It's been such a great week since I last wrote a blog, it seems so long ago now that we were in South East Asia!! On Thursday 22nd we got a 6am bus to Bangkok which was the quicker one that took 7hours instead of 10. We had to get off at the Thai border and walk across and then get a little mini bus to take us to Bangkok. We thought that it was going to the airport and the Khao San Road in the centre so we'd boked a hostel by the airport so that we could avoid all the trouble but in the end it just dropped us in the centre anyway! So I gave Jo a whistle-stop tour of the Khao San and we got a drink at this really nice cafe, it was so quiet there though as hardly any tourists were going there. We got a pink taxi to the hostel by the airport and then Will and Tom Silver (the sons of my first childminder) came to meet us there that evening. It was so lovely to see them, I saw Will last year in Bangkok as he teaches there but I hadn't seen Tom since I was about 7 we worked out! So obviously it didn't really feel like we were the same people but it was great reminiscing about old times!

On Friday the 23rd we checked out and went straight to the airport even though our flight wasn't until 6pm, as there wasn't anything else to do really. We just got lunch, played cards, got coffee and tried all the expensie face creams and make-up in duty free obviously. The flight was an overnight one but I couldn't really sleep so watched 3 movies which was great! They have all the latest releases! We arrived in Sydney at 6.30am on Saturday 24th and Eddie, the husband of the people we stayed with picked us up and took us to theirs. Eddie and Margery, who are Jo's parents friends, have 7 children, the oldest is 30 and the youngest is 17, so only 3 live at home now. They have an incredible house in a very wealthy part of North Sydney which is Victorian and very higgledy-piggledy. We did sooo much washing, literally all our clothes and had lunch outside by their pool, and then headed in to the city on the train. There didn't really seem to be a main area in Sydney which was a bit strange so we just walked to Sydney harbour and there was much more going on around there. In between the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge there are lots of nice restaurants and cafes, and by the bridge there's an area called 'The Rocks' which has lots of little restaurants and bars dispersed along the little roads, so we just explored a bit. Jo had to get a new camera as Chris, one of the Watford boys, dropped hers in a bucket of vodka red-bull, so we're now on our 3rd camera in 2 months!

Sunday 25th was my birthday woop!! It didn't really feel like my birthday though but had a couple of cards to open which was nice. Margery did a roast dinner and lots of the family came so that was really nice. Jo and I then headed in to the city and we got a little boat out on the harbour which was amazing!!! We took soo many photos of the bridge and opera house! We went round to this little harbour called Darling harbour and had a glass of wine and then went back to the main area by the opera house and bridge and had dinner and drinks there! So it was definitley a great place to spend a birthday!!

Monday 26th was such a good day! Margery took us to some of the North Sydney beaches which were incredible, I've never seen waves that big! It was a public holiday so there were lots of people around on all of the beaches. All of them have a swimming pool built in to the rocks at one end of the beach, and the waves fill it up, so when the tide is a bit lower people can swim in them, but there fish and crabs at the bottom aparently! We had lunch on palm beach, which is where Home and Away is filmed, but we didn't see any filming, and then climbed up to the lighthouse on the headland. The views from up there were just breathtaking! It was such a sunny day so the sky and ocean were bright blue and the sand was a really orangey-yellow. We went to some other beaches and got a coffee at a beach where there was a surfing competition going on! It was so good to be able to go and see the beaches up there!

On Tuesday we went to a big shopping mall called Chatswood and did some window shopping. I did actually buy couple of things for my birthday! In the afternoon we met Christian, who is the eldest son of Margery and Eddie and he showed us around Sydney University. It was such a nice campus, it's built in the style of Oxbridge but obviously the buildings are a lot younger!! That evening we went out in Sydney with Marcus (number 4) who's 24. There wasn't really a main drinking area either which we found so strange for a city so it was good that Marcus came with us so that he could show us the good places to go! On Wednesday we went in the the city again for our last day and just walked around. We found this amazing chocolate cafe caled Max Brenner where everything had chocolate in!! We had melted chocolate pots and marshmalllows, A-mazing!! After that we walked over the bridge (just the footpath, not actually on top of the bridge as that was reeeally expensive) and got some incredible views over the harbour. That evening we went out for a drink with Margery, Eddie and their daughter Imogen (number 5) and her new husband so that was really nice. We had such a great time in Sydney but were very excited to go to Melbourne as we'd heard such good things!

