Goodbye Australia (for now)

All my bags are pack, i'm ready to go...I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again!

Almost 15 months to the day, it is time to leave this amazing country and head back to the UK. Fear not though as the blog will continue.  Although under a new name and in a new place. 

Looking back over the last 15 months it is hard to sum it all up, but I have had the time of my life here, it's been unreal.  I have met some fantastic people and made some fantastic friends, and I am truly gutted to be leaving them all, but trips to the UK are already planned for some of them so I am sure I will be seeing them soon.  And I do promise to come back to Australia one day soon, and do everything that I have not got round too on this trip.  A highlight of the last 15 months would have to be swimming in the great barrier reef or my trip to New Zealand, both were fantastic.  There are so many more things I wanted to do but just haven't had the chance too, but I will be back. 

I part of me actually does feel ready to go now, there will always be many reasons to stay, but if you do, you will never know what could have happened if you had left!  This is kinda how I am now looking at going to London, if I had stayed in Australia for another 2-3 years, or longer, I probably would have never moved to London, but this has given me that opportunity, and it's time to try it out.  I have always believed that everything happens for a reason, and that what's for you, won't go by you!

I am not going to put many pics up in this post, just the one pretty one of the bridge.  I will create a video montage over the next couple of weeks and will put it up on here as my final post for Australia.

I will miss Australia, and all my friends in it, old and new! I can't wait to come back here and I can't wait to see you all again.

It's been epic!

See you later Australia!

My Last week

The last week here in sydney has been a bit full on with moving out the flat, staying with friends, leaving dinners and drinks, so I have not had the chance to post on here.  This is going to be a bit of a hurried post, as I do have a flight to catch this afternoon.

Last weekend was spent moving out the flat in bondi.  I moved in with Sabrina and Nick for a 6 days, they stay in Leichhardt, so it was a bit of a challenge moving my bags from Bondi on public transport, but we got there in the end.  They were great to live with and sabrina made us an awesome dinner on my first night there.  The next day I went back to Bondi for the day, did a bit of cleaning in the flat and then handed the keys over to the new tenants.  I can't say I was sad to be leaving that flat, but I will miss living in bondi, the social life, the beach and the local eye candy make it an awesome place to live.  And I also went a year there without having to appear on an episode of Bondi Rescue.

My last week was spent seeing people and just generally getting organised for going home.  I also went out for brazilian BBQ with chris and Greig, where we all nearly killed ourselves by eating too much meat, they just keep coming to your table with more meet, and I am talking every kind of meet you can imagine.  It was amazing though.

I also had a final trip to Manly to see my cousin Rachel.  We went for some food to help her recover from her hangover, and then headed to her place of work so I could try out a couple of the fancy beers they have there.   I then enjoyed one of Sydneys best sunsets on the ferry ride home.

Friday was mainly spend recovering from the meat hangover I was suffering from the night before and then I met up with Jo, and we went to see Stephen K Amos in the Sydney comedy festival.  He was great, one of the best stand ups I have seen, he is a lot cruder than he appears on TV, and was great at interacting with the crowd.

On saturday I said goodbye and thank you to Sabrina and Nick and moved in with chris and lisa.  Then on saturday night, I had my leaving drinks at the Opera bar.  I was truly touched by the amount of people that turned up, and have to say it was a fantastic night.  The Karaoke at the end of the night being the highlight.

Then on sunday, recovery was definetly needed and Chris and I headed out for a late breakfast and then took a walk down the coast to watch the surfers.  We then decided to go to bowls, I have never played lawn bowls before, but it was really good fun.  Back home I know bowls is seen as a bit of a fuddy duddy sport for old people, but in Australia it is more of a trendy game to play.  It was very relaxed and there was live music playing while we were playing bowls in the sun with a beer.  It was a great way to relax on a sunday afternoon.  My last day here was spend saying the final goodbyes and getting the final things ready to come home. Not too exciting but nice none the less.

ANZAC Day

Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, originally commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honour the members of the Australia & New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire during WW1. It now more broadly commemorates all those who served and died in military operations for their countries.

And too commemorate this day, there are early morning services followed by parades in the different cities around the country.  Then, doing what aussies do best, they get blindingly drunk, whilst playing 2-up.  Which is basically just heads or tails but with 2 coins.  There is literally thousands of people playing in every pub, and you just bet with people around you.  Usually, $5, $10 or $20 is the bet, but some people go higher.  I came out of the day $5 up - not much but I will take it. 

