Hong Kong

It was pitch black outside still as we were heading to land, there were lots of little boats out on the sea with their lights on, it looked really pretty. We went to go into the arrivals area and I suddenly got pulled over and had a probe put in my ear without a word said, the lady gave me a nod so I took it as I was OK to carry on through! Getting through customs was a breeze, they don't really care what you bring into the country like others do! So we sailed through and then found somewhere to sit to get my bearings. I had worked out how to get to our hotel whilst in Sydney, but I figured it'd be easier to do it all in daylight, and there was free WiFi in the airport so we hung around for a couple of hours. Plus, we wouldn't be able to get into our room until lunch time anyway so the more time we wasted, the better. About 7am we went out to find the bus we needed, we weren't sure whether you paid on board or not and didn't want to cause a problem so we thought we'd go and ask. We had a confusing time trying to find the office but found it eventually and were told we paid on the bus so that was fine. The bus came, and he said they don't give change and we only had a $50 note, so we lost $8 but that only comes to around 75p so we weren't too bothered! We asked to go to central, where we'd then need to catch another bus. It took about an hour to get on Hong Kong Island and head towards the centre. We were both watching like Hawkes for central station, or signs for it, and also a couple of landmarks I'd noted down. People were leaving the bus in hoards at various stops, but none of them said central. We went past Bank Of China Tower which I knew was nearby, so we were expecting it to be the next stop or something. Still no sign of central. I was getting worried we'd missed our stop by this point and eventually I saw a sign for Wan Chai which I knew was East of the city centre. I was hoping I'd confused my orientation but I hadn't, and we eventually reached the end of the line. So we were left feeling bewildered as to where on earth central station was meant to be, and after being awake nearly 30 hours, and travelling for 10, we were lost in Hong Kong, with all our luggage. I didn't even know where to start. We had no maps or a guide book, no idea how far out we were or where we needed to go. Nightmare. We just decided to walk back up the road the bus drove down and hope to get to somewhere I knew. We walked for ages, and our bags were so heavy, we stopped to look at the bus route at one of the bus stops, and we'd barely made a mark on the map in getting back to central. We carried on anyway, and found a taxi bay so waited there for a bit. No taxis came at all so we had to move on again. Checked another bus stop route map along the way and had only reached East Wan Chai which was still ages to walk to get to central, especially with all our stuff. So we found another taxi bay, but still no taxis! Eventually we found a bay where loads were coming in, so we hopped in and just hoped we weren't going to be taken for a ride. It was difficult communicating with the taxi driver, we weren't getting anywhere so Phil got put on a walkie talkie with someone, no idea whether they understood us or what. I just got out the hotel confirmation and luckily it had the road name in Chinese characters, so we got going. We weren't actually that far from the hotel at all, but I only had directions from central so we'd have never found the hotel if we tried! The taxi was very cheap luckily, and in we went to check in. It was a nice hotel. We couldn't get into our room until 1pm so we had to leave out luggage in storage, and kill 3 hours. Luckily our hotel is situated right across the road from the Hong Kong zoological and botanical gardens, so we just went there. It was actually amazing and had all sorts of birds, lots of monkeys; there was even a sloth, never seen one before! Fascinating. It the gardens were lovely too. It took us an hour or so to get round all the animals, and then we found a nice area to just sit down for a bit. We were shattered. It was a beautiful sunny day, and a perfect temperature. I wasn't expecting to get much sun so this was nice, especially after having bad weather in Sydney! We decided to lie on the grass, but we got told off by security as you are not allowed on it, no signs though! Maybe it's a general thing not to go on grass in public gardens and stuff. So we sat back on a bench and rested for a bit. We decided to go back to the hotel around 12ish and ask if there was a supermarket nearby, as we were getting hungry. There was one just next door which was handy, so we used some more time in there. Everything is so cheap. And strangely, the supermarket sold a range of Waitrose food and Superdrug toiletries! I double took when I saw it, home from home I suppose! We got our food and then just sat in the lobby for the last half an hour. We got into our room which was really nice, definitely felt like we were on holiday now! We had a nice little view over the city. We sorted our stuff out and had some lunch. We just wanted to recuperate for the rest of the day really, Phil conked out after a little while, and after I shower I did too. I didn't wake up until 7pm, I slept for 5 hours, way longer than I'd planned to! It didn't really matter though. We woke up, had a bite to eat for tea, and pretty much went back to bed again by about 9ish, and we both slept through until 7am. So much sleep, but very much needed.

Botanic gardens opposite our hotel

The next morning we just popped to the shop again to get more supplies as we had a fridge in our room so could get some chilled stuff. Just up the road the other direction was Hong Kong Park, so we had a wander round there. It was another lovely park, with a viewing tower, Thai chi garden which was dedicated to all the medics who died treating people during the SARS endemic, huge aviary, a lake home to terrapins and fish, even a wedding registry, and many other things. It really was very nice. We went back to our room for a bit to eat, and then wed decided to head into the city to explore. It wasn't too long a walk to the centre. We walked up and down a couple of the main roads, surrounded by the high rise buildings, it was all very up market with huge designer shopping centres and massive banks and businesses. We kept walking one direction and saw signs for Man Mo Temple which was something I had wanted to see, we headed towards that. It was a beautiful building, and inside was incredible. So much amazing detail and colour, and so peaceful. There was a very intense smell of incense from all the sticks people put in front of the Gods. That was the first taste we really had of Chinese culture and it was great. We headed back towards the centre and got distracted by some hustling bustling side streets full of people, colour and market stalls. This was what I had wanted to see in Hong Kong, not so much the big, posh, Westernised side of it. It was smelly and grimy, but amazing and I loved it. There were some really nice stalls and the shopping got underway! We walked through these streets for a while, saw lots of nice and nasty things, and then delved back onto the main streets to get to HSBC building and Bank of China Tower. We found HSBC, 'Occupy China' had taken over the bottom floor pretty much. We went for a little wander, it was such a posh building, Phil used a computer to check his balance and then we went again! Bank of China was just next door, we didn't go in but it was equally as posh, I took lots of photos, it's a building I'm a bit obsessed with. We found our way back up hill to our hotel, it's a tiring walk back! We had planned to go out in Wan Chai that evening as it was 'ladies night' in various bars, so drinks were either very cheap or free! We got a couple of beers to drink before we went out and then got ready to go. We went out around 10.30pm, determined not to mess up as badly as we did in Vegas this time! It was about a 20 minute walk in and we found the bar we'd planned to go to quite easily. It was a small little place but really cool. It wasn't too busy when we got there but it soon filled up, I had free champagne all night! I bought Phil his first drink but it was $55, so I told him to keep the bottle and I went up to the bar for top ups regularly so I could put champagne in his bottle too! We stayed there a while, had a dance and felt pretty drunk so we left and looked for a second bar, but we couldn't find it so we just thought we'd call it a night before anything went wrong! We had both forgotten until the next morning that we went to a 7-11 shop on the way home and bough another beer! We walked back and drank it as you can drink on the streets in Hong Kong but that must have tipped us both over the edge and we can remember walking home until we got back to the hotel. No idea what time we got in but we both made it in one piece, that's the main thing. 

