As many of you know we have returned home to sunny sunny England. It's bloody freezing!! We both are really disappointed that the trip has ended much earlier than we had planned. We failed to find work in Sydney as we found that a lot of employers didn't favour working holiday makers like us. I guess they don't want to spend money training travellers who can't commit long term. We both tried extremely hard but it just wasn't meant to be. C'est la vie.

On Jonny's birthday, we climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Prior to the climb Susi, our flatmate, cooked us some birthday noodles and some Chinese almond jelly which was certainly 'different' especially as it was the colour of fairy liquid. We had to wear these funky boiler suits and fortunately the weather brightened up for our 2pm climb. Our flatmate Susi joined us on the climb which was cool. The climb was brilliant and not as scary as I thought it might be. We walked over the arch to the Australian flag in the middle where we were awarded with great views over the city. We had a fantastic time but felt it was overpriced.

I baked Jonny a specially designed cake based upon his new love of the underwater world. My design didn't really succeed as when Jonny saw it he exclaimed: 'aww dolphins!' They were actually sharks made of hundreds and thousands! In the evening, we ate out at 'The Sushi Train' as we wanted to try sushi. We were both pleasantly surprised by the taste and the trick was to just completely forget that you were eating raw fish. Jonny loved the conveyor belt action and his eyes were popping at the sight of so many different sushi options. Everything we ate was delicious apart from the bright orange fish eggs which were probably bath salts in disguise. eww! Next we headed to the Imax to see Avatar in 3D which was so good! Jonny had a great day and received a night dive as a present from me...you'll here how this fearful adventure went on later.

Having made the upsetting decision to end our trip 6 months early, we planned out our last weeks in Australia. We went to see Sydney Symphony in the Opera House which was such a special experience. The conductor, Vladamir Ashkenazy, is apparently quite well known and us being orchestral virgins we did not know this. We both enjoyed it and the concert hall of the Opera House was stunning. We both feel so lucky to have seen a show in the famous iconic building.

We headed to rainy Melbourne to find limited accommodation due to the AC DC concerts scheduled. After convincing Jonny that we couldn't buy tickets from touts because we had no money we found a casino where we watched a few games of a poker tournament and had a chilled evening. The next day, we checked out some sights of the city: Federation Square and Melbourne Cricket Ground. Melbourne City did not have the typical high rise city scape but felt like a relaxed cultural hub. We had an exciting afternoon doing the Neighbours Tour which was a dream come true for me (aren't I sad!) It just felt so amazing to be standing on the famous street where the likes of Harold Bishop had once been! The street, in reality, is called 'Pin Oak Street' and is actually home to real people in the Melbourne Suburbs. It all felt a bit surreal and I think Jonny felt that we had better things to be doing! It was just so cool to see the homes of the Kennedy's, the Robinson's, Harold Bishop and the house of trouser! We even got to meet Dr Karl Kennedy so we got a photo and some autographs. I had wanted to meet Harold or Libby but nonetheless I was a little starstruck. Even Jonny had to admit that it was cool to meet Dr K himself! I loved it but we were a tad worried by the obsessed fanatics that were also on the tour. To quote a middle aged irish man: ' I am your biggest fan and watch you all the time'. Dr K: (looking stunned, uneasy and brandishing a fake smile) 'ah thats great!'

From Melbourne, we flew to Alice Springs where we picked up our rental car. We camped for the first night with the intention of sleeping in our swags (canvas like sleeping bags with a sewn in thin mattress) so we could sleep under the stars but I got paranoid of spiders and snakes that might want to eat me. We set off early the next day to start the 500km journey to Ayers Rock (Uluru). The Outback was greener than we had anticipated because it had just rained. However, there was still an abundance of orange sand. It was breathtaking to see miles and miles of unending barren Outback and there was a certain eeriness surrounding the lonely journey with hardly a car passing by. As we neared Yulara, the Ayers Rock Resort, we caught a glimpse of Mt Conner. We got a little confused and thought this was the rock itself! Eventually we arrived to the resort and set up our tent and headed straight out to explore. We went to Mt Olga which was stunning. The walk was tough in the heat and the copious amount of flies was extremely irritable hence why we had to wear these hideous fly nets but they successfully prevented the flies from crawling over our faces.

We watched the sun set on the eastern side of Ayers Rock where we saw the sensational colour change - check out the pictures as Jonny just couldn't stop clicking! The yellows, oranges and browns were just incredible. We watched the sunset for as long as we could until the flies got the better of us. Again we aimed to sleep outside but I got totally creeped out after hearing a dingo (well I think I did) so into the tent we went. The stars were spectacular but I couldn't spot the Plough! We arose early to catch sunrise which, like sunset, was great. There was something spiritual about seeing the changing colours; the transformation from black to orange and vice versa.

