HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Happy happy Christmas dear lovely people!

I hope you're having as lovely a time as I am having.

The above is an ice cream I ate in Rotorua.

It had blueberries blended into it.

It is indicative of what a nice time I am having. 

Though I miss the cold weather of England.

I miss feeling Christmassy.

It's just not the same here.

Though...it is very nice to have sunny weather as well.

I worked Christmas Eve, Day and Boxing Day. Tim, of course, got them all off (GP land). But it was good - there was more food in ED than you could imagine, and I saw a lot of very interesting patients. You don't come in on Christmas Day unless you're very sick. I saw two posterior STEMIs (heart attacks) on two days - very unusual. And I ate more cakes than you could possibly imagine. 

And on Christmas Day Tim got up with me to make me breakfast, and we opened our gifts together. 

I got a skimboard!

Holy smokes!

And on Christmas afternoon, we went to Jenny's lovely BBQ together, where there was lamb and turkey and salmon and all sorts of good things

IT was smoking hot

All the Brits had their tops off (obligatory for men) and were quietly steaming a lovely red

Huw tried his best to get into the Christmas spirit (see above)

I ate an obscene amount of food.

But that New Zealand lamb.

Was.

Incredible.

Generally, it's been the season for sun worshipping all round. We had a BBQ on our balcony last weekend:

We had to buy a sunshade for the occasion - it was too blisteringly hot

A lot of cooling liquids were needed (see above)

It's been splendid.

But I do miss a northern hemisphere Christmas, still. Really.

In other news, here are some puns to amuse those easily amused (really, if you can't do it at Christmas, when can you do it?) The below road sign was seen at the town named Bulls in NZ (har de har har)

On an unrelated topic - did you enjoy the Christmas Doctor Who?

I...I wasn't that convinced, to be honest.

I preferred last year's.

Of course, the year before that's was the best.

Doctor Who - strangely disappointing.

Unlike Rotorua:

The lake looks calm, doesn't it?

Wait till you see the sign.

Sorry for sharing. It just tickled me.

So blunt!

Yet true.

And a glimpse of those famous hot springs.

xxx Have a lovely holiday season, wherever you are

Connie

Smelly egg

is the dominant smell of Rotorua. Lonely Planet told me so, yet I was still surprised on rolling in on the coach by just quite how eggy it all was. Every so often, walking down the street, a waft of warm egg will hit you in the face. Lovely. And that is because Rotorua is a geothermal hotspot, filled with bubbling mud, geysers and hot springs. And hydrogen sulphide. Double lovely.

I'm having a great time here, but missing Tim and of course you guys. I don't think I'm cut out for travelling alone any more - I feel very antisocial and old. I'm in a youth hostel, surrounded by 18 year olds! They're like an alien race. Oh god. It's started. The inevitable ageing process. My sister isn't 18 yet! She is like an alien too (and has just done her Oxford interviews for New College and Christchurch - for medicine too. Very exciting! Naturally disappointed she hasn't applied to Magdalen - no accounting for taste.)

I'm updating because I'm at a bit of a loss, really. I haven't worked in ED for 5 days (having been working continuously for 2 weeks, including 3 night shifts). Diving is over for the day, I've done all my Christmas shopping (be excited, Brits! Prepare to get a lot of very exciting, and, perhaps coincidentally, very light presents.) I'm sitting in the sun with some strawberries and a glass of beer and a lot of tofu (I feel, as I am in a youth hostel, tofu is really the order of the day), and no work to do, and I don't really know what to do with myself.

So I've brought all my medical books downstairs (yes, of course I took them on holiday with me) and I am going to read them after I've posted this entry. And then I'm going to make an actual revision timetable for ophthalmology, which I've been dilly dallying about for far too long. And I'm going to check up levels of b-HCG at each stage of early pregnancy.

I know you want my life.

***

This is going to be a photoless post as my computer absolutely cannot deal with photos (they are all on Tim's wonderful laptop), given it can barely deal with turning on, turning off, loading google, typing. I underline for emphasis, and to show my computer who is boss (I know it can underline. And italicise, even if it needs a good 3 seconds to think about it each time. It's more indecisive than me in a chinese takeaway - which is to say, it ums and ahs for fricking ages and then does the same predictable thing in the end each time.)

