Steak and Sydney

So. We've been in Sydney now for over 2 weeks I think and I haven't blogged about any of it. Not because I haven't had time. I've had a whole heap of time I could have done it in. I just haven't really felt like it. You know, it's strange. I feel like I'm living here (which I guess I am) and I'd never feel the need to do an online diary at home in London, so I guess I haven't really felt the need to here. So, I've picked out a couple of highlights (Allen Dodd and Smash Hits) and they've got their own blog entry, but the rest I'll scramble in to one. Ready? Let's go...

We arrived in Sydney with the van. We were bang excited when we turned up and straight away drove over Harbour Bridge (tick) and snapped the Opera House (tick) and were then like "great - there's nowhere to park." So we headed over towards Bondi Beach and camped at a car-park at nearby Clovelly for 2 nights. So this was our bedroom...



...pretty nice, eh? Hmmmm. You'd think, wouldn't you? Until you get up at 3am to go for a quick wee outside the van (when you've got to go, you've got to go) and find a dodgement man parked up in a car next to you. Think he thought I was there for other reasons. Bow Wow. Anyway, apart from that it was all good. Who am I kidding? It was horrible. The van was cold at night and then like a sauna / light box from 5am. So I was glad when we gave it back on day three.

We then headed in to the centre of Sydney City to a hostel called MAZE. It's well named. I think it's fair to say that pretty much everyday I've been there now I've got lost. It's full of winding passages and loads of rooms which just seem to go round and round in circles. It's also full of cockroaches and grub. Anyway, it looked fun and was fairly cheap so we booked in.

There we met the Kiwis who we became firm friends with after dragging them along to Indie Night in Kings Cross. I don't think they really wanted to go. I think they were scared to say no. Anyway. This is them...



That's me, Tim, Ben, Carmen, Andrew and Dave. And we love them.



So that was Indie Night which has become my favourite night out on a Thursday (it's the new Friday.) We went the following week too with people we'd met there the first week (Ricky and Tracey) and Jason who is the events organiser at Maze. Here we are drinking champs, sweetie...



So apart from that, the rest of the time in Sydney has been spent doing these things:

a) Seeing Adam Williams who I worked with at Sugar. He's living here now. You know it, darl.

b) Hanging out at free BBQ's on the beach on a Saturday avo...



c) Recovering from another bout of tonsillitis. I got it bad. Had to see a doctor and then Duncan got it worse. I actually thought he was going to die. I've never known anyone so sick.

d) Looking for an apartment. The plan was to get one whilst here. They're quite easy to get for a really short time but it's sooooo hit and miss. For instance, our friends Ricky and Tracey have landed a plush new apartment for 6 weeks. Cheap as chips. Dishwasher, swimming pool, spa, sauna, gym. You dig? But a lot of them are one room, crammed full of people with a seedy, weird landlord. We've got until Dec 1st to find somewhere but it doesn't look hopeful. Failing that we'll stay at the cockroach-infested MAZE. If we do, imagine me in this squeaky bed until January 3rd...



e) Working. Not a Dolly Parton 9 to 5 but just a bit of freelance. Obviously at Smash Hits (did I mention that?) but I've also had a few assingments with That's Life! magazine. Think Bella. Think Chat. Oh the glamour! Anyway, they're paying me over $100 an hour so I shouldn't scoff.

f) Checking out the sites. Snapped this whilst taking the ferry across to Manly one night. The sites are everywhere. You don't have to go to any effort to see them here like you do in London, which is always a bonus if you're lazy like me.



g) Eating $5 steak. Wondered where the steak would come in didn't you? Yeah, so basically there's this Irish bar a stone's throw from the hostel called Scruffy Murphy's. It's 24 hour and the place everyone heads for in the early hours when the other clubs have chucked them out. Not that that's ever happened to me, you understand. Anyway, I discovered that they do an evening meal for $5. So we ate steak last night. And it was delish.

h) And finally seeing old friends (Kelly and Tom that we met in Brazil live here and Suzi, Minnie, Bex and Ben from South America also) and making new ones. Loads of them...



So that's my love affair with Sydney in a nutshell. I love it here. I do wish we had our own place as the grimey, hot hostel is getting to me a bit (there's no air con - the place is like an oven). But the city never sleeps and there's always a new person to make friends with. And more importantly there's cheap steak. Of course I love it.

Living the dream, just like Chantelle Houghton

And on that note, now that Chantelle and Preston are married is she Chantelle Preston? Or still Chantelle Houghton? I'd find it confusing if I were her, being Chantelle Preston and thinking of my husband as Preston Preston, which I'm sure she would. Like if I were to marry Eddy (which is his surname, real name Ian - but no-one *ever* calls him that, BTW Eddy this is purely academic) I'd be Samantha Eddy but if people asked "what's your husband called?" I'd be like "Eddy" and they'd be like "surely that's odd?"

