This is a long one! The red centre and the east coast!

Monday 2nd April 2014

Our first day in Uluru consisted of lots of driving and a death defying hike!!!

We were up at 4am and had packed up our small backpacks ready for our 3 day camping trip in the out back. We checked out of the hostel, took advantage of the free toast and cereal that they had on offer then waited for our tour guide to pick us up.

Tom arrived and piled me and George, along with 14 others, into his rickety old mini bus. The journey to Uluru took 6 hours plus a few stops for toilet breaks and to pick up beers! On each stop, the amount of flies swarming around our heads increased. Not to mention the spiders and ants I had to fight to use the loo!

When we had almost arrived, Tom decided he would encourage some group bonding! He brought us up to the front one at a time to answer the following questions:

- name?

- job?

- home?

- time spent in oz?

- favourite Aussie food?

- favourite Aussie animal?

- 3 ideal dinner guests (dead or alive)?

What would you say for the last one? George couldn't decide and just went with three friends and I said either mum or a friend along with Bruno Mars to keep us entertained and Jamie Oliver to cook us a yummy dinner!

Our group all seemed pretty tame. We were joined by a 70 year old couple, quite a few German girls, some lone female travellers in their late 30s, a French muscle man and an Asian couple. When it came to buying beer, the group stuck to one or two per night. George decided that 12 would be best!

We arrived at Ayers Rock for our 8km base walk at midday when the temperature had reached 38 degrees. Our tour guide dropped us off gave us directions and said 'see ya!' In theory, it was an easy walk. All flat, no way of getting lost and plenty of benches and water stations along the way. Add in the heat and the flies and its another story. It was like torture. I didn't enjoy it at all. By the end, I was so hot and swollen I thought I was going to pass out. I was practically running towards the mini bus in search of some air con. Which Tom had NOT put on! Me and him were about to fall out but George calmed me down then I got some ice out of the cool box. Tom then told us that we'd be doing another 2km with him as guide. I could've cried.

It had cooled down a bit and was in a shaded part of the rocks so it wasn't too bad. Tom was also quite knowledgeable and told us some aboriginal words and stories. We learned about the Anangu people, their creation time stories and Tjukurpa, which is the law they abide by. He pointed out some okra, which is a chalky rock that the aborigines use for painting.

We then headed to a viewing point to watch the sunset over Uluru. Just as we arrived, the sky went dark and the clouds came over. No spectacular sunset for us! It rained so we camped in a shelter full of creepy crawlies and beasties then, after a restless night, we were up early for sunrise over Uluru. And guess what....!! Clouds and rain and no spectacular sunrise either. Apparently the sunrises right behind Ayers Rock and it glows red. Bet that would've looked amazing! Ah well!!

Because of the clouds and rain it actually then meant that the next two days, and the hikes involved, were much more enjoyable. We saw kings canyon and Kata tjuta and camped outside around a camp fire, in a swag. We collected firewood, watched a French man eat a witchity grub, got bitten by a venomous ant, rode a camel and ate beer bread that had been made on an open fire. All in all, a real out back experience!

Saturday 7th April 2014

Once we'd returned to Sydney, we had lots of organising to do as we had a few days left in our beachside flat before jo arrived and we were off backpacking up the east coast. We sorted malaria tablets, bug spray and off loaded a lot of clothes. Claimed back tax, closed our oz bank account etc etc no more living and working by the beach :(

bye bye Manly! :(

Jo arrived late Tuesday night after a very long journey from London! It was so nice to see a familiar face and I greeted her with a massive YO! We stayed up chatting for a few hours then decided that Jo needed to sleep to combat the jetlag!

We had a full on day on Wednesday as I had so much I wanted to show Jo and she wanted to do the obligatory trip to Bondi beach (I tried telling her that Manly was better!) so we started early with breakfast on the beach front at one of my favourites; Sugar Lounge. We then took the ferry to the city to see the opera house, the botanical gardens and harbour bridge. We took the bus to Bondi, then spent the rest of the day there. That night, we'd planned a night out, for our last night in Manly and to celebrate Jo's arrival, in Chica Bonitas, a Mexican restaurant. We had lots of food, plenty of drinks and a great time was had by all (even if we can't remember much of it!).

