Rhod and Anna's World Adventure

Sometimes you get a good group of people on your tour bus. We were recently very lucky on our 6 day trip from Alice Springs to Adelaide. Unfortunately the crew from Adelaide to Melbourne did not contain a massive mix of fun. But we, and the cool gang at the back of the bus, held it together mainly for the good of ourselves.

The bus was a good mix of nations; French, German, Swiss, Irish, Scottish, English, Japanese and American. Our guide was the overly-excitable Zoe who thought it would be a good idea to play a game on the bus to break the ice and get to know everyone. She chose badly. If any of you know the Name Game, you'll know that it makes a very popular drinking game in the pub. On a tour bus at 9am without drink it's cringeable. After 2 hours we had lost the will to live. Bad start Zoe.

In order to salvage her reputation, Zoe quickly changed the subject and chose to discuss a subject close to every backpackers' heart: food. When the announcement was made that we were to be having spaghetti bolognaise for dinner, one girl had an issue. She claimed to be vegetarian...a vegetarian who didn't eat mince but could eat the barbeque the following night. We then spotted her eating lasagne at the pub the following day! I decided to call her a "Fauxgetarian" She also claimed to be dairy intolerant. I'm no expert but isn't the white sauce on top of lasagne made with milk? The tour guide summed it up after she'd listed her dislikes/allergies/intolerances (and be assured it took a good few kms to list them all) as "fussy". Think she hit the nail on the head!

The best thing to do when in the presence of these people is to ignore them. We built a metaphorical wall half way down the bus and had our own party. In the evenings we invited them on our trips to the pub to try and muster a bit of group spirit. It was pretty much to no avail. When the drinking started the home nations led the way with the others hardly even registering a score and thanks to the well established British binge drinking culture the only ones still up past midnight were English, Scottish and Irish. Homes nations FUN. Rest of the World NONE. We will see what the next bus brings.