G'day everyone!!! Sara here! Thought it was about time i let you all know that we are alive and well! We had a couple of great days in Surfers Paradise, lots of partying but we stayed in a wicked hostel and met some fab people. After surfers we hopped on the bus and headed down to Byron Bay, a quirky little town a few hours south of Surfers. Byron is lovely but very small and unfortunately its streets are home to more than a few tramps and hippies that belive they are still living in the 60s. It has a couple of very cool bars though, which is all that matters!! the beach was lovely too, and we managed to meet up with three girls, Shannon, Gemma and Becky, that we had met on Fraser Island which was awesome. You tend to bump into so many people that you have met along the way because everyone is treading a similar route to you, so its great when you catch up with people that you didnt think you would see again! We also literally bumped into two other girls Jamie and Sydney from Fraser that we had no idea we were going to see, so the group of us decided we had to meet up in Sydney together!

From Byron bay we caught a 13 hour bus to Sydney and met Becks Gem and Shannon on the bus, Shannon sadly had to leave our little group but the four of us headed over to Kings Cross to our little hostel and checked into our party room!! Sydney is such a beautiful city and so much to do, you'll all be pleased to know that we have done lots of cultural things in the past couple of weeks!!! LOTS of walking!! on our first day we headed for a picnic in the beautiful botanical gardens, saw the opera house, bridge and harbour and did a little shopping too. the following day it rained (surprise!!) so we headed to the aquarium with some lads from our hostel, it was a good day although for all you who know what it is, Kate and Gemma were 'planking' everything in sight, including a 6ft lego statue of a mermaid...

the following day we headed to the beautiful Blue mountains, the 7am bus pickup was pretty harsh after 2 hours sleep and a LOT of 'goon' consumption, and we looked classically English turning up for a hike in flip flops and shorts sporting rather hideous hangovers..the tour guide had a lot of fun ripping into us all day but we are so glad we dragged our arses out to see it, absolutely stunning. They are called the blue mountains because the Eucalyptus oil gives off a blue vapour when the sun shines on it, so when you are on a viewing platform looking over the millions of trees it really is quite breathtaking! there are lots of different tracks to walk and at the end of one of them we rode the steepest train in the world, which was slightly hair raising considering the 'safety' chain was about as safe as jumping out of an aeroplane without a parachute (which, coincidently Kate actually did in Byron bay...not without a parachute can i just add, but she did skydive - you NEED to see the dvd!!)

the following day after the blue mountains we headed to Bondi Beach on our open top sight-seeing bus (proper tourists!) which was lovely we had some great weather and the beach is gorgeous but was absolutely packed and it did slightly remind me of West Wittering in the summer, which is never a good thing! We also headed to Manly beach on the ferry which was so lovely and cute, although we got caught in a massive thunderstorm so didnt spend much time there!!!

Overall we had a fantastic week in Sydney, we soaked up a lot of the scenery, bumped into old friends and met lots of new ones and didnt want to leave, especially as Gemma was heading to Thailand - we did not want her to leave us!!! But alas we had to move on, so you find us now in Melbourne in the lovely St Kilda with Becky and Sydney. The weather has been a bit crap so we spend the day lazing about yesterday, today we have hired a car for tomorrow and are heading to the Great Ocean Road for a couple of days! Looking forward to getting back behind the wheel of a car!

anyway, im sure there is a lot more we have done which i have forgotten to tell you, and a lot of it probably involves drinking Goon, but we are having such a brilliant time down under!! On the 15th we head to Fiji and then on to New Zealand, so one of us will try to update you all again soon.

keep in touch, your messages keep us going when we are feeling a bit homesick!!

love always

Sar and Kate x