Almost the end

So its pretty close to the end of this adventure, but there is still something I have yet to do, and that is to see a crocodile. Luckily, Lisa is taking me to the wildlife park tomorrow to visit Eric and wish him happy 60th birthday.

This last week, I've been partying hard, on Friday night we went out to the Surfrock hotel, just down the road from the Smith's residence. I think I may have partied a little to hard however, and was pretty incapacitated the next day (shocking, I know). However, I'm not one to mellow too much and by the evening, I was ready for the next party, over in Camden (about an hour out of Sydney) for a 21st party. Its not much like a 21st would be at home, except for the speeches. The biggest difference was the compulsory drinking song at the end, where the person whos birthday it is is required to down their drink. And then another if the crowd is not satisfied that they are drunk enough. I say crowd, in this case it was his mum who was leading the song. Not so different you may say, but the father is next followed by whoever is around and unfortunate enough to be spotted by the singers. The songs are apparently Rover songs which have just grown over the years, but i was reliably informed that most Australian birthdays are pretty similar.

On Sunday morning, we dragged ourselves out of bed (pretty late too) and went along to help out on an activity day for some disabled scouts. It was really good fun, we were just doing abseiling, but some of the people were a little nervous about going so me and Lisa appointed ourselves as confidence boosters (mostlt because we were wearing flip flops and in Lisa's case, a skirt - not exactly abseiling suitable garments!). Most of them managed to go down at least once, either lowered down on a chair, or assisted. We also helped out pulling the people back up the hill if they had been lowered down by chair. A fun day was had by all!

We topped it off by going out for a meal in the evening, as part of saying goodbye to me, which was really lovely!

THe biggest surprise of all was tonight, where we arrived at the scout hall for "activities". Basicially this meant that we turned up, and then followed a car - which I couldn't see because I was blindfolded. Not a good start I think! Anyway, we pulled up shortly and I was let out out of the car, but still not allowed to see what was going on. I was under the impression that there were others blindfolded too, but twigged when someone complemented on someone else's outfit. I was then lead up a hill and attacked with a shirt. At the top of the hill, it turned out that I was being initiated, as an honorary member, into the 1st Mona Vale Rovers, or the scouts. I was presented with some badges and sworn in, taught how to Salute the Aussie flag and to do some sort of manic dance move (I sucked at that bit!). It was really lovely though, and everyone had also shirted up for the occasion! After spending so much time with the Rovers, it was really nice to be officially "one of them" although I'm not sure what I could do to extend my membership in England! (we don't have the same set up). Anyway, I now have the shirt and the woggle (the thing that goes around the scarf). and am a very proud scout!