On Sunday morning I went for a spot of breakfast with Danny, a German who arrived in our room the previous night, and his girlfriend Silvi. She is half-Polish and taught me a Polish curse involving blood and the devil which I have absolutely no idea how to spell, but it sounds great! Danny & Silvi only have three weeks in Australia, and for the ten days they've been here they've seen almost no sunshine at all. It seems the bad weather is following them round, because today was cloudy with showers! Oh well, it made a nice change (for the rest of us) from the hot sticky days we've been having.

Later on I got ready to go and meet Kate, the girl I met in Samoa doing Warren's tour of Savai'i. We met on the steps of the Town Hall, and proceeded to make our way towards the Art Gallery of New South Wales, stopping off at a café to share a slice of date cake during a quick downpour and then at the Protestant and Catholic cathedrals.

In the gallery we went to see the exhibition of photographs by Bill Henson, a famous Australian. Well, I have to say that a lot of his stuff was pretentious shite. It was mostly a bunch of moody black & white snaps of crowds of people, with the odd blurry photo of a window thrown in. To be frank, give me a camera, a crowd & enough time and I'm sure I could come up with the same or better.

And the sycophantic bollocks that was being spouted in the exhibition programme!! Oh my goodness, there were so many truly agonising moments of arty wank verbage that I can't do them all justice here, but pride of place has to go to a description of 230 very similar crap snaps as "kaleidoscopic identicalness". I ask you! How I enjoyed ripping into the total wankishness of it all! I was strongly reminded of the time I was with Jezza in the New York Museum of Modern Art, where we took turns being incredulous at the shocking up-its-own-arseness of the description of a painting of four superposed concentric white squares on a white background, which were only discernible by the fact that the brush strokes went different ways for each one, but if you believed the hype stood for all sorts of fundamental truths about Christ knows what. Ah, happy memories.

The only thing to slightly mar my mood of mocking was that I actually found myself liking some of Henson's later pictures. I guess even a totally overhyped arty farty photographer is bound to improve with age & experience. And okay, some of his early stuff was also hauntingly expressive. But all in all there was a whole lotta mediocrity on display here. If that's art, then the time is nigh that I might charge people ten dollars to see my holiday snaps.

The gallery also has large collections of good art from many times & places, including your standard Impressionists but also some funky Japanese sculptures. One of the exhibitions was of outstanding art by students from across New South Wales for their school-leaving exams, much of which was impressive. Not even this art was free of arty bollocks words though; I'm guessing the kids had to play to the audience - ie the examiners - by sounding as wankery as possible in their descriptions of their art, just to get better marks.

After this much art it was only natural that we should need a break, so we headed into town and had some food. Then Kate went home and I was about to head to the YHA when I thought I'd give Owen from the RSA course a call and see if he fancied a beer. That he did, so we met up and ended up watching the men's final of the Australian Open in Sydney's oldest pub. It was amusing to be secretly hoping the Aussie Hewitt wouldn't win, and then to discover that actually quite a few Aussies in the pub were hoping the same!

Parting ways with Owen on George Street, I took my usual evening constitutional walk back out to Glebe. I passed through Darling Harbour and under the big flyover with the understated, not to say inane statue to Purgatory - unless in fact it's way deep & meaningful, positioned as it is in a forgotten and forgettable place like a piece of inconsequential street furniture, a fuse box say; the flyover that I now know leads to the Anzac Bridge (did I mention my unfortunate bus detour?) before climbing up the hillside to the YHA. When I got back to the dorm, I found Nils & Danny chatting. Tom had left that day, so we Germaned it up for an hour or so before turning in.

It had to end. My week of excellent days - a week which had begun on that Thursday of RSA training and had gone through beers with Owen, beers with Peter & Sarah, beers with Julian et al, beers with Hamish, and breakfasts with Mark, as well as much sightseeing and conversation besides - had run its course. This most recent Thursday was altogether a different kind of animal, and Friday was more - much, much more - of the same. I spent the whole day literally shovelling dirt.

