The Helen on the bus goes read, read, read

It takes around six to seven hours to read Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down, I discovered the other day- so what did I do for the other five hours of the bus journey? Look out of the window, snooze, look out of the window, listen to music, possibly while looking out of the window. And after eleven and a half hours I made it from Coffs to Sydney.

I only had the one night in Coffs but it was enough time to trip down memory lane and rejoice in the fact that I no longer had to get up in the morning and vacuum the hostel, as I did last time I was there. I spent the morning at the Botanic Gardens. The first thing that hits you as you approach the Gardens is the sheer volume and variety of the bird song drifting down from the trees, up from the ground and from pretty much everywhere. There really is an amazing amount of birds in Australia. I pottered around looking for koalas (there is a sign that says 'Koalas' and just has an arrow pointing up- brilliant!) but didn't see any. Last time I was there I had one pointed out to me- just a black blob hugging the branches miles above the ground. It is probably better to see them in the zoo really.

So after a relaxing morning looking for koalas, it was time for my last long bus journey here in Oz. I arrived into Sydney just before midnight and got a taxi to the hostel. Crawled into bed and slept.

Woke up the next morning to find myself in Sydney! Wow. Now this may seem obvious to all you out there but every time I get on a bus here I keep expecting to get off somewhere in Korea. Your mind plays funny tricks on you after the third hour on the bus. So I got out of bed and went into the City. And I walked and walked and walked. I went up the Sydney Tower and walked around it, taking hundreds of photos. I walked to Darling Harbour and around Sydney Aquarium for a couple of hours. The platypus were very cute indeed and put on quite a show. But my favourite bit was the Nemo display- all these kids were looking for Nemo's mates

'Look, mum, there's Dory' etc

Very sweet, they were so into it that half of them were convinced that they were looking at Nemo's dad (not Nemo as he has one small fin).

Then I walked to Circular Quay and round to the Opera House, through the Botanic Gardens and Hyde Park and up towards the hostel. By now I was pretty tired and ready for a rest. But it was not to be as I bumped into a Korean guy that I met on Fraser Island so we went off to get pissed.

He took me to a place that is very popular with Korean students, it was like being in Seoul. We chatted and chatted and drank and drank and then went off for kebabs. Just like home all of a sudden. And, true to form, if you are drunk enough to think that kebabs are a good idea then you are probably too drunk to eat one. I know that I was. So I hailed a cab and we went home. Me to my disaster area of a dorm and him to his Korean hostel down the road.

Not a bad start to my last week in Australia and my first week in Sydney.