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The Flashpacker Diaries

by Sheila Ross And Clare Kirwan

Welcome to our blog! We are travelling through SE Asia, Australia, New Zealand and S America from October 2008 - July 2009 and you are welcome to follow us on our travels.

We have very different backgrounds that might manifest themselves in this blog as a kind of wierd, multiple personality:
- Sheila is a hyperactive environmental scientist, proudly Scottish and a bona fide explorer, who expects to get fitter as the days go by
- Clare is a part-time performance poet from near Liverpool, who is abandoning a chequered history and expects this expedition to kill or cure her.

I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list.
- Susan Sontag

Latest photo album

Western Australia, early December

Updated 31 Dec 2008

Authors	Sheila Ross And Clare Kirwan
Home Country	United Kingdom
Joined	11 September 2008
Blog Posts	20
Photos	223
Albums	8
Videos	0
Reviews	1

Our journey

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Currently 0/5 Stars.
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Melbourne, Victoria

Monday, 5 January 2009

Clare writes: so here we are in Melbourne, the city everyone said we'd love the best but, because our logistics are a bit awkward in January, we're spending the least amount of time in.

I know why they said I'd love it - it is bonkers! A mad hotch potch of over-the-top architecture, in-your-face public art and general whackiness... almost too much to take in. There are no rightangles here except in the grid pattern of the streets - every roof that isn't a bulbous confectionary of blogs is tilted at an unlikely angle.

This was the venue for the first gig of my poetry world tour - Dead Good Down Under and it went well. Around 40 people (3 in hats) turned up at teh Dan O'Connell, where I was made very welcome. Even Sheila enjoyed it - though that may have been because she was fortified/ aneasthetised by a couple of glasses of Chardonnay.

We sepnt yesterday i the gorgeous botanic gardens and we're heading for the beach today. It started cooler here but 30 degrees forcast today so mustn't tarry writing this!!! MAy be incommunicado for the next week or so... finding out if Ayers Rocks and Alice Springs, and lots of aboriginal things... g'day!!

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