Hello to you all!

It hasn't been long since our last post but it feels like a lot has happened in that time. We left Christchurch without a hitch, and flew back up to Auckland within 1hr30m which was great for only $59 each, so about 28pounds! It was a very odd feeling being back in Auckland again after so long, but it was comforting in a way that we knew our way around and could easily find some food and our hostel. We went back to City Garden Lodge and ended up back in the same room and the same beds! We only spent a couple of days in Auckland, one of which was ANZAC day; however the only thing that was happening in Auckland was a dawn parade at 6am which after a long day, we weren't overly keen on doing. It was nice to see that the old practice of shops closing for important days was still alive over here, shops were shut til lunchtime, which was slightly annoying as we were trying to investigate netbooks! The day we were leaving New Zealand fast came with a very early start for the 4.15am shuttle to the airport.

It didn't all go smoothly..... STA made a cock-up when they changed our dates of flight, and so when we went to check in Air New Zealand said we weren't allowed to board our flight because we hadn't been issued an e-ticket. We were not impressed, even less so because the UK offices were now shut which meant we'd have to wait til the evening to get in touch with them to sort the mess out. After 6 hours in the airport we made our way to a motel near the airport until we could sort it all out. We eventually did and would now fly on Friday 30th April. So we spent the next 2 days being a bit lazy... making good use of the Sky Movies channel & taking a bus to one of the local suburbs for food! Thankfully friday came quickly, as did the riciculously early start, but this time we were on the flight and off to Australia!!!

We arrived in Aussie into Adelaide, and were greeted by a bit more heat than we had become used to as NZ went into autumn. We got to a hostel, which we later called the Ghetto- one of the 'Base' style backpackers where people are only there to get pissed and hop on the next bus. It was pretty rubbish to be honest; besides the fact that it was more expensive than NZ and you got a LOT less for your money, and after 2 nights we couldn't take it any more. We moved round the corner to another backpackers which was good & more communal. Adelaide itself was nice and easy to navigate, reasonably small so it made exploring much easier and it was a nice contrast to see some "old" buildings around the city. It was starting to feel a bit more like we'd found some architectural history, which we didn't feel that NZ had a lot of. It is a big contrast, we know it is a different country, however as we'll be spending most of our time in the cities it is bound to be a completely different experience than NZ. We enjoyed wandering around the Botanic Gardens in Adelaide, we watched a couple of games of Aussie Rules Footie which did bamboozle us a tad! It's a weird blend of rugby and football, but you can run with the ball and there's 4 posts at either end. We'll have to look up the rules online! Among the places we wandered around, we went to the Aboriginal Art Culture, where there weer a few aboriginal artist's work on display. It was based around the impact of white English settlers and the racism and lack of rights that followed. It was immediately obvious to us that there was still a lot of anger about the way they were treated, quite understandably!

Anyway, after a few days in Adelaide it was obvious it was too small to find a job for a few months and we weren't going to be able to find a good deal on a car so decided to book another cheap flight to Melbourne. Unfortunately it means that we've skipped the Great Ocean Road for now, but hopefully we can go back and do that before we leave. As soon as you're in Melbourne, it feels a bit more like being back in London. Suits, businesses, high rise buildings, shops galore... and it's busy! We've been here since tuesday & we've already managed to secure a shared apartment for 2 months, so now all we need to do is find a job to fund it! We don't know what type of jobs we'll get for now, maybe we'll try to find something more towards what we hope to do when we get a 'proper' job! One thing we know for sure is that we won't be doing any more vineyard work for a while!! We both want a change.

So, all's well with us over here! We'll be in Melbourne now for 2 months minimum as we're tied into the apartment until 7th July, after that i think our loose plan is to go up to Sydney and then up the East Coast to Brisbane, then Cairns.

Do keep the emails coming, it's great to hear from you all and what's going on in the UK. We will try and reply... it may just take us a while!!

Lots of love to you all, Rachel and David xxxxx