Australia

Arriving in Darwin we were pretty shattered after the last night out in Cairns, so got an early night. We hired a car, so drove from the airport into the very small city centre. We hired the car as we planned to venture down to the Kakadu National park. As the area has been hit by a cyclone in the last couple of weeks, the main highway bridge into the national park was closed. We decided to still go, but as we were driving past Litchfield National Park on the way we stopped off and had a little look around there. I was so glad we did as the waterfalls that we saw were totally amazing. Our first stop was the magnetice termite mounds, termites are just big ants and I find it so hard to believe that they can create such a mound of what is just feaces and saliva...lovely!! Some of the mounds were up to 6 metres tall. They were all around the area, there must be millions of the little buggers!
We then headed further into the park to Florence falls, I was so surprised at just how spectacular they actually were. I felt like I was at a mini Iguasu, it was great. We walked down the 170 stairs to the bottom of the falls, but we didn't swim as I forgot my bikini and didn't fancy walking back up and down those stairs again! When walking back from the falls there was a gage and it was 34 degrees and about 98% humidity....we thought it was warm!!
From Florence falls we went to Tolmer Falls, as we were driving there the rains came again so we decided to stay in the car and have some lunch instead. While it was raining we drove down to Tongi Falls where I have never seen anything like it. The place looked totally devastated, it was completely flooded. The swimming had also been closed as there were crocodile sightings. Because it was so flooded we had to wade through water to get to the boardwalk in order to go to the lookout. I was pretty scared I was going to get eaten by a croc! We survived anyway! But, I have never seen so much water! The water was right up to the boardwalk which has stilts of a few metres and the tops of the trees were just sticking out the top of the water.
Obviously the waterfalls were totally amazing, the amount of water was incredible. Unfortunately I have run out of photo space on my site for this month so can't provide anymore photos. I wish I could as I'd love to share the experience with you all. Anyway, we went back to the car, getting pretty wet as it was still raining and went back to Tolmer Falls. It was raining but not quite as heavy as before so we walked down to more breath taking water falls in a huge steep sided valley with a great big blow hole in the top. It was awesome.
From there we left Litchfield national park and made our way down the Stuart highway....only 4500kms from Adelaide! Passing the great big road trains which are 3 large lorries put together, actually pretty scary to drive past! It rained all the way and at about 5:30pm we stopped at a place called Adelaide river where we set up camp for the night. Well, we sat in the car for almost an hour waiting for it to stop raining before we put the tent up. We managed to get it up eventually and then spent the evening sitting in the bar playing cards as Adelaide river had nothing to offer other than that! It was quite a scary place, full of loads of big fat toads jumping around. We went to bed pretty early, didn't sleep well at all and it didn't help with Ian waking up in the night and being convinced that trees were people! I had to tell him that there were no people outside the tent and then got myself pretty scared!!
We woke up sweating from the heat, jumped out and got a shower. Although there was no point as we just felt disgusting again by the time we got on the road.
We drove to Kakadu National Park and stopped at the ranger station just inside the park. We were hoping to head north and be able to go back on the road that was closed, but it's not due to open for about another 6 weeks! Several other roads in the park were closed and to be honest the area looked totally wiped out, all the trees were on their sides. As the roads were closed we weren't going to see the attractions that we wanted to so we went to a couple of lookouts....saw our first snake in OZ and then drove back towards Darwin. We camped at a place called Howard Springs for the night.
Again we woke up boiling hot. We drove back towards Darwin stopping in a village called 'Parap' to go to the local market. It was a pretty cool market, just the usual jewellery, fruit and veg, Asian foods, bags, paintings etc. We got back to Darwin and had a wonder around, I decided to get my hair cut! That set me back a few pennies, but I wasn't feeling too good about my hair, so thought I should get it done. Last night we met up with Emma and Lynsey, the girls who I spent Christmas and new year with. It was great to see them, we went for something to eat and had a few drinks. I can't believe that it's been 2 months since I've seen them, it's gone so fast. They are flying to india today, so we waved them off this morning and then we've had a look around Darwin. We haven't seen the sun in nearly 2 weeks, but it's now decided to shine the day we leave so it's been rather warm walkig around. Just going to relax this afternoon while we wait for our flight tonight to Bali. I'm a bit sad to be leaving Australia, have lots of great memories. Only place I wouldn't return to is Alice Springs...steer clear!! Couldn't tell you the best place as there's been so many of those. Looking forward to seeing some culture in Asia as there's not much of that here! Remember I have no phone now, so mail or leave me a message on here! I'll be back from Bali....xxxxxxxx

We left Cairns at 7:30 in the morning, according to the driver the place where you party,sleep and get out during the daytime. I'd tend to agree as Cairns doesn't have much to offer in the city itself. We left our big bags in storage and took our over night bags with us up to Cape Tribulation. Our driver filled us with so much information, I'm now definately going to be the best teacher of rainforests ever! We stopped in the mossman Gorge, the first section of tropical rainforest. This was far better rainforest than the Atherton Tablelands. It was raining which meant that the forest looked so lush and green and so dense, it was fantastic. We also saw mangroves, where the vegetation grows from the salt water. From the Gorge we went to a small animal sanctury where we saw Cassowary birds,snakes, crocodiles and I got to have a black parrot on my shoulder. Not ony that, we had the best bacon and egg roll ever! The guy also had a snake in pillow case, he'd just been out to some womans house to get a snake out...it was in her bedroom! I touched the snake, in the sealed pillowcase!!