***

Newsflash - just as I typed those words - literally as I mocked my computer for being incompetent, the whole thing crashed, disconnected from the internet, and then turned itself off. I kid you not. And then it did it twice more, just to make sure I got the message.

No more italics tonight for Connie.

***

So, diving is great.

It's not as freaky as I thought it would be, breathing underwater. The course is also less fun than I thought it would be - it's actually bloody hard work, and so was the e learning, which I blithely thought I'd knock off quickly the day before. Huge mistake! It involved 600 slides involving detailed pressure, depth, nitrogen content, etc calculations, naming all the parts of an oxygen cylinder and the different valve types you can get, and was quite easily the most underestimated thing I'd ever done in my life. I was still going at 22:30 the night before, cramming it.

I got 100% on the test.
So if medicine goes to pieces I can at least do diving!

The course itself is also less fun than I imagined, and involves a lot of UnderWaterSkillz which are also less fun than imagined, like, your instructor turning your air supply off at the bottom of the pool and seeing what you do next, or making you make your regulator (the bit you breathe out of) malfunction and seeing what you do next (I found this deeply unpleasant), and learning 100000000 hand signals. There's not been much swimming around interacting with dolphins and being accepted into their family and learning their language and essentially becoming a mermaid, which is kind of what I secretly dreamed it would all be (I mean, there are no dolphins in Rotorua. I knew this. Yet I still kind of believed I would swim around with dolphins merrily. Why?)  But tomorrow we are going into the lake to do our open water section, and after that I will be a fully certified PADI Open Water Diver!

I'm going to put it on my CV (!)

I can only imagine what specialty applications will think of that.

***

Rotorua itself is a very pretty place, a lovely lake and lots of good smells as well as eggy ones, a very gorgeous museum and bath house, and a thermal park right next door to the hostel. So that's good. And I am sharing my dorm with a lot of girls who are very normal and go to bed at 10:30pm, which pleases me. So that's good. And one of them has been to Oxford! But she didn't like it very much (to visit). She said it was a bit too hung up on its traditions - like formal hall. Which surprised me because most people who visit Oxford love that kind of shizzle. I mean, most people think there isn't enough of formal hall. So I was kind of surprised. And then it made me miss Oxford. I guess it wouldn't be too bad to go back to the UK. But....I'd miss NZ. A lot.

***

I've spent 10 hours of the last 48 in water.
I feel soggy.
And tomorrow I'm spending the whole day in water. The whole day.
Just thinking about it makes my fingers feel wrinkly.

I guess I'd better make some sandwiches and go to bed.
See you later, alligator
xxx

***

Hayfever is kicking my bottom

Dear friends, I am mucusy as, and about to start a week long diving course in Rotorua (one of my 30 before 30! More on that later.) I wanted to tell you this because I had a lovely phone conversation on the weekend with my friends back in the UK, and one of them told me she was dying with jealousy so I'd better not give her any more news. So in the interests of truthful journalism, I thought I'd publish it here. Let it be known. I am having hayfever in the middle of December, and it sucks. Also, I think I got slightly sunburned yesterday.

Anyway, the health questionnaire I was compelled to fill out before diving said, "WARNING. If you suffer from hayfever your head may explode", or very similar words to that effect, because of pressure equilibration and so forth. I am not really worried my head may explode ("or, in rare cases, implode dramatically like an empty drinks can squashed by the foot of a baby elephant"*), just worried that I am going to fill my diving mask with snot bubbles and therefore will not look unbearably cool while diving, but just pitiable and gross and mucusy.

I thought I'd share that image with you.

As well as these images below!

(*slight exaggeration for purposes of comic effect.)

***

I intended to update my blog on the weekend and finish Australia off once and for all but one thing got in the way and then another and then I basically spent the entire weekend baking and sitting outside in the sun and did nothing on my very worthy list. Does anyone else have the problem of substituting the list for the actions? You know, when you intend to do lots of very worthy things and then you make a list and the list is so good and organised and you feel so proud of yourself for making the list that you kind of feel like you've done the things on it already? And then you end up sitting around eating strawberries in the sun for four hours?

Anyway, that's what happened to me on the weekend. Except I also did perform a feat of daring in which I climbed out a window and into another one, by balancing on some wooden slats that made up a frame roof on our downstairs neighbour's patio, in order to unlock a door that had jammed itself. Everyone (including me) was very impressed and I soon made myself quite unpopular by going, "did you see that? did you see me climb out of the window?" and dancing around in a frenzy of self-congratulation.