Anyway. Living the dream. Yeah. So, my childhood dream (apart from wanting to be a trapeze artist when I was about 5) was to work at Smash Hits. I'd look at the staff in the magazine and think they were way cool. I wanted to be that cool. So anyway, as you all know, I got to work at Sugar which I ADORED and it *did* make me a lot cooler - but inside me Smash Hits was the big one. I went for an interview there just after I started at Sugar. I didn't get the job. Sniff. Then, I was scheduled in for another interview a little while back and I reckon I had it in the bag. My application was out-standing. My main man JB was the Deputy Editor and my darling Mango, the Feature's Ed. That job was mine. MINE. That's if the whole magazine hadn't crashed and burned that very week.

So yeah. My dream of working for Smash was over. Smash Hits was no more. I felt it, like the rest of the nation. But I like to think I felt it a little bit more because I was never really a part of it like I should have been...

...until now. That's right. Smash Hits is still going in Australia. And I've done two day's work there this week. GET IN! Sadly, I reckon the writing may be on the wall for this one too. The team is only three people and the mag has just gone bi-monthly (erk) but it didn't make it any less exciting. I LOVED IT. I was back where I belong - transcribing Jesse Mcartney interviews, meeting tragic girlbands, writing the music review pages and checking out the screening for the Dixie Chicks Rock Doc (no-one ever told me they were so cool. I'm trading punk for country.)

And the best bit is that I think they loved me. They've asked me back next week. So the moral of the story kids, is to never give up on your dreams. If you want something that bad it'll happen. Bleurgh.

(Uncle) Allen Dodd

It was always going to be a little odd meeting up with my original Godfather (Uncle) Allen Dodd, especially as I haven't seen or heard from him since I was about seven. But when I contacted him and said that Dunners and I were in Sydney, he seemed really keen - and super lovely. So on Sunday, we headed over to his flat in Darling Harbour and got whisked out for a fancy lunch with him and his wife Wendy. And you know what? It was a whole lot of lovely.

This man, although I don't really know him at all really, made a BIG impression on me when I was really little. I always remember him as being a really big character, really dashing and the best bit - he'd send me postcards from all around the world. He'd be away on business a lot and he'd ALWAYS remember to send me a card from wherever he went. It meant so much to me that I vowed when I left in May that I'd send my brother's kids that I adore a postcard from every country I visited, hoping that one day it would mean as much to them.

So yeah. He took us to his favourite restaurant right on the harbour where I had snails (first time in 28 years) and kangaroo (have it all the time, don't I?) And yeah, it was great. I also found out that he's this hot shot artist. I never knew. The paintings in his apartment blew me away. No wonder I always liked him. After all, I'm artistic - I must have sensed it.

That's when good neighbours become good friends

It's true. I don't think I've ever met a nicer bunch of people than the Australians. It's almost embarrassing.

Let me tell you about Brodi. So when we were in Queenstown, New Zealand, we met an Australian surfer dude called Brodi. He was in the TV room of the hostel and I think I must have said about 2 words to him as I was way too involved with watching LiLo in Just My Luck (shocking BTW. Shocking. Mcfly, my friends, I was embarrassed for you.) Duncan and Eve went out with Brodi and the Scots for a few beers that evening leaving Anna and I watching more movies and apart from another 2 or so words in the morning, that was the extent of my friendship with Brodi. It wasn't the extent of Eve's friendship with Brodi, but that's another story...

So whilst necking a few beers that night, Brodi had mentioned to Duncan that if we happened to be passing his hometown of Newcastle in Australia, we should look him up. So we did. After we left the hot surfers in Surfer's Paradise (I REALLY didn't want to go) we checked out Byron Bay (raining = rubbish) and Coff's Harbour (boring = rubbish) and the next place on the map before Sydney was Newcastle. So we just turned up at 9pm on Saturday and called Brodi. What followed was 2 days of non-stop hospitality.

For starters, Brodi lives with his parents. Of course he does. He's 19. This had never crossed our minds. But they welcomed us with open arms giving us beers and sausages as we stepped through the door followed by beds, hot showers and towels (it's the simple things when you're living out of a bag, believe me.) We then hit the town with Brodi and caused quite a stir. Seems that the people of Newcastle LOVE the English accent and by the end of the night we were surrounded by about 15 people all wanting to talk to us. My ego loved it.

In the morning we were woken up by Brodi's AMAZING mum, Joanne. She'd cooked us a heap of breakfast. Brodi took us around the town, taught Duncan how to bodyboard, took us out with his friend Dana in the evening and then left us at his house the next day as he was off to watch U2 in Sydney. He told us to stay at his house as long as we liked. And he meant it.











So we stayed for a while with Joanne who insisted that I use her phone to do an hour long interview for That's Life magazine. Then we left. As quickly as we'd arrived. A bit overwhelmed at how amazing everyone we seem to meet here is.

One of my all-time favourite Australian people (apart from Jason Donovan) is my Auntie Gwen. She'd always feed me Lamingtons she'd baked in the school holidays (so of course she was a hit with me), let me stay at her house when my parents were away and was just generally warm and lovely. So really this should be no surprise to me. But it has knocked us sideways a bit. Not really sure what we've done to deserve it, but it's all good with me. I love it here. Lovely people, stunning men and sun. Why oh why would you want to live anywhere else?