From there we went up to the Daintree National park, went to some lookouts and learnt some more about rainforests...in between battling to stay awake on the bus! We went across the daintree river on a pull ferry and then to some more mangroves further north in the national park. From there we made our way to Cape Tribulation where we stayed for the night. In Cape Tribulation we went for a walk along the beach, we were told not to go in the water as there are stingers and crocodiles. Ian and I had to cross a creek though in order to get to the lookout, it was only shallow, but I was so scared of getting eaten by something! On the way we walked through more mangroves and there were thousands of red crabs wondering around amongst the trees. We got to Cape Tribulation beach safely and went up to the lookout so see across the beach. I think it would have been more spectacular if the weather was better. Cape Tribulation was small to say the least, consisting of about 5 hostels/hotels, one shop and a pharmacy. We spent the evening playing cards with a few other people in the hostel. Yesterday we got up and spent the morning around the pool, cloudbathing! We organised to go to the bat house, which we later found out was closed on Mondays, gutted! We got back on our tour bus at 2pm and headed back towards Cairns. On the way we stopped at an icecream shop where thay had random tropical flavours such as wattleseed. I stuck to the mango one. From there we made our way back to the Daintree river where we went on a Crocodile cruise. It was fun spotting crocs, we managed to see about 4, 2 larger ones and 2 small ones. The baby ones were so cute, didn't look like they'd hurt a fly! Spot the baby below:
We left there and went to a fruit shop on the way back, the highlight wasn't the fruit, but the baby roo's/wallabies! They were gorgeous, I got to feed the smallest baby. They were hanging up in peg bags in the fruit shop, really sweet. On the way back we had a whistle stop tour around Port Douglas, seems like a lovely place, nice harbour, although 4 mile beach wasn't the most amazing beach. We arrived back in Cairns, checked back into the hostel and then went out for our free meal. Pretty good, cheapest hostel we've stayed in in Australia and you get free dinner!
Ian's gone rafting today, but I didn't really fancy being thrown out of a dingy! With all the rain up here I think it would be far too scary and I'm not the biggest fan of going under water so I left him to it! I'm spending the day looking in the art gallery, going around the shops and lazing around, if the rain manages to stay away for long enough. So, Darwin tomorrow and then fly from Australia to Bali on Sunday, OZ is almost over!

After bus, ferry and another bus ride we arrived on Magnetic Island to our beach side backpackers resort. It was all very nice...apart from the rain. We chilled out and dodged the rain for a few days, managing to venture from the hostel once to go to the shop! We woke up to pouring rain, I got totally soaked through trying to get to the washing machine, I might as well have got in it! Anyway, we did the washing had free breakfast and when the rain stopped we took out a kayak onto the sea and had a little sail on the sea. There wasn't much to see though and I was pretty scared of getting eaten by a shark or stung by a ray so we didn't stay out too long. We sat by the pool and then in the eveing managed by chance to make friends with the barman who provided us with free drinks all night...bonus! It was very windy, lightening and lots of rain during the night. The following day we left the island and headed to Cairns on our last Greyhound journey. It rained most of the way to Cairns and we got drenched getting our stuff from the bus to the hostel. We went and had our free hostel meal and a drink and then headed to bed early as we were tired.
We got up early on Friday and boarded Gus the bus part of Uncle Brians tour to the Atherton Tableland. It was possibly the funniest day I've had in a long time, thanks to cousin Paul. Cousin Paul was the guy who drove Gus around and he was so so funny. He was just cracking jokes all day and telling us random stories. We went to different parts of the rainforest around Cairns,Babinda Boulders, Josephine falls where people got to rock slide. We then had a jouney to Mr lunch, on the way we had to play silly games, passing a polo on matchsticks from mouth to mouth and cousin Paul had a box of mindgames which kept us all amused. We got to Mr Lunch's place, where we had been hyped up abouth seeing his dog and the previous day it had got run over...cousin Paul put his foot in it! We had chicken and cous cous and lovely fresh baked bread. After lunch we left there and went to Millaa Millaa falls where the timotei advert was filmed and also Peter Andre's Mysterious Girl. The falls were very impressive. From there Cousin Paul put on the tunes and we sang all the way to lake Eacham. Due tot he fact that it was raining for most of the day I hadn't been swimming yet as it was too cold. I was the first to jump into the lake, and it was really nice...until we got out and had a look down into the water to see huge Crayfish which so easily could have eaten my feet!!( They're like lobsters) We did a bit of turtle spotting and had hot chocolate and then made our way to try and find some platypus. We saw a couple but they were a bit far away to get any photos. From the Platypus cousin Paul put on the tunes and we rocked all the way home...a long funny day! I had a great time.