We had wanted to climb the rock itself but the winds were too strong. So, in the blaring midday heat we walked around the base of Ayers Rock. We needed all the litres of water we took with us as the sun was scorching; the temperature jumping between 35-40C. The walk took us 3 hours and really was great. The rock wasn't smooth and was different at every turn. The aboriginal stories alleged that the rock is sacred which is a feeling you can understand. The Northern Territory of Australia offers a dramatic landscape that radiates a remoteness, an eeriness and a spiritual feeling. The starry sky at night was beautiful; the most breathtaking I have ever seen. Ayers Rock was one of the highlights of the whole trip. Alice Springs wasn't a place that felt safe and the Aboriginal people were quite intimidating. We were quite shocked by the number of aboriginal people that seemed to live, or hang around, the local hospital.

Back in Sydney, we spent one of our last days on Bondi Beach that we had grown to love. We're really going to miss our fun times body boarding and sun bathing. Bye bye Bondi! Happily, when watching Bondi Rescue we saw ourselves on the tv! As said in a previous blog, on christmas day we got interviewed by the tv programme and we were amazed we made the cut! I just screamed when I saw us on the screen! It was only for a split second where I said something like 'the weather reminds us of home!' I can say i'm ecstatic to be on tv but I looked like a wet shivering mess!

An excited and very brave Jonny enjoyed his night dive. Secretly, I think he was a little scared but he absolutely loved it. He saw some rays which he hadn't seen on another dive and got to experience the dark waters. Invisible to the naked eye, is the algae that lives in the water. On a night dive, you can wave your arms about and as you kill the algae they glow a greenish/yellowy colour. Jonny had a great time.

On our last evening in Sydney, we caught the train that traverses the Harbour Bridge and went to Luna Park. Finding that the rides were expensive we settled on eating an ice cream overlooking the harbour. We took a romantic walk along the bridge back into the Sydney CBD saying goodbye to the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Ironically, docked in the harbour was the Queen Victoria ship from Southampton! Maybe we could jump on to find our way home?! We found a fantastic restaurant in Darling Harbour where we ate a delicious Kangaroo steak with tomato chutney, basil mash potato and a balsamic sauce. It was absolutely scrumptious! It was a great way to end our Australian adventure.

Feeling sad to say au revoir to Oz, but excited to be greeting the next country we packed our backpacks and armed with a didgeridoo we flew to New Zealand.

Even though weary with tiredness, we arrived into Christchurch with an excited anticipation. Having found our hostel, we ventured out into the small 'city' to get our first taste of New Zealand. The city did not scream stereotypical city at us as there wasn't a skyscraper to be seen and I would best describe it as a sprawling English like town. Jonny took a liking to the place but I didn't, probably because it was far from the metropolis of Sydney. After a lot of searching on the web and ringing up various campervan companies, we found a 'good' deal. It felt a little too good to be true. But, it was true. Maybe not good but it was alright. When I say alright, I mean rusty with plenty of chips and dents. The cd player didn't work, neither did all the lights or the central locking. Nonetheless, we grew to love him. Him being Arthur!

From Christchurch, we headed southwards on the inland route and arrived in Lake Tekapo just before dark. The landscapes wowed us both and we soon realised that we would need to double our journey times as the views just lured us off the road. Lake Tekapo was stunning and our camping spot overlooked the lake. In the morning, we ate our breakfast alfresco taking in the magnificent views. We walked down to the waters edge and played around on the pebbled beach. We jumped back aboard Arthur and continued our drive south to Queenstown. The views just kept on coming and I was beginning to fall in love with the place. We stopped off at Lake Pukaki and once again we were stunned. The water was just like a mirror and so clear. Mount Cook made up the backdrop of the beautiful landscape. We had a skimming competition and Jonny won. As he always does! As we came into Queenstown, we paid a visit to the Kawaru Bridge bungy jump to see what it was like. My reaction was 'oh, not as high as I thought it would be. Yeah I'll do it'. Oh what was I thinking. That evening we headed into the town to the lake front and once again we were astounded by the pretty view. We watched the sunset and agreed that we could happily live here for a while.

We got up early in preparation to arrive at the bungy jump place in good time expecting there to be queues. When we paid we only had ten minutes until we had to jump... our hidden nervousness then appeared. We were petrified. Both of us went to the loo for fear of weeing (or worse) ourselves when we jumped! We were doing a tandem jump where we were attached to each other (I wouldn't have jumped by myself!) With our feet bound and the cord lowered it was time for the plunge. The guy told us to walk to the edge of the ledge so that our toes were over the line. Jonny did this ok but my feet wouldn't budge. I had hold of a hand rail because I did not want to do it. The guy was kicking my feet forward for me and pulled my arm off the rail, which I immediately put around Jonny. After waving to the spectators, the guy started the countdown 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 with both of us thinking 'NO!' Jonny was the brave one to move forward to tip us both over the edge. We didn't do the classic dive off the bridge but nonetheless we found that we were falling! I have to confess that my eyes were shut for the entire of the descent and I surprisingly didn't scream. Jonny, however, was full of expletives and screaming like a girl! We couldn't stop laughing when we were springing up and down and dangling! Jonny said he was seeing stars as the blood just rushed to his head. I was relieved it was over but I did enjoy it. Afterwards we were buzzing from the adrenaline but both said we wouldn't do it again! The spectators, primarily old and obese Americans, said we were extremely brave! We have an entertaining video of the jump which you all have to see!