The aviary in Hong Kong Park

Nice little pond in Hong Kong Park

Streets of Hong Kong

As expected, we both woke the next day feeling awful! Champagne always gives the worst hangovers. So that day was a bit of a write-off! We went across to the botanical gardens to get some internet (it is free there) to try and figure out what to do for the day. We decided to go to Tsim Sha Tsui on the Star Ferry in the evening to catch the Hong Kong skyline at night. So basically we went back to the room and slept for the day until about 4pm. The cleaner woke me up, which was a good thing otherwise we probably would've stayed in all day! So we got ourselves sorted and headed inot the city again, we went down some of the roads we did the previous day again to do a bit more shopping, and then found our way to the ferry terminal. We still felt rough and it was a bit choppy on the water but it was cool only takes 10 minutes to cross. We headed straight up to the viewing platform on the waterfront to get some photos. The skyline is out of this world, you had to stand and stare and it for ages to absorb it all, it really is impressive, one of the greatest night time landscapes in the world, supposedly. After we'd had enough of that we wandered along 'Avenue of the Stars' which is like a little Hollywood Boulevard type of thing for famous Chinese actors. We didn't really know any but it was cool and there was a statue of Bruce Lee which was good. After that we wandered back towards the way we came from, and then diverted off up the main road through Tsim Sha Tsui. We reached 'Chungking Mansions' which I'd heard and read a lot about. As soon as you start walking the streets as you get off the ferry you have people trying to sell you dodgy watches or fake designer handbags, and it steps up a large gear as soon as you enter Chungking Mansions, it's a little intimidating but I was fine being with Phil. There were signs for fake Chinese visas and all sorts of illegal things, people offering accommodation, food, it was quite funny really but we didn't spend too long in there, we definitely didn't fancy using the lifts to reach the higher floors! We took a walk down some side streets, found some good shops, soaked up the busy atmosphere, and then made our way back to the ferry. Once we crossed we stopped for a McDonalds for some energy to make it back up the hill to the hotel, and we crashed.    

Bank of China Tower

Hong Kong night time skyline

          

SYDNEY

It was a pretty grey day, but Grand Pacific drive was a nice one, with lots of tight bends and much like some of the coastal drives we did in California. We stopped at one point after driving across Sea Cliff bridge which goes right over the sea, I wanted to get a picture but the only place I could park was round the corner and without walking ages I couldn't even see the bridge. We ended up down on a little beach area which had some interesting rock formations. There were warnings not to go into the sea as it is too dangerous due to currents and stingers. There were blue bottle jellyfish all washed up on the rocks, they looked so strange, like little water balloons. The council had provided an open swimming pool for 'safe swimming', which doesn't get supervised, or maintained, and it looked to be the most dangerous way to swim to me! It was like an old abandoned bathing area from some creepy horror film or something, the water was as murky as a swamp, you couldn't see how deep it was, and you could see by the rocks surrounding it that the tide came in over the top of the thing so most of that water was probably sea water anyway, that had gone stagnant, and God knows how many creatures were living in it from getting washed up every day! We went back to the car and moved on. We needed to return the car with an empty tank, and luckily the car had a screen which told me how many kilometers we had left. The way we were doing the last stretch to Sydney was via the Royal National Park which was lovely to drive through, but by the time we reached it we had hit the red and only had 80km left. We went ahead and risked it, and watched the ticker go down the further we went, and with no petrol stations across the park it got pretty hairy, especially when we got stuck behind a huge truck going uphill. But luckily we just made it through with 30km to spare, we stopped at a petrol station as soon as we reached civilisation and put $5 just to push us over the finish line. That only pushed our kms upto 35, but I was convinced we should make it as we were only 10 minutes away from the airport where we were dropping the car off at this point. We got down to about 20km, critical stages of petrol, the car is beeping at us, and then we miss our turning into the rental drop off area, as it was not sign posted which is always useful! We ended up stuck on a by way round to domestic departues where we were funneled into the car park for departures, which is one where you collect the ticket as you go in, petrol is down to 13km, we had to pay $7.50 just to get back out the car park, it was very stressful and frustrating! We went back up the same road, rental drop off was clearly sign posted from that direction! Found it, and dropped the car off with 9km to spare, phew. Next we needed to figure out a way to get to Neutral Bay on the North side of Sydney, from the airport. We ended up taking the airport express train to North Sydney, with was on the metro system and only took about 20 minutes, but cost just over $30 for us both for a single way ride. We stopped in central and needed to swap lines, we had to go down a big flight of stairs, across, and back up a load of stairs to the next platform, with all our stuff. Luckily a guy helped us up the stairs to the platform as our train was there and it was shattering lugging our stuff. Australia in general has not been very friendly for people with wheels, weather you are disabled, have a buggy or luggage, there wasn't any other option than to take stairs. As we went under the subway to the next platform we witnessed loads of armed police chasing after a lady, police dogs and all, that was exciting. I also noticed police just stop searching people as they came through the turnstiles, saw a guy who had a knife in his bag. Anyway we got to North Sydney, via the Harbour Bridge! The weather on the way to Sydney had said that they had seen the coldest start to summer ever, with rain and temeperatures not topping the early twenties. It was drizzling when we stepped outside. Typical! Thankfully we got picked up by Phil's step Sister, Joanna, went and collected Joanna's daughter, Orla, from pre school, grabbed something for dinner, and made it back to the house. So nice to know, once again, that we were setting up camp for a while, and just nice to be in a home environment. Joanna needed to go out, so we sat with Orla for the evening, walked their little dogs, Finny and Josie, had a delicious dinner and just relaxed and caught up with some internet time. Bliss.

Washed up blue bottle jellyfish

 We were up at a reasonable time the next morning, I ended up getting hooked sorting my bags out which took a lot of time but I felt much more organised afterwards! We slowly got ourselves ready for the day, walked the dogs had a bite to eat for lunch and set off to walk towards the city around mid day. We started wandering in the direction we though Harbour Bridge might be, got so far and realised we really didn't know where we were going and saw that it wasn't as easy as we had first thought to find our way around. So we had to go back to the house again, got online and got some walking directions! And we set off for the second time. We made it to Harbour Bridge, and walked across. We were lucky to catch a nice day for the first part and got some lovely pictures of the harbour, opera house and skyline from the bridge. I just loved the image we had in front of us as we walked along and couldn't stop taking photos. It's a beautiful city. We made it to the other side and wandered down through an area called The Rocks, which has lot of history and is full of character with old buildings, narrow alley ways and cobbled paths. We had a little look around a museum, and then headed down to Circular Quay through a little market that was on. Walking around Circular Quay was nice, we went to the end of one of the wharves and sat there for a bit, looking back on the bridge, and then went to to carry on round towards Sydney Opera House. There were various street performers, Aboriginie guys, musicians and perfomers. We got stuck watching one guy who liked to be known as 'Psycho Sam'. He did all this cheesy build up to a juggling act up a ladder we wanted to perform, he was very cringe-worthy to watch and things kept going wrong for him, it felt like everyone who had crowded round felt awkward being there, so we managed to slope away! We got to the opera house which was nice and we went up the steps. It's a really cool building and didn't look like it does from other angles when you're up close. I didn't realise they were separate buildings. After that we went into the botanical gardens, and collapsed for a while. We'd done a lot of walking and we had to go all the way back after that, so we had a little rest in the sun. We didn't go far into the gardens so we didn't see a lot of it but we had seen enough botanical gardens so we didn't feel like we missed out on too much! We sat for nearly an hour, and then began the long, uphill walk back. We walked through a little downstairs bar area along Circular Quay which was nice, it was a Friday night and it was buzzing, we felt very under dressed walking through though as it was Christmas party time and everybody was very dressed up! We made it back to the house around 6pm. Joanna's her husband, Brian, were out again for the evening, so we sat for Orla, again. They bought us a Thai takeaway, which is the first time I've every tried Thai, and it was the most delicious thing! I was blown away, think that'll be my choice of takeaway now once we're home! I hit the sack pretty early, the walking completely took it out of me that day.

