Canberra

So it turns out I'm a city girl. Who'd have thought it? Not me. I thought I'd love two weeks in the wilderness with nothing to do but read, walk and write. Err no. Arriving in Canberra made me so happy. We were only on the outskirts, a bit which looks a little bit like Welwyn Garden City, but I already felt more at ease. Now admittedly it hadn't been the easiest two weeks in the rurals (see previous post). I'd also stayed in a place where the set up was a little weird and the place was shared with a campsite. You had keys to go everywhere. A little like a prison. But in theory no one could get in. Except the night when someone walked through, opened all the doors (and left them open) and turned all the lights on. Which was fun. 
It may be shallow. It may be a sign of the times but the minute I had full phone service, wifi and access to decent coffee I immediately felt better. I think I am used to English rurality. Cottages and nice pubs. Not back of the beyond where people haven't met anyone other than their own family. This may sound horrendous but I have never seen so many people with missing body parts. It was like a Cbeebies presenter convention. 
Everyone also seemed to think that they were living in a metropolis as well. Tour guides would advise you to leave half a day for a trip. Unless that trip included a nap and a four course dinner (bring your own, no cafes) it would take ten minutes at best. 
Don't get me wrong it is stunningly beautiful and I'm glad I went (lunatics aside) and I did get a lot of writing done, which was kind of the point but you do feel like the rest of the world is having a party and you're stuck visiting aged relatives. 
Luckily I met a really nice girl in one place who shared similar opinions to my own and we eventually gave up trying to be cultural and instead lolled on the beach all day. 
But on arrival in Canberra I got a shot of energy. Everyone had told me that Canberra is the most boring place on earth. I LOVED it. Now it could be that you could have dropped me anywhere that was vaguely concrete and I would have felt the same, Solihull, Wigan, Teran. But I genuinely think that Canberra is brilliant. 
It is such a young city and completely built from scratch. You do have to slightly forget that they trampled all over a lot of Aboriginal rights (not something the planners had a problem doing), as a result the city is in zones and built around a completely man made lake. 
The lake is stunning. I walked around the whole thing. All 28km of it. I sort of forgot that by the time you've walked half of it, you have to walk back. Towards the end I was walking very strangely. I watched a brilliant 1950s film encouraging people to move to Canberra and I really think I could move there. 
I went to the excellent War Memorial Museum, really interesting and beautifully set out. Everything seems to be set up to give amazing views. The Parliament Houses, both old and new, were incredibly interesting. Although I have to say I much preferred the old building. Mainly because I got a real touch of clock envy. But you also got a sense of power and decision making. The new one just seemed a bit glass and steel and airy. Like running a country from Lakeside Food Court. But I did like the fact that you could stand on the roof. 
I also met up with an old friend who I hadn't seen since school. It was lovely. Such a nice night and it was great to be shown a city by someone who lives in it. I would highly recommend Canberra to everyone. It's excellent. And if you've been told it's going to be dull and are worried about this, simply spend two weeks in the arse end of nowhere with a couple of nights fearing for your life.Paradise awaits! 

The Incident

So whilst roaming around rural New South Wales accommodation options have been limited. So I've been youth hostelling. I have to say the youth hostels in the cities are excellent. I've met some lovely people and thoroughly enjoyed myself. The rural hostels.. less so. If you have a love of haunted houses or perhaps recreating the life style of 1962 in a slightly backwards town then go for it. If not, steer clear. My stays in these rural backwaters have been interesting to say the least. 

I went to one place that was incredibly beautiful and out of the way. I am not going to say where it is as I don't think that is fair to the hostel owners. I arrived in the "town" (street) and walked to the out of the way hostel. I ended up sharing a room with a long term homeless person (not a problem). She also had quite severe mental health issues. Bit more of a problem. She told me all about the voices in her head, how everyone was against her and how the government was watching her via cameras. She also spent the night screaming. Waking up at 3am to someone shouting 'F*** off' repeatedly is not a way to wake up. I jammed ear plugs in and went back to sleep. The next time I woke up, she was standing at the end of my bed watching me. I didn't know if she was awake or not so I played dead. When I told the hostel owners this they told me 'not to engage with her'. 

Amongst some of the things she told me: 

- The government are watching her as she accidentally caused 'The White Australia Policy'. In her defence she she didn't intend it to be racist. 

- She's invented a form of exercise so good that they won't give her a licence to be a personal trainer as she'll solve the obesity crisis. 

