WOW!!! What a time we've had in Australia - first and foremost a HUGE thank you to everyone we've visited during our trip here - we've been totally spoilt and are so very grateful for the fun times and memories x

So we leave Australia on Friday heading for New Zealand to see more friends and spend 5 weeks travelling around in a camper van - v excited! But before we head there, here's a rundown of Australia Western side............. We've been staying with the wonderful Mr Vince , gorgeous Ms Ellwood and cuddly bear of a cat Oscar who adopted us into their family and made us feel so much at home that leaving is going to be a sad occasion - however that's only because of all the fantastic times we've had here. Whale watching where we got to see a mummy and baby whale fully breach out of the water not 100 yards away from the boat, a night out to see the music fantastic Mr Paul Oakenfold, Susan somehow got us into VIP and we loitered around the DJ booth to get a picture with the man himself after a session on the decks, copious cool cafes with yummy cakes and food, lovely food evenings out (courtesy of groupons, scoupons and all sorts) with fantastic company, an evening at an old school jazz club which you enter through a red telephone box (very funny eve, you take your own alcohol and food then just enjoy the jazz - all gets a tad crazy), a great night at Belvoir Amphitheatre watching Mumford and Sons live (fantastic venue), a trip to the cinema with a twist - in the summer here they convert the open top floor of a carpark to a cinema - seats are deck chairs and pre film there is a dj, drinks and of course somewhere to get popcorn - a fantastic evening out! We are just back from a few days away to Margaret River, stayed in a house called the Blu Peter house which was beautiful, we spent 2 days visiting around vineyards, chocolate factories and gorgeous beaches where again off of the beach we could see whales messing about out at sea, fully jumping out of the water - amazing sights to see.

We also took a little road trip camping adventure for a week by ourselves. We headed up the west coast (about 1,300km north) to Coral Bay, which is a beautiful bay with a reef you can snorkel from the beach - it is an amazing place. Unfortunately for some reason I've lost my confidence a bit in the water (i think its the thought of the sharks and jelly fish abundant around these parts) so Mark went in snorkelling and I stayed on the ridge walking through the water not 2 meters from him whilst he snorkelled back round towards our starting point - my confidence was not helped by almost walking into a bluebottle jelly and nearly standing on a stingray buried in the sea floor - safer snorkelling i tell ya! So after i got my snorkel on (following closely with Mark) I had a look about - it is truly a different world under the water - so very pretty and cool but I can't seem to get the jaws tune out of my head every time i'm in - something to work on for me!

From Coral Bay we drove down to Monkey Mia, Shark Bay (confidence building name huh!) which generally has a daily visit from a family of dolphins which are fed by a team just off of the beach. They usually feed the dolphins in the morning when they decide to turn up (which can be anytime from 8am to noon) just off the beach in a section that is marked out just for the dolphins (so no swimming, boats etc). We arrived at Monkey Mia the first day in the afternoon so just took a wander along the rest of the beach and were luckily enough to be treated to a show of mum dolphin teaching her younger one how to fish - they literally were right in front of us chasing fish. The mum would go first, then they would fish together and lastly the younger one would try to fish on it's own - not so successful - it was an amazing thing to see, every now and then they'd take a break from fishing and just come along the beach on their sides having a good old look at everyone - brilliant!! We were so lucky to see and experience that as the next morning not one dolphin showed up to feed - so we felt extra lucky to have had the experience the day before - lots of disappointed peeps that morning.

As we headed back to Perth we finally (not that i had particularly wanted to see one) saw a snake (a brown one - one of the extra poisonous ones - awesome!) ...... luckily we got to see him from the car as we drove along the highway - he was just at the side of the road deciding whether to cross or not - luckily we and the car behind us missed him and he then decided better of it and returned to the same side grass verge - that was the perfect amount of snake experience for me!

Oh and for those that did not know already we also chose Perth as the city to get married in - Jim and Susan did a stella job as our witnesses and we spent the day out and about in Perth celebrating - pretty good day i'd say!

As always Mark will be posting some pictures shortly which will portray our trip a lot better than the blog - there is no way to put into words what a fantastic time we've had in Australia and how much we've enjoyed it so i'll finish up typing for now and let you look at the pics ....... Next stop NZ and i expect we won't get the chance to blog again until Christmas or just after .........So premature I know but just so we get it in, we wish everyone a lovely Christmas time - HO HO HO!!! Zoe & Mark x