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Seeing as there was little work in Bundaberg, I decided to leave for Port Macquarie to see my cousin Luke who was just back from his holiday in Fiji. He lives not in Port itself, but just over the highway in the country, on a few acres of land next to a forest (which one of his neighbours owns). I spent my time tagging along to the beach or town with Luke and the kids (Ben and Grace) or his wife Cindy and the kids. Or staying at home playing with the kids on the Wii or Playstation, when the weather was bad. Sometimes I did some work for Luke, painting or a bit of gardening. There being so much land though, a bit of gardening actually meant driving a tractor round with mower on the back or chopping down saplings to stop the wooded bits getting to over grown and becoming a fire hazard. This being Australia everyone has to take fire hazards very seriously (you have to apply for a permit to have a fire most months of the year, no matter how much it has been raining recently).

Just before Christmas there was a party in the shed of a neighbour's (it was too wet for the outdoor event that was planned). This involved a bar-b-q (naturally). We forgot the veggie sausages (Luke is also a vegetarian) so I got quite drunk quite quick. Chatted a bit to very conservative neighbours and watched the local kids ride around on scooters. I don't understand how or why everyone under a certain age has these things to ride around on. When most of the party had left some of the drunken 'girls' and I danced on the table to the Pouges and Irish folk songs. Then joined the other stragglers and talked until it was too late for anyone to still be up.

For Christmas Lunch we went to friends of family down the road. An English couple, the husband also a doctor in the same hospital as Luke and the son is friends with Ben. A bit of a know-it-all brat but the parents were fine. The wife's mother was down from England for Christmas as well. The hosts and most of the people there being English, there was turkey and ham for Lunch and nut-roast for Luke and I. Plus crackers and games with sprouts on the street. The kids played in the pool while the grown-ups chatted and played 'the game', which is basically an expanded charades. Really fun.

A couple of days later Aunty Mose (who is known as Granny Mose of course) arrived just as I was getting up (I was meant to greet her at the airport, but over slept). It was really good to catch up with her, we also went on a walk with Ben, Grace and Chilli (the dog) in the bush. After a few days I started figuring out how to get to Sydney for NYE. When I got round to booking the bus it was fully booked (doh!), so I looked on gumtree to see if anyone was driving down and found a car which was going from Byron Bay past Port Macquarie called them up and arranged to meet at MacDonald's 2 mins down the road on the highway. I got dropped off by Luke at 2am and waited till 6 for them to arrive... Luckily I had Terry Pratchett's The Lost Continent audio book to amuse me (its about Aus, in a sideways kind of a way).

So when the sun has risen and Macca's had finally opened the car arrived. It turned out they had problems with the roof-rack, it was rubbing on the car under the weight of the bags. Plus the car owner was really tired from getting drunk the night before. It was a really nice bunch of people, I forget their names. All foreign, the driver was Russian/German, there was an English guy, a French girl and an Indian guy. We talked about Australia, and music and life. I tried driving for about 1/2 a mile, then decided I'm not confident enough to drive a 4x4 full of people, having previously only driven very small light cars round England and recently passed my test. They dropped me off in Sydney and I got picked up by Paul in his air-conditioned beast of a car.

So I spent a few days hanging round the house talking to Yvonne, Des and Paul a bit. Doing a few laps in the pool, sun-bathing, sorting out pictures on my laptop, reading. Then New years eve came and we went for a meal in North Sydney, then went down to watch the fireworks by the Harbour. FUCKING AMAZING. I wish I'd taken my camera.

Then I set about getting a coach to Adelaide via Melbourne. Missed the first one due to me not knowing where Sydney Central Station was on the bus route. Stayed another night at Yvonne's, then got a lift to the local station in morning and got a suburban train to Central first thing. This was so I could try and nab a cancellation. My luck was in, I got a seat on a budget coach to Melbourne Booked a bed in the YHA down the road while travelling down. I spent the journey looking out the window at the landscape which still captivates me here. Chatted to the guy sitting next to me, who was going back home to feed his dogs or something before heading back to Sydney to see his family again. Or something like this, he wasn't very clear about it. Its funny how when I say that I'm going to pick grapes people ask if I've been trained or have experience. I really hope its not as complicated as these people think.

Eventually got into Melbourne at 11pm (we left at 8.30am, coaches are long). Its really nice seeing people greet the weary travellers at the station, or surprise them with flowers. Makes me feel homesick in a warm way. So I jumped the tram a couple of stops down the road and checked into the YHA. I remembered about a photo I wanted to take, which involved walking down the road in time for rush hour in front of the train station with the risen sun glaring. When I got down there it turned out there weren't as many people there as I remembered from my last visit. I guess most people are off for their long Christmas break. I didn't have much time either as my bus was leaving for Adelaide soon. When checking out I checked into a YHA in Adelaide, just for piece of mind really.

This coach was much quieter than the syd-mel one. I didn't have anyone sitting next to me, so I just looked out the window, read Trainspotting, watched the awful movies forced onto us on the coach, listened to music and slept a bit. Its weird how its totally acceptable to sleep all day on a coach or train, but if you do it anywhere else you're a dosser or something to the same effect but less old fashioned. I think people people who just sleep the whole journey are really dull. I love having the time to read or listen to music. If I could I would spend most of my life on public transport. Maybe I should be a musician and just go on tour constantly. The actual gigs may get awkward, as I have no musical bone in my body.

About an hour from Adelaide I got a call from Luke (who I met in Bundaberg, and I emailed saying I would be in Adelaide soon, this is a different Luke, German Luke. There is also Aussie Luke). (Emailed sounds better than facebooking I think) He was staying in a Hostel much cheaper than YHA, with his girlfriend Lydia and her friend Diddy. I met up with them and we bought a crate of beer and got a bit drunk in their room.

The next few days we went geo-caching, I went on a walk with Diddy up Mount Lofty, went drinking in some alternative bars in the CBD for Luke's B-day, drank Taiwanese bubble tea, explored Adelaide, went on a bike ride to the beach (it rained and I got a flat tyre. But I ate chips and watched the gulls, it was a nice day out, even though everyone kept whinging about how annoying my bike was). The day I left we did a really cool geo-cache on an island in the river. We had to rent a peddle-o from down the river and sneak away past the bridge to the island to find the cache. It was a really great way to leave Adelaide. Before the floods the day after...

I got the overpriced bus to Loxton checked into the workers hostel at about 9.30pm. Had a few cigarettes with the people out on the balcony, and a couple of glasses of wine then crashed out. Now I'm waiting for the grape harvest to start.