In the afternoon, we explored Queenstown further by walking up Bob's Peak to see the skyline of the town. Once again beautiful views of the lake and the Remarkables mountain range. We had fun on the luge tracks at the top of the peak. We caught the gondola down the mountain and went for a round of crazy golf. I beat Jonny by one shot!! Get in! We devoured fish and chips on the lake front which was a romantic end to our time in Queenstown.

Our next destination was the fiord land of Milford Sound which was a long drive away. The drive wasn't the most inspiring compared with other journeys and the rain dampened our spirits. We arrived into Milford Sound in the dark feeling tired but some steaks cheered us up! We saw a kiwi in the wild which was amazing!! We booked onto a cruise of the Sound as we didn't fancy kayaking in the rain. In the morning, the rain was still pouring in a constant drizzle so we wrapped up warm and headed for the water. On the cruise, we saw some lazy seals and some mammoth waterfalls. Positively, because it was raining the waterfalls were in full flow adding to the beautiful setting. The captain of the boat drove very close to the waterfalls that me and Jonny got soaked through! The mist formed by the rain created a mysterious atmosphere that we both liked. However, the beauty of the place shone through when the sun came out causing the mist to clear revealing glassy water and snow capped peaks. When leaving the Sound, we stopped off at the Mirror Lakes which were remarkable.

We retraced our drive back up to Queenstown and headed as far as we could before darkness set in. We took the mountain route up to Wanaka because the views were said to be spectacular, and good views we did see. Arthur struggled up the steepest of roads until we reached the breathtaking panorama over the vineyard countryside. The sun was coming down and it truly was one of the best views of the trip. We continued on a very curvy road, much like in Laos, and came across these magnificent stags! They were magical to see. The journey to Wanaka took us through Lord of the Rings style countryside where Jonny was eager to do some acting! We arrived in stunning Wanaka to see the sun setting over the lake. We watched the stars from our campervan with the sunroof open.

Our campsite in Wanaka was great because it had a swimming pool and a trampoline! We had some fun playing in the morning - there are some videos for you to see! We set off heading northwards to get to Franz Josef. We went along a bit of the coast but it was just a bit too cold to go swimming! We visited the Fox Glacier first and Jonny just loved it because he could go on and on about glacial processes and forms! It was brilliant to see my first glacier! We got to Franz Josef and set up camp. That night it was absolutely freezing so neither of us slept well. In the morning, we went to look at the glacier on a short walk and it was much more dominating and spectacular than the Fox. At lunchtime we set off on the guided glacier climb which was fantastic. The guide was a little patronising towards me by making me walk at the front of the group so that he could help me and he called me Christine! How hard is Kirsty?! Walking through the ice was epic, if not a bit scary to think that we could slip down into a crevasse! We ate alfresco using our gas stove and enjoyed an evening in the bar.

We awoke in the morning with many messages from both sets of parents warning us of a tsunami threat to New Zealand due to the earthquake in Chile. We didn't know anything about it because we were asleep but obviously we were fine. We were due to leave Franz Josef in the morning but after a few days of grinding noises we had to take Arthur to a mechanic. After eventually finding one, we were told it needed new brake pads and they would need to be transported to Franz Josef from elsewhere. We were gutted as we had a tight schedule and couldn't afford to lose a day. Luckily, our rental company stepped up and sent some pads on a bus to the mechanic and we were off by 7pm! Phew! Enroute to our next stop, we pulled into Hokitika to catch the sunset over the sea. It was a stunning sunset but unfortunately we scraped our little van on a boulder which put us both in a bad mood! We drove up to Greymouth close to where we were due to do some white water rafting.

With an early start we moved inland to Murchison where we were set to go rafting. Enroute we walked over the Buller Gorge Swingbridge and took a little walk. Annoyingly, our rafting trip was cancelled because we were the only two booked on the trip. We were both upset as we were so excited to get on the water and cheesed off at the company for not warning us that this could happen. To cheer ourselves up we bought ourselves some delicious venison steaks! We headed further north to Nelson where we met and stayed with Abi, Jonny's friend from uni. It was great to see a familiar face and have a good catch up! Thankyou for letting us stay and sorry it was just for one night!

