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Two excellent beginners books I've found are...
Turn Left At Orion - Guy Consolmagno
Star Watch - Phil Harrington
They aren't dedicated to the Southern Hemisphere, but they're both great beginner books. They both have explicit instructions on how to "navigate" as well as sketches of what the view is through the eyepiece.
You should be able to see the Blue Planetary - it will look like a dim planet, blue/grey in colour. It's a tricky one to locate - lots of stars to hop through! Here's what I recorded through a 100mm refractor from Melbourne...
NGC 3918 - planetary nebula in Centaurus
Date: 2008/03/03 at 2300 EDT
Location: Melbourne
Telescope: 4" F5 refractor on alt-az, 11mm, 49x, 1.7 deg
Conditions: moon=-, dew=-, wind=-
Seeing: 6 (Pickering)
Transparency: 5
Notes: Star hopped from Beta Crucis across to Delta Crucis, kKept going through chains of stars until I got to the Blue Planetary. The planetary was easy to hold with direct vision at 49x, and a blue/grey colour. I bumped the power to 154x and studied it for around 10 minutes, but it didn't give up any more detail. Perhaps slightly oval.
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