Welcome to the land down under!

So I left New Zealand and flew to Sydney where I met Ed and his brother Phil. I was excited to see Ed after having not seen him for 3 months! He had come out to Sydney for 2 weeks to stay with his brother (who is studying at uni there). It was great to see some familiar faces and great to stay in Phil's house and not have to worry about packing my backpack every day and moving hostels! A simple thing but a lovely feeling! Ed and Phil were exciting to show me around Sydney (where they lived for 9 years when they were growing up), so we spent the next 2 weeks seeing the sights.
Sydney was ridiculously hot compared to New Zealand so it took me a little while to adjust to the temperature, but it was lovely to have some warmth and sunshine (don't worry guys - it's nearly Spring in England...it will get warmer!).
We had a few lazy days while Ed got over his jetlag, sorting out Australian mobile numbers and food shopping etc. Ed took me to see Sydney Harbour (Central Quay) and we had fun wandering around by the Opera House (it's a lot more yellowy than I imagined - but it is just as huge as it looks in photos - very impressive!). He took me to 'The Rocks' - the area around the Harbour Bridge and we explored the markets and yummy food stalls at the weekends. We wandered the streets of the city, Ed telling me which bits he remembered from his childhood. We walked to Darling Harbour one day and spent a fun afternoon at Sydney Aquarium - admiring huge manta rays and sharks and colourful fish. It was strange to see Darling Harbour decorated with lots of inflatable santas and Christmas lights - it felt hugely un-Christmasy!
One afternoon Phil came with us to The Art Gallery of New South Wales where we saw an exhibition of Francis Bacon which was really interesting - it was great to see his works up close. Ed and I also visited The Museum of Contemporary Art where there was a great exhibition showcasing more than 130 Australian contemporary artists, it was really wonderful to see such a wide variety of artwork in one space - sculpture, painting, sound work, moving art etc.
We visited the botanical gardens and I enjoyed the weird and wonderful birds - a huge white and black bird with a really long bill and long black legs that wandered around squawking at us - called an Australian White Ibis. I also found it funny seeing Sulfur Crested Cockatoos in the wild and parrots and Kookaburras - they all looked very exotic!
We had a fun day at Taronga Zoo - we had to get the ferry across and then a cable car up to the entrance of the zoo - it was a great way to get my first views of the zoo - cruising over the top of the animals! We spent all day exploring the different zones of the zoo and we didn't even get to see everything! We went to see a seal show and a talk about giraffes and koalas. (Did you know it takes 1000 eucalyptus trees to feed 1 koala for a year? They are very picky animals and only like certain types of eucalyptus. They sleep for about 20 hours a day while they are digesting the eucalyptus!). We saw a duck bill platypus - I was so excited as I've always wanted to see one! We also saw an echidna - which is another animal i've always wanted to see. I think my favourite animal at the zoo (apart from the platypus and echidna!) was the giraffe, they are just so elegant and friendly looking.
Another day Phil drove Ed and I up to the Blue Mountains - about an hour and a half drive North (?) of Sydney. The boys love the Blue Mountains and were telling me about visiting them when they were younger - we had a fun day driving around looking at various viewpoints over the amazingly huge canyon of rainforest below. There were lots of interesting rock formations (The Three Sisters) and waterfalls - we had a great walk to the bottom of a waterfall - rambling through the forest. On the way back to Sydney we drove to see one of Ed and Phil's old houses - it was fun to see where they used to live.
My friend Helen is living in Manly - a beautiful area of Sydney that you have to get the ferry across to - so one day we took the ferry to explore the beautiful beaches of Manly. Helen took us on a lovely walk along the coast - it was great to catch up and see where she has been living. It was a gorgeous sunny day and we paddled in the sea and lounged on the beach - it's a hard life!
Another place the boys really wanted to take me to see was the Jenolan Caves - they had recounted lots of fun tales of visiting as children and staying near the caves - I had seen photos on the internet and couldn't wait to see the caves. The drive there was very long and windy, we seemed to be driving down a long thin road along the side of a mountain for ages - going deeper and deeper in to the forest. There are lots of different guided cave walks that you can do in the caves, we decided to see The Orient Cave - it is considered one of the most beautiful caves in the world, with lots of stalactites and stalagmites, the tour was 1 1/2 hours long and it was really fun seeing this underground world all lit up. I love caves! I saw a possum for the first time near the caves - it was sitting on top of a bin, stealing leftover food!
Ed and I did lots of other fun things in Sydney, such as visiting Luna Park (a little theme park! We didn't go on any rides as they were super expensive but it was fun to walk around!), we walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on a very windy day, ate delicious HUGE pancakes at 'Pancakes on The Rocks', explored New Town, went to see the new Bond film, went to a punk gig, ate some amazing ice cream at a place called 'N2 Extreme Gelato' (where they use liquid nitrogen to make the most creamy ice cream - the ice particles don't have time to freeze so you end up with super creamy delicious ice cream- I had butter popcorn flavour! YUM!) and just generally wandered around the city - soaking up Australian life and seeing what it was that Ed and Phil love about Sydney so much! It is a great city, lots to see and do.