- Everything she's ever written has been stolen and someone else has got the credit. This includes the Bourne Identity. 

I tried to get away from her but accidentally ended up playing board games with her. 

I thought I could put up with her but ended up staying away from the hostel for hours at a time. Which in a small, rural fishing village is quite hard. When you find yourself wondering whether you should walk around the lake in anti-clockwise direction as you've already walked around in the other way then you've run out of things to do. I went back to the hostel and was greeted by the mad woman saying 'They're having a town meeting about me, they want to take my wisdom teeth out and analyse my blood". At that point I checked out. There were no buses till the next morning so I spent the night awake in an armchair in the communal area waiting for her to come and kill me. As soon as morning came, I fled. Convinced she was coming after me. 

I still think she might. 

Wollongong

I am on my travels! I have a back pack (borrowed) and everything. First stop on my trip is Wollongong, which everyone has told me is horrible. I rather like it. I've been here three days and have probably exhausted all it has to offer but as a city goes it's quite pleasant. A bit 'twinned with Felixstowe' but nice enough. I am staying in a youth hostel. Pushing the definition of youth to it's outer limits but enabling me to see a lot of the country on a budget (I slightly over shot on the Gold Coast trip). I've had a room to myself for most of the stay but last night I was joined by an 18 year old called...something. I instantly forgot her name. 

She is here because she is going to University in Wollongong and didn't get in to student accommodation. So she is living in a youth hostel. She's is from a place called 'Young' which I have never heard of and it has a population of 800 people. She told me last night that she was unsettled by Wollongong as it was so big and there were 'so many cars and people'. You can walk the length of Wollongong in about 20 minutes and there are about four cars. 

Bless her. You had to feel for her. She asked me how you make friends at University. Whilst giving her the advice of 'Talk to everyone and then spend the next four years avoiding all the 'friends' you made in the first two weeks' I realised that she was two when I went to university. Me giving her advice on what to do would be like some hip cat from the 70s telling me to make friends at University by 'going on a peace march' or 'go to a sit in'. I have no idea how university works today. For all I know they sit around on facebook, cyber bullying each other before rushing off to a flash mob. I am no more equipped to give advise on University than I am on space travel. 

However since arriving in Australia I have been required to make new friends. Something which I have been moderately successful in and so I gave her the following advice; "Say yes to everything." You may end up doing some really strange things (which I have) but you might meet people along the way who you really like (which I have). 

Whilst in Wollongong I have tried in vain to walk the ring track around Mount Keira. On Saturday I went to find the path and got astonishingly lost. Australian's don't really go in for signage. Then I saw some people who were in walking gear getting out of their car and parking up. So I followed them. They were not walking the ring road. They were climbing the mountain. And on a pretty off piste route too. They had hiking boots and poles and stuff. I had trainers and my handbag. I followed them all the way to the top. I had to. I had no idea of the way down. 

Today I printed off a better map and set off. I walked about 40 feet in to the trail and there was a huge fence. No explanation, no alternative route, so I walked back. Although I have not seen the fabulous views from the viewing platforms that are dotted around the ring track I have seen a lot of the housing estate which lies beneath Mount Keira. I have admired the broken glass scattered in the subway you have to walk through to get there and I have delighted in the lack of pavements on the suburban roads. The Mountain is there but there is no way to it. 

Or no roads that I can find. Speaking from past experience there will be a huge signposted extravaganza about 3 foot away from where I was. The road will be lined with cable cars and helpful guides but I will be just out of reach. Then when I talk to people they will crease their brow in an all too familiar look of confusion and say 'You couldn't find the mountain? That Mountain there?" 

I'll shake my head 

Then they'll continue to question me 'You took the fairy dust lane road right?"

Shake of head

"Oh so you went the Princes Highway?"

No

"Oh. Well that is strange. We're there all the time aren't we?"
Well good for you. Perhaps you should draw the maps. 
I did however find the beach. 

Bye Bye Bondi

Well six weeks just flew by. I no longer live in Bondi, sob sob. The unit I lived in is now sold and I am on my travels. 
When I moved in I saw it as somewhere to be for six weeks whilst I got myself sorted in Sydney. I didn't expect to love it as much as I did and also make two really good friends out of my flatmates. I hadn't lived in a shared house for ages but living with those two made me realise how much fun it can be. I will have very happy memories of merrily slagging off Big Brother whilst Mike had a fire on the BBQ. 
Bondi itself is fantastic and I would highly recommend anyone to live there. This post is going to be mainly photos I'm afraid. 

