Toby Chandler

Last night we went to a restaurant here in Havelock North, New Zealand. My friends probably think completely different than I do; but, then again, they haven’t been spoilt with genuine Neapolitan pizza.

The Restaurant that we went to is called Pipi’s. The night started off well. The restaurant itself has a wonderful character to it, with what sounds like a strange choice of colour, pink; but, really works giving the place a young and trendy atmosphere. As the restaurant is so small there is much dining space, so on arrival we booked our table and were told to go across the road to the bar which is also Pipi’s. We had a beer and were then told by the barman that our table was ready and walked back to the restaurant.

One of our friends had told us that this was the only place in Havelock North that Prosecco could be ordered, so one of us decided to order a bottle. The Prosecco was called Bosca, a genuine Italian wine which declared on it’s bottle D.O.C (denominazione di origine controllata) which means that it’s origin has is proven. It was a good wine; but, since this is a review about the restaurant and not the wine, I won’t continue on this track.

For started we decided to order salt and pepper calamari and a Parmesan garlic pizza bread to share among us. The first error made by waitresses was that we were brought two calamari and no garlic bread.

The calamari was excellent, it was cooked perfectly so that it was tender and not chewy at all, it was perfectly seasoned too, so the flavours were complimented and not overdone. The dish was accompanied by a simple salad of what tasted like rocket; but, didn’t quite look like traditional rocket, it could have been a different variety; nonetheless, it was perfect.

The Parmesan garlic bread too, was pretty good; although, it could have done with a touch more garlic.

The second mistake by the waitresses was that they brought us pizzas that were destined for another table and only after she had placed them on the table and that we informed her did she realise.

The pizza menu consisted of some well known Italian pizzas; but, the ingredients were not generally not traditional so I decided to have the Margherita. That way I’d know what I was to expect and be able to compare it to my favourite pizza back in Italy.

When the pizzas arrived, the look of them wasn’t so bad. A genuine pizza (Neapolitan style) should be 30cm in diameter (although we ordered medium sized pizzas, so this is something that can’t be compared), between 1.5cm and 2cm at the crust and no more than 0.3cm at the centre. Our pizzas were adequately thin at the centre and soft too which is definitely a good quality; but, the crust wasn’t quite large enough; overall for the base, I give 4 out of 5 stars.

The taste of the pizza; however, was incredibly disappointing, it was sickeningly sweet, like a dessert. It didn’t take long before I recognised the sweetness as being tomato puree, smeared on top of the base. Had they used a good passata the pizza could have been one of the nicest pizzas that I’ve had outside of Italy. One other (small complaint) about the Margherita, is that the basil, should have been cooked a little on the pizza towards the end of the cooking time instead of being simply placed on top like one does with rocket.

I tried the other two pizzas as well. The salsiccia pizza had far too many mushrooms on it and a caramelised onion that yet again added to the disgustingly sweet flavour. The Capricciosa, although having incorrect ingredients was the most palatable of all, mainly because the other ingredients hid the taste of the puree slightly.

Although being hungry, I just couldn’t bring myself to eat all of my pizza. Very disappointing. Overall 2 stars out of 5.

Yuna and I were staying in the same dorm room and in the morning we set about cooking breakfast and preparing for our walk to the Huka Falls, via a natural hot stream. Not long before we set out from the hostel we met a Finnish guy in our room, Rikke (sorry if that’s totally wrong) and asked him to join us.

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We walked from the hostel to the Waikato river. The river itself is a beautifully coloured river, which is the longest river in New Zealand. We walked past the bungee jumping and watch a few people dice with death as they jumped from the platform attached by elastic ropes above the river.

As we looked down we saw first a group of kayakers followed by a group of people floating down the river on inflatables, mostly rings (this port is called tubing). At this point, Rikke and I decided that the next day we would do the same thing.

We continued our walk to the Spa Thermal Park where we met the hot stream that flows into the Waikato river. The stream is very hot and getting too close to the actual river can burn; however, there were two nice pools created by the river in which it was possible to relax in the water.

After a short stop we continued on our walk to the Huka Falls. The Huka falls, although, look like strong rapids are actually quite impressive, since the amount of water that flows over them is enough to fill 5 Olympic sized swimming pools in 2 minutes!!

I could have mistaken the falls for rapids had I not been with Yuna. After we arrived and took a few photos I suggested that we continue on to the waterfall… to which Yuna told us that these were the falls.