On reflection, I feel I was goaded into doing this remarkably unwise activity by James Bond, having just watched Skyfall the day before, and feeling he would not only have climbed out of this window and into the other one, he would probably have done it on a motorbike while holding a gun, and shot our door down. In comparison to which my feat was pretty meaningless.

Anyway, look!
Blue Mountains!

(keep up, guys)

Tim and I flew to Sydney via Melbourne by the skin of our teeth, by which I mean we drove around Melbourne for ages not wanting to catch our plane until the last minute and then we got lost driving there and then realised we had to return our car filled with petrol and then did not know where to leave our car. We checked in with 5 minutes to spare and almost had a nervous breakdown and told ourselves we were never going to do that again.

(We did it all over again in Sydney)

That night we stayed in Sydney and had sensory overload all over again, and were taken out to dinner by a nice "businessman" who Tim had met in Singapore in a jazz bar (suspicious sounding, isn't it?) while on elective. He took us out to an extremely expensive restaurant (which, should you have a spare 200 to spare on a single meal, I would heartily recommend, as it was very tasty) and gave us menus without prices on and then suggested we had after dinner drinks at the Ivy, ("I would recommend the open-ceiling dancefloor, or perhaps the rooftop pool bar") What it is to be rich.

Me: "Tim, what kind of business is he in again?"
Tim: "I don't know. He's...he's a businessman."
Me: "Excuse me, A, what kind of business are you in?"
A: "Banking."

Of course he was a banker. Of course.

***

The next day, still feeling quite full and overwhelmed, Tim and I set off for the Blue Mountains.

The Blue Mountains are about 2 hours drive from Sydney, and the blue haze above them is supposedly a combination of the oils released from the tree sap in the heat. They were, despite Marc's doom-laden prophecies, very very beautiful, and very, very sweaty.

The above picture is of the Three Sisters ("the three money-makers" as one tour guide noted), one of the most famous rock formations in the blue Mountains.

And there they are again, from the forest floor.

Tim couldn't decide whether to wear his New Zealand hat or his Australian hat!

So he wore both.

I don't know what that face is about

We also enjoyed the educational bushwalk:

It was an absolutely blistering day and we were scorched to death. Just looking at all those pictures of folk in 19th century dress in the mining museum on the forest floor made me feel like I had heat-stroke. The scenery was Australian as: the closest landmass to NZ there was, but so very, very different:

About 5 o'clock, we couldn't take it any more. We went to our hotel in Leura.

Now, pay attention to this next bit.

Leura is a delicious little village (there are many dotted around in the mountains) full of deliciousness and joy, and our hotel, the Greens of Leura, was the best of them all. It was the best hotel I've ever stayed in. Ever.

This was the bathroom:

And this was the sitting room:

They have a bookcase door! A door...made of a bookcase!

And a billiard room!

And what you can't see are the complimentary muffins (freshly baked)

And the compimentary port and sherry

And the complimentary champagne

And naturally all the complimentary teas and coffees

And the 4 course breakfast

And...and...

Our four-poster bed.

(with some complimentary chocolates on the pillow)

!!!

Oh my.

It was truly sumptuous and we didn't want to leave. Indeed we were barely able to leave, after just about managing to eat all of the breakfast.

Staggering slightly, we left for the beach. There are no photos of this part of our adventure, but I can assure you, it was as beachy as, and we ate ice cream, and we also ate fish and chips, and we played in the waves, and it was all very, very lovely. It was so lovely that I forgot we were in Australia, where deadly creatures lurk beneath every wave, and just enjoyed myself. Though later on that day I read Bill Bryson's account of his frolick in Australian waters, which involves a Portugese man o war, and my blood ran cold, and reminded me of why I had chosen New Zealand in the first place. 

Well, not cold, as it was 36 degrees outside, but mildly tepid.

We also saw a wild echnida, which was very exciting. Tim did not know what an echnida was, but I did, because my childhood has been wasted by hours and hours of David Attenborough documentaries, so now I know everything there is to know about marsupials, and bugger all about everything else. 

And then we went back to Sydney.

Iconic Sydney!

It was, as usual, a blisteringly hot day outside. Tim and I dehydrated our way through the city. And what a city!