So last Thursday we came to Melbourne and got in 8am. My backpack had ended up in Brisbane though haha! We went and found somewhere to stay and then I just rang them and they got it on the next flight down and couriered it to our hotel that same day which was great! The first thing we did when we got to Melbourne was to go and book the neigbours set tour! I'm literally so so excited about it, it's really sad I know, but you can't go to Melbourne and not see the Neighbours set!! So on Monday evening we're doing the neighbours night and on Tuesday we're actually going to the set and seeing it all - aaa Karl and Suse!! We then just walked around all day exploring! It is a million times better than Sydney, the centre is built in blocks and it is just so easy to get around. In between each of the main roads (which are lovely and wide) there is a smaller one which has little lanes off it where all the nice cafes, restaurants and shops are. Compared to Sydney, which didn't really have a centre, it's just such a great city!! Even after one day we loved it! We met Ashlea (the girl we met on the Delhi to Kathmandu trip who lives in Melbourne and who we're staying with for the time we're here) and went for dinner with her in one of the restaurants on one of the lanes.

On Friday we had a great day walking around the city again. Breakfast is a big thing in Melbourne, lots of people go out for breakfast, so we found somewhere nice and then found a park called the Treasury Gardens and sat in there for a while. Captain Cook's house has been re-built there, it had aparently been taken apart and transported all of the way to Melbourne and then built again! It was such a nice park, with wide paths and huge oak trees and little lakes everywhere. We went to the Melbourne museum and went to the area that had a history of Melbourne which was so interesting! It was great to see just how quickly the city has developed and expanded. When you walk around the city there are such beautiful huge regency buildings, which were obviously the first ones built, and along with the wide streets, lots of trees and the old trams it's just amazing. In the afternoon we went to the cinema to see 'When In Rome' which was quite good and then just hung around until 11pm when Ashlea was taking us back to her house after a gig she was going to. We discovered a 24hour Starbucks woop, so we chilled in there for a while as we couldn't afford the drinks prices in Melbourne!

This weekend, Ashlea, Jo and I went camping down at Wilson's prom which is a 2 hour drive East of Melbourne on the coast. It's the most southerly point of Australia! We went very prepared with lots of food to cook on the BBQs they have there and we took lots of warm clothes! We put up our tents, or Jo and Ashlea did as I've never put one up in my life haha. We saw lots of wallabys and some really colourful strange looking birds, which are aparently very common but we were like whoah! We went on a 3km walk to 'Squeaky beach' which was awesome!! It's really fine quartz sand which is such a gorgeous colour and it actually squeaks when you walk on it. At the end of the beach there were huge boulders where the waves were crashing against and we sat on them and watched the sun set. The sky was so clear and such a vivid blue and so was the ocean and then as the sun was setting it went such amazing shades of pink and orange!! We walked back and had our BBQ by torch light and this little possum kept coming up to us! We then discovered that one of our tents had blown away! We found it and searched for a less windy place to put them. It was in a very organised campsite so there were quite a few other people camping too. So in the dark and in the blustering wind we began our attempt at moving the tents 100 metres away. I wish someone could've filmed us, it was hilarious! Three girls being blown away, in hysterics, carrying tents with everything inside them, in the dark.

We eventually pegged them both down and at 9pm we walked to the beach and sat there for 2hours! There was no one else there and it was just so peaceful. The sky was breathtaking, absolutley incredble, I have never ever seen a sky that had so many stars, it was like looking up at a gliter-filled sky! Because we were so remote, you could see the whole of the milkyway strip, and the south star and sooo many more, I can't describe it!! We could see Orions belt and lots of other familiar ones too which really confused us as we're not in the same hemisphere, might need you to explain that one Dad! So yeah we just lay on the beach for a couple of hours chatting and gazing up at the beautiful sky, with only the sound of the ocean! We made it through the night without being blown away and without our tents collapsing and went on a short walk up to the top on the headland where we could see a few bays from. Right at the top was just ths huge boulder precariously placed, with a sheer drop, so pretty scary but amazing views. It was really grey and rainy so the sea looked so rough, such a contrast to the day before. We left Wilsons prom and went to Phillip Island which was on the way back to Melbourne. We had fish and chips on the beach, they were no way near as nice as in England! We then went to where seals are meant to be but we couldn't see any, we saw a couple of tiny fairy penguins though! We went to this nature reserve place and saw a little kangeroo in the wild but we couldn't get too close though. We drove back to Ashlea's house and her mum had cooked a roast dinner which was really nice, still definitley loking forward to yours though Grandma!

We have such a busy week in Melbourne planned this week so I'm really looking forward to it!! There will be lots to write in the next one too!!