Melbourne, Sydney

Before we made it to Melbourne, we had a stop off in Bangkok-its safe to say that Bangkok is practically our home these days for the amount of times we’ve been there in the last few months. This time we were meeting our Laos ladies Alexis and Jordan. We decided to pass on the night out and have a quiet catch up and DVD night, get some pizza, put on face masks, braid each other’s hair...ah ye right, as if that was ever gonna happen! The night was mental :) and of course Koh San Road, lady boys and ping-pong shows were central to the messiness! We had few drinks on Koh San to warm up and then headed back to the girls apartment to drop our rucksacks off. This is where things got crazy. An hour and two bottles of rum later we were all fecked, another hour and a bottle of vodka later we were all well and truly fecked!! At this stage we lost Jordan, man down man down. But being the good friends that we are, we all stayed in and minded her....ehhhhh....well not exactly. We held her head out the window of the taxi, jousting it back in to avoid the oncoming traffic, got her home and put her to bed, took off her shoes, gave her a basin and headed back to the Koh San :0 it’s what she would have wanted! We’d love to tell you more but that would break the code of the Koh San, as quoted by an obese man with his arms around two small Thai girls- ‘what happens on Koh San, stays on Koh San!’.

Nearly two months of travelling had left our hair in dire straights; we decided that the lady boys of Thailand were the best equipped to deal with us. If anyone was going to be able to redeem us, these were the guys (no the girls..guys??..Eh the people!). It was a particularly scary experience for Sherry who had never dyed her hair before, especially when they put peroxide streaks on her jet black hair ahhhhh...Annie was ready to run to the nearest chemist and buy a bottle of black hair dye but alas we should have had more faith..Roll on FIVE hours and she was transformed into a blonde (ish) bombshell!!! Maybe now the endless comparisons between us and the Kardashian sisters will end!

So onwards to Melbourne. We were only staying here for a few days before we went to Tasmania for Christmas. We got the shock of our lives when we landed. I don’t know why people don’t tell you these things but Australia is EXPENSIVE!! Asia had spoiled us, within a few hours we had gone from $5 hotel accommodation to $35 dollars for a 12 bed dorm (which by the way was our worst accommodation yet, so disgusting). To our horror we then saw the price of vodka, literally 30 times more expensive than Laos. Sherry was in Oz last year so she had some idea, but poor Annie nearly had a heart attack. Whats worse our once celebrity status had dwindled rapidly and our pale white skin no longer drew the crowds, apparently being Irish in Australia isn’t such a novelty.

With our new money woes we luckily randomly got offered a few hours work handing out leaflets in return for a free bar and some dollar..Hell to the ye! ChaChing! For the first hour we ran around the place handing the leaflets out, really taking our job seriously. But then the devil on shoulder took over and we *gasp* threw all the leaflets out, spent the day sunbathing and then drank the bar dry. Don’t judge, were backpackers! That night we had the first of our Australian reunions when we met up Jackie. Que a lot of hugging and high pitch screaming! 

With the state of the hostel we were in, all we can say is thank god for Olmo, who very kindly put us up. It was actually hilarious when we were reunited, so basically last time we saw Olmo he had a full grown beard and was rocking a fro, the classic travelling through the wilderness look! When we met him he had been reintegrated into western society, shaved the beard and cut his hair-he was transformed! It literally took us four takes to realise who he was. Like a new man!! We honestly wouldn't have recognised him if he walked by us on the street. Ah hopefully travelling won’t have the same effect on us :0

We had timed our stay with Olmo to perfection as they were having blowout party that weekend, eek. The house was unreal, with a pool room, Ping-Pong table, a bar, slides and pools; it couldn’t have been built better for a party. And these guys went all out with the preparation, putting up lights, building stools (so manly Will!), setting up lasers etc. We got so involved in the set up (even cleaning the pool with sieves) that by the time the party arrived we were calling it OUR party! When we started drinking at 12 in the day we knew it was going to be a off the chain and even better the Irish were taking over with more reunions with Trish and Claire! It definitely will go down as the best party we’ve ever been too, like a downscaled project X. The rave cave, which was a shut off room with lasers, pounding music and strobe lights, was definitely the highlight, we were couch surfing and dancing there for literally hours. At seven in the morning it was still rocking. Things took a drastic turn after the rave with a very sophisticated wine, cheese and cracker spread! Hosted by none other than Chase who only a few hours earlier had been running around in a sparkly G-banger! (That’s a male G-string for anyone who didn’t know!!)