Gooday and welcome back to my webpage! (Think the sun may have got to me!)
Well, we arrived in Airlie Beach after the over night bus journey, which wasn't actually too bad. My back is better, but I am sitting here and I feel like I'm floating, due to the fact that I've been on a boat for the past couple of days!
We spent a couple of days in Airlie beach just chilling and sitting by the lagoon down by the beach front in Airlie beach. First couple of days were hot, but fairly cloudy so weren't feeling it too much. We are camping at the moment again and each night it always managed to rain, so Ian was darting out of the tent at 4 in the morning to get our clothes off the line!...quite amuzing! We met up with Vicky who I lived with at uni for a couple of hours before her and Shane went on their sailing trip, was really nice to see Vicky, can't manage to ever meet up in England, but we managed it across the other side of the world. Been about 3 years since I saw her! But it was cool to share travelling stories and find out what the places are like that we're going to as Vicky has just come from South East Asia. So, we didn't do much while waiting for our trip out to the islands on Saturday.
We left with 40 other people on our boat out to the Whitsunday islands. We soon realised that the island cruising was going to turn into a big party over a few days! We sailing straight to South Molle Island, one of the biggest island, that was where we were sleeping for the 2 nights. I ended up in a room with Ian and 4 other 18 year old boys, joy! We headed to the pool for a while, Ian went in and I took some photos as the sun went down. We then went to dinner....queing with over 100 other people! Thankfully it was ladies first, although I'm not too sure what the boys thought to that! We played drinking games after dinner and had a few drinks. Weren't too late to bed, however, the boys decided to have a small party on our balcony...don't worry! Granny Austin and Grandad Boon soon moved them on so we managed to get to sleep!!
We got up the following day, breakfast at 7am. Very early, but very pleased to see bacon and eggs on the menu! Fantastic view of the sea while eating breakfast and we got to share it with the colourful locals pictured below!
It was so cool, and the birds were really cute and friendly...I did get slightly scared when the fluttered in my face! But, it was all good!
We were on the boat by 8am and sailing to White Haven beach where we spent a couple of hours on the beach and had a bit of a snorkel, but there wasn't much to see around the area. We got into our stinger suits which you have to wear if you're swimming in the Whitsundays and jumped off the boat and swam to the beach. When back on the boat we had a lovely lunch, nice cold meats and salads and then spent about 4 hours sailing back to the island. We were straight in the pool when we got back to South Molle Island. Got ready for dinner and straightened my hair for the first time in months. Lisa a girl on the boat travels with a hair dryer and straighteners. Only, I wasn't very impressed, as it was so hot it just went wavey again! Lisa and I went down to dinner and then Ian came down about 10 mins later limping. He's gone over on his foot, so now has a very swallen ankle. So, he sat at dinner with ice on his foot! Same again as previous night, drinking games and then a few drinks. Only, the 18 yr olds couldn't hack 2 nights in row, they were in bed by 9:30pm! I didn't drink much, but went to bed about 1am.
Today we were up early again, I'm totally shattered. We had breakfast with the birds again and then got on the boat. We sailed to some coral reef. Got back in our suits and jumped off the boat and went snorkelling, the fish were cool, but the coral was even more beautiful. We had fun swimming around, bought an underwater camera so got some shots of the fish and coral. Unfortunately I can't download from a disposable camera!! Once we'd finished watching fish we climbed aboard and had some lunch. Then we sailing back to Airlie Beach, arriving back about 2pm. It has been so hot over the past couple of days, I can't actually bear to sit in it anymore! Think I've well and truely topped up my tan and I have a sore hip, obviously missed that bit when applying my factor 30!...bet you don't believe me, but we have been using 30 suntan lotion. Getting off the boat they inform us of more partying tonight, the boat has an area reserved in a bar in Airlie beach tonight...great! I'm so tired!. We walked up the hill back to the place where we're camping, don't think I've ever perspired so much in my life!! I was so hot. Last time I remember sweating so much was in Italy when I was 9, I'm sure my family can vouch for that! So, we went straight in the pool, set up our tent, then walked down to the lagoon and in the pool again! Since then just laying in the shade as the sun is killing me off!! Meeting up later with the people we met on the boat, hopefully a tame night!
Tomorrow we're getting on the bus at 9am and going to Townsville, about 5 hours away. We'll then get a ferry to Magnetic island where we're staying for 2 nights before our final leg of the east coast up to Cairns. There's loads to do in Cairns and further north so we're spending a week up there. We fly to Darwin on the 21st for 4 days and then Australia will be over

Another early morning leaving Maroochydore for a 6hour journey north to Hervey bay. We arrived in the afternoon and got ourselves sorted for our trip to Fraser Island the following day. We didn't take big bags so had to sort everything out and take minimum with us, not too difficult, bikinis short and a couple of vests! We went out for a few drinks in the evening, but didn't go to bed too late as we were due up before 6am again!!
