An itchy tale...

So, I did not lie in my last post when I said I was planning to tell you that the weather was going to warm up. It did and so I enjoyed a few days of glorious sunshine! This made the view from Sydney Harbour Bridge (which I was climbing at the time!) absolutely amazing. Shame we weren't allowed to take cameras up there (they have a problem with people dropping things on the highway that runs across the bridge for some reason) as there would have been some amazing photos. But never mind. It was great fun doing the climb, we had an excellent guide who was really lovely and told us lots of interesting facts along the way and so I would heartily recommend this to anyone traveling to Sydney (thanks to Rachel and Jim for the recommendation). After this went to Doyle's in Watson's bay for food. They have what looks like a lovely fish restaurant there but my backpacker budget unfortunately only extended to their takeaway! Was still delicious though!
The next day I took a trip to Bondi Beach which I was definitely too white to sit on (I was pretty well camouflaged against the white sand!!) but it was very beautiful there and great fun to sit and watch the surfers. On my way home I called in to the Sydney Botanic Gardens which were also great to walk round and had some trees that had so many flying foxes hanging from them they looked as if they were covered with huge seed pods. I was there just as they were starting to wake up ready for their dusk feeding session. I walked back through Woolloomooloo (how many Os in that word?!) along the quay and felt very jealous of the people that were sat in the fabulous looking restaurants in their fancy clothes (travelling gear is neither smart nor attractive!).
The next day I traveled up to Manly and had a couple of days relaxing on the beach - or at least my version of relaxing as I need far too much entertainment to sit on a beach so I read, did sudoku, listened to my iPod, people watched and whatever else I could whilst sat in the same place for 3 hours!
From Manly I got the ferry back into central Sydney and headed straight back out again to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. On the first day I went to Echo point and the 3 sisters rock formation and then went to "The Edge" cinema to to watch a movie on the Blue Mountains. Whilst very beautiful, there are many many flies (actually flying insects in general) in the Blue Mountains which is mildly annoying and so the next morning when I woke up with a number of bites I didn't really think anything of it. Spent the next day going to Wentworth Falls and walking along the Valley of the Waters before coming back to Katoomba and walking down the falls there and then I got the steepest railway in the world back to the top of the mountains. It's a 52 degree incline or 127 in 100. Steep! That night I forgot to put insect repellent on when I went to bed so didn't really think anything of it again when I woke up the next morning with yet more bites.
From here I went back to Sydney for an overnight stop as I couldn't get to my next destination the same day. That evening they had a "make your own pizza" night in the hostel I was in which was much fun and quite delicious! That night I smothered myself in insect repellent and so was pretty fed up when I woke up the next morning with yet more bites and so it was on the 8 hour bus trip I had to Albury that I figured I wasn't being bitten by some kind of flying insect.
In Albury I met my Dad's cousin who I've never met before and got to have yet another bizarre experience! Howard sells semen to farmers for artificial insemination of cows and that night there was the regional final presentation dinner for the state competition of cows in various classes which his company was sponsoring e.g. best 2 year old, best mature cow etc and so I got to find out all the best features needed in dairy cattle such as good ligaments, optimal teat placement, prime wedge shape good gait etc. etc. The things I'm learning on this trip are remarkable! Australia is in the grip of 7 year drought but that night they had more rain in one night than they had in the whole of October last year and Fe, Howard's friend who also came with us to the cow dinner (not really sure how else to describe it!) unfortunately had a flood at her house that night as a result (which will be a great insurance claim in the middle of a drought!). I had a few more bites that evening and so the next day when we returned to Albury I headed straight for the chemist to see if he knew what the bites were. He thought I'd picked up scabies (nice!) but having had scabies before (not nice!) to me it didn't really look like that but anyway when I got to Melbourne later that day I treated myself for scabies and washed all my clothes on a hot wash etc etc but still had a few more bites (nothing like in previous evenings though) and spoke to another pharmacist who told me that I had been bitten by bed bugs! Grim! Fortunately I managed to get some bug spray which kills bed bugs so I thoroughly sprayed my rucksack and rewashed all my clothes and fortunately after that the biting slowed dramatically and seems now to have stopped. Fingers crossed. Have maxed out at 204 bites to give you some idea of how much I was bitten!
Anyway, having treated the bed bugs I was then able to enjoy what was left of my time in Melbourne although would really like to go back to this city as I liked it a lot. Managed to see the Queen Victoria market (very good but not quite Borough market!), the Anzac War Memorial, most of the city centre and then on my last day I went to Ballarat and Sovereign Hill which is where they have a replica mining town from the 1860s and the people that work there dress in period costume and you can pan for gold etc. Would have been great except for the fact that by then the wind which whist being about 100kph the day before but warm had slowed down somewhat but turned very cold and also Sovereign Hill was full of kids. And most of you know I don't need to say any more for you to know how that made it for me!
Over the last 3 days I've been doing a "Groovy Grape" tour along the Great Ocean Road. This was great fun and I met some really lovely people on the tour. It was an excellent way of seeing the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians and we saw various things such as the 12 Apostles rock formations, Bells Beach (where the last scene in Point Break was set - although not filmed) and watched the surfers there, Bay of Martyrs and the Grampians National Park before heading into Adelaide last night.
Today I've just been mooching and catching up on random chores such as washing as I have 5 more days here in which one of them I have tour booked to the Barossa Valley which includes a wine tasting at Wolf Blass winery (yum!!).
Adelaide is in Southern Australia, which is the driest state in the driest continent, but guess what the weather's doing today.
You got it - raining!!