Bruce met me at the bus stop again, only this time it was 8am, and drove to pick up another worker, a young Canadian called Jonathan, before taking us both to a huge house with a stunning view over the Parramatta River estuary. A view we would see precious little of that day, because it was our lot to be digging a wine cellar into the ground under the house. Most of the room had in fairness already been created; we just had to get the remaining earth out so Bruce could jack-hammer away the rock to make space for a cement floor.

It was at least out of the sun, so no skin cancer risk, but bloody hot all the same and stifling. The opening to outside was very narrow and low; I had to stoop down and put my arms forward just to fit through. Given that we were continuously having to haul loads of soil out through this opening, it wasn't comfy work. The other job we had was to shovel the soil (of which there was already a huge pile just outside the opening) into wheelbarrows, push the barrows up a hill and into a trailer, then re-shovel the earth out of the trailer at another point in the garden. Yes, we were shovelling the same shit thrice. I had to keep in mind that I was being paid for every hour of my soil toils.

And I have to say, on a serious note, that only now do I have a real appreciation of the value of money. When you're sat in an office taking it easy; even when you're sat in an office working hard (yes that happened sometimes too), it's just not the same as when you're exchanging your kinetic energy for someone else's cash. This dawned on me most forcefully at the end of the day, where I hobbled down the road from the YHA to the nearby Designer Noodle bar and had another astoundingly good laksa, this time with extra chilli in an attempt to banish the flavour of the manky chicken wings that in Bruce's mind pass for an acceptable lunch for your employees - and even then it was a measly portion (well what do you expect for two dollars a head?), and no drink.

Erm, where was I? Oh yes, my forceful realisation was that the money I handed over for my dinner, I had actually had to sweat & struggle for for an hour & a half that day. Never mind the cost of my accommodation, or the clothes on my back, or indeed any other food & drink I might consume. I thank the good Lord above (or the benevolent omnipresence, or the lack thereof, whatever) that I've never had to work like this for a living before now, and I hope never to have this kind of work as my only option in the future. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I could do it if I had to (okay it's been hard, but I'm out of shape, and that would soon change); I just damn well hope it doesn't come to that. I am, however, truly glad that I have learned these lessons through my own direct experience.

My muscle pain was no less on Saturday morning. I lay in bed, aching, for a few hours after waking up. I just about got the energy up to chat to Nils, a German in my dorm, and to go with him (by bus, not on foot, no way!) to Newtown for a very tasty freshly prepared salad which was so big it actually defeated me and I took half of it home with me.

Evening came and I was still aching like a bastard, so I just vegged in my dorm, chatting with Tom and Nils (although Nils soon headed off to do a mad 20-hour shift of his stage construction job - well, it pays well at night and on the weekend) over a beer. Poor Tom! He's had a terrible time of it really, spending most of his remaining money on calling home to sort out bank cards, insurance claims and all sorts of admin crap resulting from his mugging. I don't blame him for wanting to leave the country and start again somewhere else.

What a week I'm having! Thursday, in its own way, was an outstanding day. For, in common with most of the people in this country, Today Was The Day I Returned To Work!!!! Yes, ladies & gentlemen, for the first time since leaving Powergen in April 2003 I was actually paid money by someone to do an Honest Day's Work! Except it wasn't a day, it was an afternoon; and it wasn't honest, it was cash in hand. But work it most certainly bloody was. I was doing some labouring for a landscape gardener. Which meant, in practice, I was heaving enormous 25kg paving stones down a flight of 30 steps from the top of someone's garden to the bottom, in sweltering heat and high humidity and next to no shade. Boy oh boy, it was a rude awakening.

