Today we had an early start, we had to be at the bus at 7 am which meant getting up before 6 am. I must admit the first time I saw the bus I wasn't very impressed. We looked like "The Muppets - Australian Tour 2010", this is one of those cases where a couple of images can speak by themselves.
If that didn't scare you enough this is what came right after:
I know, it looks like in this ipod and dvd era the guide decided to provided us with some old fashion entertainment in the way of a poppet show, but no. It may be hard to believe but the guide was actually explaining to us the kind of animals we may find in our way to Melbourne and he had a poppet replica of each of the possible animals. It's a weird way of doing it and I'm sure some people may end up with poppet related nightmares tonight but I suppose each guide has his own style. :-)
Apart from the poppet show he also spent most of the journey highlighting some interesting facts about Australia...like how many times a week people have sex in Australia and the average duration...he actually got to the conclusion that although in Brazil it lasted 4 minutes longer it wasn't worth going all the way there just for the 4 extra minutes. He actually has a book about all this interesting trivia!!!
Anyway, apart from the colourful guide, our first stop was in Camberra, the capital, where we stop for lunch and to visit the senate and the house of commons...well it´s got another name but essentially they just copied the british system.
Camberra is a designed city as you can see from the pictures, they couldn't decide on whether Sydney or Melbourne should be the capital so the ended up creating a brand new city right in the middle of the two. The name Camberra derives from an aboriginal word that means "the place where people go to meet".
And our first group picture. Nobody wanted to take it really, we had only being together for a few hours in a bus without talking just listening to the guide or folling asleep. You can probably see the enthusiasm on our faces.
From there we went to a small village in the Snowy mountains called Thredbo were we went to spend the night. In the winter it's a sky resort but in the summer the place is dead. Perfect spot if you fancy a week of solitud.
This is without any doubt the best hotel we've been in since we got to Australia. Spotless clean, with a swimming pool a jacuzzi, nice and friendly personnel and pretty relax.
As we got there before dinner time and it was still daylight we went for a walk around the hotel
It turned out there was another group in the hotel, they were the same excursion than ours (same company) but coming the other way, from Melbourne to Sydney.
Their guide had been trainned by our guide...yes...some of you can smell the trouble already...and you'd be right!
Both guides decided to organize a competition of...how would I best describe this...dry ski relai? ok, this is how it worked. We were all separated in teams of 3, the compeating person in each team would had a full sky equipment and would have to dress up with the whole thing, trousers, jacket, gloves, googles, ski boots and obviously skies. There was a small bridge from the pub where we were leading to the countryside.
You had to dress up with the whole thing, ski your way to the end of the bridge (I suppose it goes without saying THERE WAS NO SNOW WHATSOEVER), then ski your way back to the pub, have a shot of whatever the hell that was they had on the table, take your ski cloths off and give them to your team mate who would continue the race for you.
I've taken the liberty to take a few snapshots of some of the teams that went before us in order to ilustrate how the whole thing works.
And then it was our turn:
And after two rounds in which the winners beated all the competition hands down the well deserved winners were:
Below are the winners enjoying their first prize.
Ah! and let me introduce you to our guide and poppet master: Craig also known as "Bones"
dressing up for the occasion:
We have another early start tomorrow, I believe we are having a walk in the morning and we'll be climbing the highest mountain in Australia...which it may surprise you to know it's only 2228 m although we could end up doing something completely different, who knows!
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NOTE:
I still have two more blog entries to upload, but they contain lots of photos so it may take a while to upload them and I don't think I'll have the time today. Tonight we are taking the ferry to Tasmania for a 7 day excursion so it is possible I won't be able to upload anything until we come back from Tasmania which would be on the 1st of March.
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