Yuna offered us icecream; but, we discovered that the icrecream van wasn’t in the carpark. I noticed a sign that pointed towards a cafe; but, we needed to continue walking. When we finally came to the cafe, it was closed; but, Yuna tried the door and it was open. No-one was around and Yuna and Rikke shouted to see if there was anyone there. Just as we were about to leave, a guy came out, surprised to see us. I think he had forgotten to lock the door. After a little persuasion, he finally agreed to sell us icecream.

We took a different route back to the hostel, along a small road. We went to the supermarket on the way to buy some beer and food as we were all eating together that night.

The next day, Yuna left early and Rikke and I slept in for a while. I spoke to the receptionist about tubing and got all the advice on where to start and where to buy the inflatables. At the shop, I bought a simple inflatable ring, whilst Rikke, decided that he wanted an inflatable reclining chair. We bought some simple foods and two miniature bottles of sparkling wine to enjoy when we arrived at the spa pool. It took us about 40 minutes to float down the section of river that we did. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures as my camera isn’t waterproof.

After drinking our wine at the spa we walked back to the hostel, did some reading, cooked and ate together then watched some TV.

Thus far, on my travels through New Zealand, I really feel that in many ways that I am back in the UK.  The landscapes here remind me a lot of England, Wales and Scotland and then other countries like Germany and Italy too.  The weather here at the moment is very British too, with sun, wind and rain all in one day.

I’m behind on my blogs again, it’s difficult to find the time to write when you meet great people to hang out with and do trips together. I’m 7 days late writing, again.  Let me take you back to last Monday, the 16th of January…

After waking up, I decided to go and talk to the receptionist about my planned day trip to the Wai-o-tapu geothermal park.  It was about 27km away from Rotorua and there wasn’t a bus service.  I needed to find out which direction I needed to go in order to hitch a ride.  I also paid for my entrance ticket at the YHA reception, as a member I received a discount.

I packed my day bag and headed out of the hostel; but, soon returned as I had forgotten the battery to my camera. Imagine that, one of the few reasons for my want to go to the park was to take photos!

I managed to get to the junction to the Geothermal park in two journeys.  The first was a repair man of some sort who could take me out of the suburbs and the second was a car of three women who stopped because they saw that i had a camera.  It was then a 2km walk from the main road down a small lane through beautiful scenery.

The park itself consisted of many differing geothermal sights like craters full of bubbling liquids consisting of different chemicals for example sulphur or maybe crude oil, geysers, hot mud pools and weird and wonderful colours.  I was too late to see the big geyser which erupts every day at 10.15am and the other geysers erupted between every 2 and 36 hours depending on the height of the water table; which was quite high at this time.

After visiting the park I walked back to the main road and stuck my thumb out for a lift.  After about half an hour a white van turned back in the road to pick me up.  It was a mini-van with two passengers who had just finished a tour of the east coast and were being dropped off at the YHA!  What luck!  The driver was a Maori guy who started all of his sentences with “Brother”.  All three were chatty and friendly and it was a pleasant drive back to the hostel.

The rest of the evening was relaxed, watching a little of ‘Breaking Bad’ and then bed.

The next day, I was sitting in the common room of the hostel watching a few more episodes of Breaking Bad whilst I was killing some time.  I was catching the bus to Taupo, using some of the bus hours that Sara had given to me as a present, since she had recovered the password to book online.  As I was sitting there I reached back to put my hands behind my head and suddenly there was an excrusiating pain in my shoulders.  I spent the journey to Taupo in pain, which continually got worse.  After checking in at the YHA in Taupo, I could hardly move my head and couldn’t relax lying down either.  I had to go to the Chemist to buy some and was given Voltaren and paracetamol, told that if the pain didn’t go away after a day, that I should visit a physiotherapist (yeah, right!).

Taupo is a town on Lake Taupo, an immense fresh water lake which is actually a dormant volcano.

After taking my medication, I was finally to start relaxing and feeling a little better; although, movement of my head and my right arm were a still painful.  I managed to walk along the beachside with my feet in the water.

That evening I met a Belgian called Yuna, we ate dinner together at the hostel and watched some TV in the common room with a couple of people.  We planned to spend the next day doing free of charge things, walking along the longest river in New Zealand to place where a hot stream joins the river creating a natural pool.  Then after swimming to continue on to the Huka Falls.