The lovely Sydney harbour

 On the Saturday we were up again at a reasonable time, but didn't have too much planned for the day. There was an old Quarantine station in the Sydney Harbour National Park which was on the North side of Sydney but we figured it'd be a lot of effort to get there, and probably expensive to get in. Instead we just headed down to Luna Park, which sits below the bridge right on the harbour. It's a funny little fairground / theme park, with the strangest clown based theme, surprised kids aren't too scared to go there! It was fun walking through anyway, and on the way back up to the house we found a nice little spot to go down to one evening to get a nice shot of the skyline and harbour at night. I had the left overs of my takeaway for lunch which was delicious! Joanna had won a free fun doggy photo shoot for that afternoon, so we thought it'd be fun to go with them and watch that. We went to a strange park which doubled up as a graveyard, there were lots of other dogs around. One lady had her pretty large Staffie come up and say hello to Finny and Josie, but she said 'he's not mine, I just thought I'd let him say hello to test his temperament, I'm not sure what he's like yet' I can't believe she said that! Joanna's two were about a quarter of the size of him! All was fine anyway, the photographer turned up and with a bit of work to get Orla and the dogs to all cooperate,  I'm sure he managed to get some nice photos! We played in the park with Orla after that and then headed back to the house. We popped to the supermarket to get some food in for everyone, and then chilled out for a bit. Joanna and Brian were out again that evening too, so she said we could go and get a film out for us, we walked the dogs up with us and rented out Finding Nemo! Orla was upset about Joanna and Brian going out that evening and was very grizzly. We stuck the film on and got part the way through but Orla found it too scary and it was upsetting her further, so we put on some Miffy and Friends instead! She was asking for her Mum and Dad, Phil and I weren't sure how this was going to go as neither of us are good with crying children, but it was time for her to go to bed and through her crying, she was very cooperative bless her, and she sobbed herself off to sleep. We finished watching Finding Nemo as we'd been craving it since snorkelling! And I got a fairly early night again.

Me and Sydney Harbour Bridge

 When I woke up it was quite bright in our room, so I got up and looked out the window, and to my surprise it was a clear blue sky and the sun was blaring down. When I'd checked the weather it had said the rest of our days in Sydney would be rainy and storms. So I got Phil up and we rushed off to Bondi Beach to try and make the most of the sun. It was about a half an hour walk to Circular Quay again, and then a 40 minute bus ride to Bondi. Luckily Joanna had given us a bus ticket which we could use to make 4 journeies each on, which meant we weren't going to need to spend anymore money on public transport whilst we were there. The bus through a place called Bondi Junction which looked really nice, great for shopping. We got there about 11.30am and enjoyed a good half an hour of pure sunshine, it hit 31 degrees. Bondi Beach is lovely, although a lot of people say there are nicer beaches around, you've got to go to Bondi really if you are in Sydney, I liked it! We could see the storm clouds looming and the blue sky was disappeairing off over the ocean, it was getting quite cool so we grabbed a bite to eat and then caught a bus back, we managed to spend a good hour there so I was happy with that! As soon as we got on the bus it absolutely hammered down, lightening and thunder accompanying it. Luckily the bus took a little longer on the way back due to traffic, probably because everyone wanted to leave Bondi at that moment! We got back to Circular Quay and although it was still raining, the lightening had stopped thankfully as we had to walk back up over Harbour Bridge to get home! The temperature on the way back was 20 degrees, it had dropped quite rapidly! Still it was fairly humid and we got hot walking up the steep hill back to Neutral Bay. We got back and watched TV for a bit, then we headed out to a friend of Joanna and Brians, as we had all been invited over for a Christmas dinner! He had a very nice flat and there was 11 of us there in total. As we sat down to dinner, Joanna leaned over to give someone their plate, and the plate snapped in half onto my head! Phil and I both got it down our clothes too. It hurt but it was quite funny really and it was no one's fault! The Christmas dinner was delicious anyway, we really really enjoyed that! We had lots of wine throughout the evening, and lots of chocolate after dinner. We left around 8pm to get Orla home for bed, but we drove via Kings Cross on the way home as we'd wanted to go there at some point to see it as we'd heard lots about it, but it was better to go at night as it was known as the red light district of Sydney! It had lots of neon lights and seedy shops and clubs but it wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be, mind you we only drove through! When we got back Joanna let us ring home which was again, so nice! Mum wasn't in again! But I spoke to Chris, Melissa, my Nan and even Layla down the phone! So I'd managed to speak to everyone in the house except Mum which was typical as she'd been most desperate to speak to me on the phone! Oh well, not long until we are home at this point anyway! And we'd had plenty of ineternet to keep in touch over the last few days. I spent ages on the phone, but after that Phil and I walked down to the spot we found when we went to Luna Park, to catch the skyline at night. It was still drizzling at this point so the photos didn't come out too well, but it was still amazing! We headed back and for the final time in Australia, we went to sleep!

Bondi Beach!

Sydney at night

 I was awake early again the next morning, and I began the mass sorting and organising our suitcases needed! It took me until around lunchtime just to sort everything out, and get Phil's suitcase completely packed. My suitcase was 3kg over the weight limit last time we flew so we had to arrange things to spread the weight out. It was a grey day again but we had some lunch and then decided to use our last 2 bus journies on going into the actual city centre to have a wander around, we'd only really covered the edges of the city. We got in around 2pm, first of all we went to the Queen Victoria Building, which is a beautiful old shopping mall. It was decorated for Christmas amazingly! That was really nice and then we just walked up George Street, then back down Pitt Street which are like the two main streets. We had a little wander through Westfield shopping centre too which was also very nice, and then headed back to the bus stop. We'd spent a couple of hours there but we needed to get back so I could start backing my suitcase! We weren't sure where to pick the bus back up from because where we were dropped off was a one way road, we were walking around for a while trying to find it, then we saw one that was going our direction so decided to follow it! We saw where it pulled over we were stuck waiting to cross the road for so long we just missed it! It was only 10 minutes until the next one anyway so it wasn't too bad. We got back around 4.30pm and after uploading the last lot of photos for Australia, I began to pack my suitcase. I squeezed everything in fairly comfortably. We'd filled our rucksacks with all the heavy goods, apart from liquids obviously, as we'd not had our hand luggage weighed throughout the whole trip! We were pretty much done and ready to go by about 6pm. We didn't need to leave until 7.30pm, so we relaxed for a bit and had some dinner. When Brian got home he took us to the airport. We nearly missed the same turning that Phil and I did when we tried to drop off the car, it's no wonder as there is only one lane on the motorway for international flights, and two off to domestics! Doesn't seem sensible. Anyway we made it, said our goodbyes, and checked in. I only managed to shave off 1kg my suitcase, really not sure what is weighing that down now! But Phil's was 2kg under the limit now so we know we have some space there to bring stuff back from Hong Kong. We only had an hour to wait by the time we got through, Phil got pulled aside as usual to get swabbed and everything! And we boarded the plane for the penultimate time! We got some good seats, just two of us in a row, window and aisle, perfect! We were sat for a while before we started to move, just as we got to the runway and the captain announced there was a problem with one of the emergency door so we had to go back and have the engineers look at it. It was fixed eventually and we took off just under hour late, one minute before the 11pm curfew at Sydney airport! I managed to watch most part of Hangover II before we even took off, I started to watch another film, Life In A Day, then we got our meal, it wasn't as tasty as the other meals we'd had, just boiled vegetables and a little bit of chicken in gravy! But glad we didn't stuff ourselves before the flight this time so we felt sick eating it! I completely conked out for a good 3 hours, not been able to sleep like that on any of the transport we've been on since we left! I needed that, Sydney completely took it out of me! When I woke there was only 2 and a half hours of the flight left, and Phil was snoozing. Phil soon woke and said he felt really sick, which was strange as he doesn't get motion sickness or anything, I let him have the aisle seat so he could access the toilets easier! Breakfast came around, that wasn't overly nice either but nice to get some fruit and things. Phil managed to eat bits and began to feel better, probably needed a bit of a sugar boost or something, his diet has been dreadful through this trip! With only an hour left of the flight, I watched a couple of episodes of The Office and then we landed. Despite being late taking off, we landed bang on time at 5am.