The following morning, we flew to Byron Bay. There, we arranged our east coast adventure, relaxed by the sea and had a sausage sizzle on the bbq! Later that evening, we met up with Corinne and Jaryd, who had also flown to Byron Bay, and had a few drinks with them. That's when we decided to get up early the next day to do the sunrise walk to the lighthouse.

What a good decision it was too! It didn't feel like it at first but after the 30 minute walk (uphill!) the view at the top was well worth it! We spent a long time taking photos and admiring the view, then Corinne took us to an amazing cafe for breakfast. It was a shame we couldn't spend longer in beautiful Byron Bay but we were on a tight schedule so it was straight on the bus to Noosa, the gateway to Fraser Island.

We had an afternoon in Noosa, so we went straight to the beach, which really didn't match up to Byron but it definitely wasn't too shabby! Then we met our tour group back at the hostel for a briefing, where we were shown a video about driving safety on the island. It was mainly about reiterating common sense but they made damn sure that we knew we'd be in a lot of trouble if we didn't use it! After being scared half to death and both Jo and I deciding that we'd leave the driving to the boys, we then went to wash, pack for the next few days then to find somewhere for dinner. We chose a bar where we could play some pool and have a few drinks; somehow we ended up getting harassed by two drunk Australians who were convinced that George and I should get married the following day!

The next few days on Fraser Island were incredible. Driving in a 4WD on the beach was so much fun, we met some good friends and saw some amazing sights. We visited lake Mackenzie - where we burried ourselves in the sand and played with fresh water turtles, lake wobby - where we hiked through the Bush to find a sand blow (like a sand dune but formed differently), Eli creek - a natural lazy river, a shipwreck on the beach, the champagne pools - a rock pool where the waves crash over and make champagne like bubbles and Indian head where we spotted sharks and eagle rays. In the evening, we went to the beach where we stargazed and spotted dingos! The weather on our first day was beautiful but for our last two days we unfortunately caught the tail end of cyclone ita and it rained pretty much non-stop. It didn't stop us having fun though as we still got to see all of the cool spots.

We arrived back in Noosa where we had one full day then we were going to catch our first night bus up to Airlie Beach. Jo was worried that she'd be going home without a tan after all the rain so we spent the day on a beach called Little Cove. Despite my many warnings, Jo decided that factor 15 would do!!! She looked like a lobster and spent the next three days suffering with heat stroke. This wasn't so bad on the night bus as she pretty much crashed out for the whole 16 hours (!) but was not so much fun for her once we'd started our Whitsundays trip...

We'd had a day in Airlie Beach where we met up with some friends from our Fraser Island trip. We walked in the lagoon, explored the rocky beach then ate ice cream. Jo then started to feel really poorly so decided to have an early night while George and I went out for dinner with Tayler, Evelyn and Maya. The next day we boarded our sail boat Siska! We had amazing weather, great food and the Whitsunday islands were INCREDIBLE!! The only downside was that Jo was really ill for the whole of the first day and spent most of it sleeping. She bounced back for the second day though and she was feeling much better and looking a little less like a lobster. She did however, crash out on our double bed leaving George and I to squeeze in a single cabin. We won't let her forget that one ;)

While we were on the sail boat we stopped at various snorkel spots, swam with turtles, spotted dolphins, sunbathed on the Incredible Whitehaven beach, saw wallabies, George dived on the great barrier reef, helped raise the sail, watched the sunset, did some more stargazing and fed hundreds of fish while they swam around our faces! What a great trip!!!

Our visit from Jo ended with a really really really long bus journey up to Cairns, with one night there, then Jo caught her flight early the next morning. In the two weeks she was here, we managed to travel up the entire east coast of Australia, stopping to see the best bits! Not a bad Easter holidays for Jo but I wish she could've stayed longer. I did try to do a bit of convincing but she wasn't having it! It was so nice to see her and she will definitely be missed by both me and George.

Bye bye jo jo :(

It's back to just the two of us again now and we've got a few days in cairns before we fly to western Australia. Today we are on a snorkelling trip to the great barrier reef and tomorrow we are going to the rainforest where we will hopefully cuddle a koala!

Happy Easter to our lovely friends and family.

We both miss u all very much xxxxxxxx

P.s. fun fact about our sail boat 'Siska' - HRH Prince Charles was part of a winning crew in the Queen Victoria cup in 1973