When I first came back to Sydney I thought maybe I would try and live on the North Shore which is where I lived before. I am so glad I went to Bondi, an area I didn't really know. A lot about Sydney has changed ($5 for a coffee. $5.) and I am glad I started afresh rather than try and pick up where I left off. I loved being near the beach and loved the whole lifestyle of just wandering around and writing. I landed on my feet and was really lucky. 

I also loved the number of little cafes dotted around Bondi, who didn't mind if you sat there all day writing. Or if they did mind, didn't say anything. 

I will miss Bondi hugely but now I am off on my travels for a month......

Gold Coast

I went for a three day jolly on the Gold Coast. I went to Surfers Paradise which is, according to everyone I spoke to, a bit like Magaluf. I really liked it. The Gold Coast's slogan is 'Beautiful One Day, Perfect the Next' and I agreed. A bit too many people walking around in not enough clothing but you can learn to live with these things. 
Sadly the thing I was most excited about was sleeping in a double bed. An actual bed. For the last 7 weeks I've been on an airbed. A very comfortable double airbed but I was acutely aware that every time I turned over it sounded like I was having a very loud and celebratory bowel explosion. Or a light wrestle with an elephant. I fully intended to make the most of having a proper bed to myself and planned to sleep at least eleven hours a day. Inevitably this meant I was up and ready to go by 7am every morning. 
I can't say I did anything of cultural significance whilst I was there. I went to the beach a lot. Saw dead jellyfish, didn't go in the sea in case their living relatives were still there. I did however miss a super storm in Sydney. The worst storm to hit in ooooh a long time apparently. I sat in 28 degree heat with my balcony doors wide open whilst I watched the news report on flooded stations, people trapped in cars and the terrible damage the storm had caused. Then a picture of my friends house came on the television. The house that I had been staying in the previous day. 
A tree had landed on her neighbours car. She sent me this picture. 

No one was hurt, don't worry. My helpful comment was 'who the hell do you call to deal with that?' We concluded you would have to call your insurance company. 
In the meantime I was enjoying this:

I also survived the plane journey there and back. I'm not going to say I enjoyed it but I survived without drugs. On the second flight I was distracted by a rather large lady who had to share my seat, she had her own but there was 'spillage'. 
On arrival back in Sydney I had expected it to look like a post apocalyptic nightmare. It didn't. Everything had been cleared away and everything looked exactly the same. Apart from the big hole in the ground outside my friends house. 
Oh and I also saw the world's saddest smoke alarm. 

The Best Money I Ever Spent

"What's the best money you've ever spent?" People never say to me. 

"Why it's the UK pound",  I don't reply."Gold, shiny and the envy of the world. Plus I contribute to the rebounding British economy." 

Then we don't laugh, as this whole conversation is fictional. 

However I have made some spectacular purchases of late and so I am going to tell you about them, like it or not. 

Obviously I am forced to say my house. But in my case I do genuinely love my house. Small but perfectly formed and decorated as though a slightly twee old lady has gone nuts in a junk shop. I love it. I also love that I've rented it out and it's helping me fund my adventures. 

On a slightly less grand scale a couple of years ago I impulse bought a pac-a -mac from Primark. It cost me ten pounds and I estimate I have worn it six hundred thousand times. As I have only been alive 12661 days (thanks google) I have spent a lot of time taking this coat on and off. Now not only does this raincoat pack away nice and small, allowing me to slip it to my bag and take it with me everywhere, it is also an attractive black so goes with everything. Oh and it's covered in pictures of ducks and has a hood so enormous it covers my entire face, forcing me to tighten the woggles either side of the hood so it frames my face like this. 

It's pretty fetching. However it sits besides me as I write now and I have worn it several times on this trip as Sydney rain is insane. I've only been caught out once when I was stranded a good 15 minute walk away from home and the skies started to empty. My trusty cagoule was at home and so I popped to the dollar shop and purchased a child's rain poncho. A light blue one, designed to be worn on log flumes. I draped myself in the flowing plastic and marched home. I recognised the looks of respect I got. I'd seen them many times before when wearing my cagoule. 

On a side note until a couple of years ago I would have called my duck coat a 'cagoule' pronounced 'Kaggle'. However when I referred to it as that I was asked to repeat myself several times before they would ask 'Do you mean KA goooooooooole?" I didn't mean that, I meant 'kaggle' but it made me self-concious and I began to think I might be saying it wrong. Having had many years of merriment laughing at someone who referred to 'Cack he' rather than 'Khaki' I started calling it a rain coat instead. I stick by 'kaggle' though. 

