Australia
Well I’ve Successfully arrived in Australia. Taking my creek boat of the plane was not a problem, sweet, taking it on the bus at the Oz end and then trying to find a taxi and work out how to get to my cousin, Jake’s, house was a little more challenging. But it all went well in the end.
Thursday I did some cultral stuff, National Art Gallery, all very interesting, lots of nice paintings of people and Jesus and greek heros and the like from the 15th - 19th centruries , then it all goes a bit crazy, I think its call contempary, sh*t house if you ask me.
some nice arty statues in a row, probably christian type things
Outside the gallery was some lego, people were invited to build building with said lego to create a sort of matropolis, 
I think this was a piece of art, although I’m not sure, could just be to keep the kids entertained whilst there parrents look around the gallery.
The weekend was spent partly at Jakes Mums house which is near a place called Geelong, and partly at a party.
Monday I went with Jake to the Skate park and watched him do his thing, turns out his actually rather good at this skateboarding.
Jake sliding down a banister on his skateboard.
Easter
Jake, Jo and I took a trip down the Great Ocean Road on Saturday and Sunday of Easter, it was quite spectacular, with some exceptional coast line and views. Things of note were: fogetting to take Ramone, Jakes inflatable Dolphin, much to the relief of Jo, its a sad story though, Ramone has never seen the sea!! Seeing the 12 Apostles, of which only 10 or 11 remain, but are still a sight to behold. Swimming in the australian sea for the first time, it was freezing and Jake and I only manage about 5 minutes before having to run out again.
Sunset, Jo and Jake
The 12 apostles - you may be able to pick out some small penguin foot print in the bottom right
The next few days I spent Jakes mums, relaxing with alot of time spent in the hamock being attacked by there Labradoodle puppy, Penny, who likes to bite stuff: hands, feet, socks, arms, the list is endless, but she’s great fun.
Penny
Last few days in Malbourne.
Jake took a bit of time out of his busy schedule to take me to the native animal sactuary called Hills-something, it was really good and I got the chance to see most of the wild life that Australia has to offer within a mile of the car! Here are a few photos of what I saw:
A Pelican believed to be the one from “the Giraffe the Peli and Me” by Rohld Dahl
Snake eats mouse, over and hour for each mouse eaten
Emo - yep they’re in australia as well as the british city centre.
The next evening Jake and I went to a Footie match, not your standard british football played by a bunch of over payed members of the local ameter dramatics company, but australian rules football, played by tough aussie blokes in very small shorts and vest, sporting the very latest in mullet fashon and frantically running up and down a cricket pitch. It was really good, we went to Collingwood v Richmond, and supported Richmond because everyone hates Collingwood, according to Jake they are the Manchester United of the AFL.
here I am indicating that a goal has been scored, excellent, I am one of 70,500 peole that attended the game, quite a crowd.
Some of you may know Stu from Swansea Canoe club, well I happened to bump into him outside my hostel in Auckland, he gave me his number and the long and the short of it is, that I ended up staying at his hostel in Sydney. Quite a random coincidence. So I stayed in a rather dubious part of town called Kings Cross, rather a lot of women flaunting their chosen profession on any given street corner of an evening, in fact so as not to seem discriminatory, they flaunt their chosen profession between street corners, inside shops, outside shops, day and night, anything to get their next hit of ICE the drug of choise for junkies in Sydney. This said, the area is not that bad and very lively, lots of bars and restaurant all at reasonable prices,$7 for steak and chips, less than 3 quid!!
There are lots of things to see in Sydney, theres the opera house:
The Opera house from the other side:
and the opera house from a boat in the harbor:
The Botanical gardens are nice, although the rather large number of spiders may put some off.
I took a trip to Manly beach,where Ellie had told me there were life guards with manly written across their bums on their trunks. This was a lie I think and I saw no life guards what so ever.
So then it was time to fly to Singapore, would Singapore Airways let me take my Kayak on the plane? They are notorious for not allowing any allowence for sports equipment!! Fortunately however they did not have a problem so long as the total weight was less than 46 kgs my rather generous luggage allowance, 43? ‘that fine Sir’.
Fragile!! they should see the rivers in New Zealand!!
Singapore Airways was not all its cracked up to be and I thought that New Zealand was better, better in flight entertainment, better beer, newer aircraft …