It was hard to say goodbye to the boys after a really fun 2 weeks hanging out with them and being shown all that Sydney had to offer - thus followed a tearful goodbye at the airport before I began my first solo trip on the subway. I went straight to meet my friend Josh (who I'd met in New Zealand - he's from near Reading!) in Kings Cross - he's arrived in Sydney a few days after me and we'd decided we might plan a little adventure up the east coast of Australia, before he gets a job in Melbourne or Sydney for the next 6 or so months.
He was very hungover when I met up with him and we had a brief discussion about potential plans over a nice greasy McDonalds before we decided to head to the travel company Peter Pans for some advice. We arrived at the travel office 5 minutes before they closed and basically gave them a rough time scale and then said 'How far can we go and what are the best things to see?' The lovely ladies behind the desk then pressed a few magic buttons on their computer keyboards, made a few phone calls and then presented us with a really exciting plan which we couldn't turn down! So we returned 1/2hour later and left the office with a packet of tickets and reservations and HUGE smiles/dazed looks on our faces! I think Josh was too hungover to comprehend what he had just signed up for - he just agreed and handed over his credit card! Good work Josh! As it was all sinking in we headed to the famous Bondi Beach - I thought I better see it before I left Sydney. It is a beautiful beach and yes the sea was FULL of surfers. We then headed to Darling Harbour to see some pre-Christmas fireworks over the harbour. They were incredible - lots of oooo's and ahhhh's ensued - what better way to spend my last night in Sydney. We then met up with 2 other friends from our Kiwi Experience bus, Adam and Tia, and showed them N2 Extreme Gelato - the yummy ice cream shop that Ed had shown us (this time I had pina colada flavour!)! A lovely end to a day full of a rollercoaster of emotions!