We got up at 6am checked out and put our bags in a big locker. We then had to watch a video about Fraser Island, how to drive and camp safely. It was quite amusing, 40 people sitting in a room trying not to fall asleep at 7am listening to how to deal with a Dingo (wild dog) and where and where not to camp and drive etc. When we'd watched that with had half hour safety talk and then got put in our groups. We were very lucky as were in a group of 8 rather than 10, so more room in our van! We got in our van, I drove first and we went down to pick up all our camping gear. We got tents, stoves, cool boxes, roll mats, utensils and everything we needed for the few days. It took a while to load everything into the truck, but soon we were on our way to do the food run. Just imagine 4 lots of 8-10 people who have known each other for 5 minutes going around the supermarket buying 3 days worth of food together! It was absolutely hilarious, like being on big brother or something. At this point I already knew that one guy in the group was going to do my head in! Anyway, I think our shopping was pretty successful as everyone was happy with what we bought and we managed to not spent too much either. It was also quite funny listening to the other groups coming out moaning about eachother already! Anyway, we did well and managed to fit everything into the van, we drove down to the ferry and I had to back the van onto the ferry and we were on our way to the very sandy Fraser Island. We arrived there about midday and drove the length of the island up to Indian head, we took a walk up to the look out, fantastic views, but then it started to rain. On the walk we saw some huge spiders...and I mean huge. This big black spider had the biggest body I'd ever seen, it was incredible. Wanted to go close to take a photo, but I was too scared. I was completely amazed, it honestly was so huge. From Indian head I had my first scary sand ride to Champagne pools. The sand was pretty deep, got a bit stuck and had to just go for it up thei hill. The van was all over the place, but we made it! It was raining so I decided along with lots of other girls not to go in the pools as we didn't want to freeze! From Champagne pools we made our way half way down the island and set up camp for the night. There was all four trucks which set off together, so it was quite fun setting up and getting bbq's going. Only downer was that it rained on and off all evening and everyone had pools of water in their tents, so don't think people had the best nights sleep. Everyone was up before 8am and starting to pack things away, but we could go anywhere until the tide had gone out enough to move. We went down to a camp to have breakfast and wash our dishes from the night before. From there we went to see the Melino Ship wreck, Eli creek which as like a clear fresh water river and then to Lake Wabby. We didnt realise how long the walk to the lake was going to take us, but 45mins later we arrived at a beautiful warm lake with massive dunes. On the way we saw lots of big spiders again, they were horrible, but apparently not poisonous so I wasn't too scared!! It was like being in the desert at the top as all you could see was sand. We swam in the lake and then had to walk back from there, we all got back into our trucks and went to look for somewhere to set up camp for the night. A decision between 40 people really isn't easy I tell you!! After going to a couple of places it was getting dark and we ended up at the place where I said we should camp in the first place!! We got set up and I prepared and cooked Spaghetti Bolognaise for our group, the rain stayed away. We all sat around had some fun, lots of people singing different songs from different countries, it was quite entertaining! I didn't sleep well at all allowing me to get up at sunrise and take some shots! I sat on the beach for the morning and then we left camp and drove to Lake Mckensie. It was so beautiful, gorgeous white sand and clear blue waters. We had to cut our stop short as it started to rain. The picture below is of me and Jo, a girl from my van. At the lake it was so funny, some people were getting some food out of their van. The guy turned around and a dingo came over and grabbed a packet of biscuits from them and ran off. We were watching it and it was so funny when the guy realised what had happened! So, we were back on the ferry and arrived back in civilization about 5pm. Fraser Island was fantastic, but it was so nice to get back and have a shower after 3 days...minging! Last night was an early night as I was so shattered and I woke up this morning not being able to hardly move. I didn't think banging my back getting out of the van a couple of times could be so painful the following day. So, at the moment I'm feeling a little fragile with a bruised back and I'm sure the over night bus journey tonight is going to do me no good whatsoever!!

Brisbane was a bit of a chill out time, staying in the Irish lads lovely apartment. Went in their pool, spa and spent lots of time in the city looking around the shops. Managed to buy a dress, for Bec's wedding...posted it straight home! Other than that just bought some books and a lonely planet for the next South East Asia part of the journey. We sat out on their balcony in the evening having dinner which I prepared for the boys and a few beers. Oh, we also went to the cinema one night to see Music and Lyrics, the one with Hugh Grant...I loved it!!
On the Friday morning we were up at 5:30am in order to catch our 7am bus from Brisbane to Maroochydore. We stayed there for one night in order to go to the Australia Zoo (the Steve Irwin Zoo) which I know Lizzy would have loved so much. We arrived in Maroochydore, had our bags taken to the hostel while we got on another bus to the zoo. It was already a long morning. We spent the day at the zoo which was really cool, had a great day. The whole place is totally Steve crazy, the even have people dressed up with a big Steve head on. His family are photographed everywhere too. We looked along the memorial path where there's loads of tribute to him, it's really quite sad. I feel for his family. well less of the morbid stuff, I got to feed an elephant, stroke kangaroo's, pat koalas and touch tortoises. It was a great day out, although it was boiling hot and we sweated buckets sitting watching the tiger presentation. We left the zoo late afternoon and made our way back to the hostel in Maroochydore. The town was full of very noisy, but very beautiful colourful birds, thousands of them. We spent the evening watching Love Actually on the tv...a nice change.