Queen Victoria Building

Australia was amazing, and the only place I've left not feeling like I wanted to leave and move on to the next place, despite looking forward to Hong Kong. We really did have a great time, in fact te only negative thing we have to say about Asutralia is their traffic light system! They are a real pain, as a pedestrian, it takes a very long time to get somewhere if you have to cross several roads, or even just the one road it can take you 10 minutes to just to get to your local shop or something. Traffic gets total priority, you are better off driving around the cities than walking, even if it is a short distance. It got very frustrating at times, especially if you want to get somewhere on time, or catch a bus or something, no wonder people jay walk all the time! Anyway, Australia went quickest of them all, which was no surprise really. Can't believe we were there a whole month..

So, we have reached the home straight!

Melbourne and Canberra

The next morning I woke up feeling pretty groggy with a cold. We sorted out the parking and managed fix a space in the back garden so that was good. We had plans to go into the city and see various things, but we ended up lounging around most of the morning. We had to drive through the citylink toll tunnel on our way in so tried to sort that out, it's all done online now so I put all my details in and confirmed payment but got no email response. I left it at that for the time being. We took a little stroll into Richmond which was where we stayed, went to the supermarket and we were done really. We were both so tired and just took the day to rest up really. It was nice to be able to do that without being stuck in a hostel room. 

The next day I felt pretty ill but I dosed up and we had more motivation to go into the city. We still had a slow morning, and we took the dog out, as the guy we stayed with was at work. Around midday we walked down to the Melbourne Cricket Ground and then carried on into the city. We went over a bridge which had nice views of the skyline, it was a clear sunny day but there was a wind that was a bit chilly. We walked along the river for a bit and then got to Federation Square where various things go on, but a lot of things were closed as it was Sunday. There were Christmas trees everywhere and a childrens school choir on a stage singing Christmas songs, it was a bit surreal while it was a clear sky and blazing sun! We had a little wander, we walked up to Chinatown and past the Greek Precinct. Through 'Christmas Square' and up Swanston Street there were horse drawn carriages everywhere which was nice. We made it to Bourke Street and had a sit down for a while, it was taking it out of me with all the walking, it was fun to watch the world go by for a bit! We carried on up and and went through a few shops. Stopped for a McDonalds and then headed back to Federation Square to sit on the deck chairs they had put out. We sumbathed for a bit, there were lots of people about, some girls selling cupcakes which looked delicious, but I'd not long eaten, and then representatives of a smoothie company came round and were giving out free smoothies. We loved the city, there was a buzz about the place. We wandered back to the house by dinner time, and relaxed for the evening. 

Nice horse drawn carriages

Bit of a skyline and river

 In the morning we had plans once again, but ended up managing to lounge around all morning and took the dog out again. We wanted to go to St Kilda which was the beach out of town, and also get to the Queen Victoria market which closes by 2pm. We walked into the city again, on the way my nose just started pouring with blood. I had a few tissues on me but I looked like I had been punched in the nose the blood was just pouring down my arms so we had to get to a toilet quickly. We ended up spending a lot of time waiting for my nose to stop bleeding, which wasted more time! Eventually it stopped and we jumped on the free tram that did a loop round the city. It was 1.30pm at this point and by the time we reached the stop for the market it was way past 2pm, so we ended up missing it but never mind! The tram was good as it took you past lots of attractions and nice area of the city. It got pretty crowded though and I just felt so groggy so it wasn't the most pleasant experience for me. We did the full loop and went back to Federation Square again, and went into the AMCI exhibition of space and the moving image. That was a really impressive museum with lots of old techology, computer games, tv's, how animation comes together and everything. lots of hands on things and interesting information ,and all for free. We very much enjoyed looking round that, and then we headed back again. LA Galaxy were playing Melbourne Victory in football and there was mass hysteria about David Beckham being in Melbourne, so we thought we'd watch the game on the TV for the evening. I feel like I need to go to Melbourne again as we didn't do as much as I'd wanted to and spent most the time sleeping!

Railway station

We were up pretty early to get on our way to Canberra. We sorted all our stuff out, needed to make arrangements with Phil's Step Sister for Sydney again, get some Google maps and then go. Phil walked Tyson the dog while I jumped in a shower, and then I suddenly remembered about the toll road issue, I still had recieved no email confirmation. We'd have gone past the 3 days they give you to pay up after driving through, so we ran up. Phil spoke to a very grumpy lady who made us feel like idiots for not doing it right, she claimed it probably didn't go through if I got no email and should've rung straight away. Phil got grumpy back at her, and after we started to give our details to pay over the phone she suddenly seemed to know it all and ended up not even asking my name or anything, so we knew they had a record of an attempt to pay. Again, must have been a technical fault at their end, so she let us off the fine we would have got and that was sorted. We packed the car up for the last time, topped up on petrol and got on our way. It was a very long journey to Canberra, almost 8 hours. We got there about 7pm and checked into our last hostel, for the last night! It was a very lifeless place, no one was particularly friendly and they were all studenty types or adults. Which we didn't mind at all! We had our dinner and then went for a wonder round the city center as it was getting dark. Canberra is pretty boring but is nice enough, we got ourselves an ice lolly and walked down the 'City Walk' bit even though it was dead. We were approached by an old, pretty rotund guy, who was just standing in the middle of the path, and he asked us to help him out becuase he didn't get his pension for a while and was hungry. He was well dressed, and looked well fed. It was a bit creepy him hanging around there where no one was walking, and he looked a bit startled. Luckily we just said sorry and walked on with no problems. We went back to the hostel and pretty much hit the sack. There was a guy in our room who was a bit grumpy and had a go at a couple of people coming into the room who were talking. It was quite funny how uptight people were about the 'quiet time' rules in that hostel, in comparison to very other one we'd been in, but it was good. 

The same guy proceeded to whip the curtains open at the crack of dawn which probably woke everybody in the dorm because it was so bright, so a bit of a hypocrite there. Either way we didn't care and looked forward to checking out! We got up for breakfast, found the fridges apart from one had broken down in the night. All the hostel had done was stick signs up saying they were broken but left everybodies food in there to get warm. Lots of people weren't happy about it but the hostel didn't seem bothered. I moved our stuff to the working fridge, and then we witnessed a girl who either had milk that'd gone off, or just didn't have any, steal someone elses milk to make her breakfast with. Probably what that person did when they took my juice from the fridge in Wellington. I thought that was disgusting and wanted to go up and say it was mine to scare her, but I couldn't be bothered and again, just looked forward to checking out and not having to deal with that sort of thing again! We did so, and off we went to Sydney, via the Grand Pacific Drive.

Touching down in South Australia, and the very long road to Melbourne.