The morning after the party on the catamaran we all woke before Dave.  We cleaned the dishes and the remnants of the night before.  Dave had moved the cat to the wharf where we had shore power and water for the party, so after Dave had woken and we had unloaded our bags, Felix and I helped to return the cat to the poles.  Poles are a series of large wooden stakes out in the water all in a line.  Boats moor themselves up between the poles at a cheap rental (Dave pays $750 per year), the only downfall is that the boats have to be reached by tender (a small row boat).

Sara, a close friend from Italy, who until recently lived in New Zealand, had purchased a 30 hour bus journey.  She had only used 10 hours and since she was no longer here, kindly offered the remaining hours to me; Unfortunately, she had forgotten the password and had to contact the company to retrieve it. I couldn’t use the bus on this occasion, and since I’m low on money, decided to hitch-hike to Rotorua, my next destination.  As I had written in my previous blog, Claudia had offered to drive me as far as they could, which was Hamilton.  So I boarded the car with my new German friends and we set off.

We stopped off briefly at a place called Pokeno where the girls had already previously been two a couple of times.  The place is very small but there is an icecream parlour that sells about 40 different flavours of icecream.  The icecream was not like that of the Italian variety; but, the harder type, still it tasted very good.  We then took a look at the Sunday market before “making like a donkey’s d*ck”.  I tried to explain to the others as best as I could “to make like a donkey’s d*ck and hit the road”; but, it was difficult.  I also tried to explain “to make like a banana…  and split” and “to make like a tree…  and leaf”  Which they finally groaned at and rolled their eyes!

The journey to Hamilton took a little over an hour, New Zealand seems to be quite a small country, I think it’s landmass is about that of the United Kingdom.  Claudia was kind enough to drop me off on the other side of the city at the junction to the highway, we all said our farewells and I stuck my thumb out for a ride.  It wasn’t long, about 10 minutes before a couple stopped.  They weren’t able to take me all the way; but, they could take me at least 20km. Every little helps.  The second guy to pick me up again stopped in just over a couple of minutes; again, he was unable to take me all the way to Rotorua.  He took me as far as the junction to Rotorua and Taupo.  My next wait was longer, probably about 40 minutes.  As it just started to spit with rain, a woman who was in a rush to get to Rotorua for work stopped and picked me up.  She was bubbly and talkative and just happened to be passing by the YHA where I decided to stay since I hadn’t had any luck with couchsurfing requests.

I checked in for two nights. Found my room and decided to go for a little explore of the park land next to the hostel.  The park smelt of Sulphur.  Not surprising since the entire area is famous for it’s volcanic and geothermal activity (which is why I came here in the first place).  The park was littered with small pools of hot bubbling water which all had gasses pouring out from them in the form of steam.  There were also several foot pools that had been made which used the hot water.  I stuck my feet in for a good half hour whilst I finished a book on my ebook reader on my phone “The Chronicles of the Wind-up Bird”.

I returned to the hostel, did my laundry which was well over a week old.  I hardly had any clean clothes remaining so it was a neccessity. By the time I had finished, I was hungry; but, the supermarkets had closed, so I had to go out to eat.  I asked at reception about the geothermal parks to visit for the next day and was told that they cost around €30; but, there was no public transport to them. There was a shuttle bus which cost €30; but, I wasn’t prepared to pay that.  I also asked about places to eat.

I eventually found myself at “The Pig and Whistle” which is just down the road from the hostel.  I had been given a voucher by the hostel receptionist for a free beer.  Food wasn’t exactly cheap; but, I was famished.  I had beef, guinness and mushroom pie and was a little disappointed because it wasn’t really a pie.  They had scooped a (delicious) stew into a bowl and then placed on top a precooked lid.  It was obvious that it hadn’t been cooked in the bowl with pastry on top (which is what I had wanted).  Anyway the food tasted good; unfortunately I was feeling too tired to finish my meal.

As I walked back to the hostel I decided that I would go to the Geothermal park the next day.  I really wanted to see some volcanic activity and take photos; I was not going to pay for the shuttle though, I was going to hitch-hike.

I slept like a log that night.

Writing when I don’t have the motivation is difficult; but, if I don’t write, I’ll never catch up on my blogging. I’ve realised that when I don’t write a blog on the same day or at the latest the next day, I forget small details that I think would make for an interesting read. I’ve already been in New Zealand for 6 nights and I haven’t written a word about it thus far. I only just uploaded my blog for the end of my trip in Australia.

