ciaranz.com

It was only a matter of time before we made the papers.

Recognise any of them ugly mugs?

Have a butchers at the Southern Courier website, or here if that doesn’t work.

I think the less said about this, the better. It looks like I’m filling her with Christmas cheer.

Blimey.

On Monday 4th of December we arrived in Sydney. The East Coast was awesome. You could easily spend 4 months doing it rather than the four weeks we crammed in. Did plenty of top stuff, only some of which I’ve mentioned. Reluctantly we said good bye to Vic, she’d done us proud (I fear for the gear box though; it did more grinding than you see on the average dance floor).

Here are some stereotypical Sydney photos. Sydney Opera House.

Four mullets standing in front of said Opera House.

When walking back from the Opera House we made the mistake of pausing at a street entertainer. Within moments “those four lads” had been roped into the act. Basically involved standard humiliation and then us holding the guide ropes for a large pole with a BMX on top. The entertainer guy juggled and what not. He decided I needed additional humiliation and made me briefly straddle some poor girl. The guys ribbed me for it but I think they were just jealous I got some action.

The Harbour Bridge.

And Darling Harbour. It’s weird seeing all the Christmas decorations in the Sun and heat.

And what the hey, here’s a cuddly Koala. Thrown in free.

Travelled down to a place called Surfer’s Paradise. I was Mr Navigator so was riding up front guiding Rosey into the town. As we cruised the streets I realised something was wrong. Very wrong. Everywhere I looked there were positively delightfully hot girls. Not just a few, but literally everywhere. I tried to concentrate on the map reading but my eyesight was rapidly failing. To much longer and I feared I would go blind. Thankfully we parked up before any major damage was done. As is the way when we stumble across something as worrying as this, we consulted the Good Book – The Lonely Planet. Sure enough there it is, “Schoolies Week”. When Australia’s school leavers descend on the town for all kind of alcohol fuelled shennagigans. And we’d arrived smack in the middle of it. I was immediately worried at the prospect of swathes of drunken nubile young teens looking for fun and who knows what else. Strangely the guys didn’t seem to share my worries.

Also for about 48 hours My name was Earl. I wanted a bit more face furniture so fashioned a rather fetching moustache. It was amazing. Suddenly I felt I was someone. The photo doesn’t do it justice. It looked better in real life, if that’s possible.

So that evening we went out for a few drinks. Long and short; despite all the schoolies on the streets, because they were only 17 or so, they didn’t make it into any bars. I was gutte-, I mean relieved, as you can imagine. Later I attempted to re-enter a bar I had briefly left but the bouncer wouldn’t let me in, on account of me bearing no similarity to my ID. I should have been annoyed but I accepted he was merely jealous of the awesome tash I was sporting and probably worried about all the fun my moustache and me could have in the bar.

After Surfers we travelled down to Byron Bay. Something seemed oddly familiar about it. Gosh darnit! They only have bloody Schoolies there too. I didn’t know where to look. Unfortunately around this time my camera called it a day, so there are no photos of us out and about in these places. Nuts.

We did a bit more surfing.

Oops, that’s from my private collection.

All washed up.