Samantha's Paradise

So after a pretty hectic return day to Brisbane (locating a Lonely Planet, buying a dictaphone and ear-bug - I'VE GOT MAGAZINE WORK ALREADY! - and picking up our Wicked camper van - the pink seat covers rule, but Buddy Holly? Really?) we set off at 6.30pm for Surfer's Paradise.



Got to Cheers hostel where they let us park the van outside and pay to use the facilities, which was all good. Then a rowdy bunch invited us down to the local club. I totally wasn't in the mood. Tired. Moody. Felt ugly. The usual. But as it was free entry and free drinks, we decided to at least check it out. And it turned out to be the best decision we could have made.

There we met Joel. A beautiful surfer (girls, seriously, when I say beautiful I mean beautiful - the sight of him with his shirt off at the pool the next day made me want to cry) who had a heart of gold. He started chatting to me outside and wanted to meet 'my crew'. Whatever it was about me and my crew (Duncan) he seemed to like, as he then took us to another few places and before the night had ended had insisted that Dunc and I stayed at his pad on the beach, instead of kipping in the van.







Joel reckoned we were "proper filth" and "totally sick" - both surf slang for "wicked" or "terribly nice" - and said that it was really refreshing to meet such nice, real people. Bless. Whatever, it suited us just fine. We got to hang at his apartment for 2 days with his wicked housemates (Wayne, Ben and Vicky), drinking beers, feeding wild parrots and generally just feeling spoilt. Gnarly.

ROGER BISHOP's mum

Is amazing.

After our wet, sandy, stormy camping expedition she picked us up from the bus station in her home town Noosa, gave us the tour, made us lunch, dropped us at the beach, let us use her pool, gave us hot showers and a comfy bed and then took us back to the bus station in the morning.

So it's fact. The Bishops are the bomb.

Dingo-ing crazy

So the story goes that in 1982 a dingo ran off with and killed Lindy Chamberlain's baby at Ayer's Rock. In my head I'd heard that the dingoes had actually nicked the baby and raised it as their own (I totally prefer this version, whether I made it up or not I don't know but it's the story I'm sticking to.) Anyways, after finding the baby's clothes neatly folded (dingoes aren't well known for their folding abilities here) Lindy was charged with the murder of her child. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Whether or not she did it, or the dogs did it, or whether in fact the dogs *did* actually raise the child as I choose to believe the fact is that dingoes are pretty dangerous and man, did we hear about it on our trip to Fraser Island.

We'd decided to nip up the coast from ROGER BISHOP's house and spend a few days camping on Fraser. It seemed a pretty good deal. You pay like 155 bucks and that gets you a night in a hostel at Hervey Bay before the island, 2 nights camping on Fraser with a four wheel drive and a group of people you don't know, and then a night back at the hostel to recover. It felt kind of like we were going to be on Shipwrecked and as I'm too old to apply for that now (TOO OLD!) it seemed all good. Just as long as you stayed well away from the dingoes. Da, da, daaaaah...

Bussed up to Hervey Bay and had to get up pretty early for our (mainly dingo) briefing. It took a couple of hours. How to avoid the dingoes (try and camp in the fenced areas), what to do if you saw a dingo (cross your arms in front of your chest - what the? - and remain calm) and what to do if a dingo attacked (forget being calm and fight back aggressively. Helpful.) Then we were put in to our group, given a massive van and a load of proper camping equipment (no Eurocamp tents with kitchens and bedrooms here) and let loose.



The island is just mental. It's all sand and to get anywhere takes ages and is pretty hairy. The roads aren't roads and loads of people get stuck in the deep sand. Loads of people also lose their lives. So Duncs and I were glad to be put in to a fun, but pretty sensible group of people. There was Tom - a 21 year old boy from Essex, Gillian and Gareth - a couple from Scotland, Inga and Thomas - a hilarious pair from Germany and Christine, also a German. All good. Of course, I was the oldest.

First stop was Lake Mackenzie a beautiful - BEAUTIFUL - clear lake with bleach white sand. It was something else. So yeah, the drill on Fraser is just to drive to a lake, strip off, dip, sunbathe and then get on to the next. Which is what, after the first stop at Lake Mackenzie, we did solidly for 3 days.







The camping was pretty mental, and to be honest I'm not sure I'm built for roughing it so much. We did well with putting the tents up and stuff (the first night we chose a dingo-safe fenced area, the second we just camped on the beach) but the thought of spiders and hungry, baby-raising dogs kind of ruins any chance of a good night's kip. And that's before the massive storm hit whilst we were sleeping on the sand, soaking us and driving crabs in to the tent. Caroline Corcoran, you would have HATED it.





But apart from that, and the fact that there's nowhere to go to the toilet let alone plug GHD's in, it was awesome. Lakes, natural Champagne spa pools (love champs, don't I?) and miles and miles of unspoilt beaches. And one dingo. One. Worth the worry then.