I woke up in the Auckland airport on the morning of the 11th of January. It was about 9am, so I managed to sleep a little longer than I had anticipated, which is a good thing. I didn’t want to hang around in the airport for long, I was meant to be meeting Kate, the friend I made in Kuala Lumpur. Kate couldn’t host me for long as she had lots of family coming to stay as her brother was getting married. SO far I hadn’t received any response to my couch-surfing requests. I caught the bus to Auckland and found a McDonalds where I could access the Internet free of charge so that I could do some blogging and contact Kate. Kate and her other friend who was staying with her came to collect me from McDonalds and we went for a drive.

Kate showed us a park, I forget the name and Mission Beach where we had a (horrible) coffee. Then we went to buy fish and chips and drove to the beach next to Kate’s house. We were eating amongst a crowd of a type of sea gulls; when suddenly a HUGE gull with black wings swooped down from behind and stole the remaining part of my fish. The chips were far too many for us and so we encouraged the gulls to steal from other people by feeding them, throwing them into a crowd to cause a fight or into the air where every chip was caught and swallowed in one motion, mid-air! I’m surprised that it didn’t make them sick.

That evening, Kate and I went to meet some of Kate’s other friends. We sat on the beach at night watching the waning moon. I fell asleep; but, was woken later by a policeman shining a torch in my face, apparently the were looking for some dodgy characters and were asking if we had seen anybody. Kate and Terrence’s responses were very funny to listen to as they seemed to contradict each other somewhat.

We went home late and went to bed, Kate, like Paul had given me her bed to sleep in. The next morning I woke to find a letter for me from Kate, she had gone to meet her future sister-in-law to collect some fortune cookies for the wedding. Whilst I was alone I checked my email and blogged a bit more. I found that someone was able to host me in Auckland, as long as I didn’t mind sharing a 40ft catamaran with him and some other couch-surfers. Kate returned and that afternoon/evening we went for a BBQ at some other of Kate’s friend’s houses.

The morning after, Kate took me directly to the boat club where I was going to be staying for the next few nights. Here Dave, our host, introduced me to Claudia, Sandra (her sister) and Felix from Germany, who were also staying on the cat.

The Germans were feeling tired so they chose to relax a while, whilst Dave and I went to the boat club for a few drinks. Later, I went with the Germans to buy fish and chips for us all and after eating back on the boat we went to sleep. Felix and I slept in our sleeping bags on the trampolines at the front of the boat.

I was woken by Felix in the morning when it started to rain; by then, I we had already both slept very well. That day, Dave was watching the horse racing most of the time, so we went off to explore the Auckland Museum. Claudia and Sandra had a car so we drove off to the museum, which is rather large and a day is nowhere near long enough.

After the museum we went to the supermarket to buy things for a BBQ which Dave had planned for the evening. It was a fun night, which plenty of beer and home-distilled vodka which Doug (a friend of Dave) provided. Apparently it’s not illegal to distill your own alcohol here in New Zealand… unfortunately all this alcohol was too much for Felix and he was a little unwell.

The next day was time to leave Auckland for us four, and Claudia kindly offered to drive me as far as they could. I was going to go to Rotorua…

Anna, the Spanish girl that I originally met in Airlie Beach and then also in Melbourne on New Years Eve, had rented a car for her last week in Australia. She invited me to go with her and her friend, Ivan, on the journey to Sydney. I think that maybe they wanted me there just so that I could drive (not really).

They collected me from Paul’s house and after checking Google Maps with Paul, we decided on our route along the Princes Highway and along the coast. It didn’t take us long to go the wrong way, mainly because we paid for the toll road and were given directions for the direct route to Sydney which we didn’t want to take. After stopping at a motorway services, buying a map and checking the routes, we decided that we would continue on this route until we came to Canberra, stay the night there and then head off to the Princes Highway the day after.

We took it in turns to drive as we were all tired, one person drove, one person sat in the front and kept the driver company whilst the last person slept in the back. After six or seven hours we finally arrived in Canberra. Csanberra is the capital city of Australia; but, we mainly wanted to go there just so that we could say we were there. We found the YHA and luckily they had a few beds available since there was a car show in town. We all ate then went back to the hostel. Ivan decided to go clubbing; but, Anna and I were too tired so we went straight to bed.
The next morning we left Canberra and I drove (I drove the entire day) down to Bateman”s bay where we ate fish and chips for lunch. We then continued on the Princes Highway until we came to Jervis Bay. One of Paul’s friends had told us to visit this place because it has (apparently) the whitest sands after Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsundays.