So....the adventures began the next day when we headed to Sydney airport to fly to the Gold Coast. I had a mini panic while I was waiting for Josh at the airport and they were calling out things like 'Check-in closes in half an hour'! All was fine and we made it in plenty of time. The flight to the Gold Coast was over before we'd barely got off the ground, in a blink of an eye we were there! We were then picked up in a mini bus and driven to Byron Bay for 3 nights in the surfers dream town! I had dreamt about visiting Byron Bay for about the last 10 years, when my cousin Michelle had visited on her travels and sent us a postcard with a campervan on and written stories of chilled out surf town - since that day I had sworn that one day I would visit and see it for myself. So that day was finally here and with much excitement we set off to explore the town. It was just as I imagined - surfer shops and chilled out bars and restaurants, cool music blaring from passing cars with surfboards on their roof racks and surfer dudes cycling past with surfboards strapped to their bikes. (It was a bit like being back in Falmouth!) I instantly fell in love and embraced the laid-back vibe. We spent the next 3 days strolling along the beach, kicking the waves as we walked, climbing up to view points and staring at the rolling waves and trying to look for dolphins and sharks (luckily we didn't see any sharks - although it would have made a good photo!). We used the free bikes from the hostel to cycle up to the lighthouse which is located at the most easterly point of mainland Australia - where we indulged in possibly the most delicious ice cream. We climbed to the top of the lighthouse and got shown where Richard Branson has one of his many houses (where he apparently entertains many celeb guests - I didn't see anyone though - sorry Mum!). We enjoyed cheap Tuesday pizza while sitting overlooking the beach as many surfers enjoyed the evening waves. We basically spent a lot of time wandering along the beach - which as you know is one of my favourite past times!
One day we decided to take a day trip to the nearby town of Nimbin - which people said was a really bizarre hippy town - it was just that...a really funny little town where time seems to have stood still. Every shop and building is painted in psychedelic colours with Bob Marley songs echoing down the main street. We visited Nimbin Museum which tells you the history of weed in a really bizarre, spaced out way - I didn't learn anything from the 'museum' but I saw lots of strange paintings and sculptures! Every other person on the street was trying to sell weed and cookies - there is a police station just at the end of the one street that makes up Nimbin but they must just turn a blind eye to it all! There were aging hippies everywhere you looked. It was like stepping back in to the 60's (I imagine!) - it was a fascinating place - very bizarre but funny to see. After wandering around the town for a few hours we had a bbq in the local bowls club - it was a very strange day! Our bus driver - of the 'Magic Bus' - was (in the nicest possible way) amazingly charismatic - he held on to the bars of the mini bus and did back flips as he was explaining the running order for the day, he jumped around between seats and dangled from the bars above the seats - he was hilarious and really made the day and unforgettable bizarre experience!
That night we visited the infamous 'Art Factory' - which is a well known hippy hostel - it was fun to see what all the fuss was about. We ended up playing an amazing German card game about pigs (I can't remember what it was called - Josh what was it again?!) where you basically had to make your clean pigs muddy, by building barns and making them fireproof or locking the door of the barn, before an opponent made your pig clean again! As you may know I love pigs and card games - so this was just great! (Josh and I have since searched high and low for this game - but it looks like we'll have to go to Germany and look for it!)

So...3 days in Byron Bay were up and I was sad to leave it's chilled out vibe behind, but luckily we were heading to another beach-side town of Noosa. We caught the bus to Noosa and checked in to the lovely YHA hostel, a 5 minute stroll from the beach. We stayed for 2 days and did much of the same as in Byron - strolling along the beach, swimming in the sea, lying in the sun and exploring the little (quite posh) town. In the evening we took part in a table tennis competition - we had been practicing during the day and we had got the idea that we were actually quite good at table tennis - when competition time arrived it turned out we were no match for our competitors... I was out in the 2nd round (but I only got through to the 2nd round because my opposition didn't turn up to play me in the first round so I got put through automatically! Ha!) On the last morning we had a lovely walk along the coast, through a national park, it was a beautiful sunny day and we watched lots of surfers chasing the waves. It was a really lovely place - I really enjoyed our time there.

Next stop on our east coast adventure was Rainbow Beach - pick up point for trips to Fraser Island - the largest sand island in the world. We were signed up for a 3 day, 2 night, 4X4 adventure, exploring the island and camping on the sand. We arrived at the hostel late and had missed the safety briefing, safety video, team allocation and general plan of action - we were informed that we had been placed in the lead car (with the tour guide as our driver) and that if we wanted to drive a 4X4 we would be swapped around in to other cars - we were told to get up early to watch the safety video and to prepare a small backpack for the next 3 days.