I was planning on having a shower before we left but I overslept, Phil woke me up at 5am, we gathered our things and went out to catch our shuttle bus. We were there pretty early as it says you only need to be there 30 minutes before flight departure for domestic flights, but there was a huge queue for the Quantas check in. The systems were down and it seemed a lot of people had trouble checking in online. They had to check in each flight that morning systematically. Waiting in that queue was like the old days when you went on holiday! We had waited for about an hour  and our flight still hadn't been called up, looked like it was going to have to be delayed. Suddenly there was an announcement over the tannoy saying the Jetstar check in for flights to Adelaide was closing. That was our flight. We had been standing in the wrong queue! It was confusing becuase we had booked it through Quantas and that is what it said on the ticket, it was just operated by Jetstar (which was said in smaller print) so when we got to the airport it was only natural for us to go and stand in the Quantas queue! We were very lucky and were rushed through by the skin of our teeth. Security didn't help matters for us but we made it on the plane without any trouble, thank goodness. If we hadn't been paying attention we totally would have missed the flight, despite having been at the airport since 5.45am for a flight that left at 7.05am, unbelievable! We had a good flight anyway, I had to buy some very expensive breakfast on the plane but never mind, and we landed about 10.20am. We were half an hour forwards in time which was strange. We collected our stuff and there was no customs to go through so that was nice. We headed over to the car rental desk, ready and prepared for it this time. It went a lot easier than the first time and despite a few stupid extra charges there wasn't any complications. We ended up getting a free upgrade as there wasn't any of the car I had booked left. The upgrade gave us a very nice, very posh Ford Falcon XR6, which I was nervous to drive! I have never driven such a nice car, and it was so big. Plus I hadn't driven in nearly 2 months, so I was glad for it to be an automatic again. We found our hostel with out problrms but then needed to figure out parking, we found a spot which gave us an hour, checked in and asked about parking. The hostel had 2 permit spaces, but the last space was waiting on a phonecall from someone to confirm they wanted it, so the lady on reception said to come back in two hours to see if they had rang back. There was free WiFi at the hostel so we used up our time easily, went to move the car to give us another hour, but we ended up spending 20 minutes trying to find one, to no avail, so just thought we'd ask about the permit space again, she hadn't heard back so decided to give it to us as we were waiting, thankfully! So that was good we didn't need to worry about that for the next couple of days. We showered and then went into the city centre to wander around. Christmas decorations everywhere again, still not getting used to it! We went into Toys R Us and managed to spend a fair amoutn of time in there! It's a nice city centre. It was however very chilly walking around, only 18 degrees and a fresh wind, a big difference to the heat we were experiencing the previous day! Still nice and sunny though. We headed back late afternoon, there was a free BBQ at the hostel that night, so made sure we were ready at a table for that. It was a good BBQ, and there were doughnuts for pudding! Afterwards was a little pool competition, although not proper pool, that was fun to watch, we just sat and took the time to upload photos, chatted to a few people on our table, there was a nice Californian girl who was from San Jose, so it was cool talking to her! I had started to feel a little rough that evening so we had a fairly early night.

Nice churchy building in Adelaide

 The next morning we got up and had a good free breakfast (been doing well for free food this part of the trip!) and went down to Adelaide's central market. It was really nice and there was so much cheap food, we got a few tasters which were delicious and then we had a little look around Chinatown. We went back to the hostel to drop some bits off and went back out again to head towards the botanic gardens. We got a little lost on the way but had a nice walk through some parkland to get there. We saw some wild parrot type birds, and on one of the paths through the park there were thousands of huge ants, it was like something out of a film, the ground just looked like it was moving they were walking around so quickly. And even though we didn't pause they were still finding their way into our flip flops, urgh! The botanic gardens was really good, it was huge and had lots of different little areas and plant houses. We have enjoyed wandering around gardens and parks whilst away! We took a walk back through the city center from the other end, joining back to where we had been the previous day, and then got back to the hostel. Again we used some internet time, had something to eat, and then drove out to a little suburb called Glenelg which was lovely, and watched the sun set on the beach. It was a bit cold and the sun actually set a bit prematurely behind some cloud but it was still nice! After that I had wanted to find the Old Adelaide Gaol, I did want to do a ghost tour of it but we decided to save our money, and we were very tired anyway. After completely missing the turning and getting lost, we found it eventually and it wasn't a very exciting looking building anyway so we just went back and went to bed.

Amazing food art!

Kookaburra sitting on a bench

Sunset in Glenelg

 We got up, ate and checked out by 10, to get on our way on our first proper drive, to Horsham. It was about a 5 and a half hour drive, and it was very enjoyable in the car we had. The roads are very long and boring in places so we were thankful for a CD player! On the way we saw loads of cockatoos, there was about 20 of them gathered together at the side of the road it was amazing! Saw lots of tumble weed too which was funny. We got to Horsham which was actually an alright place, despite people telling us it was a very small, backwards farm town. Not somewhere you'd want to spend much time but more than adequate for a stop over! We were staying in a motel which felt like we were in California again. It was actually so nice just to totally have our own space again. We walked into town to find some food and then chilled out all afternoon and evening. I was feeling a bit grotty and had just got into bed and napped while Phil watched TV. I woke up for dinner and we watched Mrs Doubtfire then went to bed!

We left a little earlier the next morning as we had a long day of driving the Great Ocean Road ahead of us. It took us about 3 hours just to get to the coast, and eventually we got on Great Ocean Road which was a nice drive. We stopped off at various viewing points, 'Bay of Islands', 'London Bridge', 'Thunder Cave', 'The Twelve Apostles', which was supposed to have lots of interesting wildlife and things, it was absolutely heaving with tourists, but we didn't see a lot different from what we'd already been seeing! They were all basically different rock formations off the coast. It was pretty cool. At one point we saw the strangest creature in the road, I had to pull over and take a picture of it, it was like a lizard cross with a snake! There were some really nice bendy roads right along the coast, which again reminded us of some of the driving in California. Eventually we got to a few small towns, and then Torquay where we'd booked to stay one night. Throughout the day I was progressively feeling worse, sneezing like crazy. We had wanted to go to Bells Beach but after turning down the road for it we decided it was too long to get there, and with it being 6pm, hungry and having been driving since 8.45am, we just wanted to get to the hostel by this point. Eat, and sleep. We had a very confusing time trying to find the hostel which claimed to be right off the freeway, and after ages, we realised the we'd been driving past the hostel several times, but it had changed its name, without telling me. We went up to the desk to check in, and found out that since my booking, the hostel had actually closed down, changed hands and re opened a few weeks ago. And they were fully booked, and also didn't have my booking as it should have been cancelled when the original place closed down. We were actually quite glad about this, used to money we had saved to get a McDonalds, and powered through to Melbourne where we had arranged to stay with friends of the Caves. We could not get hold of the person we were staying with but decided to wing it anyway and rocked up about 8pm. Luckily the guy we were staying with was in, a little surprised but he let us in and we just kept ourslves to ourselves for the evening! Parking was a bit of a nightmare again but once the time limits were up we parked it on the street for the night. It felt good to know we were stopping there for a while. And we crashed out.

Bay of Islands, Great Ocean Road

Thunder Cave

Cairns

We got in at about 6.20pm, we had arranged for pick up again, but our bus was half an hour late and we couldn't find any vehicle that looked like it was for us, so once again, we did the walk. Lugging all our stuff, 20 minutes this time, not too bad, and definitely the last time! Lucky it was the evening, it was still very hot. We got there eventually, and were greeted by some rowdy people who poured wine down our throats as soon as we stepped foot through the gate, a little over whelming but much appreciated! It was a great hostel apart from being noisy and a bit dirty. We got free breakfast, free meals every night at a bar in town and free unlimited internet use. Pretty good. We sorted our stuff out, signed up for the bar crawl that was happening on the Monday, which was another good deal. For $10 dollars you get a t-shirt, 4 free drinks, your free meal at the bar, and then a slice of pizza later on, couldn't resist. We used some internet time and then headed into town for our meal. There was a little hatch in the restaurant for hostel goers to collect their meals, all basic pasta dishes but very good when it's free! Afetr dinner we started to go for a wonder around but figured we'd just use the next day to do that, we were pretty tired so when we got back we chatted with the one other guy who was in our room for a bit, and then made use of an early night. It was a noisy night for parts, to be expected to some extent in a 'party hostel', but some people were being plain ridiculous. It was so hot all night, the air conditioning and both ceiling fans didn't work.

