So we set off from Sydney on our trip down to meet the girls in Brisbane, hoping to not meet the floods which were currently being shown on the tvs in all the hostels. On the 16 hour drive out of the city we saw the 'real Australia', houses that look like they should be set in neighbours, men with knee length socks and heat, unbelieveable heat! Luckily we didn't see any of the horrific floods but the rivers close to Brisbane city centre looked dangerously high. W...

After saying some fond farewells to our friends we took a flight to Melbourne in the hope of seeing sunshine, more kangaroos and maybe even Harold Bishop! Unfortunately we only managed to see one of these and it was of the furry, mammal variety! We got into Melbourne and headed to our hostel which was called the nunnery due to the fact that before housing weary backpackers it was a convent. Turns out the nuns were clearly very dirty ladies as I left the hostel wi...

So we had finally ditched the land of lakes, mountains, cider and....yup, more lakes! New Zealand had been good to us but we were ready to make up for our shabby Christmas with an amazing New Year in Sydney. We arrived in the early hours of the morning, took a bus to our Base hostel and were two very, very happy girls when they said we could get in our room early...sleepy time! After a few hours power nap we started getting ready to meet our friend Tom for dinner...

From Mercury bay we headed on to Rotorua but not before a nice walk over a couple of wobbly swing bridges and through a pitch black old railway tunnel where every step was one closer to a broken leg! Finally we did arrive in Rotorua - Sulphur land - where there is a constant smell of rotten eggs and if you sit on the wrong patch of land you find yourself atop a jet of sulphurous gas being sent air bound! After checking into the hostel we went for a walk through ...

Finally we return to the hostel and Vinnie the hostel manager, to check into our room that we had very sensibly booked the day before. But... Vinnie had made a mistake and our booking was nowhere to be found - now, with the hostel being full up there were many apologies and talks of mattresses being added into rooms before he came to the conclusion that he would turf some boys bags off a double bed, move some furniture and have us steal the double bed! I was ...