So we did as we were told and got up early to watch the video - which thoroughly freaked us out and told us that we might be attacked by dingos or that the car might flip over if we didn't drive carefully or we might get stuck in the sand and various other horrific scenarios. We joined our car, there were 10 of us and our driver - Nathan - who was a proper Aussie bloke - he was so funny and spoke really fast and swore loads.

We caught a ferry over to Fraser Island and had to drive over the sand inland, as usually they drive along the beach but it was the highest tides of the year so the sea was too far in for us drive on the beach. The roads (sand tracks) were really bumpy and it was fun bouncing around in the back of the car. Over the next 3 days we visited some amazing sites around the island and had great fun with our group. We cooked, ate, drank and camped together and had a really fun time getting to know each other. On the first day we stopped at Lake Mckenzie which is a beautiful lake with turquoise clear water, it was boiling hot so cooling off in the lake was a welcome treat! We spent a couple of hours just splashing around and chatting with our new friends. We returned to camp and cooked up an amazing dinner - steak and mashed potato! It was delicious (good work team!) After dinner we bonded over various drinking games and Kara and Martin (a lovely couple from England) introduced us to an amazing game that last for the whole 3 days (and for the following month with me and Josh!) - where you aren't allowed to say the word 'mine' or you have to do 10 press-ups where ever you are! Needless to say over the 3 days we each ended up doing hundreds of press-ups and I was exhausted from the most exercise I'd done in months! Some people (ahem Martin!) were amazing at catching us out and making us say 'mine' without realising! We all caught ourselves out by accidently singing 'Little Lion Man' by Mumford and Sons at the top of our voices in the car - which contains loads of the word 'mine' - so we had to stop the car and instantly get down and do loads of press-ups! It was really funny catching people out in really awkward places and making them do press-ups - we once caught Marcus (a lovely German guy) when we were driving along and couldn't stop the car so he just had to do press-ups over our legs in the car! We got our tour guide Nathan involved and thoroughly pissed him off by catching him out! He got his own back on Kara at 3am when she was asleep in her tent and he asked whose tent it was! She then obviously had to get out of the tent and do 10 press-ups in front of a gathered crowd! It was great.

The next day, after a delicious breakfast of fried bread and scrambled egg (thanks Steve and Martin!!), we made our way to see the shipwreck of the S.S.Maheno which got caught in a strong cyclone and ended up beached on Fraser Island in 1935. We then headed to the gorgeous Eli Creek - a fresh water creek - we could jump off a platform in to the cool water and then float downstream before racing back to jump in again. It was so serene and peaceful, just being carried downstream by the flow of the creek, it was awesome, and so refreshing! We borrowed Nathan's bodyboards and floated down stream on those too.
After a day of exploring and swimming we cooked up a feast of chicken and veg stir-fry and then played a few more games and did a few more press-ups!

Our last day on Fraser Island was spent climbing down a huge sand blow (like a sand dune, but a sand blow moves - this one is moving by 3metres a year and filling in the beautiful lake below - which won't be there in a few years) and jumping in to the gorgeous lake to cool off. Our 3 days on Fraser Island were mostly spent swimming - which was fine by me. It was a really fun 3 days and amazing to see such an interesting island. Being driven on the sand was a great experience - a little hairy at times! - but really fun. We saw a few dingos - but luckily just from a distance! We returned to Rainbow Beach that evening and had some yummy fish and chips with our new friends.