We got the bus from Byron Bay, was a little sad to leave as I really liked it there...want to go back and jump out of a plane again! Anyway, we arrived in Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast not long after we left as the clocks went back. So rubbush, it's summer, but dark by 7pm. We got to our camp site and as we were setting up the tent it started pouring with rain and we got very wet along with all our belongings! So, we ended up sitting in the tent for about 45mins waiting for it to stop pouring, all good fun! So, the Gold Coast wasn't looking too glam as we arrived on one of the few days in the Gold coast when it rains! Oh well, we got to burn cd's and do fun stuff like that!
The time in the Gold coast did get better, the sun started to shine. On Saturday we met back up with Dave again and went to Sea World together, we had a nice time there, watched sea lion and dolphin shows, went on a few rides and saw sharks and lots of other sea creatures. My favourite part though was seeing polar bears, they were most amazing to watch. I could have stood there all day watching them and I know that Dave could too. They were such big bears, i just wanted to give them a big cuddle! They were gorgeous. We cooked on the BBQ a few times as we have no pans, so unfortunately it has to be hot dogs and steaks!!
Sunday we spent by the pool, it was so hot though, I was sweating like a man! The pool at the camp site was really nice, in fact the camp site itself was rather nice....apart from the ground being too hard to put the pegs in! We went out down into Surfers Paradise in the evening, it was about half an hour walk from the campsite. We had some food, watched the street entertainers and had a drink in an Irish bar! Spoke to my Grandad as it was his birthday, got a bit sad with everyone getting together and I'm not there. Also had dreams about Becs wedding and meeting Ethan (Lizzy's little boy) last night, so think I must be missing home a little! Yesterday we went to Movie World, wasn't sure we were ever going to get there as 3 buses decided to drive straight past us. i was getting a little irritated having stood at the bus stop for 50 minutes waiting! When we finally got on the bus, we got to bus surf and were nearly thrown through the windscreen a few times....but all was good, we got there safe in the end! We met up with Dave at Movie world, my favourite part of the day was the Police Stunt show, it was awesome. the best ride was the Scooby doo ride, a rollercoaster in the dark, I loved it! We spent several hours, going on rides, getting wet on the log flume and watching a 4D Shrek show. We left Movie world and Dave took us down to Harbour town shopping Centre, a label discount shopping village....big mistake! I got quite stressed, saw so many nice things and at bargain prices too. Unfortunately travelling doesn't allow you to spend too much money on clothes! I bought myself a new bikini as I'll hopefully be wearing it lots over the next few weeks! We left the shopping village and got on the bus back to Main beach where we were staying...only to realise we weren't on the right bus. Not much luck with buses! So, we got off and went back the other way and it took ages to get back to the campsite. Got back, had our BBQ and then made our way down to the bus terminal. I fell asleep when waiting for the bus, then again when we got on the bus! We arrived in Brisbane about half ten, we walked to the hostel which almost killed me as we have so many bags. Then I went to sleep again!!
The irish lads who I spent Christmas and New Year with have just got an apartment here as they're planning to stay and work for a while, so we're just about to move to their place for a few nights. All's good, I'll be back with the Brisbane update in a few days! Sorry, no photos as I have run out of space for photos on my blog this month. I'll put some on in a few days! Miss you and love you all xxxx

Camping in Byron Bay has been cool, feel quite at home here with our little nylon home to go back to! The toilets are bug free and the camp site is right on the beach...couldn't get anymore perfect. Oh yes it can, the place is full of lovely dress shops and I finally got to fly!
We've spent our time looking around the shops and lazing on the beach, believe it or not, that's the first time I've had a bikini on and laid on the beach in over 2 months....what do travellers do hey!?
The highlight of my trip so far was getting up at 5:30am this morning and heading out of Byron Bay to the airstrip. We finally managed to even get to a skydive centre!

I got all prepared and the guy explained the process of jumping and the landing aswell. I'd forgotten it all by the time he'd said it! Anyway, off we went up in the small plane all jammed in like sardines in a tin! The journey to 14,000 feet took far longer than I expected, I was quite relaxed really. Far more so than i was on the ground..as my nerves show on the dvd. As soon as we reached 14,000 of we went, I was second out and Ian third. We both had camera people jumping with us! The feeling was incredible, freefalling through the sky for 70 seconds. It was truely amazing. It was pretty cold and then we hit an ice cold cloud which definitely was cold, I could barely breathe and I went a bit deaf as my ears weren't too impressed with the altitude. Whilst in the cloud Steve my man pulled the parachute and we flung into the air, then I really did feel like I was flying. Below the cloud it was far warmer, but it was raining. It was so awesome, just sitting comfortably, floating through the air...the best feeling ever!
