Hey everyone its time for my final installment from Oz as we flew over to NZ on Friday. I think last update we were sitting in Alice Springs trying to get to grips with the 44 degree heat. Oh how I wish I hadn't complained the rest of our time in Oz was really cold (well about 20 degrees)- and the jumpers and trousers had to come out.
Our first trip was out into the outback to go and see ayrs rock. We got picked up at 5.50am the first morning (a comparable lie in compared to the 4am starts the next 2 days). We headed straight to ayrs rock which took us about 5 hours (about 500km). We arrived at the rock about 3pm and started the base walk. Me and Gem opted for the whole base walk which is about 9k and supposed to take about 3 hours. It was absolutely sweltering and by the time we finished the water we had taken with us would have made a lovely cup of tea but it was so worth it- we managed it in just under 2 hours. Our guide was a local guy that had lived around ayrs rock all his life and he told us some really facinating stuff about the aboriginal stories from the area and showed us loads of bush tucker.
we had dinner near the rock that night whilst watching the sunset which is amazing and turns the rock a gorgeous colour. That night we slept under the stairs in swags- which are like waterproof mattresses with a sleeping bag cover and hood but it was so hot we just slept on top of them. The 4am start was not nice but the sunrise we got to see over the rock was amazing.
We spent the morning walking round the Olgas which are 26 rocks the aboriginis beleive to be really sacred and then in the afternoon made our way over to kings canyon where we camped for the night. We managed to light a camp fire and toasted marshmallows which was really cool. We slept under the stairs again but it started raining so we actually had to get in the swags which was really weird I had to stick my arms out to try and cool down and can imagine we all must have looked really weird like 20 cocoons lying out on the ground. The next morning again was a 4am start to get over to Kings Canyon and start our walk before it got too hot. The first 1.5k of the walk was up a hill nicknamed heart attack hill- nice exactly what you want to be doing at 5.30am!! But the walk was amazing and I even swam in the garden of eden which was pretty gross and slimy!
The next part of our journeys took us down to Adelaide which I have to say neither of us were that impressed with and wanted to leave asap. We only had to spend one day in adelaide and then went over to Kangeroo Island which is litterally teaming with wildlife. The first thing we did was go for a walk on a beach with an Australian Sealion colony. Pupping season had just finished and there were babies all over the place they were so amazing. We were down on the beach for over and hour but it felt like 5 mins. From the seal colony we went to the famous sand dunes where we tried sand bording. We started off pretty hesistantly and only sat down but by the end we were properly standing on the board (which I had to jump off from as it started going too fast and ended up falling the rest of the way down the hill which really hurt). We even ended up doing a tandom one right at the end which was wicked we seriously wizzed down.

From the slopes we headed to our ranch for the night where we went on a walk and saw loads of kangeroos and joeys in the wild. In the evening we went Penguin spotting and saw some of the worlds smallest penguins the "Fairy penguin" how cute. We slept in swags again that night but this time it was really cold so not only was the swag completely done up but we had every single item of clothing we had bought with us on as well!! After being woken up by a naughty possum who decided he was going to help clear up after our bbq and by a few passing kangeroos we headed to another seal colony before heading back to adelaide.

The next day we picked up our Pikachu campervan!! We drove for 8 hours up into the Grampians where we camped at a site right in the centre that had a jazz festival on (very cool). We had to cook our dinner on our little gas burner outside our camper in the dark and then try and sleep in our camper which we'd parked on a slope (Gem ended up squishin me into the wall!).

The next morning we headed up into the mountains and went to a waterfall and then walked up to the highest point in the mountains (which turned out to be a real trek and not somethign we should have been doing in flipflops!) where the views were amazing.

From the mountains we headed down to the Great Ocean Road where we spent the rest of the day visiting the 12 apostles and london bridge amongst other things. Another night of camping and then we had a day visiting all the beaches we went to Lorne, then to aireys inlet where the lighthouse from round the twist is! (yes we were singing the song the whole time), then (after passing Moggs Creek!) we went to Anglesea and Torquay (I never realised they were only 30mins from each other).

The next day we arrived in Melbourne and spent the day looking round the city before heading to another camp site around the other side of the penisula to visit St Kilda the following day. We dropped Hockie Pokie (the camper) back the next day and headed back into Melbourne. Having the camper was great fun apart from he didn't like going in the morning and we had to try him about 10 times each time pumping him with more gas (which he drank at a rediculous rate) until he would go and then once he was goin he just jumped the whole time until you were goin at least 80k and in 5th (not the easiest thing to do along windy coastal and mountain roads). It was really nice being on our own schedule for once and meeting a different type of person in the camp sites to the hostels.

For our last day in Oz we had to go to the Neighbours set (all Gem's idea of course!!). It was so funny nearly the whole bus was made up of English people all of them ohing and ahing over Erinsborough high and Grease Monkeys. We got to meet Alan Fletcher (Dr Karl) on the set and have a our picture taken with him and get him to sign some post cards. He was really nice but the whole day was just surreal!. Finally we went to Ramsey street which is really short and actually has real residents on it!!

So that is the end of Aus we are now in NZ currently up at the bay of Islands. Australia has been amazing and I have totally fallen in love with the country some of you may have seen my photo of Ernst and Young in Sydney which I am planning to go and work at just need to wait for the opportunity!

Hope you all are well and not too bored after my latest ramble missing you all but still having the time of my life.

Loads of love

Jo