The next day Josh and I caught the coach to Brisbane, we explored the city for a few hours before catching a flight to Melbourne to stay with my cousin Allan and his wonderful girlfriend Holly. It was so nice to be in an apartment and have a few home comforts again - like a clean kitchen and bathroom! Allan and Holly were away for Christmas and New Year so Josh and I amazingly had the place to ourselves (thank you SOOOO much Allan and Holly for letting us stay!!) - it was great to relax and not do a whole lot! It felt like I had been whizzing around for the past few months and it was nice to slow down and relax and catch up on sleep (and watch tv!). We spent the next few weeks exploring the beautiful city of Melbourne, wandering along the coast in St.Kilda, renting lots of films and playing a lot of Monopoly Deal! It was brilliant! We arrived in Melbourne on the 18th December and we spent a good few days compiling lists of what food we would like for Christmas! We trawled around the city buying various components of Christmas lunch from all over the place! It didn't feel Christmasy at all in Melbourne - so we went to see 'The Polar Express' at a free outdoor cinema in the Italian area of the city - it was really good and helped to make us feel a little bit more festive. We also watched the incredible film 'The Nativity' twice in less than 12 hours! We watched in on Christmas Eve and then on Christmas morning! (It you haven't seen it you totally should - it's got Martin Freeman in as a school teacher putting on the nativity play with primary school kids - hilarity ensues!)
Christmas day was really fun - it was very surreal being in a hot country and not being surrounded by family - but we cooked an amazing feast and had a fun day taking funny photos of ourselves on the beach and walking along a very windy pier! I got Josh Monopoly Deal for Christmas as I thought it was about time he had his own copy so that he can spread the great game around the world too! Josh obviously knew me quite well by this point as he bought me some AMAZING posh chocolates for Christmas : ) I made Josh wrap up a few things I'd brought for myself - just so I had something to open!
Josh is a great cook so I pretty much left him in charge of cooking and I just prepped all the veggies - he made an amazing bacon weave on top of the chicken - it was sooo tasty! We maybe cooked a bit toooo much food - but we ate it for days afterwards, which is what Christmas is all about right?! We had chicken and all the trimmings - literally everything! Josh even made us a starter of pate, camembert and cranberry sauce on toast - yum! We were thoroughly stuffed but managed to force ourselves out of the flat to walk along the pier (before turning back as it was too windy!!) and then taking some Christmasy photos on the beach, just to make you jealous! In the evening I forced us to eat pudding...chocolate sponge cake (it looked like Christmas pudding and was reaaaaally heavy and dense!), it would have been ok if we'd maybe had a tiny bit each, but for some reason I thought it would be a good idea if we had half the pudding each, with cream and ice cream! Needless to say Josh felt rather ill afterwards - oops! (I powered on obviously!)

On Boxing Day we treated ourselves to tickets to see a comedy stage show with Geoffrey Rush in (the speech therapist in The Kings Speech) - at Her Majesty's Theatre in the centre of Melbourne. The play was called 'Something funny happened on the way to the forum' and it was absolutely hilarious! Like laugh-out-loud, side-splittingly funny! I hadn't laughed that much in ages - I think Josh was a bit embarrassed by how loud I was laughing! Geoffrey Rush is an incredible actor and just had such a presence on stage - he was so so funny. If you ever get a chance to see him on stage - do it. It was a really fun Boxing Day.

On the 27th we went to see The Hobbit in 3D at the IMAX cinema, which has the third biggest screen in the world apparently! We really enjoyed it and it was made even better by the fact that we were eating Christmas chocolate while we watched it - real British chocolate! We managed to find an import shop just before Christmas and treated each other to Terry's chocolate oranges and Minstrels! Yummm!

We spent the next few days chilling out and walking round the F1 racetrack (that is behind the flat) and wandering around the lovely lake. Allan returned for 1 night before flying off a new year surf trip. On the 28th December my beautiful friends Amy and Sam arrived in Melbourne (they are travelling round the world on their honeymoon!) to stay with lovely Lorna. I was ridiculously excited about seeing them - we met up with them the next day and all went to the St.Kilda open air cinema to see 'Seven Psychopaths' with Colin Firth in - it was really good.
The rest of my time in Melbourne was spent hanging out with Sam, Amy, Lorna and Josh of course! We had a fun afternoon at Luna Park in St.Kilda - riding on the rickety old rollercoaster, then walking all the way to North Melbourne, via the botanical gardens.