I can't help but think they have stolen this sign from somewhere else, perhaps in Europe. I feel it is slightly fanciful to think that London and Moscow are on opposite sides to each other, given where Australia is in relation to both of them. 

Still, who am I to question?

We visited the Botanic Gardens in search of a nice bit of shade.

There wasn't much, but there was a very friendly sign:

You wouldn't see that in the UK. Enjoying yourself? In the gardens? ON THE GRASS?

Maybe it was just Oxford.

Everything was very, very pretty, and we were very, very warm.

Sydney was a bit too cool. I think I preferred Melbourne, which wasn't so try-hard with all the big buildings, man. It was just all a bit too shiny.

I longed for a stray sheep or something and wished for NZ.

Oh, and of course we had to visit the opera house.

It was too expensive to go in ($35 AUD for a 1 hour tour! Madness!) so we stood around outside, looking at its strange shell-like gloriousness. 

Then we got hungry.

Sydney fish market was one of my must-dos, so we walked along (big mistake. Never walk anywhere in Sydney. It's too hot to think, let alone move your legs) and refreshed ourselves with a beer and some extremely fresh seafood. I ate rock oysters - one of my ticky to do Sydney things. And they were scrumptious.

 Then we went back outside, ate about 10000 ice creams and drank 10000 cold beers, and watched the sun go down on Sydney Harbour

Not that it seemed that blazing sun was about to go anywhere.

We indulged in a spot of sailor-watching

Oooh hello sailor etc

I've got more photos of this baby than I have of the koala, and that's saying something.

Eventually, the sun gave up for the day and let us all come back down to a normal temperature:

Hot and sweaty but undefeated!

We flew back to Wellington the next day, and it was 15 degrees centigrade. And I was in heaven. And I never wished for it to be sunny and hot ever ever again. Until the next weekend. 

The End!

Melbs

Christmas spirit is ramping up here in Palmy - 14th december! How did it get here so fast? 

Every day I've been in ED as the dates get higher and each day I've been slightly surprised.  

You'd think I'd have got used to the way time works by now.

Still, no Christmas shopping down as yet, and in a valiant attempt to procrasinate more, I thought I'd share some more Australia with you

***

Melbourne, after Palmy, was a massive culture shock.

In fact, Australia, after New Zealand, was a terrible culture shock.

When I went from Guatemala to Mexico during my elective, Lonely Planet warned me I would have a culture shock going from such a poor country to such a rich one. And I did. Though Guate had a lot of shopping, you learned what to expect from the shopping - everything you needed to live a pretty comfortable life, but not more than that. You can get cheese at the market, but only local cheese. You can get yoghurt - and there were 3 differnet flavours at the supermarket - and there was a supermarket, though only one - but only one brand of yogurt. You can get takeout meals, but there was only one big chain.  Etc etc etc.

You don't miss the variety, and you don't notice its lack, until you come to a big city and get massive sensory overload. 

!!!!!!look at all the cars and traffic lights and lights on in the evening!!!!!!

Now I should disclaim here that clearly the difference between Oz and NZ is not a Mexico vs Guate difference but a cultural difference. Still, there was a hell of a difference. 

There were more people in Apollo Bay of an evening than there were in the whole of Palmy Centre in the weekend. There were more restaurants and cafes open. There was a supermarket! Open on a Saturday evening! In a costal resort! There were cafes! And no one looked like they were going to bed at 10pm! 

Melbourne was, naturally, even worse.

The first night we were in Melbourne, we got there around 8:30pm, and after a shower and a change it was past 9. Tim and I completely panicked, because it was Sunday evening, and we'd not yet had dinner.

Newsflash: in case you hadn't yet realised, if you arrive in NZ anywhere on a Sunday evening after 9, you can give up any idea of nutrition for the next 24 hours.

So Tim and I had a minor panic, during which we alternately played Panic!cop and Sensisble!cop

Me: "OH GOD. OH GOD WE MUST LEAVE THE HOTEL RIGH TNOW."

Tim: "But...but it's Melbourne. I mean....something will be open, right?"

Me: "I...I guess so. I guess something might be open."

Tim: "BUT WE CAN'T TAKE THAT CHANCE! WE MUST LEAVE RIGHT NOW."

Me: "YOU'RE SO RIGHT. WHAT IF NOWHERE IS OPEN. WHAT IF WE HAVE TO EAT OUR OWN TOES? I'M SO HUNGRY!"

