Aussie Aussie Aussie!!

Well hello there, it's been a while. Michelle is also posting too, so some of you probably won't bother reading this as it won't be as exciting as Michelle's! Well we're in a place called Mount Gambier which is famous for some crystal blue volcanic lakes apparently; we haven't seen them yet, but we've just been told by "the local friendly campsite neighbour" , more on this subject later. We were hoping to hire some bikes tomorrow and ride around them, but unfortunately can't find a bike-hire shop so looks like we'll be doing it on foot.

We spent last weekend at my cousin's house thanks again Andy and Lisa for a great (and heavy drinking!) weekend. They live in a gorgeous part of the country right on the doorstep of the Barossa Valley, home to Jacobs Creek amongst a multitude of other fine wines. They've recently moved into their new house, the size of which would put most houses in the UK to shame. Not only does it have 4 bedrooms, 2 lounge rooms, study, double garage it also has a fantastic alfresco (patio to you and me) area which we made full use of. In fact we probably spent all our time out there, either drinking, eating BBQ or recovering from drinking and eating BBQ. Friday night was a quiet one in the local pub with what seemed like all the locals all of which we're now on first name terms with. Saturday night was anything but quiet and we had a mammoth BBQ and drinking session with the same locals from the night before plus about 500 others! There was a constant stream of people coming and going, eating and drinking, laughing and shouting and generally having a good time. I made the mistake of mixing my drinks and had a pretty bad hangover, (the first one since drinking with Kirsten in Auckland) and spent most of the next day trying to stay out of the sun and drinking copious amounts of water. I don't know how Michelle did it but she seemed unaffected by it, even though she drank at least 10 bottles of Coopers Pale Ale, and that's just what I saw her drink! Sunday was really hot so once it had cooled down enough for us to start moving around, about 5pm, we took a drive to Mount Crawford forest and then through the Barossa to Jacobs Creek retreat, where Andy and Lisa will be tying the knot next March. One thing I have to mention also is that we saw some live kangaroos, as opposed to dead ones in the side of the road. Now some of you may know they I spent most of 2001 in Australia and in that time only saw one live kangaroo and that was in Tarango Zoo in Sydney.

So that was the weekend that was. Since leaving there we had a very relaxing 3 days in Robe on the South coast below Adelaide, mainly not drinking and definitely not driving.

Onto the subject of Aussies (I've just been reading what Michelle is typing next to me, so apologies if this is old ground). Now before I start this rant I just want to say that the majority of the Aussies that we've met have been extremely friendly, very hospitable and generally great folk (especially Judy and Snow in Melbourne, Wayne and Jan in Robe and of course Andy and Lisa in Williamstown although Andy isn't really an Aussie yet!). However there is always a bad apple(s) in the bunch who seem to go out of their way to annoy us by interrupting whatever we are doing and giving us not only their life story but every single route to anywhere in Australia. It starts off with a "where you from?" quickly followed by "where have you been?". "Sydney to Adelaide" is usually my response and then that triggers off a tirade of "You didn't wanna go that way", "Did you go here?", "Why didn't you go to this place?",etc., etc. This goes on for about 30 minutes and ends with either the Aussie either passing out from over exertion or me just walking off muttering under my breathe something along the lines of "why don't you just mind your own business you friggin know all". Now most of you are probably thinking it's just the Aussie's being friendly, but believe me when you get it day in day out for 3 weeks you start to get a bit fed up. The two worst examples have been a knob from Sydney who we bumped into at Wagga Wagga. He actually got the map out and showing me the best route to go to Darwin from Perth, which we're not even going to whilst breathing cigarette smoke in my face. The second worst offender was about 30 mins ago here in Mount Gambier. This guy didn't even bother asking where I was from but just launched into "have you been to Port Victoria" or something along those lines. I had a mouthful of tuna sandwich at the time so I couldn't respond appropriately with "Why don't you p*ss off you big fat nonce". Anyway, that's how we feeling at the moment, both of us, just a little bit "aussied out". As I said these people are in the minority so sorry if I've offended anyone with this but it's our blog and I'll write what I want thanks.

To end on a positive note though, we are enjoying the aussie BBQ and have probably had about BBQ for the last 5 nights now! The steaks are to die for (although I'm sure Michelle won't agree) as is the seafood.

Well I best be off now as I've just seen a guy in the window of this Internet cafe and I'm sure he's eager to give me some directions.

Good on Ya Mate.