Cairns lagoon

 We were hoping to get up in time to catch a free breakfast in the morning  but missed it by minutes! So just sat on the internet again for a while, ended up chatting with Mum and Dad on instant chat, which was nice! Eventually we said goodbyes, I grabbed some brunch, and when we got back to our room a couple of new people had arrived in our room. They were English and we got on very well! We did some laundry, for the penultimate time! And then headed into town and wandered around. We went to the lovely lagoon, I paddled through the water which was so warm. It was 33 degrees that day and incredibly humid. We sat on a wall over looking the sea for a bit, watched some heron type birds fishng, and then spotted something swimming near the shore. At first we thought it was a turtle, but it turned out to be something belonging to the stingray family! We went and layed under a palm tree by the lagoon which was bliss. It just got so hot though so we went to the newsagent and I got a slushy ice drink and Phil had an ice lolly, definitely needed. We wandered down to the reef fleet terminal where we'd need to be to go snorkelling the next morning, and then looped back round to wander back. There was a shopping centre further up the road past the turning back to the hostel, so we walked around there for a bit. There are Christmas decorations everywhere now, it definitely isn't seeming right! We walked back to the hostel late afternoon. The sole of my shoe decided to fall off half way, the glue must have melted in the heat! We got talking to our room mates again until it was time to go for dinner in town again. Dinner was nice, we came back and went online again until we were kicked off at 10ish, and then went to bed.

Another noisy night but Phil and I were up at 6 to get ready for snorkelling. The kitchen closed at night time, but the sign on the door said it opens at 6.30am which worked out well so we could grab some breakfast before heading to the reef terminal at 7ish. We got ready and then just hung outside the kitchen waiting for it to be opened. Time was going on and we were getting very aggitated, we walked round to reception to see if we could find someone but there wasn't a soul about. We went back round to the kitchen and just waited. I had a bottle of water in the fridge that if I needed anything for that day, it would be that. We realised we were not going to have any time for breakfast by this point, but I was not leaving without my water. Bang on 7 just as we would have needed to leave to get to the terminal on time, someone appeared and unlocked it, we weren't happy and said they were supposed to open up at 6.30am but we didn't have time to discuss it, I swigged some orange juice, grabbed my bottle of water and we rushed off. We made it on time, checked in and boarded the boat. It was another gorgeous day. This boat was much, much bigger. We filled in a medical form and then took advantage of the free tea/coffee and muffins, which made do as breakfast! On the top deck there were two trampoline type things, which people used for sun bathing! We attempted to stay out the sun this time and sat down the side of the deck. They played music out some speakers which was a nice touch as we cruise out on the Coral Sea! We saw a few fish fling themselves out the water as we moved along. It was pretty choppy and I was gradually getting more and more travel sick. Luckily just as I was getting to my worst, we were stopping up. We got into our very over the top stinger suits, hoods and all! Got our gear, and then boarded a little glass bottom boat which took us to shore. It was really cool seeing huge fish under the boat. We were snorkelling off the edge of Michalemas Cay which was a little bird sanctuaray island. It is a pretected area so we only had a little roped off area on the sand to use. The water was a little chilly but it didn't take long to get in. Again, it was all so incredible, so many different colours of fish and coral. Fish swmming right past your face, schools of them munching off the coral, lost in your own little underwater world. Phil and I tried to stick together a bit better this time, it is hard, but I'm glad we managed to as Phil ended up spotting a turtle sleeping at the bottom of the sea! Amazing! So glad we saw one in the end. The longer I spent out there the more sea sick I began to feel again, not sure why, probably just because I never had a proper breakfast. We took the first boat back to the main boat for lunch, and I sat, slumped over with my head on my hand, boat still rocking, and struggled my way through a delicious plate of the buffet, trying to not bring back up every bite! I made the mistake of putting a prawn on my plate which did not help matters. I maged to eat it all though and just laid back on the boat after that waiting for the nausea to pass. Eventually it did as we moved on to the next spot, Paradise Reef. We moored up, quite literally, in the middle of the ocean, on the outer Great Barrier Reef. It was quite scary to look around and see nothing but the ocean! And we all got into our gear again, and jumped off the back of the boat straight into the sea. The water was much warmer, but much choppier. You could feel yourself going up and down over the waves and too often I'd choke through my snorkel as waves went over my head! It was scarier out at this point, because when you got to the edge of the reef, it just plummeted down into deep blue, you couldn't see very far so it was scary knowing what might be beneath you! Lots of fish hung around at the edge of the coral, and some of the divers were descending down there which was cool to watch. I carried on paddling around the reef. Phil headed back to the boat as his ear was really started to play up, and shortly after I followed. It was really tiring swimming against the waves, but easy swimming back to the boat as they just carried you along! Amazing how strong it is as it was carrying me past the boat as I waited for others to get back on, I had to hold onto the side. The sea sickness was still apparent but much more tolerable, definitely helps having food in your stomache! So again we laid back and relaxed. They blasted out some good music, put the sails up, and we drifted along the ocean in the sun, it was wonderful. After an hour or so we went in to watch a little talk/presentation one of the crew members was doing which taught us a little about the fish and the sea. We enjoyed some afternoon cheese and biscuits and then carried on our way back to Cairns, arriving back to land about 5pm. That evening was the hostel bar crawl we'd signed up for, so we went via an off liscence on the way back to get a couple of beers and jumped in the shower. Our room mates came back and we got ready for the night together. We ended up missing the main group of people that went out, but we caught up with everyone and had our meal and fair share of the free beer. Phil, me and our two room mates ended up sticking together all night and we had a good laugh. The police are very strict in Cairns, they actually breathalise people as they go into bars to see how drunk you are. If you are over whatever limit they have, you are sent home! Good idea I suppose but flawed in some ways. We were all fine anyway, we got to the last bar and there was a table dancing competition, for guys and girls. Phil and one of our room mates entered which was very funny. Phil went on to win the whole thing! But the prize was no use to us as it was a 3 day free hire of a campervan. Still, entertaining. Free pizza time came and it was delicious, by this point we were happy to sit down and chat, etc. Everybody else disppaeared back into the bar and we got the leftover pizza slices, yum. We took ourselves off back to the hostel when we were ready and went to bed.

Amazing fish

TURTLE!

The divers underneath me feeding the fish

Phil and I were up at 7am! It was way too hot in that room. We headed for the computers to try and check in online for our flight the next day, but couldn't for some reason. We managed to take advantage of the free breakfast for once and then Phil went back to bed. I ended up getting chatting to Mum again online for ages, and then went bac to bed too. We woke up about 1.30pm and had some lunch. We went back online to to try and check in again but I still couldn't, I decided to use the time to catch up with uploading photos as I do get worried this laptop will blow or get stolen or something and I'll lose all my photos! I managed to get a good load done and we went back to the room to pack. Phil ended up having a very long in depth talk about football with the other guy in our room so that was good for him! And we arranged to go to the bar for dinner together. Supposedly there was a quiz on and the hostel was going down again in a group, free pizzas and all. We booked our airport shuttle for the morning, got our food from the kitchen to avoid the problem we had last time, and got ourselves ready. Again we were late in joining everyone so ended up on a separate table, but it was good fun doing the quiz, although we didn't win! And we took advantage of the free pizza again. Definitely got our value for money's worth whilst staying at this place. That was a nice evening and once again we headed back, got chatting for a bit, and eventually went to sleep.