My face looks crazy in the pictures, but it's going to when falling at 200kph! When at the bottom i just wanted to go back up and jump again! I like the way you can see the plane in the background! Moving on to Surfers Paradise tomorrow.

We spent a day in Port Macquarie and a day in Coffs Harbour, deciding to do flying visits so we can move further up the east coast and relax and have good times at the beach.
We got up pretty easly in Port Macquarie in order to make good use of our one day and to get around quicker we decided to hire some bikes, brand new,a bargain at only $5! So, we headed off on the bikes and my bottom was in agony after about 5 minutes, but it soon went numb and I got used to it!! We cycled down a small reserve called ' Koolongula' hoping to see bats, lizzards, and snakes, and we managed to see two lizzards, although we were going pretty quick on our wheels! We then headed down to the beach front and cycled along the coast, saw some big scary pelicans!...the new bikes weren't that great with rick solid sadles and new hand grips, my hands were red raw. After 2 hours I'd had enough of the bike, so we took them back! I decided I'd rather walk!
In the afternoon we went to the Koala Hospital in Port Macquarie, they were so cute. Was thinking about adopting one, but decided I need the money too much right now! We had a lovely time, learnt lots about the animals, the blind Koala was my favourite. We were there for feeding time. But because it's a hospital you're not allowed to hold them.
We left Port Macquarie that night and arrived in Coffs Harbour about 1am. It's such a mission getting into a dorm and making beds without making too much noise. We got up and made the most of our day in Coffs Harbour, a much bigger place than we were expecting. We walked the 3km and back down into the town and back, went up to a lookout whcih gave some wicked views out over the beaches and then sat by the harbour and had ice creams. It was a good day, but I think it was only worth staying a day there as there wasn't really very much to see.

As I said it was pouring with rain for a day in Sydney, but it managed to brighten up a bit although it was still quite overcast. When in Sydney we went to Olympic Park, went to the Sydney/Telstra Stadium where Jonny Wilkinson won us the world cup. The tour was pretty good, mainly focused on the 2000 Olympics, we got to stand on the Gold podium which was pretty cool. Went in the changing rooms and toured all around the grounds, it was cool. We originally wanted to see the cricket ground (well Ian did), but we went to completely the wrong place! The tour was fun anyway. From there we got the train to and a bus to the Famous Bondi Beach...it wasn't as great as I was expecting, think possibly because the weather was a little dull. But we sat on the beach for a while watching the surfers and had a look around the surf shops (not buying anything!!) Much of our eveing was spent planning our trip to the blue mountains and up the coast. The following day I had a lay in while Ian went to find the cricket ground, he went on a tour which he really enjoyed. In the afternoon we got the ferry to Manly from Sydney harbour and had an afternoon looking around there and sitting on the beach. Manly was lovely, but I'm feeling once you've seen one nice beach you've probably seen them all! It was great to sit and watch the surfers. The ferry on the way back into Sydney gave us some great views of the city, everything in view...it had to be at this point my camera ran out of battery! In the morning I'd had a surprise, randomly bumped into Steven one of the Irish lads that I spent Christmas with in the hostel so that was a nice surprise. Ian and I went out with them in the evening for a few drinks, had a good night...Ian was a bit more of a dirty stop out than me and went off to Bondi.
Thursday we got the train from Sydney to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, about a 2 hour train journey west of Sydney. We got there about lunch time. We camped in a hostel garden...was quite strange, but good as we could use all the facilities. We got a tour bus around the Jamison Valley and went for a walk. We walked into the valley and to Scenic world where we got the steepest railway in the world down into the valley and then the gondola back up. We got some great views although the blue mountains haze is across the photos which is annoying. We didn't have long to explore as we were a bit late arriving as we missed the train by about 2 minutes! The following day we got up and went up to the Valley, I wanted to go to the rainforest room as it sounded cool. We walked for an hour down the furber steps (hundreds of them) down into the valley, only to find that the rainforest room was like a meeting room! (Gutted!) So, Ian walked back up (crazy) and I got the steep railway back up to the top of the valley. We got to see some water falls and more amazing views of the valley though.When at the top we went on a cliff tops and valleys tour on an open top bus which was cool. Got to see some fabulous views, and also some great lightening! There was a storm in the valley which later came over to Katoomba where we were staying. Our tent didn't leak, but now I'm sad because it's not looking new anymore!! We did some more walking and the next day my calves were killing me! Got to see the 3 sisters from Echo point and the Katoomba falls. It was raining in the evening, so got pretty chilly...the people in the hostel put the fire on. We braved the cold and went for a walk and then back to our tent...didn't have the best nights sleep. We spent the whole of Saturday travelling, train, bus, bus, mini bus arriving at 10pm in Port Macquarie in the East coast.

Well, I'm sat here in Sydney and since we arrived back here it has been raining...not just raining, absolutely tipping it down! So, time for me to update my journey.