Anyway, then we faffed around for a bit panicking and by the time we got out of the hotel, it was 10pm, by which time the entire population of NZ is in bed. 

Then we walked out, and everywhere was open.

Tim and I walked around with our mouths open feeling like country bumpkins. There were more restaurants open at 10pm in Chinatown in Melbourne on a Sunday than there are restuarants in the whole of New Zealand. I got quite overwhelmed by it all and had to freqently stop and have a sit-down somewhere quiet to collect myself again. 

The trouble is, there's nowhere quiet in Melbourne.

It's teeming with people!

(comparatively)

(to, say, Palmerston North)

Melbourne as a city is absolutely gorgeous and wonderful, a Pacific-feeling city - warm, modern, multicultural, strangely exotic and foreign, and ridiculously cool. I wished I lived there, straight away.

Though after about 24 hours of it I needed a cold bath and a lie down.

This was the bridge near the Convention Centre, where I attended the Ophthalmology Conference (RANZCO - the Royal Australian and NZ College of Ophthalmologists. What a spiky name!) 

And what a conference it was.

I really enjoyed every moment of it - a lot of useful information, enjoyable poster presentations, a film festival, lots of case reports and interesting ophthalmology - and great food. My goodness, the food. I have never encountered such food in a conference setting. There was an ice cream bar inside the convention building! 

I told you the ice cream theme was on going.

In this kind of climate, ice cream isn't a luxury. It's a necessity.

A very hot and happy delegate. Note the conference satchel, worn fashionably over the handbag.

It was quite exciting pretending I lived and worked in Melbourne as I made my way across to the Convention Building every morning in the cool of the day (the only time it was cool) along with the business guys, the people in suits, the kids going to school. Melbourne has been voted the most liveable city on earth - and I believe it. And every day I built my little fantasy of being an ophthalmologist who worked in Melbourne and was going along to my meeting. Where I would then eat ice cream.

Bliss!

As Someone Who Lived In Melbourne, the Day would start off with a breakfast at a local cafe, where they did the biggest raisin toast I'd ever seen.

Then, I'd go off to my conference, saying goodbye to Tim, who would catch the tram to...

Melbourne Cricket Ground!

where he would entertain himself and the children (imaginary) watching the cricket for a sweet fiver (I would say less than, but the AUS dollar is so strong I've given up converting), which he enjoyed very much.

Then we'd meet up for dinner in Chinatown, which was full of eating options, as earlier described.

 

Then in the evening, we'd catch the tram again to St Kilda, which I kept on calling St Hilda by accident:

Where we'd watch the sunset...(and maybe do some kite-surfing...)

...pretend we had a yacht....

And watch the tiny penguins, which lived below the Pier, come out to play in the dusk:

The water's lovely!

Sigh....

What a place to live! 

Australia

Back!

Back in beautiful Palmy.

Palmy! How I've missed you. 

We stepped off the plane at Wellington (luckily for us - as we came in to land there was terrifying low-lying cloud, so foggy that no one could see the runway until we were almost on top of it: the cloud was to the top of a 2-storey house. I say no-one - I assume the pilots were able to see it somehow, magically... - and as we passed through immigration we heard announcements that all flights going out of Wellington had been cancelled. Which led me to wonder: what happens if the plane just can't land? We circled a couple of times hoping visibility would get better - but what happens if it doesn't get better? you can't circle indefinitely! 

Pilots. I salute you.)

Anyway, I've lost the beginning of that sentence now. We'll start again.

As we stepped off the plane at Wellington, we stepped into 15 degrees of cool, wet, drizzle, and you can't imagine the relief after days of 34 degree heat in Oz. The cheery immigration dude stamped our passports and remarked, "there's nothing like coming home, is there?" which we thought very charitable of him given our stark British accents and our manner of clearly coming to his country and stealing his jobs and women etc. 

When we were in Australia, whenever other tourists asked us where we were from, a question that always requires too much hesitation (where are we from? I just don't know), and in stark defiance of accent we told them we were living in New Zealand, the universal reply was, "oh, well, isn't that just lovely? How lovely to be able to say you come from New Zealand." 

It is lovely.

Australia was very fun, the conference was exceeding fun, and I'd love to tell you all about it, but first I have to say this, because it has been weighing on me for a very long time.

No one in Australia or New Zealand knows how to drive.

NO ONE.

