Rhod and Anna's World Adventure

I'm sorry the rest of the world.

I suggested a few posts ago that you were no fun and that the home nations dominated all that was good in tour bus backpacking fun. I was wrong and I'm strong enough to admit it.

I feel I should intervene at this point before the ranting begins. It is a strange experience getting on a tour bus for the first time. You step on and go to find a seat smiling at the others already on the bus. You realise that you are going to be spending the next 4 days with these people. At 6:15am last Sunday we climbed aboard the bus which would take us from Melbourne to Sydney over 4 days. Naturally we were excited about the prospect of making a bus load of new friends. Sadly though, our hopes of bus friends were soon dashed as we heard the dulcet tones of a group of 19 year old Brits instructing everyone on the bus to 'Get involved!' After the obligatory passing round of the microphone to introduce yourself, we learnt a bit more about them. They consisted of 2 Mancs, a Londoner, 2 soon-to-be art students, (as an engineer I have a particular dislike for art students) a brother of one of the art students and a mute young couple. This set the tone for the rest of the trip.

"Getting amongst it!" What the hell is that supposed to mean? It's 6.15 in the morning in a raining Melbourne and this is all we can hear. It comes in various forms:
"Get amongst it"
"I'm getting amongst it"
"You've gotta get amongst it"
I want to scream out loud and get off the bus before we've even left Greater Melbourne!

It's just been hammered home to me that we are now in the British backpacker comfort zone. Melbourne all the way up to Cairns is a little bit of Australia that will forever be British. In London the Australians have Earls Court. Over here we have monopolised all of their East Coast and many brits probably believe that this is all Australia has to offer.

We had to spend the next 4 days with these people as we travelled from Melbourne to Sydney. On the way we visit Wilsons Promontory National Park which is home to the most Southerly point of mainland Australia and a beach called Squeaky beach named because it squeaks when you walk on it. They're so creative! We also stayed the night in a buddhist retreat and got fed vegetarian food. It's Ok. I can report that despite missing meat for one meal I feel fine and do not appear to have become anaemic. I had to eat 2 meat pies for lunch the following day just to make sure! My uncle Andrew would have had an issue with this lack of meat. He would have had to consult the 'Food Police' (ie. my dad) and demand an enquiry. We also visited the Australian Alps and despite there not being a huge amount of snow we still managed a quick snowball fight at the side of the road at 1800m above sea level. We even popped into parliament in Canberra.

The rest of the bus formed our own 'cool' group and still managed to have fun, namely by sharing a common dislike of the young-uns. We couldn't join their gang because we didn't own a vast array of ridiculous hats (predominantly chav trucker caps, and tweed Wacko Jacko numbers) nor did we end our evenings semi-naked, writing on each other in permanent marker and throwing up cheap wine ('goon') at 9:30pm.

I think there should be a manners exam before leaving the UK to ensure everyone has a grounding in the basics. I've thought this before when we have been on package holidays and I cringe as I watch Brits shouting at the top of their voice "I don't understand what your saying!" The last 4 days have been horrendous on the manners front. I have taught 7 year old children who are better at saying 'please' and 'thank you'. (They may have trouble spelling them but that's beside the point.) It took a group of twenty-something backpackers 4 days to learn the word 'please' and realise that if it was used then yes, the music would be turned up or down on request and, yes, we would be able to stop and take a photo. I was shocked that a small group of people could be so rude and I was sorry for the other nationalities on the bus who had to endure it.