It turned out that the entire area of Jarvis Bay is in a national park and there was a toll booth to enter. The other cars were just driving through, so I copied them. I’m stil not sure if we were meant to pay, I was told later that apparently only residents don’t have to pay; but, we didn’t get stopped or fined. We drove to the park for Murray’s Beach parked and took the short walk through the woods to a beautiful, secluded beach. It was fantastic, we even saw an Australian pelican sitting at the waters edge.

After leaving the beach and starting the drive back to the Princes Highway, we came across a hitch hiker, a young girl (from behind and a toothless hag from the front) who we decided to pick up. Luckily we didn’t have to drive her to far as she absolutely stank!

During the rest of the drive to Sydney I spent a lot of time looking out for wild kangaroos; but, I think that wild kangaroos don’t exist, they’re just a myth… mind you, we did see a dead one at the side of the road; however, that proves nothing!

We finally arrived in Sydney in a thunderstorm, we dropped Ivan off at his hostel and we continued onto the same YHA that I had stayed in when I first came to Sydney back in November. I didn’t get any special rates this time, the manager wasn’t there; but, the assistant manager said that because it was now high season they couldn’t offer a special rate.

The next morning I drove Anna to the airport where she had to drop off the car and take her flight back to Spain. The rest of the day I spent at the hostel writing my blog until the evening when I met Melissa again. Melissa took me out for Yum Cha a typical chinese way of eating, usually in the morning; but, this place also did it in the evening too. A selection of different tasty dishes that we shared.

After sleeping a second night at the hostel I woke up and packed my bag. I was catching my flight to New Zeland that day. It was pretty uneventful, I arrived at New Zealand airport at 11.30pm and it took almost one and a half hours to get through security and customs. I decided since it was almost 1am at this point to go to the observation deck to sleep in my sleeping bag. Apparently this part of the airport has been voted as one of the best airports to sleep in; although, right next to the observation deck is a games arcade which even at that time was full of kids. I finally did get some sleep though.

The morning after our 12 Apostles road trip, I woke halfway through the morning. I could hear noise in the garden and decided to see what was going on.

Paul was there with one of the locals, they were clearing away some dead trees, cutting them up and loading them into a trailer to take away. I lent a hand with the work and the job was soon finished.

Afterwards I had a look at Paul’s car, a 1990 Honda Civic that he had been working on, moddifying it like had done with my car until it’s untimely demise. We went for a drive and a coffee in the afternoon and in the evening we went to The Victoria Market in Melbourne where once a month they have the night markets. We met Hien there for a while, had a couple of beers and then watched the live band on the stage outside. The were an African band playing a mixture of World musics.

Thursday, Paul had a surprise for me. He told me to get changed into my swimming shorts and take water, a towel etc. I thought maybe we were going to another beach; but, we weren’t. After a short drive we came to park where we left the car and walked down to the Fairfield Boathouse which was next to the Yarra River. We hired kayaks for a couple of hours and paddled first, upstream and then downstream. We were hungry after our kayak and looked for food at the restaurant; but, it was closed. We had to settle for Hungry Jacks which is the Australian version of Burger King.

In the evening we met Paul’s family (from the other side) and ate at a Vietnamese restaurant.

My last day and night in Melbourne was spent mainly drinking and dancing! In the afternoon, Paul and I took the bus into the city and met one of his friends before going to the rooftop bar. We had a few drinks there before going to eat at a noodle bar. Anna also met us and we moved again to another place called Workshop. This was mainly a pubcrawl, so there aren’t many details to mention. We moved on to Little Creatures for more… beer and then we decided to split up for a while and go to different venues. Anna and I went to nightcat where we danced and… well.. drank. The others from the group finally met us at Nightcat until they closed and we went home again.

The 12 Apostles near Port Campbell in Victoria, Australia, is or more correctly, was, 12 giant limestone stacks out in the ocean. Due to erosion, some of these stacks have fallen, Paul told me that there were only 7 remaining; but, they were definitely worth seeing and the drive along the Great Ocean Road was a beautiful drive too (not that he had ever been there before).

Paul and his friends arranged to do a road trip, there were 8 of us and two cars. We met early in the morning on the 3rd of January and set out on the 4 and a half hour journey. The journey actually took us just over 5 hours; but, we did stop for lunch in Torquay (so many names in Australia have been borrowed from the UK).