We left Adelaide on the Monday morning, Sue very kindly took us to the airport and waved us off. We got our flight to Alice Springs, while in the air I soon enough realised why central Australia is called the 'Red Centre'', it really is very red. We arrived in the desert a couple of hours later, it was even hotter than Adelaide and that was pretty warm! The whole time we were on our central trip the temperature didn't go below 40degrees during the day time. We had a little look around Alice Springs, not a great deal to see and also not really a very nice place. There were lots of aborriginals hanging around the streets and doing a lot of shouting at night, felt like I had to have my whits about me. The second day in Alice Ian and I went to the desert park, it was so hot, I drank so much water and didn't go to the toilet once all day! We saw lots of insects...especially flies which are very annoying. We wondered around, listened to a talk on how the aborriginals live in the bush, saw kangaroos, emus and different birds. My favourite bit was the nocturnal house, there was loads of lizzards, enchidna's, snakes, spiders...luckily they were all in glass cages. From the park we went back to the hostel and then Ang and Pete arrived. It was really great to see them, we spent the evening catching up and sharing our travel stories.
The following day we collected our wagon and started our journey. We headed for the Glen Helen Resort, on the way there we stopped at Simpsons Gap It was a pretty cool Gap! I kept thinking crocodiles were going to come out of the water behind where the picture was taken!
We left there and made our way to Ellery Creek, were going to go swimming...Ian and Pete got in but Ang and bottled it! The last stop before our final destination for the day was Orminston Gorge, we did want to go for a walk there but it was just far too hot to even get out of our lovely airconditioned car let alone walk a couple of km's! We got to Glen Helen resort and set up the tents, Ang and I spent a bit of time teasing the boys by sitting in the car pretending we weren't going to help put up the tents...we soon got out of the car and our tents were ready in no time! We had a swim in the pool, played scrabble and then went for our dinner. We went to the restaurant at the camp site, the food was wonderful, we tried kangaroo, emu, camel sausage and crocodile, all were very nice! The random thing about the restaurant though was the man serving us, he was a complete nut case!...really random and he'd set up us four poms...had a little joke going with the rest of the people in the restaurant. It was a random night! On our way up to our tents we saw the most amazing stars in the sky, it was so clear, the sky was almost full. It was then time to attempt going to brush my teeth, Ian came with me, to open the door you had to dodge the 3 lizzards on the door handle, once inside the place was crawling with ants, moths flying everywhere and spiders all around. It was horrible! Apart from that camping the first night was fun!
From Glen helen resort we had to go all the was back to Alice Springs and with our car we couldn't get through the unsealed roads to Kings Canyon. So after stocking up on petrol, water and food in Alice we drove to Kings Creek Station. Set up our tents, had a swim and then cooked burgers on the BBQ. For the rest of the eveing we played cards and murdered moths, flies and crickets! They kept flying into the candles...sometimes with a little help. This campsite I nicknamed the Moth place! Frome Kings Creek Station we left to go to Kings Canyon, we wanted to do a longer walk up to the top of the canyon but again the weather was too hot 42 in the shade. So we went for a short walk and got a few photos, I felt awful when we got back, I was just so hot. We drove another few hundred kms from there to Ayers Rock resort, the nicest of the 3 campsites. Here to be our home for 2 nights. The facilities were far better than the other places and the toilets were pretty much insect free. That wasn't to say the dining area wasn't though! We put up our tents, went in the pool and then drove to the national park for the sunset. The sunset wasn't great, but Ayers Rock is quite impressive. when we got back we had a BBQ, and this is when we realised that the dining area comes alive at night...the place was moving with cockroaches. We chose to stand up to eat our dinner! There was a mouse and a few rabbits around aswell as the usual moths, crickets and flies.
We got an early night as we were up at 5am to go and see the sunrise at Ayers Rock, can't say I was too impressed with the sunrise either. There was hundreds of crazy people standing around the huge rock waiting for the sun! We drove to the Olgas which are a set of rocks about 30 kms from Ayers Rock, we were there by 7:30am ready to start our walk. We walked about 10kms, arrived back at the car at 10am. The walk was great I really enjoyed it, got some superb views, the rocks were just unbelievable. It seemed the flies took a liking to my hat! We spent the rest of the day doing some washing and I did a lot of moaning as it was just too hot to do anything. We just sat there sweating for hours. It clouded over a little later so Ian and I went to the pool and chilled there for a while. Later we drove back to the Olgas to see the sunset, we didn't get a great sunset by the Olgas but as we drove away the colours in the sky were beautiful so we stopped to take a few photos on the way out of the national park. We stopped for petrol on the way back and managed to get some free sausage rolls and pies from the petrol station, it was great as we had nothing for dinner! Sausage roll and corn for dinner and then off to bed!
