We landed in Perth to be greeted by Tom and Shelly, friends that we made in South America, and whisked off into town to Freemantle prison, luckily for a tour! The tour was one of the best ones we have done in the last 5 months, bought to life by Brendan our Irish tour guide... well worth a visit if you venture to Perth. We had a fantastic week and were looked after brilliantly by Tom and Shelly as well as the whole Swallow family. We were invited to the Swallow ...

We arrived in Melbourne to be picked up by Matt (a good friend from Brondesbury CC)and baby Tommy Stein... what a luxury to be picked up at the airport! Soon we were in Melbourne and whisked off down the Great Ocean Road to Suze's parent's house at Lorne. A beautiful spot overlooking the sea. We spent 2 fantastic days just relaxing and sunning ourselves on the beach, swimming in the sea and eating... lovely! On the way back up the coast we visited Bells beach (si...

We arrived in Sydney to the heat, and was it hot - 41 degrees, a little too hot!, and made our way to our hostel... the Funk House- backpacker heaven after the tent (we miss our tent!) We had a good walk around Sydney stopping at the art gallery to see a very good collection of art then off to the Botanical gardens and bizarrely hundreds of huge bats in the trees and flying around. Soon the Opera House came into view, it seemed a lot cleaner than I remember from...

Christchurch has a great feel to it, we had a great wander around the city taking in the beautiful botanical gardens and an excellent art gallery, not to mention some nice bars, one with a fire and sofa outside!!! cool. So here we are at the end of New Zealand and what a trip we have had. Such contrasts from beautiful beaches, mountains, forests, sea and small towns... and where are all the people!!? Eventually we banned saying what a beautiful view it was as we...

Some more rain led us to the Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Museum as it was the only indoor activity in the area (bored of rain now). It was actually really interesting and very sobering to watch film of the mountain rescue guides attempt rescues that only sometimes result in them saving the persons life. Enough doom and gloom - the sun came out the next day, so we could actually see Mount Cook (the highest peak in NZ), hooray! Once again it was impressive scenery, I...