The next day was New Years Eve and we spent most of the day preparing for the evening ahead! The boys got their hair cut, we bought lots of food for a Mexican feast and bought some amazing masks! We were all heading to a club night called 'Fantasia' so we decided we should all wear glittery masks - we looked pretty darn awesome! There were 20 dj's, 2 live bands, indoor fireworks, aerial performers - all across 5 floors of a big club - it was really fun and we had a great time dancing away. The countdown to 2013 was spent counting down from 60 to Gangnam Style?! A fun way to bring in the new year. We had a really great night - I loved it and didn't want to leave - but the thought of greasy chips got the better of me! We fell in to bed about 5.30am - a good effort I think!

My first morning of 2013 was spent lying in a hammock in the blazing sunshine on the roof of Lorna's house - a pretty good start to the year! We later fetched lots of pizzas and enjoyed watching the London fireworks and highlights of the year on YouTube! We all got a bit emotional recalling what a fun year it had been in the UK!
On the 2nd January a friend of ours (lovely Sarah) from the Kiwi bus arrived in Sydney so she came down to St. Kilda for a bbq near the beach - it was great to catch up and hear what she'd been up to since we last saw her. The sausages took about an hour to cook on the public bbq but they were totally worth it! Thanks Josh!

The next day we went on an epic bike ride with Amy and Sam. We met them in the centre of Melbourne and cycled along the river, before returning for a well deserved ice lolly, then catching some shade in a museum that you could play computer games in, then continuing our bike ride to St.Kilda, then South Melbourne. It was a really fun day, absolutely boiling, but a lovely day and great to explore the city on bike.

The next day I went to the Aquatic Centre with Sam and Amy and spent a fun afternoon acting like a child in the wave pool, riding flume slides and doing handstands in the pools. We then all met up in the evening to go and play UV crazy golf in the Docklands area of the city. It was so fun - really budget but great! Each hole was themed around different parts of Australian life, it was so funny! It was so odd playing mini golf in the dark. Lorna was amazing and beat us all! I was last, but Josh only beat me by 2 points!! It was a great evening.

The day after we hired a car and Lorna drove the 5 of us to two beautiful beaches - I'm not sure what the beaches were called but they were about 1 1/2 hours drive from Melbourne. We met up with Lorna's friend Christa and had a great day lazing on the beach, reading Cosmo and Men's Health, eating yummy ice creams, jumping over waves, playing with the Waboba ball (it bounces on water!), riding Christa's sea kayak and swimming around. It was great to see the coast and frolic around on the beach some more! We got some interesting takeaway curries for dinner (they didn't taste like what they were supposed to taste of but they were nice!) and made a yummy M&Ms chocolate cake.

Me and Josh stayed at Lorna's house for the next few days (huge thanks Lorna!), while Sam and Amy went on a 3 day trip down the Great Ocean Road. We spent the next few days catching up with a few jobs (posting stuff home, writing blogs, uploading photos!), we also went back to the Museum of Moving Images in Federation Square and looked at a few exhibitions , had a great lunch on the Southbank with Lorna and a lovely dinner with Allan and Holly. I was super sad to say goodbye to Josh after spending so long hanging out together - I'll miss you taking the piss out of me every day! (Good luck with the rest of your trip- have fun and I hope you find some new friends to wind up!!)

I had a wonderful time in Australia, I loved all the places I visited and met up with some lovely friends to share it with. Hopefully I'll go back one day to see some more of the country - there is a lot to see - it's flipping huge! Thanks to Ed and Phil for making the start of my Australian experience so fun, Allan and Holly thank you soooo much for letting us stay, thanks to Amy, Sam and Lorna for the fun times we had in Melbourne, thanks to all the people we met on Fraser Island for being great fun, and huge thanks to Josh for putting up with me for so long, for sharing the fun adventures with me and making Christmas and New Year so awesome.

Here's to the next part of the adventure...South America here I come!