Hey there...remember us?! So it's been a while since our last update in Phuket. Whoops!

There's not a huge amount to say about our last few days in Thailand, except that we got more tattoos! We were in Phuket for a couple of days where we did a Thai cooking class which was really fun. We then went to another island called Koh Yao Yai. This was a very remote island with not a lot going on which was good for a while but we were glad to get back to Phuket after.

Another couple of days in Phuket and three tattoos later we were making our way to Singapore. This was where we had our first taste of hostel life and it wasn't as bad as either of us were expecting. The worst thing about it was the tyrano-snore-us rex a few bunks down who kept me awake at night!

While in Singapore, we went to Universal Studios and the largest aquarium in the world. These were both really good and Sam was finally able to go on the Transformers 3D ride at Universal so he was happy!

It was then time to move on to the next chapter of our travels - Australia! Our first stop was Melbourne. We stayed in St Kilda which was about 20 minutes outside of Melbourne City. We got the tram into the city on our first full day and the weather was lovely! We had a walk around and got the free city tram that takes you all around the city. We went into Melbourne again the second day to go to the Victoria market, but the weather was a completely different story! It was freezing cold and rained the majority of the day - it felt just like being at home.

Our next little adventure was driving the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide. We both thoroughly enjoyed this trip. There was so much to see, the scenery was amazing. One minute you're driving along the coast, the next your winding through trees in the hills. We stopped in various towns along the way, some were so small you could drive through them within 5 minutes. One of the places we went to was Cape Otway where the lighthouse is the most southernly point of Australia. On the way there, we saw a lot of cars pulled up along the road and lots of people standing around looking up into the trees. When we looked, there were lots of koalas sitting on the branches, some with babies on their backs. This was definitely one of the highlights of the road trip!

After two days, the Great Ocean Road ended, but we carried on all the way to Adelaide. Along the way, we stopped in The Grampians for the night. This is a national park so there was a lot of wildlife around (no monkeys, thank god!!) Once we'd got to our hostel for the night, we got talking to the guy who worked there. While we were talking, a few cockatoos came down and landed on the tables and chairs outside. The man ended up going to get some bread and let Sam feed them. More and more came and in the end, there were about 9 wild birds sitting taking the bread out of Sams hand! After this, the guy showed us a little track to follow and said we might see some kangaroos. We made our way over, and within a couple of minutes we stumbled upon a big field full of wild kangaroos, emus and deer. It was absolutely amazing. We were so close and it was so nice to see the animals in their natural surroundings, as with the koalas.

Eventually we arrived in Adelaide. We'd been finding it fairly difficult to get accommodation for the few nights we planned to be there and it wasn't until the day we arrived that we realised it was the second test of The Ashes! We spent one night in a hostel in Glenelg, which is a nice little seaside town just outside of the city, then another two nights in the heart of Adelaide. This was where we met up with Alice and stayed in a great hostel where the guy kept giving us free drinks and chocolate! We watched a drag show on our last night which was a laugh, but Sam looked very uncomfortable to begin with!

The next day, we began our second road trip of Australia - Adelaide to Ayers Rock and back. The journey didn't start off too well as there was a bit of a mess up with hiring the car (or box on wheels as it was soon known!) but eventually we were on our way. This trip wasn't quite as interesting as the Great Ocean Road as the scenery barely changed at all. Along the way, we visited a town called Coober Pedy where around 60% of the population live underground as it gets so hot there. It's also a big opal mining town. We spent our first night in the tent here, but it wasn't a normal tent. This one was fixed to the roof of the car and you had to climb a little ladder to get in. It was definitely and experience and more comfortable than you'd imagine, but I can't say I'm keen to do it again any time soon!

Eventually, we got near to our destination. We planned to go to Ayers Rock on my birthday, so the day before we went to Kings Canyon. As we were walking through, we were expecting to see Rafiki holding Simba up at the edge of the rock as parts of it were reminding us of The Lion King. The canyon was good, but there were SO many flies. And they didn't just land on your arms and legs either. Oh no, these little b*****s liked to land on your face, eyelashes and almost in your mouth!

That night, we camped in a place called Curtin Springs which was very much in the middle of nowhere. We had around a 100km drive to the rock the next day on my birthday so we were up nice and early as it's better to get there before the hottest part of the day. Once we arrived, we went to the cultural centre first, then to the rock itself. It was absolutely huge! Apparently it's taller than the Eiffel Tower. We didn't walk all the way around as that takes about 4 hours to do and we wanted to start making our way back to Adelaide. Instead, we walked around part of it to a gorge and back. Again, we both enjoyed it and it was certainly a different way to celebrate my 23rd birthday!

It took a couple of days to make our way back to Adelaide. Lots of driving seeing lots of road kill at the sides of the road. Eventually we were back at the hostel we stayed in before and I think we were both quite relieved to be back to civilisation. We've decided that neither of us could ever go and work in the outback!

We had a couple of days in Adelaide again before flying over to Cairns to start our journey down the east coast. The first day we got there, the weather was lovely and we went to a travel agent to book the bus to take us down the east coast. We also booked a couple of trips along the way but then realised we had a few days Cairns with nothing to do. So we decided to go on a snorkelling tour of the Great Barrier Reef yesterday. As seems to be a tradition now with our travels, we woke up to rain, grey clouds and no sun yesterday and it stayed like that for the majority of the day! We snorkelled at two different spots along the reef but neither of us were particularly blown away by it. We'd seen a lot of the fish before in Thailand though which was probably why. However, we did see a reef shark and a massive grouper fish so it wasn't all bad!

We've now arrived in Townsville where we have another boat trip booked in on Thursday. Sam will be scuba diving and I'll be snorkelling - we're hoping to see some turtles and nemos so fingers crossed!!