Tropical North Queensland

 The driver was very informative as we were driving through Townsville and told us all we needed to know about the place! We certainly knew we'd really hit the tropical-ness of Queensland when we stepped off the bus, the humidity was something else, especially after sitting on a nice air conditioned bus. Luckily we no longer had to do long slogs of walks to our hostels after the last few we'd had to do. We hopped on the city loop bus and it dropped us right outside the door of the hostel. As we pulled up, the driver said 'if you don't like it here, I'll be back round in half an hour so you can get back on and go to a different hostel' with a smirk on his face. It was a massive old building, like the layout of a motel with all the doors on the outside onto balcanies. Anyway, when we came to check in the lady at reception couldn't find our booking and faffed about for ages, even though I had the email confirmation, she didn't apologise or anything and made it sound like we'd turned up unannounced. Never mind, we checked in and that was that, good job the bus driver told us about Townsville! Usually at check in you get given maps and lots of info about the town and how to get about. Our room was on the second floor typically, so we had to lug our suitcases up 4 flights of stairs! Luckily a nice guy helped with the 2nd suitcase so Phil didn't have to do all the work. We got to our room and it was like an old mental asylum. White breeze block walls, and hospital looking beds. Still, we had a TV so we couldn't complain! The toilets were pretty dingy too and had no soap. There was a swimming pool on the top floor over looking the city which was cool. There wasn't a huge load to do in Townsville, we had a few things written down but we were so tired so just walked into town really to see what it was like, and I was hoping to come across a Fuji shop to see if they knew what had happened to my camera. I went to the post office and finally posted my postcards, then we just grabbed some food from Woolworths and headed back, didn't find a camera shop. It was so incredibly hot and sticky. We had to dive into the library for some air conditioning to cool off! We got back to the hostel and just relaxed for the evening. We attempted to make dinner, realised there were no pots and pans, Phil went to ask at reception and they said you have to buy cutlery but can 'hire' pots and pans if you leave your room key as a deposit, again, weren't told any of this. We had plastic knives and forks in our room, so that would mean taking the pans back again, to get our key, to get the cutlery and repeat the process. We could not be bothered and neither of us were that hungry so we scrapped dinner and just went to sleep! I slept a good 12 hours, it was much needed.

Rooftop pool over Townsville

 We got up and got our stuff sorted, had a load of toast so we didn't have to fuss about with crockery, and checked out. The city bus didn't come for an hour so we just sat in the courtyard bit and waited. I used some change to get online, sent another scathing email to this Whitsunday cruise palava, and we set off. The bus was on time and we got on our way to Mission Beach. It was only a 3 and a half hour or so journey, we cruised through and reached Mission Beach just after 3.30pm. Luckily I had arranged to be picked up by the hostel because Mission Beach was about 4km from the bus stop! We popped into Woolworths again as the guy did a daily Woolies run for people to get food so we had to pick those guys up. We chatted to them abit on the way home and they said they have seen loads of hunstman spiders and things, so I was feeling edgy about the place! In Mission Beach there is a very rare bird that lives in the rainforest called a cassowary. There are only about 1000 left in the world and they are the size on an emu, but brightly coloured blue and green with the red bits under its chin like a turkey. Their biggest killer is actually cars hitting them, so there are signs everywhere telling you to that they cross the road regularly and so to be wary and slow down. I really wanted to see one but we didn't get to! They can be really aggressive too so you need to be careful if you do see one. Anyway our hostel was alright, it had been hit by cyclone Yasi pretty badly so they'd done well to have it they way they did. It had no windows in the kitchen / lounge area which I didn't know whether was due to the cyclone, or just they way they did things there! The thing is it was right next to the rainforest so there were bugs everywhere. Geckos everywhere too but we like those! The guy on reception didn't really know what he was doing and put us in a dorm room when we'd booked a private room, but we didn't really mind as it was only one night and it was saving us a few dollars. A little while later he came back again realising his mistake and put us in the room we were meant to have. Either way we didn't mind, it was nice to have our own space despite paying the few more dollars. There isn't a massive deal to do at Mission Beach but we just went to the beach in the late afternoon and sat there for ages. It was a really cool beach, lined with coconut trees. There were these funny little crabs everywhere, and we sat and watched one dig a hole. It was very edgy and if we moved it would shoot back down its hole quicker than you could imagine. I managed to get a little movie of it! We were going to paddle in the sea  but there were so many crabs on the sand we just sat and enjoyed the moment. It is too dangerous to go in the sea at Mission Beach because of stingrays and jellyfish. Along the beach there are emergency stinger kits. We went back to our hostel, made some dinner, watched TV for a bit and used some internet and then went to bed.

Mission Beach

The next morning we were up and ready before check out, but our bus wasn't coming until 3.40pm so we were going to need to hang around the hostel for the day. We left our luggage and went down to the beach again. The tide was right in up to the trees, so you couldn't avoid walking along the shore. We wandered further up the way and found a little bench between some trees to see on. Again we sat there a while and and watched the tide start to go out. It was another scorching day, over 30 degrees with so much humidity. We went back to the hostel and ending up watching Friends for about 2 hours. We just couldn't cool off, you are just sat there with sweat dripping down your face, pretty unconfortable. We had a bite to eat for lunch and then looked on the bookshelf / games shelf for something to do! Sat there for a bit and then went into the other TV bit as there was a Playstation but that barely worked. Eventually it was time to leave about 3ish! So we went back to the bus station and waited there, we were a bit early. The guy who took us waited with us and chatted for ages. He was born in England but has lived in Australia for 50 or so years, he had lots of interesting things to say and has really got stuck in with things in the village, and we found out it was him that planted all the coconut trees along the beach 30 years ago. He has been everywhere in Asutralia and has taught aboriginie children English in the Northern Territory. He had a good view on the situation with the aboriginies and wants good thins for them. Not many people will have many positive things to say about them, and another guy that was waiting with his minivan to collect customers off the next coach even made a point of coming over just to interrupt and say 'all they want is money', to which our guy argued against. He went off anyway as the bus was late, and we sat and chatted to the two Italians who were also getting the same bus. The time went quikcly and soon enough we were embarking on our 9th and last Greyhound bus journey! We had the same driver that took us from Rockhampton to Airlie Beach, so we said hello and we sat in our favourite front two seats. He ended up chatting to us for the whole 2 hour journey, about stuff we had no clue about, some if it was interesting, he talked about the banana trees and sugar cane, some of it made us wish we never said hello! And he was getting very distracted, he almost went past a bus stop full of people! Still we made it in one piece, to our final destination up the East coast, to Cairns.

A nice shady spot on Mission Beach

Reaching Airlie Beach and The Whitsundays

Our bus wasn’t until midday, but luckily it was just across the road so we got up for free breakfast and checked out at 10, but just sat in the hostel garden until it was time to move. It was a nice little hostel, and another lovely day. The bus came and began the long journey to Rockhampton. We had a 3 hour journey to Hervey Bay where we had to change busses. We had to wait for 3 hours there, managed to pass the time fairly quickly as the bus stop was right by a little shopping mall. The next bus came, and then we had a 7 hour journey to Rockhampton, arriving just after midnight. We stopped along the way for dinner and I got a very expensive fish and chips. We didn’t want to fork out for a taxi again, so we began walking, not really sure where we were going, but referred to Lonely Planet’s map to help us on our way. We walked for a short while and I figured it’d be better to have a look at the actual instructions on the confirmation. Turned out Lonely Planet had sent us in completely the wrong direction, so we went back to where we started and followed the right instructions. It was very quiet, a bit scary but it was OK. We came across a stray dog, luckily he was more scared of us than the other way round! There were bats getting rowdy and swooping around. And the same pickup truck drove past us 3 times in about 10 minutes, which was the scariest part! The walk seemed to go on forever, and we were so hot despite it being the middle of the night. We had to go down a couple of very dark roads which disturbed peoples dogs, and eventually, after an hour, we made it! Absolutely shattered. Our key was left in a safe, we found our room and crashed out. Our plans for the next day consisted on sleeping really.

The lovely lab

 We got up and had breakfast then went back to bed. There was a lovely old yellow lab that would follow the owner of the hostel about while he did his daily duties! Very sweet. I enjoyed stroking her for a bit! We slept through until about 3pm, and then we just wandered up the road to the supermarket. The sun was making everything glow gold like it was setting, despite being mid afternoon. We had dinner when we got back, checked the internet (the Whitsundays email saga continues) and then spent the evening sorting out our stuff, ready to leave for the bus again at 1am! There were geckos everywhere at this place they were funny to watch, there was probably about 10 of them of the ceiling in the toilet block, ready to catch all the flies buzzing around the light bulb! We were in bed again by about 10.30pm, and then up and getting ready to go again just after midnight.