We headed to Picton to catch the ferry. As we were shattered we slept for the entire boat ride, after scoffing a hearty cooked breakfast! We arrived on North Island with an epic drive ahead of us to New Plymouth. Strikingly, North Island seemed to be more developed than the South and Wellington was the busiest city we had yet encountered in New Zealand. The countryside of the North Island was evocative of rural England. The drive took us along the Surf Highway which we didn't really rate as you couldn't see much of the coast. We met Jonny's brother Robert and his girlfriend Marima and spent the evening catching up. In the morning, we all went on a fishing trip which was so much fun as niether of us had done it before. We both found it hard to master the art of casting the fishing line but we both managed to do it by the end. I thought it would be a bit gross by touching the bait but I actually quite liked it! But I nearly got my finger caught on the hook! Marima was the only one to catch a fish which we later ate for our lunch! Robert twice caught a huge fish (maybe a shark?!?!) but snapped his line and escaped! We had a great time, thankyou!

At Lake Taupo, we found our best campsite yet. It even had 2 heated swimming pools and a jumping pillow! The facilities were great. From Taupo, we went on a grade 3 white water rafting trip which was good fun but not as scary as we wanted it to be! Jonny did enjoy jumping into the river but I was too chicken to do it! Jonny also enjoyed doing the golf putting challenge on the lake. You had to hit the ball 102 metres to a floating platform to win a cash prize. After a poor start, Jonny managed to hit the ball but sadly missed the target entirely! The next morning, we went and did a skydive...ahhhhhhhhh!!

Although expensive, it was worth every single penny! We got kitted up into these red suits and listened obediently to what the safety instruction video told us! I was so nervous and looked very pale! Jonny even seemed scared! His nerves were soon calmed when he found out that the instructor guy he was jumping with was an ex-paratrooper! My main worry was that the parachute would malfunction and not pop out. The flight up to 15,000 feet took a long half hour and I'm not good with planes so I began to feel sicker and sicker. We were getting higher and higher and when we were only at 4,000 feet we were beginning to realise just how high it was going to be! The instructors did a great job of relaxing us by joking around. One jumper leaped out at 12,000 feet while we continued skywards. Our time arrived after what seemed a lifetime, and Jonny took the plunge first. Both of us loved it and was easily a highlight of the trip. The jump involved 60 seconds of freefall which was so incredible to experience and it was freezing cold up there! When the parachute went up, there wasn't a tug upwards as we had thought there might be. Floating down toward the lake was spectacular because the views were stunning. As it was perfectly clear and sunny, the instructors said we could see from coast to coast but neither of us had the time to think about that when leaping out of the plane! Both of us had goes at controlling the parachute left, right and 360 turns. We have photos and videos of the dive, which feature some 'skydancing' from Jonny! The whole thing was amazing and we both readily agreed that we would skydive again! Fancy joining us?

Enroute to Auckland, we stopped overnight at Rotorua. Due to the geothermal activity of the area, the eggy smell of sulphur hit us immediately. Rotorua was a pretty place. We visited the Wai-O-Tapu Geothermal Wonderland Park and saw some amazing champagne pools, vistas, craters, and geysers. Again Jonny loved the physical geographyness of it all! It was pretty cool to see the ground steaming and mud pools bubbling. So, onto Auckland we went, Arthur driving his last leg. Auckland is a large city with a fair few skyscrapers and a big port/harbour. Due to the 2 weeks of roughing it in the van and the long flight ahead of us, we checked into a hotel to get a comfy night's sleep. We had a lovely meal by the harbour and did a bit of souvenir shopping! Our last day in New Zealand took us up the Auckland Sky Tower where saw panoramic views over the city and witnessed a brave lady doing the tower jump! Off we went to the airport, to begin the gruelling 23 hour journey home.

We both loved the freedom of the campervanning lifestyle, just being able to stop at a lakeside, take a photo or have a picnic. The van was the best way to take in the bits of New Zealand that we could in just the 2 weeks that we had. The driving was demanding as the distances between places were so large. Jonny, you were a superstar.

So here we are at the end of our big adventure. Albeit 6 months too soon, we know we have been incredibly lucky to see the things we have seen and to have had such unique experiences. Neither of us will forget these last 6 months which have been the best of our lives. Hiking, swimming, tubing, zip-lining, snorkelling, sightseeing, eating curry/noodles/snake/kangaroo/insects/mcdonalds, climbing, sleeping, tuk-tuking, skyping, blogging, translating, diving, jumping, trekking, photographing, sunbathing, getting lost and appearing on tv. What an epic trip. Thankyou to all of you, especially our wonderful parents, for your support, messages and devoted blog reading! We do hope we haven't bored you! You now have a break from my writing...well... until we conquer our next country!

Love Kirsty and Jonny xxxx

P.S. Upon returning to Heathrow, our parents didn't recognise us with my purple hair and Jonny's dreadlocks!