It is no slight on this massive country (continent?) that this blog is not in timing with the journey, who knows how we will find time to do things when we have to start working again if we can't now. Alright bore off and get on with it!
We spent six weeks in Australia, the same time as New Zealand, but what a space to journey in.

The first 10 days were spent in Sydney which is quite a while for us but it was needed. We headed into the backpacker area of Kings Cross where there are many similarities to its namesake in London. One night in a hostel there and we were out to find another area. Lee had something thrown at him from the top of the opposite building and the guy who worked there said that someone threw and onion at him once, it happens, the neighbours don't like the hostel. Great. So off to Glebe which is a short bus ride into the centre and a much nicer bunch of people at the YHA hostel. I was really taken with Sydney straight away. Glebe is an area it seemed like we could live in, yet so near to the centre. That would be well out of our budget in London. But then who knows, I might have had rose tinted specs on and in reality it is expensive for the residents, but for now it was home and much nicer than Kings Cross. It was the beginning of Spring and with the windows in our room open at night the smell of Spring flowers was so strong. How corny but it was lovely. Lots of nice bars, restaurants, grocery shops and a craft market. We went to a local pub and won 's*** prizes' for: blowing a balloon up with no hands until it bursts (me - winner of female and mixed gender competition) and hermit crab racing (both - we called it Crab C Nesbit, nobody got the joke). Loads to see on foot in Sydney and it was hot. To me the best thing about the city is that it is a massive, stunning harbour. The bridge and opera house are as amazing as you think they will be and taking the harbour ferries to different bays and beaches was excellent. Lovely gardens and a huge Chinatown with all the Asian food you need, cheap and really good quality. Great museums, pubs, shops etc etc. I would definitely go back.

By now we had felt the reality of the strong Australian dollar and the weaker British pound and realised that we would completely blow the budget. Like Europe, it has always been more of an expensive place to visit, in comparison to Asia for example, but now it is almost luxury. The cost of living has risen too so that coupled with the strong dollar means a lot of cringing when the bill comes in. This mostly applied to eating and drinking. Renting the car, sleeping, petrol etc, all seemed on par with the UK (note our budget would not stretch to being at home either) but alcohol is really highly taxed and a schooner (a bit smaller than a pint) would often come in at six pounds and rarely less. Cigarettes are about 10 pounds so we switched to roll ups. A loaf of bread could be four dollars - exchange rate 1.5 to the pound. One thing I found really interesting about Australia and New Zealand is that much of the fruit and veg on sale is domestic and therefore the prices varied massively depending on whether something was in season or not. Tomatoes cost something like 13 dollars a kilo in NZ while we were there. In the UK we are used to having everything when we want it at cheap prices, even though loads of it comes from different places around the world. Australia had a huge cyclone in Queensland in 200X and it wiped out the main banana production region so they had not had bananas for ages, or at least bananas that didn't cost a few dollars per piece. I think this affected NZ too as they get their bananas from Australia. While we were there we heard on the news that bananas were back. Obviously we didn't know what they were talking about at first and had to ask someone what all this banana business was about. Apparently if you continued to eat bananas (at the high price) you might have been considered a bit posh or bourgeois. We have the opposite in the UK with the supermarket banana price war and are so used to eating them even though they all come from countries in Africa and South America - we really should pay more for them, can there be any profit for these countries when we are sold them so cheaply?

We organised a relocation camper van to drive to Melbourne next. It started pouring the day we left and we realised that the hot weather we'd had so far was a bit too early for it to continue to be constant. We split the drive up with a night in a small town and got into Melbourne the next afternoon. The relocation was free, the company need you to move it from one place to another in a given number of days. Which meant two nights accommodation as well. Seven nights in Melbourne - also a cool city. But bad weather here, the heaviest rain in 40 years. These records are following us around! We watched the thunder storm from the roof of our city block hostel, looking out at the offices of the major banks. The windows were lit, the sky was dark and in lots of the windows there were little silhouettes of people watching the storm, everyone loves a storm! An old bloke with a plastic cup of whiskey (a fellow hostel resident) came up to watch it too and looked up at the people and said something along the lines of 'see all these offices and all these people doing nothing, doing made-up jobs' and I thought 'ha you don't seem to be doing much either mate', but then wrong as I thought he was I realised that we weren't contributing much either, touche.

There is a rivalry between the inhabitants Sydney and Melbourne that has history originating in the location of the capital - agreement couldn't be reached on which it should be so Canberra was established. For some a light joke but for others a serious grumble. They are really different places to be in though. Sydney has the size, the glamour of skyscrapers and the harbour but Melbourne has a much more obvious cultural and arts scene and lots of good coffee. It felt more like London to us. More pounding the streets and taking it in. We were there for the annual arts fringe festival so watched some stand-up comedy. There is an amazing museum called the 'Australian Centre for the Moving Image' which I would highly recommend. We learnt about the development of film and TV and Australia's part in this and about video games and soundtracks and key Australian Icons of film and TV, the Mad Max car was there!