The standard of driving I have seen here in NZ is appalling, some of the worst driving I have ever seen, and I've lived in China. China! Where traffic lights have a mind of their own, cattle wander freely (or semi-freely - being yoked to a large wagon and having a small angry woman trying to rein it in has almost no effect on their wandering proclivities, but I suppose it isn't quite the same as freely), and the horn is used as an offensive weapon. And I've seen driving in India, where you can get a scooter licence (so they tell me) by bribing an examiner and riding in a figure-of-8 (if you can only ride in a straight line, that's ok too but you have to pay a bigger bribe). And Italy. We all know about Italy. And Guate, where occasionally there's the odd armed robbery aboard a bus, which usually sends traffic into a state of inconvenience. 

This is worse.

Ok, it's probably not worse, but it's really annoying.

Let's take NZ first. I can kind of forgive NZ, because there's so few people here. Wander out into the countryside, which you will do by accident as soon as you drive more than 10 minutes in one direction, anywhere, and there's barely a soul about, relatively speaking. This means you can do the following without dying instantly:

1) Pull out of intersections without looking

2) Overtake on the crest of a hill

3) Overtake on a bend

4) Overtake on a blind corner

5) Rapidly decelerate without any warning because New Zealand is so beautiful you just have to slow down for no apparent reason to appreciate it all.

6) Drink and drive

7) Smoke pot and drive

8) Go at 120mph while drunk and smoking pot

For a country with so few cars, we have a remarkable number of car accidents pitch up to hospital. I estimate that I've seen 1-2 car accidents a week - which I shouldn't do, being in general surgery (in my last job in general surgery in the UK, I saw no car accidents. None.)  On a weekend, usually 3 or 4 roll in. Some are repeat offenders (one 19 year old had crashed 4 times before, each time tanked up on a good amount of alcohol (I'm talking 22 beers and a litre of vodka): disappointingly not severely injuring himself because I think this moron needs to be taught a sharp short lesson about endangering himself and other folk. Not really sure how he is still able to drive given they should have taken his licence away after the first time, and if he is driving drunk and without a licence surely he should be in prison?)  A lot of families as well, hit by cars pulling out from a junction without looking (a classic in NZ - there are signs at lots of intersections saying, "spin, don't spin - it's your call". Can you imagine that? Who doesn't bloody look at an intersection?) And that's just my team seeing them - we get a car accident each time we're on take, more or less, which leads me to suspect everyone else is getting them too. Which would make a ridiculous number of accidents a week. 

Note that I haven't put 'undertaking on a whim' up there (ARGH!). This isn't because NZers are disciplined. This is because there is barely a dual carriageway in the country.

This is not the case in Australia.

In Australia, due to the plentiful nature of dual, and even 3- and 4- lane roads (I don't believe there is a single 4 lane road in NZ. I refuse to believe it. The 4th largest motorway in NZ has only 1 lane, and occasionally a large boulder in the middle of it. And some sheep), as well as doing the above, they also do the following

9) Undertake viciously for no apparent reason - when the right hand lane is clear

10) Weave across lanes without signalling

11) Sit in the middle and right hand lanes going about 20kmph below the speed limit, cheerily

12) Generally enrage British drivers

To be fair to Aussies and NZers, they are also some of the cheeriest drivers I've come across. No honking, no road rage. They're just blissed out by how awesome their countries are. And that is why, though you'll see people doing things that will probably earn you a good going show of road rage in Britain, the roads are remarkably quiet and unfilled with expletives and people giving each other the finger. By the end of our stay in Oz, as yet another car undertook us viciously and then swerved across our path for no apparent reason, with no signalling, Tim said to me, "you know, I don't even have the energy to get annoyed any more. I....I kind of feel calm."

Anyway, that is my rant over. I had to say it. It was awful. And I have to warn you, fresh British drivers who have not experienced the horror. 

 

Oh - and one last thing about Australia. Sometimes their left hand lane just disappears. On a whim. You're driving along in the left hand lane and suddenly it disappears and you have to make a sharpish entry into the right hand lane. Sometimes there's a little sign and some arrows about 100m before it sharply disappears. Sometimes there's just nothing, just an abrupt sound as your car hits the hard shoulder line because you weren't paying attention because you DIDN'T EXPECT THE BLOODY LEFT LANE TO JUST DISAPPEAR LIKE THAT. No WONDER everyone sits in the bloody middle and right lanes all the time! It's no use putting big old "STAY IN LEFT LANE UNLESS OVERTAKING, $130 FINE APPLIES" all over the bloody place if you KEEP REMOVING THE LEFT LANE ON A WHIM, IS THERE?? 