On the way the traffic all suddenly slowed down on one of the windy bends of the Great Ocean Road, to our surprise we saw a large, elderly looking koala walking along the middle of the road. I say walking; but, I mean swaggering, looking at the way it walked, I’m sure that God didn’t intend for koalas to do much walking and having seen them at the zoo near Brisbane I can say that they’re really quite lazy creatures.

We arrived at our destination at around 3pm, parked the car in the car park and walked along the walkway to the view point of the 12 apostles and the 3 sisters (another rock formation). I later learnt that actually 8 of the apostles were still standing (I had counted and 1 of the 3 sisters had fallen. The sandstone and the weather in the area probably means that the other apostles will fall too; but, the headland will also be eroded creating new stacks out in the ocean.

From the lookout point we could see a beautiful beach down below us where a few people were walking. I’d noticed another carpark near the road as we approached the 12 Apostles and I guessed that it was the car park for the beach. We walked back to the car and drove to the other carpark. I was correct, there were some stair that lead down the rock face to the beach. The waves looked strong; but, I wanted to get into the water. The waves were indeed very strong and large. I walked out into the water dived into a wave and then turned around to jump and let a wave carry me back to the shore, kind of body surfing. It didn’t have the desired affect, I was dragged under the water and came up approximately 10 metres further down the beach. It could have been dangerous had I been further out; but, I knew that before going into the water so I didn’t venture far. Later I was with Nathan and Emmanuel, we were trying to stand in the water and not let the waves move us… this is where my injured foot gave up. I was tossed forwards by a huge wave and I felt myself roll over my foot. It was agony! That was the last of my fun for the day. I couldn’t play ultimate frisbee this time, so I relaxed (in pain) on the beach and took some photos.

It was rather late when we decided to leave, it was about 7pm; but, we still had a long drive back to Melbourne. As we were driving along teh coast road, I looked back over my shoulder and noticed that the sun was about to go down and literally as I said this to the others we came to a lay-by and pulled over. We all got out to watch the sunset and I took some photos, one of which is probably the best photo that i have ever taken.

We stopped on the way in Lorne for dinner; but, found that most places had stopped serving dinner; the others were about to settle for take out chicken when Hien and I found a noodle bar that was still open and we all sat down for a good meal, it was rather expensive; but, the food was good.

After some more hours of driving we returned home and I fell straight asleep in bed (and in the car on the way too).

Paul was a really good host and it was obvious where he got this quality from when I met him family. New Years Day was one of Paul’s family’s traditional get togethers. A lunch full of differing Greek cuisine, including an entire spit-roasted Lamb.

Paul’s family were really friendly and kept pushing food on me, telling me to eat! I really enjoyed spending time with them. The lunch continued for quite some time, until finally Paul and I decided to go back to his house in order to sleep, since we hadn’t slept very much the night before.

It was 7pm in the evening, more or less, when I finally got climbed into bed for a short nap. We were probably going out again that evening. I woke at 9. That’s 9am the next morning! 14 hours of sleep, never before in my life have I slept that long! I guess that I needed the extra sleep and I woke up refreshed.

It was another beach day that day. The drive was supposed to take a little over an hour to get to Rye beach where we were meeting two other friends of Paul, Nathan and Emmanuel. It seemed that everyone was going to the beach as the journey took us nearly 2 and a half hours. The beach was packed! We met a few more people at the beach; but, had to wait until the evening before it became quieter so that we could enjoy it more. Paul and I dived off the pier (although it’s much lower than the pier at Coff’s Harbour, so it wasn’t difficult). We swam back to the beach and the other all played with an Aussie rules football. I decided not to join in on account of my foot… but, Paul peer-pressured me into kicking it once.

“You can’t come to Australia and not kick an Aussie Rules football at least once before you leave, it’s not allowed.” he said.

So, I (reluctantly) kicked the football, not well, and I knew before I did it that it was going to hurt my foot; but, maybe he was right. I had to join in with an Aussie tradition!

That night we decided to drive a little further down the coast to the Portsea Pub which is near Sorrento (yes, there’s a Sorrento in Australia too). I had forgot to bring my wallet with me so I didn’t have my ID with me, in Australia, they ask everyone. I think it was Emmanuel that said to the bouncer after they had all been checked,

“Look at his wrinkles, he’s obviously older than us!”