So I met with a few friends and we went to The Australian pub, in the rocks, one of sydneys most famous pubs.  We hung out there for the drinking and playing 2-up.  It was a grand day, the sun was out and the patter was great, we even got treated to a pipes and drums band walking intot he pub and playing.  We got the pub at 11:30 and it was already jumping and it just got busier and busier as the day went on, this was a picture of one part of it when I arrived:

There is also a traditional Aussie rules game which is played every year between traditional AFL rivals Collingwood and Essendon at the MCG. This annual blockbuster is often considered the biggest match of the AFL season outside of the finals, sometimes drawing bigger crowds than all but the Grand Final. This year Collingwood won by just a single point, 80 - 79.

Start of the Olympic ads

Over the next few months I am sure we will see plenty of adverts just like this, but this one isn't a bad start and is sure to bring a tear to the eye of a few:

15 days to go...

So I only have 15 days left in Australia, I am sure I will be back one day, but for the moment I have 15 days left to enjoy Sydney and all that Australia has to offer.

Problem is, I don't have any cash left to go travelling, I blew all that on New Zealand and my trip through Melbourne, Cairns & Port Douglas, which is fine as I had an awesome time!  So I will be remaining in Sydney for the next 2 weeks.  The problem is, I have done more or less everything that Sydney has to offer, and I am not really keen on doing much else.  So the next couple of weeks may be quiet, spent catching up with and saying cheerio to friends.  Leaving drinks are organised for the 5th of May, and there one or two other events booked in before that too.  So it should be a fun couple of weeks.

The weekend passed fairly quietly, a few glasses of wine on saturday night with Jezza & Gemma, ended up with me falling asleep on the sofa half way through a film, (no surprises there then).  The Descent Part 2, isn't too exciting.  Yesterday was a day full of sport, I watched the Sydney Swans tale on North Melbourne in the AFL first, with a fine victory for the swans, then the Man utd game and the GP, followed by listening to killie beat the hibs 1-0.  So not a terribly exciting weekend, but a nice one all the same. 

Anyway, better be off as I have a posh english bloke coming to view the flat shortly.  Times in Sydney are starting to get a bit dull.  Maybe it's time to cause some trouble! 

Flat for rent

Okay yes, I said I would post everyday and I have failed already!

So there will be 2 posts today, firstly, since I am moving home and greig is moving out.  Our flat is now on the market.

have a look here and if you know anyone needing a place in bondi then let me know!

Time is up!

So as I have mentioned in previous posts, I was unfortunately made redundant a couple of months ago.  The company was making cuts and sadly I was one of them.  I am not going into my feelings about it but I wasn't too happy, put it that way.  It seems Australia is finally beginning to feel the effects of the recession.

So I have been working on finding a job but when I realised that there wasn't exactly a lot of work around and I had a time limit on finding a job because of my visa, I decided to do all the travelling you have probably been reading about.  And since I got back things haven't changed much, so I have made the decision to return home, well maybe saying that I have made that decision is wrong, it's more been forced upon me.  I don't want to leave Australia yet, but maybe it's meant to be, my visa only lasts for another 3 weeks.

So sadly that means that this blog is going to come to an end in the next couple of weeks.  So I WILL endeavour to post something each day between now and my leaving date. It might be a load of crap but hopefully some days it will be good.  

I am not 100% sure on my next destination, but it is likely to be London.  So maybe a new blog will start or this one will carry on under a slightly different name, maybe 'A Thorne in the big smoke', not quite as catchy I suppose.

I am going home (the only reason I put this in is because I love the song and the film):

Cannae beat a bit of Local Hero! If you have never seen it you can watch the whole film in 8 parts on youtube.

So in theme with posting something interesting every day, last night I went to Sydney's new Museum of Contempory Art (it had a new wing added on).  It was a load of bollocks! I actually liked the building more than anything, the art inside wasn't up to much at all.  There was a special clock exhibition on, some of the clocks on the 3 tables they had in the exhibition were cool, but a load of them were awful, like cartoon clocks and potatoe clocks! All nonsense.

Until tomorrow...