Early sunset in Rockhampton

 We did the long walk back to the bus station, only took us 40 minutes this time, and the scariest thing we came across was the biggest cockroach I’ve seen so far, on it’s back waving its legs about. So another 7 hour bus journey takes us through to 9am as we arrive in Airlie Beach. We are both feeling kind of jet lagged with all the odd sleeping patterns, and knackering walks with all our heavy things, and long sleepless bus rides. Again our hostel seemed to be the furthest away from the bus station, but it was only 20 minute walk this time. We made it, sweltering and shattered, only to find that we couldn‘t get in our room until 2pm. The only hostel that has had a check in time, on the worst day for us that it could! Unbelievable. 4 hours to waste by this point, after a confusing check in. I had emailed another company to see if they had any day trips available for us at short notice, she had a few options, and their office happened to just be across the road from the hostel so I popped in and had a chat and assessed our options. The one we really wanted only had once place left, and everything else apart from one was out of our budget or unavailable. So we opted with a simple snorkelling day trip, without the resort islands and beaches, we it was a good price and I just wanted to get out there and this point, in whatever shape or form! Plus I‘d heard snorkelling was really good along the Whitsundays. The lady was very helpful and she told me that the other company I’d booked through had been out of order and there definitely shouldn’t have been a cancellation fee for me to pay, when it was them who cancelled. So I got all riled up about it again, and used the free internet voucher we kindly received after booking our day trip, to send a scathing email to them again. That wasted a good hour and a half. After that we wandered along the lagoon they had, and browsed in some of the shops. We were just so zombie like, so we decided to go back to the hostel, make some lunch and then lounge on the sofas until 2pm. I managed to find Jaycee Dugard’s book about her abduction that someone must have forgotten about, ended up getting totally engrossed and read almost a quarter of the book in the last hour we had to wait. We got to our room eventually and it was lovely. The dorms were in blocks of 4, two upstairs and two down. They all had their own fridge / kitchen area, minus the amenities of a kitchen, and a nice bathroom with an actual bath. We were only staying in a 4 bed dorm, but the other 2 people hadn’t arrived yet, then we completely zonked out for 4 hours. When we woke up, the other two had arrived but were also asleep, so we left and went to get our dinner. They’d gone when we came back and so we thought we’d jump in the shower and just chill out in our room for the evening as we had another early morning the next day. I heard them arrive back while I was in the shower and Phil got chatting to them. They were from England and we all got on like a house on fire and spent the rest of the evening talking to them. We had such a good laugh and enjoyed sharing our experiences, it felt like we’d all known each other for longer than a couple of hours! Eventually we all got to sleep. Ended up getting a jumper out of my suitcase in the night as the air conditioning was so cold!

Phil ready to snorkel!

 We got up early to catch our lift to the marina at 7.30am. When we got there, we had to remove our shoes and then jumped on the sail boat! We had our talk and then set off. It was a long ride out to The Great Barrier Reef, about 2 and a half hours. It was very hot but we covered ourselves in sun cream and sat on the top deck for the duration, it was very choppy and I felt queasy sat underneath. We got there eventually and put on our ‘stinger suits’ to protect us from the lethal box jellyfish that are quite abundant at this time of year. We had to hop into a little motored dinghy to take us to the shore, put on our snorkelling gear and flippers and then we were left to our own devices for an hour or so! It wasn’t too cold to just get straight in the water, to test out my head gear I just dunked my head under water before I was fully in and immediately saw these cool electric blue fish, loads of them swimming right around us, it was amazing! So off we went exploring the reef. It really was incredible, so many impossibly coloured fish and coral, it felt like we were in Finding Nemo! It was quite easy to lose your bearings, and each other, while under the water, so had to pop our heads up every now and again. You just go into your own little world when you are swimming around by yourself, being underwater like that is another world in its self, totally fascinating. I managed to get some good photos, but after a while the screen just went blank on my camera and I couldn’t get It to come back. So I was pretty annoyed about that. I swam back to shore as I wasn’t sure when we were due to leave and I wanted to dry off a bit. I left my camera on the beach to dry it out, the beach consisted of dead coral so I wandered up and down and collected bits that I liked. When the lady came to get us on a dinghy, she chucked another girl’s collected coral into the sea, and said you can’t take it. Mine were all at the bottom of my bag and I didn’t have time to faff about to fish it all out, so I kept it and said to myself I‘d put it back into the sea at the next stop… We went to another snorkelling point, off the coast of Hayman Island Resort who apparently charge $4500AUD per night! Anyway, we got motored across to the shore again, and got on our way. Supposedly there is a high chance of coming across turtles in that part, but we managed to avoid them all unfortunately! The coral was a lot taller here and had loads of different colours and varieties compared to the other part. Phil even managed to scrape his knee of it, it was amazing to be able to swim that close to it. Again there were lots of nice fish, and I saw a huge one which I tried to follow but he was too quick and there was a lower visibility than in the last place. I attempted some photos with my blank screen, and hoped they’d come out alright! We swam back over to the sail boat when it was time to go, it was strange being that far into the ocean and seeing how deep it was, a bit scary actually! Hopped back on and all of a sudden a turtle appears, a little way away from the boat but you could see him clearly swimming along the top of the water, popping his head up! Shame we missed him in the water, but at least we saw one. So we left for the long journey back, we had a nice chicken lunch and sat on the top deck again to do some sunbathing. We lasted about an hour out there, I started to feel dizzy and nauseous despite keeping hydrated and having my head covered, and Phil managed to still burn despite 3 consecutive applications of factor 50+! That was a very strong sun out there that day, first time we really experienced how strong the Australasian sun really can be. So I spent the rest of the journey feeling weary, slumped round the back in the shade but with the cool sea air blowing on me! By the time we got back I felt fine and we went back to the hostel. We met our room mates in there and got chatting again. We had all received a free drink voucher for the bar when we checked in, so we arranged to go there and do that with them. Phil and I went off to make our dinner and then we met the others later on. It was a decent place, good to be in that atmosphere and hear some music again! We found the others and met a German girl they’d got chatting to. She was really nice and easy to get on with, despite there being a few problems with hearing and understanding each other, she had a great sense of humour though! She asked what my job was and I told her, she couldn’t believe what I have been doing for a living and said that was the best thing she’d ever heard and wanted to do it herself! She was in her masters year of journalism, but said maybe one day she’d be able to get in a position where she could do what do! We chatted about our love for dogs for a while which was refreshing. Through out the evening drinks kept appearing in front of us from people which was very generous! So we did well for the evening drinks wise, without having to spend a penny. They were having a ’pole dancing’ competition at 11pm which only guys, except one girl, signed up for. Phil and our room mate being two of them! There was $50 at steak to it was definitely worth a pop.. Unfortunately neither of them won but they put in a good effort! We had all had enough just after mid night so we left and went back to our room, chatted for a bit (about dogs again) and then fell asleep. We were leaving the next morning, we really enjoyed our time in Airlie Beach, we had a great laugh with our room mates it was so nice to be sharing with them for the two nights we were there.

Amazing fish

Some of the coral

We were up fairly early to pack all our stuff, we said a goodbye to the other two as they went off for a sailing trip, and said we’d meet up again when we’re all back in England. We had our breakfast and checked out. It was another boiling day so we sweated it out on the walk back down to the Greyhound terminal. We were waiting ages for the bus to come, it turns up eventually an hour an a half late, it was going to be a full bus so we were expecting a grumpy driver, but luckily he was still chirpy and in high spirits, makes all the difference! Off we went to Townsville. We stopped along the way for lunch and I got a nice breadcrmumed chicken drumstick and a milkshake. Yum.