It all came about thus: I got up early at Julian & Fleur's, having shared Josef's room and consequently waking up with him at 6.30am for his first feed. I left pretty quickly, catching the bus back into town (once again surrounded by besuited wage slaves) and walking up to the YHA. And who should I meet at the entrance but Mark! He was about to head out for some breakfast, and even though I'd already partaken with Julian I joined him for the company.

We had a lively chat about travelling, work, life goals, and shit like that. Mark scared me with his goal-orientedness, but he assured me that it just sounded that way and his life wasn't nearly as planned as all that. Nonetheless, it set me thinking.

As we were walking back to the YHA some bloke accosted us and asked us if we wanted to become TV stars. Yeah, right! He made out that he was the director of a film crew that were doing some live recording in a nearby park, and they had just been let down by one of their actors. He even managed to answer his mobile phone while he was talking to us, to say to his "producer" that he was about to get someone. It all smelt of (and I quote) " ... shhhhhhhhiiite", as the sensible housewife from Chewin' The Fat would say. This was one career path I could comfortably avoid. (Oh ho ho, wouldn't it be ironic if it was for real and I could now have been a household name on Aussie telly?)

But, emboldened by my chat with Mark, I casually asked the guy behind the desk at the YHA if they had any jobs going. He said no, but was I interested in a bit of labouring? He gave me the phone number of a guy called Bruce (I know, it's sounding about as likely as the TV job, but bear with me) who was looking for people for today. Okay, it wasn't the life-changing kind of decision that I had been discussing with Mark - things like 'Should I study to be a nurse?' or 'You can get a work visa for Canada until you're 35, you know' - but all the same it could be a step in the direction of something. Which would be a novelty for directionless traveller me.

So I called Bruce (nightmare! my phone battery almost died on me!), arranged a time & a place to meet, and hung up feeling a kaleidoscope of emotions. Excitement: a job! Apprehension: I've never done manual work before. Greed: money! Stress: Oh my God, I have to actually BE somewhere, like in an hour, to not let someone down, and I've only just put the washing on! Relief: I've finally found work! Concern: What if my recruitment agent calls and I can't reach the phone? But overwhelmingly Expectation: Wow, I am about to have a totally new experience!

I had to head to a part of town that was new to me, but I got good directions from the reception desk. So off I trotted, stopping briefly to grab a lunch of two cheesymite scrolls (savoury heaven in a bun) from the baker's. And two bus rides later I was there, at a bus stop just the other side of the Gladesville Bridge over the Parramatta River, west of town. Bruce met me in his enormous Land Cruiser and we drove to the garden which was to be the site of my travails.

Normally I try not to think about the fact that I'm a complete jessie when it comes to hard work, but I couldn't exactly escape the realisation that I am really quite weak. Not that I couldn't lift the paving slabs; far from it. More that I couldn't keep on lifting slabs, carrying them down the steps, and piling them up at the bottom, without stopping like every second minute for a minute's rest and a gulp of water. After a few hours of this, Bruce took me to another garden. This time I had to fill his trailer with a huge pile of garden waste. A job I was more used to, I supposed, having many a time stuffed dustbins full of hedge clippings and the like. I felt I performed better on this job - in the shade, in the late afternoon - than I had with the slabs.

Exhausted (me not my employer), Bruce dropped me off at the bus stop and I went home. I discovered that he wouldn't be paying me until the following evening. Hm. Oh well, nothing I could do about it. Of course, I cocked up my journey home by missing my stop and finding myself suddenly downtown; the bus didn't stop between my end of the Anzac Bridge and the bloody Town Hall! Never mind, I eventually got back and had a shower. Bliss! No more stinking like a pig! I was truly the knackeredest I've been in a very long while, but I just about got the energy up to head out to a Thai takeaway with Tom, an English guy in my dorm (who has had a bit of a shit time of it in Australia, having been mugged two weeks ago, and has decided to ditch his year's working visa and go to Southeast Asia instead), and come back to the YHA to eat it.

Sleep came easily that night.