We got up fairly early, I packed the tent up all on my own in a matter of minutes had some breakfast and made our way to the massive 2 gate airport of Ayers Rock. The plane journey was pleasent

Whist in Melbourne we managed to see quite a lot over the short period of time. The neighbours tour was obviously the highlight although I didn't get to meet Harold which was quite disappointing! We went to Erinsborough High, Ramsey Street and then met Dr Darcey. It was so wierd being in the street, and people actually live in the houses. There's a security car that sits in the street 24hrs a day so the residents don't get any trouble, as it has been known! Would have been good to see the set, but we didn't. I enjoyed myself anyway and so did Ian! We spent the following day having a good look around Melbourne, went to the Telstra dome one of the stadiums and had a look around the harbour. From there we got on the tram and went to the immigration museum, quite a Geography teacher thing to do but it was really interesting to see Australian immigration history. It would be a great Geography school trip! Obviously my favourite bit was standing in the cabin of a 1900's ship pretending I was sailing to Australia over 70days!
From there we went up to the observation deck to see Melbourne from above, 253 metres high, only half the size of the CN tower that I went up in Toronto, but still pretty cool and plus everything else in Melbourne isn't as high. We walked to Federation Square, Treasury and Fitzroy Gardens where we saw Captain Cook's cottage and a model tudor village. The cottage was transported from England and rebuilt. By then we were shattered from walking all day, went back to the hostel and then walked miles again in the evening to go to the cinema in the evening. Went to see 'Persuit of Happiness', good film, but 'The Holiday' still wins! Came out of the cinema and it was raining, but managed to see nice views of Melbourne at night.
On Wednesday we left the hostel in the car and went down to the Olympic Park area, Ian insisted on breaking into the Rod Laver Arena to have a look at where the Australian Open was held. We looked at all the courts, went over to have a look at Olympic Pk and the Vodaphone Area and then onto the MCG. We were hoping to watch some cricket, but got there to find it wasn't starting until 2pm and we couldn't stick around that long otherwise we'd have ended up sleeping in the car again. Ian was gutted we couldn't get in, so we hung around until 1:30pm, were going to pay to go into the stadium for about 5 mins to take a photo! They actually let us in for free (imagine that happening in England!), was a massive stadium. Put a big smile on Ian's face anyway!
We left Melbourne and started our journey along the Great Ocean Road, took lots of photos along the way. The coastline was unreal. We reached the 12 Apostles about 6pm, little dark for some photos. There's actually only 7 Apostles, I like the view the other side where you can only see two stacks.
We continued, went to several more lookouts, but couldn'y find anywhere to get any food. It really amazes me, how you arrive in what you think is a town on the map and it's got 2 houses and no food! We finaly arrived to Port Fairy our bed for the night about 9:30pm. The beds were so small, like sleeping in a cabin on a boat!
The following day we went to Tower Hill reserve quite early in the morning, we saw some Emu's, Wallabies and a koala asleep up a tree. We also found an injured Kangaroo, I felt so sorry for it, it couldn't move and was bleeding so we had to report it. We left there and went back to Port Fairy and walked around Griffith Island, it took about an hour, saw another lighthouse! Got some beautiful views. Drove from there to Portland, made our cheese and pickle sandwiches (I'm eating well!) and then drove another couple of hours to Mt Gambier. A large town which had an incredibly blue lake created from volcanic minerals. It really was so blue. From there we made our way to Robe, our bed for the night. Definitely the nicest hostel so far. The place was beautiful, big old house with fantrastic big rooms. It was so nicely done out, wished we could have stayed longer. We had BBQ and then played bingo!!
The following morning we had a wonder around Robe and then got on our way to Adelaide. We stopped at a couple of points along the 128kms of Coorong National Park. The expanse was unbelievable, just miles and miles of sand and dunes. From there we had a quick stop in Murrey Bridge for an icecream and then arrived in Adelaide. We said goodbye to the car and then Sue picked us up. We're staying with Gary and Sue, some friends of Ian's parents. They came to England last year, so it's nice to see them again and it's great to be staying in a house!
Yesterday I met up with Jess who I travelled with in South America. It was so great to see her! We met at the cricket Oval so Ian could get his fix and then we had a look around the city. Walked over the River Torrent and to the markets and the botanical gardens, saw the largest greenhouse in the Southern Hemisphere. We saw a random bird with yellow eyes! We left the gardens and wondered around the city, Ian and I bought a tent, cheaper form of accommodation! Then went to the bar where Jess works of a drink, it was really nice. Was kind of strange saying bye to Jess as I feel like I may never see her again, but we've become good friends. So hopefully we will see eachother again. Gary and Sue picked us up and they took us for a meal. Ian had kangaroo, was quite nice. Today Gary and Sue took us out after Gary's delicious beakfast. We went to Glenelg and Brighton, the beach areas of Adelaide. There's a lovely marina and some great houses down there....I want one! It's absolutely boiling here, 38 degrees. Hottest day of their summer so far! I'm glad the house is airconditioned!
Tomorrow we're flying up to Alice Springs, meeting Ang and Pete on Tuesday and travelling with them to Uluru (Ayers rock), camping along the way....could be interesting!