It was the final of the Aussie Rules (Australian Football League) season and the biggest teams come from Melbourne. Both of the teams in the final were from Melbourne and this is like FA Cup final day to Australians. How odd to watch a game you have never seen before at the age of 30! Since we were in Melbourne on final day (no planning there) we had problems finding places to stay that had not bumped-up their prices so for the seven days there we stayed in three different places. On final day we went to the busiest pub we could see and picked a team based on how many supporters there were in the pub. Quite evenly split but we decided to go with Geelong who won (woop - the best supporters) and then we sung the supporters song with everyone, which was easy to learn since it was repetitive in nature and played on loop for half an hour after the win. Aussie Rules is a good game but I am not going to try and explain it just in case there are any Australians reading and they might think less of me. After the game we went to watch England just about beat Scotland in the Rugby World Cup which was not so uplifting!

Now started three weeks of driving and sun chasing, which is to undersell the journey a bit but we were on the move a lot. We actually covered 6,000 KMs in three weeks. Straight after Melbourne we drove the Great Ocean Road in two days, the highlights being seeing Koalas in trees on the side of the road and the Twelve Apostles. Just like New Zealand, the campsites/holiday parks were of a really good standard, although maybe a bit boring sometimes. We were in the state of Victoria then and we drove north through the Grampians National Park and to the Yarra Valley to visit vineyards. The wine was so good again. I bloody love wine tasting, what is there not to love! From Yarra we headed to the coast and started the journey up, which is a very typical route. We left the state of Victoria and got back into New South Wales for one night in Sydney again (by now we had done a large loop) to meet a couple of friends we had made in Argentina. We had a great night and it was really cool to see them again in their own home town. They lived in Balmain which had slightly more going on than Highams Park (!) so if they ever come over I will need to prep them about this. Cheers Ben and Sarah. Ha, with a bit of a hangover we headed up to the Hunter Valley, probably Australias most famous wine region. We visited a small wine producers centre, so lots of great wines from small vineyards in one place. I think we few of these were available at home though so I will have to get on the case.

One more day of driving and stopping at the furthest place we could manage (quite far as Lee was driving) and we got to Byron Bay. Byron is a great little town, with lots of bars, shops, restaurants and things to do. The beach is lovely and set on very picturesque headlands. While we were there is was whale migration season and you could easily see them in the bay. People we met had seen them jumping out of the water too but we missed this. A few days here but the sun didn't last and after checking the forecast we carried on north. A shame really as it would be a cool place to spend a week but after being so busy in New Zealand we wanted to chill out on a beach and read books and since it rained, we moved on.

Next stop Noosa where we gatecrashed my cousin Inger's holiday with her partner Matty, their two children Henk and Ceci and their friends Kylie and Matt and their two. Probably don't need that detail but there you go. Inger is Adie's daughter and moved from NZ years ago to Sydney and now the Gold Coast. We did literally crash their holiday but I am pleased we did as we had a great time. Really exciting to meet them all and slightly eerie that Inger looks more like my mum than me!
We had much better weather in Noosa so deci

ded to give Fraser Island a go, but the day we were leaving it rained again, grrr. This is Australia, not England. So we carried on further north to a town called Bunderberg and realised there was not too much for us there to do there. Blimey where shall we go! We were getting a bit of cabin fever by then and decided on two options, to sit it out and wait a few days until the weather improved and take the snorkeling trip we wanted to do, or head inland for ages to visit a national park called Carnavon. A tough decision as it was miles into the NP but we decided to go for it. One whole day driving directly westwards and we made it to the park at dusk. The drive was long , scenic but repetitive, but that is Australia, it is just so big. But getting into the park we had an amazing sunset and saw loads of birds, kangaroos and wallabies - the former two we had only really seen on the side of the road so far, rather squished. We knew the minute we got into the park that despite the long drive, this was definitely the right decision. The next day we hiked into the Carnavon Gorge, which because of its structure and formation has created lots of distinct micro-climates. And it was just lovely. We saw rare plants and aboriginal cave stencils and carvings that were a few thousand years old. We met loads of nice people and sat around the campfire in the evening. The next day we were up at stupid-a-clock to get an early start and head back to the coast. Lee likes an early start (on the road) but said a start that early means we have to stop for a cooked breakfast, tis the truckers way. No complaints from me as I went back to sleep in the passenger seat with my pillow and was woken up for the chosen gut buster. A real flash visit but definitely one of the highlights of our trips in Australia. And this is Australia to me now - there are amazing natural things to see but everything is so spread out that you find you are just scratching the surface. It would take a long time to really get around to different places of interest across the country. We were spoilt by New Zealand, which has it all compacted into the two relatively small islands. We didn't see the Outback. I really wanted to but it was too far in the time we had, just not possible. To see Uluru/Ayres Rock from where we were would have meant a flight in and back out and a tourist package, costing too much, being too 'touristy' and frankly over the top. Most people, with the time we had, take the same route up the east coast. Once you decide on this, unless you fly around, which we didn't want to, you are tied into this route and a divergence (like Carnavon) will take at least three days, or more. So you keep on heading up or down to the next beach spots, perfect if you have the weather for it, a little underwhealming if you don't.