After a Monday as excellent as that, there was always the danger that Tuesday would be a let-down. But in fact it was nothing of the sort. I spent the day doing job-search-related things, like asking at the main YHA info centre if they needed anyone and other similar enquiries. I had arranged to meet Hamish for dinner that evening, and we duly met at a spot halfway between Darling Harbour and Chinatown.

First stop a nice pub for a few crisp, cold Pilsners (mmm! James Squire's - again!), then off to the Chinese I had been to soon after arriving in Sydney. Once again, the food was spectacularly good. We had a table right at the window into the kitchen, so we effectively had ringside seats for the noodle kneading. The guy swinging the dough even did a few poses for our cameras. It looked like a lot of fun, but I suspect the novelty of drawing dough into lengths of noodle in a super-steamy hot kitchen would wear off after an hour or so.

But who cares about that? The important thing was taste, and there were absolutely no complaints on that front! In addition to two plates of noodles - one fat, one thin - with Xinjiang stir-fried vegetables, we had a plate of fried lamb & carrot gyoza-esque pasty-shaped dumplings. They were terrific!! Bigger and better even than Wagamama gyoza, they were a mighty complement to our noodles - themselves a wonder of succulence and flavour - and altogether it was a meal to make my London-based lardbucket mates (you know who you are!) proud.

After another beer we had to call it quits. Tired from walking all day, and now stuffed to the gunnels with noodles, our systems demanded some down time. So we went back to the YHA, waddling somewhat with the extra weight of the meal, and fell gratefully into our beds.

Not to be outdone on the bodacious days of the week front, Wednesday was also a corker. But the odds were always stacked in its favour to be honest, by virtue of the fact that Wednesday 26th January was Australia Day, the day celebrating the formal union of the territories of Australia into one nation/commonwealth/dependency/colony (delete as appropriate to your political leanings).

It started well. Hamish & I met another Scotsman, called Mark, in our dorm. He joined us for breakfast along Glebe Point Road and turned out to be a very amusing and interesting chap. He has managed to combine a career in nursing (in his case, psychiatric nursing) with extended periods of world travel, and is a good guy. Sadly for us, Mark already had arrangements for the day, so he couldn't join Hamish & me on our walk around town to see the sights of Australia Day.

We headed into town, in time-honoured fashion, down the hill, over the tramway and past the Sydney Fish Markets. But this time I took Hamish along the waterfront through Pyrmont. We got great snaps of the Anzac Bridge and were able to enjoy a flotilla of supersexy yachts and other vessels coming up from under the Harbour Bridge. Later we walked on into town, marvelling at the skywriting antics of a little guy in a plane who seemed bent on telling the world about his radio station. A short walk through the Sydney Maritime Museum, which was free today and therefore packed, preceded a wander up to the top level of the QVB. Then we headed down to Circular Quay.

This is where we parted company, because I was due to meet Julian & Fleur & progeny at the Taronga Zoo, on the North Shore. I hopped on a ferry and found myself out on the water in the midst of a combined boat & aeroplane show, with huge water cannon and formation fly-bys in Red Arrows style. It was all fantastic! And such a lovely day too.

The zoo has a marvellous setting on a hillside overlooking the harbour. And the best bit about it is that J&F are Zoo Friends, so they get to go in for free, and bring guests, and come in after hours when the hoi polloi have been sent on their way. We had a lovely picnic just behind the elephant enclosure, then headed back to Lane Cove. There we were in time to watch almost all of the Australian Open Tennis semi-final between Australia's own Llayton Hewitt and Argentina's David Nalbandian. This game looked to be all over when Hewitt won the first two sets easily, but then Nalbandian found focus (or Hewitt lost it) and took the next two sets easily. The final set went to 8-8 before Hewitt finally broke serve and then served out to win the match. A real roller-coaster ride!