“Yeah, no probs, have a good night.” The bouncer replied. Huh! Wrinkles indeed! The Portsea Pub had a lovely lawn in the garden which we spread out on to enjoy our beer and we were just getting into a great conversation when the bouncer came to tell us that we had to move because that part of the garden (the nicest part) didn’t have an alcohol licence after 9pm… huh! Anyway, we found another piece of lawn sat down again had our conversation that was really interesting drank our beer and then decided to drive home again. Tomorrow we were having a road trip to the 12 Apostles.

Rob and Gemma dropped me off at the airport in Mackay on the 30th. I had to get a connecting flight at Brisbane to Melbourne where my good friend Paul would be waiting for me. My plane was delayed taking off and delayed landing because we weren’t allowed to land due to other planes that had been diverted to Bribane due to storms. I was a little worried that I might miss my connection; but, luckily I managed to collect my bag and check in for the second flight with about 20 minutes to spare.

I arrived at Melbourne Tullamarine Airport at about 11.30pm collected my bag and met Paul. We decided to go for a drink and met Nelson, another person that I had met through Paul in Italy and two of his other friends, Vincent and Chris at the Lions Club in Melbourne Central.

It was here that here that Paul told me of our plans for New Years Eve as he hadn’t told me exactly what was going on. Paul had arranged for us to go with a group of other friends to the Waterfront Venues in Docklands where there was a huge party with 4 dance floors and an open bar, I asked Paul how much I owed him, to which he replied:

“Let’s just say that when I’m back in Europe, maybe you’ll be able to return the favour”

Well of course I’d return the favour, I would do anything possible for my friends, especially good, genuine friends like Paul.

After our drink we went back to Paul’s house. Paul lives with his Grandmother and has a room on the ground floor. When we entered the house he told me that I would be staying in his room and that he would take the guest room. I tried to decline (the guest room was more than enough, a sofa would have sufficed); but, Paul wouldn’t hear any of it. Paul is Greek-Australian and he exclaimed that the Greek hospitality was this way and that I had to take his room.

The next morning I introduced myself to Paul’s Grandmother, who said that I am too thin (I have a beer baby that I’ve been nurturing for a while, that I’d rather get rid of).

Since we were going to be having a long night with as many drinks as we liked, we decided that it might be a good idea to have a decent cooked breakfast. Paul and I walked to the local shopping centre which has many Greek and Italian shops, he showed me to an Italian delicatessen where I was finally able to buy genuine Italian coffee, my favourite brand no less, Kimbo. We also bought some other goods and returned to eat breakfast. Paul’s Grandmother didn’t like my coffee, she said that it was too bitter and I’m not sure that Paul liked it either since after the first cup, he didn’t drink it again…

After breakfast it was time to hit the beach! We met Kitmun (another person that Paul had introduced me to in Italy), Hien and Tolga and headed off to Edithvale Beach. Here we basked in the sun or as the Australians like to call it “Sun Baking” and played frisbee in the water. Later Hien introduced us to “Ultimate Frisbee” a game played on the beach which is a mix between rugby and netball, played with a frisbee. It was a little too much for my foot, which was still hurting from my mystery injury; however, I played anyway and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

We returned to Paul’s house, showered, got changed and ate before leaving to meet the gang. We took the bus to the city which was free of charge for New Years Eve, then the tram to docklands where we met a couple of other people before entering the club. Anna, who I had met in Airlie Beach was also in Melbourne for NYE and had no idea what to do, so I invited her to the club; but, was worried that since she didn’t have a ticket she wouldn’t get in. There didn’t seem to be an option to pay on the door and it turned out that tickets were $130. I had problems contacting her and thus thought that she wouldn’t make it.

After a few drinks and few more, I was dancing on the dance floor when Anna surprised me. Apparently, she had asked the people on the door how much it was and thought,

“what the hell, I’ll pay anyway”.

She told the bouncer that she only had a card to pay with and he took her into the kitchen of the venue to speak to the manager. He said that they didn’t have a pos card reader and asked how much cash she had. Anna opened her wallet to show a mere $20.

“That’ll do” said the manager and accepted the $20 note in lieu of the $130 entrance fee. I guess that the Manager had decided that they had already made more than enough money with the ticket sales and probably pocketed the bill himself.

The night was one of the best New Years that I have ever had; although, my foot didn’t fare too well and was quite painful by the end of it, too much fun! I finally arrived back at Paul’s house in the morning, had a quick nap before heading out again… Paul had planned so many things for us to do!