pay- could this be the end? (We're going to have to put Kathryn in rehab if it is.....)

Last sunday we went to the aquarium- saw some weird and wonderful creatures including huuuge spider crabs (yes thats right..they had 8 legs) and the world's biggest crab.

So all in all it's been a great 4 months- we've made great friends who we'll keep in contact with, worked for a great company, saved enough to rent a campervan in Oz and a car in NZ and the USA, and basically lived in such a cool city.

So next is our ultimate campervan trip around australia. check out the van we're hiring: http://www.wickedcampers.com.au. We're hoping for the SpongeBob Square Pants one.... We've got 18 days to go across the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide, up to Ayers Rock and Alice Springs, across the Outback to Brisbane and down the Gold Coast to Sydney (stopping at Steve Irwin's Zoo of course!). It's going to be a trip of a lifetime and we're looking forward to spending time just the two of us again (yes I know we couldn't wait to have our own space when we arrived in Australia!). We've got our tinned food ready, a collection of CDs, a map and on Saturday off we go!

Will update again once we've arrived in NZ then again in USA. Looking forward to seeing Andrew and family in NZ and of course Graham and Susan in Arizona!

Nearly home guys, we miss and love you all loads XXXXXXXXX

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