A relatively early night the day before meant we were feeling a bit more up to moving today, but not too much moving, so we decided on taking the ferry to Manly Beach. The ferry ride itself was beautiful, with views of the Opera House, Harbour Bridge and islands all around Sydney. Arriving in Manly, I fell in love with the place straight away. With two beaches, one calm sea and one wavy sea, connected by a boulevard of shops and bars, what's not to love?...

I have been putting off writing this blog post for far too long, mainly because I know it's impossible for me to put into words how great this day was. But I have procrastinated long enough and I'm going to try and do it justice. While the Blue Mountains trip had seemed like a good idea at the time of booking, after only 5 hours of sleep and a 2 hour bus journey to look forward too, you could see why we were a bit apprehensive. Nevertheless it was an ...

After the chaos of the evening before, we weren't exactly sure what to expect when we emerged from our room in the morning. Luckily things had calmed down and now backpackers were just sitting around on laptops skyping and chatting - clearly the stereotype is spot on. The location of the hostel was great in terms of breakfast as there was shopping centre at the top of the street that sold vegemite on toast (my new favourite!) for only $4. Once the need ...

When you arrive at your hotel at 4am, after an 8 hour bus journey, there is nothing worse than something going wrong with your booking. So naturally, that is exactly what happened. We turned up to our hotel room (as there are absolutely no hostels in Canberra - telling you more about Canberra than I ever could) to find we only had one rather small double bed. Thankfully, the receptionist took pity on us and put us in an apartment room, with 2 bedrooms, a kitche...

Our last day in Melbourne meant getting up at 7 for a long day ahead, to ensure that we didn't miss our bus to Canberra in the evening. What started off as a warm sunny morning ended up being what Mikaela likes to call a "cold day" (about 19°). However, our weather inappropriate attire attracted the attention of a woman sitting opposite on the train, who proceeded to tell us about the virtues of sewing your own clothes on a rainy day. So really our outfits w...