It was at this point that Annie realised her ankle was severely swollen and painful. It had been sore during the night but she had ignored it, claiming it was 'just a headache', kinda like when Liam Leamy thought his potential broken neck was just a pulled hamstring! Being severely hung-over, we ignored it for another few hours until the point that Annie couldn’t walk and was crying with pain. When Claire Dillion, a nurse by profession, saw it her jaw dropped and we were straight to A & E! A small cut on the ankle had gotten infected and we were facing potential blood poisoning *Gasp, dramatic music dun dun duuuunnnnnn* not cool, that would definitely put a dampener on the party. Prognosis was that it required surgery. *More dramatic music* Well not exactly surgery per se but the doctor used a scalpel and bandages. Annie in her delirious state thought the liter of iodine poured over her cut to clean it had actually come from her ankle…Sick! Things were bad but not that bad! Poor Sherry was distraught! But thankfully the cute doctor kept her preoccupied. Turns out it was nothing an antibiotic drip and a mcflurry couldn’t fix. Things were looking up, Annie had survived yet another near death experience and we were all set for Tasmania. Maxi Taxi look out!

(Tasmania was so awesomely cool and eventful that we thought it deserved it’s on blog, so were skipping ahead to Sydney where we went after Tasmania)

Our Australian reunions continued when we were back on the mainland in Sydney. This stop was dominated by meeting up with all the Irish ex-pats! There’s so many Irish there that we actually got the fear that we were back in Ireland and had to cut our Australia trip short (that and the fact it was bleeding us dry, not two dollar to rub together!) Our headquarters for Sydney was 91 Bream Street, home of Fiona, Nadia, The Goat and his Billy and about 70 other people. The place was pure mayhem, we’ve been in many a hostel but this place beat them all. There were so many people staying there that there were actually people pitching tents in the back garden (no joke!). Sure what’s two more slight Irish cailins! Despite the chaos we settled in pretty quickly, especially when on arrival they had cups of Barry’s Tea waiting for us- a moment of calm amongst the never ending party!We got back to Sydney just in time to meet Annies sister Niamh and her boyfriend Emmet who were on route to South America. Not only were we going to be on the same continent for the first time in a year but also the same city. Only for 12 hours though. It was Kirwan overdrive from the second we met up (Sherry can vouch for this, she didn’t get a word in all day!), cramming all our stories from travelling into those few hours. The only time Emmet got to speak was to explain his monstrous beard growth, which he has impressively been growing for months all so he and his friends can drink whiskey, with beards in South America! Sherry and Emmet did a lot of bonding that day, practically bessies by the end; she was even combing his beard! We did the usual tourist haunts- Manly Beach, the Opera house and Sydney Harbour. Aisling even made a quick appearance!!!

We also got a new recruit- Elton the duck. He's the coolest lil' dude ever, such a party animal!

Continuing the Irish invasion we met up with Edel and Des the following night. The last time Des was spotted was a weekend in Amsterdam- so the standard for the night was set high. It was always going to be a winner though when we found blue WKD, the staple to any ridiculously drunken night! Between the Blue WKD and the amount of Brigids girls out that night you swear it was just a regular night in coppers! This was the first of many a drunken night in Sydney and many a reunion. It was a never ending cycle of going out, going wild (they have 24hour bars), hangover food and hangover TV mainly Gossip Girl (xoxo).

The only time we broke the cycle was to fulfill our lifelong dream to go to Palm Beach, where they film Home and Away. Poor Pauric didn’t know what to do with two hyperventilating girls in back of the car. The excitement was so much we even acted out scenes from the best drama in the world. Sherry got a little too into it slapping Pauric across the face- sorry about that. Life couldn’t get any better when low and behold the Brax brothers rocked up (blood and sand, for life).

We had to say our goodbyes to Fiona, Nadia and 91 Bream Street; the endless partying had taken its toll on us and our pockets. It was time to start planning the next stage of our trip and no better place to do that than the safe haven of Claire Donoghue’s apartment. We spent so long sleeping on couches that we actually found it difficult to adapt to sleeping in a bed. What we had attempted to do for the previous three weeks we got done in one day there, clean clothes again, hurray. We even managed to book our trip to New Zealand, just in time too because we were leaving the next day. Typical us though, we always leave things to the last minute, it makes this more exciting- especially for the poor travel agent who spent her morning frantically trying to organise our trip.
                                                          Kia Ora New Zealand.