My other amazing purchase has been a sleeping bag. Not just any sleeping bag, a fleece sleeping bag. It was $10 from K-mart and I believe they are still available. When I packed to come to Australia I didn't bring many clothes (still managed to have 30kg of luggage though so I assume they were lead lined). I'd just chucked a few things in, lobbed a couple of cardigans on top and thought 'Oh well it's 18 degrees at the moment I'll be fine until it warms up." To be fair 18 degrees is warm, I've been on SUMMER holidays where 18 degrees was the high and I swam, played on the beach and went a lovely blue colour. 

Reader I was freezing. Not a bit chilly, not a touch on the cold side, I was baltic. Rigid with cold. Particularly at night. Of course I had to lie. I couldn't say that I'd packed for winter and arrived with a couple of pairs of flip flops and light cardigan. I had bought my Ugg boots but they were thrown in to a bin on the street after I spent a while in a cafe going 'what is that horrific smell? Has someone trodden in dog shit?" then traced the smell back to my Ugg boots which had been soaked (see above for rain detail) and dried a dozen times. But with my fleece sleeping bag I was toasty and warm. I even woke up a couple of times in the night boiling to death, which is the dream. It's too hot to use it now but it's coming back to the UK with me. 

So not terribly lavish purchases. Most of my money is going on feeding a terrible Freddo the Frog addiction. These chocolately treats now come in popping candy flavour and I refuse to tell you how many I am getting through, let's just say they are 4 for $2 in Coles and I am in there most days. What I need to do is eat a pine lime flavour one. A treat so unutterably foul it once nearly caused involuntary public vomiting. I can only assume that someone was once using some industrial strength toilet cleaner and thought that they should try and capture the smell and taste in a tiny chocolate bar. Either that or I accidentally ate a car air freshener. That was the worse money I ever spent. That or any money I have ever given to Greater Anglia Train Company. 

Book club

I went to a book group the other day. We read 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. I was the only person in the group (and from the reaction I got, possibly the world) who hadn't read it before. Having read it I am now certain that racism is a bad thing. 

I found that a funny joke. 

The rest of the book group didn't. I'm not sure if I can go back again. 

What I enjoy and find amusing about book groups and to an extent English lessons at school is the level of detail you have to go in to. The majority of the time you just read a book and think either 'I liked that' or 'I didn't like that'. Throw a book group or an English teacher in there and it turns in to a full on exploration in to the author's psyche. It's the literary equivalent of a 14 year old girl explaining a crush to her best friend. 

"Then he touched my hand; which I think means he wants to marry me." "Then he asked if I wanted a water. What do you think that means?" 

In most cases the answer to these questions is "no" and "nothing". 

I know that books have sub text. I know that detail makes the book. I also know that occasionally it just is what it is. 

As you sit there picking a book to pieces someone will inevitably ask 'Do you think that the setting is important to the book." And everyone will turn to the text and go 'Oh yes, definitely - the moors reflect his character' or 'the sterile environment shows that he is separated from the real world' and you nod along but there's a bit of you that thinks 'Yeah, maybe or maybe that's just where it's set.'

 I had two years with an English teacher reading Jane Eyre (a book I now loathe by the way) and banging on about the 'symmetry of nature'. You couldn't read a paragraph without her reflecting on how the constant driving rain reflected Jane's despair or Mr Rochester's sorrow. We all dutifully wrote this down and regurgitated it in our exams but there was always a bit of me that thought 'maybe it's always raining because it's Yorkshire. It rains a lot there.' 

I suppose the questions are meant to make you think more deeply about the text. To make you examine the motives of the characters and discover meaning. I certainly found the book club enjoyable and I do quite like the fact that there are no wrong answers. If you can make an argument for it then no one can prove you wrong. Unless the author is sat there then you can claim what you want. I would just love it if the author was sat there and occasionally could chip in and say 'Where did you get that from?'

Oh and as a blatant plug, my book is out now. Feel free to discuss it in book groups. I can tell you now it's set in London as I know the city and Tess gets the bus everywhere as she doesn't have a car, not because it symbolises her being carried through life on pre-determined routes. Although now I think about it that's rather good. Scrap my previous explanation, that's exactly why she gets the bus everywhere. 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Joy-Depression-Laura-Sleep-ebook/dp/B00NHB65W6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411379935&sr=8-1&keywords=the+joy+of+depression