I'm done.

In Melbourne, the driving was especially fraught due to the trams, necessitating a right hand turn from a left hand lane (you heard me), something that destroyed me and Tim mentally when we had to do it. 

I'm really done now. 

The night before we were due to fly to Melbourne, Tim and I visited Auckland, where we met up with some friends of ours, who entertained us until the wee small hours of the morning with medical anecdotes. We then got up at 5am to catch our flight. And then we drove 3 hours from Melbourne Airport to get to Apollo Bay. I say we. Tim drove. I passed out in a state of coma in the car and was completely unrouseable. I am still amazed Tim didn't fall asleep and kill us both.

Well done, Tim!

We had intended to spend our first day doing exciting things, but I'd had only 8 hours sleep over the last 72 (those bloody long days!), and wasn't about to go anywhere but to bed. So we went to our hostel and we passed out for 2 hours. And then we got showered and dressed and looked about us for something to do.

Ice-cream!

We had to eat a lot of ice cream (a theme readily repeated, as you will soon come to realise) to wake ourselves up. 

 It didn't work, because we went to bed at 8:30pm (having only got up at 6pm from our nap) and could barely haul ourselves up the next day to go sea-kayaking, which we'd already booked and therefore were just too embarrassed to bail out on. Luckily for us, because it was amazing.

We kayaked out to a little fur seal colony. The smell was amazing - sort of, raw meat, fish, the worst public toilet you've ever smelt, fur, and BO. All mixed in one large pot and left to ferment for about 3 years.

And the seals were incredible. They came and swam all around us, looking at us with their big brown eyes sidelong, and diving up and under and jumping and waving their flippers in the air like they just didn't care. There were big ones and little ones and some as big as you or bigger.

Sea kayaking is incredible fun, so much more fun than lake kayaking. All those little waves! And the smell of the sea. On the way back, our guide suggested we catch some waves to shore. He gave us a load of good tips on exactly how to steer the boat when the wave broke, how to stop it capsizing, where to lean, and so forth. None of which we remembered because as soon as the wave broke, that was it. We went over straight away, Tim fell on top of me, and the boat fell on top of him and we capsized spectacularly.

It was so much fun!

Below is a picture of us not capsizing (for now.)

After kayaking, we had to make our way back up the Great Ocean Road, to Melbourne itself in time for my conference.  So we stopped at Kennett River, a little village famed for its wild koalas, which apparently lived just behind the road to the caravan park. We were assured by Lonely Planet that we would see 'little grey bundles' all over the trees, which assurance delighted us beyond belief. 

The day before, however, we had gone in search of kangaroos in Anglesea (I know. Anglesea! There is also a place named Torquay along the Great Ocean Road. I felt confused. It certainly wasn't Torquay as I remembered it) on the golf course (yes, Anglesea's golf course is populated by wild kangaroos), but failed to see any, though we did see a large sign warning us of the kangaroos, which wasn't as good as the kangaroos themselves. Not nearly.  So we were concerned re: the koalas. We peered up into trees, and every small round thing we saw we thought was a koala. We walked and walked, and were almost about to give up, when...

Someone crossed the road in front of us!

And instantly climbed a tree right in front of us!

I took about 20 photos of this little creature. 

We were in Australia!

And then on our way back, while looking at some brightly coloured cockatoos being fed crisps by some very eager Americans, we found another one! Fast asleep, as is their wont.

This excited us so much that we immediately became hungry and had to have some lunch to calm ourselves down.

And ice cream.

I told you the ice cream was a recurring theme. 

This picture was taken in Anglesea (or was it Torquay)? It was a beautiful day, but only about 18 degrees (the day before was 24) and we weren't quite brave enough to go into the water. Instead, we splashed about near Bells Beach (made 'famous' by Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves wearing double denim in Point Break - you've got to watch the trailer, it's as 90's as) and watched the surfers, none of whom seemed particularly keen on doing any surfing.

A race along the beach later and some very wet clothes further....and we got into our car and drove for Melbourne.

And now I have to get ready for my ED shift.

Till then!