And so into the weekend. I had a reasonably quiet morning and lunchtime, then headed back to Julian & Fleur's for a barbecue in the afternoon. I met some of their friends who have children the same age as Natasha, plus a German couple who were visiting from Leipzig, where Julian lived for a while. It was a lovely evening of beer & wine, not to mention delicious food. When the other guests had left and Natasha had gone off to bed, I hung around and we had a quiet few drinks.

I spent Sunday at Julian & Fleur's. The weather had taken a turn for the worse, with an unusual cold damp day of sort-of rain. But indoors it was cosy. We had coffee, breakfast, and true Sunday living. Nice. In fact, it was so nice I didn't manage to get back to the hostel that night either, so I was a pretty stinky horrible mess by the time I did finally return to the YHA on Monday morning, after a bus ride that felt horribly like a commute into work. But then I consoled myself with the thought that I haven't managed to find any work yet. Perverse logic, but it kind of worked.

Monday turned into a spectacular day, when after a morning of work searching and general stuff I headed back to my room to prepare for the afternoon and met a Scottish guy called Hamish. We hit it off, and decided to head into town together. It was a nice feeling for me to be able to show someone else around. After all, I'd been in Glebe for a week, whereas Hamish had only just arrived. It was nice to meet someone who was as interested in food as I am too!

We walked down Glebe Point Road towards Central Station. On the way there I saw a Bubble Tea shop. I hadn't had one since Hong Kong, so I had to do it. Hamish had never even heard of bubble tea, so he looked on in puzzlement as the cute Chinese girl mixed up the various ingredients of my milky, frothy, sugary, gelatinous beverage. It was great!

Our next stop was the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which we walked up to and got some good photos of. Somewhat parched by the long walk, we retired to a nearby pub in The Rocks area and had a few beers (mmm! James Squire's!)while overlooking the Sydney Opera House and getting some more shots. Hamish is a bit of a photographer too, and we were egging each other on to take more audacious snaps.

All this beer drinking was making us thirsty, so we repaired to the nearby Biergarten pub. I think it was an attempt to recreate the atmosphere of Bavaria in downtown Sydney. Notwithstanding the shapely girls in Dirndl dresses (very few of whom were actually even German, let alone Bavarian; in fact most of them were Slovaks) and the oompah music, it wasn't a great success. Although the expensive beers did remind me of Munich! We had some Weissbiers (I flashly poured mine out the 'cool' way where you upend the bottle into the glass and slowly raise it up) and a minuscule Breze each, then moved on to Circular Quay.

As we walked to the waterfront and came face to face with the nighttime skyline, Hamish had a sort of epiphany and suddenly started grinning: "We're in Sydney!" And he wasn't wrong! I too felt the excitement (or was it the beer?) of being in the presence of not one but two iconic pieces of architecture: on our left was the proud sweep of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, now lit up with funky halogen spots that flashed in varying patterns; on our right we had the majestic arches of Sydney Opera House, also tastefully lit and surrounded by hundreds of people out taking the evening air. Not to mention the elegant stands of city-centre high-rises just behind the ferry terminal. It was breathtaking.

We walked around to the Opera House and marvelled at the graceful curves of its many shells. Needless to say, many a photo was taken! To the side of the building, opposite the Bridge, we found a little open-air control shack and inside was a guy who was quite clearly getting off on his sense of power: he was The Man Doing The Bridge Lighting! Oh yes, here was someone with job satisfaction. He was a really good guy too. We got chatting and he was telling us about how difficult it was to hoist into position the big Christmas decoration on the side of the bridge - a 24-tonne hollow sphere of metal struts studded with 2-metre wingspan wind flowers, like the coloured plastic ones kids get at fairs and you blow around only much bigger.

All this marvelling at architecture was making us thirsty again, so we stopped for a few beers right underneath the Opera House, sitting at the water's edge in a trendy open-air bar before walking slowly home, first through a now reasonably deserted city, then through a more busy Darling Harbour, and finally back up to Glebe, stopping only for calls of nature and callings of photography.