Hello!

I have finally managed to find time to sit down and type up a blog. It's been so busy since I reached Oz, that I literally haven't had a chance to do this, until now!

There's so much that's happened that I won't be able to include everything. It's been a bit crazy.

Arriving in Sydney went well. I got picked up by Lewis at Oz Intro, who took me straight to the hostel at Coogee Bay. I must admit, I wasn't so sure at first. Everyone's bags were piled up in the common room area and most people weren't very communicative at first. Also, the hostel isn't the 'highest quality' in Australia. Mmph!

I was in a dorm with 10 other people, all of which were in my group for the week.As a result of things and people being quite loud and lively, so quickly, I had bouts of shy-attack throughout the week but overall I really enjoyed particular people's company. In terms of what we did over the week - we went to the Botanical Gardens in Sydney and saw gigantic bats flying through the trees. Then we went on a Jet Boat in the harbour which was excellent (lots of spinning and bumping over waves). That was on the first day. On Tuesday we took the ferry across the harbour, had lunch and then went to Sydney Aquarium, which was very good. That night we all went out to a bar called The Gaff. It was noisy messy night - woop! I had a good night and really suffered for it the next morning. However the next morning was an early start and we were taken on a Learn To Surf trip. I've never known such an effective hangover cure before. Get pummeled by some huge waves and you feel dandy again! The surf intructors were lovely and really friendly. I saw one of them in a bar last night and started saying how great I thought the surf lesson was last week and he got confused thinking I was someone who was involved in him trying to get a house, so I went along with that for a bit before he realised that wasn't the case. I don't know how much he'd had! On Thursday we went to Bondi Beach and did the coastal walk from Bondi to Coogee, stopping off half way at a small beach for a barbecue. The weather was perfect and it was a good day. On Friday it started raining and that was the start of the bad weather. We took a trip to the Blue Mountains and went on a couple of walks. Our guide was slightly mental but funny. He told a story about him pretending to kick a baby wombat (actually a pine cone) in the air in front of a Japanese girl who was obsessed with finding wombats. Friday night was magic. Went for a curry with most of the group and our group leader Marcus. The funniest experience in a Indian Resteraunt i've ever had. We had a camp waiter who paid alot of attention to the boys and also kept trying to force feed me Sprite through 4 straws. He also force fed one of the boys some Champagne straight from the bottle. The girls left laughing and the boys left looking slightly afraid. I got curry down my top. Of course. We went to the Gaff again and I ended up dancing on top of tables with Marcus and Jack (one of the group) - then my bag got nicked! But we found 3 girls outside the bar with it and I took it back (everything was still in it but I got there in the nick of time) - Marcus sent them on their way after having a calm go at them. Learnt my lesson there! Don't get too pissed and dance on tables and leave your bag somewhere. On Saturday we had a free day and then the Pub Crawl. We all had to go in fancy dress (which i'm never keen on) so I ended buying fairy wings and a wand and wore my own dress! Other people went to more of an effort and looked amazing. It was a good night. The 'Party Bus' was overflowing and was like a club in itself. On Sunday we all had the day to recover and then got dressed up again to go to a restaurant at the top of the tower in Sydney. The view is stunning and it was an all you can eat buffet. Over the whole weekend it rained and was windy and cold, so being dressed up and going out was like doing the same at home!

I was glad to leave the hostel at Coogee because I knew I was going to a more comfortable establishment called Wake Up! in the centre of Sydney for a couple of days. I'd sorted all this with Marcus, who was amazingly brilliant at helping me choose what to do for the next 2 weeks before my tour of Western Oz. So a flight was booked to get me to the Whitsundays on Wednesday, so I needed to stay somewhere in between.

It felt a bit weird and lonely leaving everyone i'd gotten to know over the week. Because i'm not here to work, like everyone else is, I wasn't able to carry on travelling with anyone because of my tight time schedule. So I left all my new mates and headed to Wake Up! Had some laundry and internet nightmares (wanted to do my blog!) but it quickly became the best bit of the trip so far.

:-) I had excellent company for 2 days. So much so I felt sad getting on the plane this morning to fly up the coast. I also did a trip to Hunter Valley to do wine tasting during the day on Tuesday. The guide ended up being the same guy from the Blue Mountains! He further established his mentalness by being rather open in talking to us all about his low sperm count and various other topics you don't expect on a wine tasting tour. It was cool though, the vineyards are very pretty in South East Oz. Wine wasn't bad either (but I much prefer Californian wine).

Now i'm here i'm looking forward to getting on the boat tomorrow to spend a couple of days living it up at the Whitsunday Islands. I hope it's enjoyable. The weathers very hot and tropical compared to Sydney. It's a completely different climate. I'll be heading down the coast again after this to do Fraser Island and then Brisbane.

I'm off now, haven't got long left on the internet. I will try my best to do a more extensive blog next time. I've blasted through the last week's events in this one!

Hope everyone is well, miss you all.

Emily xx