Back on the coast we took the snorkeling trip we had planned from the Town of 1770. What a great name. The snorkeling was great, we saw giant turtles and loads of coral. This is one of the most southern islands of the Great Barrier Reef. But Lee was ridiculously sick on the way out and I was concentrating on not joining him all the way. Lots of people were sick as it was open water but it was pretty full on. Lee said it was the worst experience of his life, jeese. When we got there though it subsided and he did snorkel. It was much calmer on the way back, thank god. 1770 is beautiful and the town is really small. Due to the location of the bay you can actually watch a sunset in 1770, even though it is on the East coast.

The next two places we visited were really touristy - Australia Zoo and Wet 'n' Wild. I was so bloody excited about the water park. The Zoo is managed by the remaining Austin family (RIP Steve Austin) and is great but full on stinky blue cheesy. We saw wombats which was one of the iconic Australian animals that we had not seen so far - kind of like a cross between a baby bear and a pig! I am fascinated by the Australian flora and fauna that has evolved isolated from the rest of the world and in such challenging conditions that you find species that don't exist anywhere else in the world. W&W was excellent too, no one should ever grow out of water parks, but my fave ride was closed. Sad face.

Then we went to visit Inger and the family at their house in Burleigh Waters on the Gold Coast. We were properly invited this time and Henk (aged four and 1/2) gave us his bunk beds for a whole week. Not many kids would do this without a grumble but he is a little cherub. We had another amazing time meeting the rest of my family over here. So so sad to leave again. Urghh are you sure you don't want to emigrate to England? Listen the weather is not too dissimilar to an Australian Spring, in my experience.

Actually we nearly gatecrashed for longer as Qantas staff had gone on strike. This nearly put me off my over sized Nandos take-away we had while we were babysitting on the Saturday night. If we had flown a day earlier we would have been disrupted. But it was halted and we did make the flight with no problems. The flight was to Hong Kong for four days and then onwards to Vietnam. Leaving the very easy western cultures behind to be thrown back in the mix again. It was time for it though.

A note on food before the end, less we forgot that I talk about food all the time, here are some things we loved about Australian munch etc: fresh prawns and steaks (for the BBQ of course - there are public BBQs everywhere in smaller towns), lots of great fruit, good beer and ale, amazing Asian food in the cities, brunch (the notion of and the food, fruit loaves and corn fritters - Bill Granger's cafe was the best and one has just opened up in Notting Hill) and bad quality but good to eat chocolate bars and crisps.

One final thing about Australia which weirded me out - we did not meet one Aboriginal person! We only just about saw a few Aboriginal people but theses guys were playing didgeridoos at the Sydney Harbour for tourists so hardly a normal situation. I think in part it was due to being in the centre of cities and staying in the South East of the country, maybe. But how weird, they were so absent that at times you forget that all the white people are not native to the country and that is why the skin cancer rates are so high. The Aboriginal people were really really done over by the British colonisers though and it fascinated and saddened me that the split still seems so distinct and although never good, the situation feels different in New Zealand - the rugby team do the Hakka and the national anthem is in Maori but we did not meet one Aboriginal person in Australia! I felt that Australia had a spirit to understand that we could only scratch the surface of in the time we were there, you would need a lot longer to grasp the depth of its history and cultures and you would also need to step off the main tourist route. There is no doubt that Australia is a unique country in many ways, beyond the developed and settled areas. The land, wildlife and people (indigenous and not) have such an interesting history that I have come away even more fascinated by the place, despite feeling that we didn't experience it as much as we may have in other countries. Sure we did learn a lot about cultures and experience the cultures of the mainly European descendents who live on the cost and that was great, but I did come away with the feeling that there is a lot more to learn, see and experience and that would take a lot more time and a lot more kilometers! One final final thing - there is evidence that Aboriginal people were living in Australia around 50,000 years ago, Jesus Christ (although not the best exclamation to use as that story hadn't been written yet).