Latest update from Aussieland

From thu 21 dec to sun 24 dec we hired a car and drove down the Great
Ocean Road in Victoria. It is a long and twisting road next to the ocean
so it was great fun to drive, it would be a perfect rally course. also
drove through varying weather conditions, including heavy fog and rain!
got to see lots of different rock formations that had been formed by the
ocean, the most famous of those being ‘The Twelve Apostles’. Other
formations included Loch Ard Gorge, Gibson Steps, The Arch, London Bridge,
and the Grotto. Pictures of all these are on the pics site
http://www.flickr.com/photos/howcro. We stayed overnight at Torquay,
Apollo Bay and Geelong.

since then, came back to melbourne on christmas eve and are just about to
leave for sydney tomorrow (saturday) evening. Christmas Day was the
coldest christmas on record in melbourne (about 14 degrees, with strong
winds), and there were showers throughout the day! It even hailed at one
point, and they say melbourne gets 4 seasons in a day so the weather here
is really unpredictable. it was a strange feeling on christmas day, didn’t
have christmas lunch because it was $150 per person (60 pounds). Santa did
pay me a little visit so i got a couple of nice presents.

We went to the cricket on Boxing Day, the biggest event in the Australian
sporting calendar. The crowd wasn’t as big as expected because of the
inclement weather, but there were still just under 90,000 there. Saw Shane
Warne take his 700th wicket which was a great moment, but another useless
England performance. Went to the second day as well, Aussies dominating
again. 4-0 in the series now and almost guaranteed to be a whitewash.
Luckily I’m not a major cricket fan, although it has still been a very
disaappointing series for england fans.

Went on a tour of the Telstra Dome today, another big sports stadium in
melbourne. Got to go in the exec boxes, media centre, press room, dressing
rooms and on the pitch, which was cool.

Next stop is Sydney for New Year’s Eve, which I am really looking forward
to. The fireworks will be awesome, from the sounds of things we will need
to get a good position early in the day as people start gathering from
midday onwards. Then its the fifth test match, the last in the series.
Also theres a twenty20 cricket game which should be exciting, and there
will be plenty to do besides that. In 2007 we are going to a few one day
cricket matches in Sydney, Melbourne and Tasmania, so there’s about a
month left for me here.

Happy New Year.