Christchurch to Kaikoura

Hey, well as you can see I found some Australia photos on my camera so I have added them to my last 2 posts. I have also added in a few more details since the first time it was posted so if you have time you may want to have a quick scan through if you have time.

Also before I speak about NZ, good luck to everyone who has sat or away to sit exams. I'm thinking of you all..............and glad it's not me!! ;) Good luck, I'm sure you will all do great though.

Well I arrived in Christchurch on Sunday 22nd April and stayed at the Central YHA which was a lovely little hostel with lots of comfy sofas to laze around on! :) On the Monday I went for a wander around town. First of all I climbed the cathedral spire and got a view of Cathedral Square from above:

I then wandered around some of the streets and made a visit to the lovely Botanical Gardens:

After spending some time in the gardens I went to Fudge Cottage to get a tour of the kitchens. Here we got to taste 9 out of their 17 flavours of fudge. We also saw them make a 30kg batch of fudge! At the end we went up to their shop and were given a free little gift of fudge - yum yum!

We then went back to the Fudge Cottage shop where we were given yet more fudge to take away. I then met up with James, my Melbourne party partner, who had just got off the Kiwi Experience bus having completed the South Island. We went out for tea and he recommended a number of activities to me. I then had a quiet night in the hostel and tried to plan where I was going to go in NZ.

On Tuesday I went to the Crusaders Rugby grounds with Emma, an Irish girl I was sharing a room with. Once back in town I booked my Kiwi Experience tour to leave from Christchurch on Wednesday morning to go to Kaikoura. In the afternoon we just wandered around town and then in the evening we went out for drink with Ali who was also in our room.

On Wednesday morning the Kiwi bus never came to pick me up. When we called them they said I was booked on Tuesdays bus not Wednesdays bus. How I can get booked onto a bus that left the city 4 hours before I booked my ticket I do not know! Anyway I ended up jumping on the competitor, Stray, bus for the day. They took me up to Kaikoura and organised for me to go for a swim with dolphins that afternoon. It was fantastic. We were probably swimming with them for about 45mins-1 hour. There were about 150 dusky dolphins there that day. They were doing many amazing jumps out of the water and when I was swimming with them, many of them circled around me. It was so much fun. Cheers James for recommending it. Here are some photos of the dolphins I was swimming with.

That evening I met another Scottish lass, Steph, and and Irish guy, Tony. We watched some films in the hostel that night. Anybody looking for accommodation in Kaikoura, I recommend Dusky Lodge. It is great and if the weather isn't good it has a big video selection!

On Thursday Steph and I went for a walk along the beach. The beach here does not have sand, just loads of stones. We did find some lovely shaped stones though. I then went for a walk along the coast and stopped in past a sheep shearing demonstration to pass the time.

On Friday morning I caught the Kiwi bus to head to Nelson. More on this next time as I need my diary to remind me of what we all did that day! Lots more news to come though.

Hope you are all enjoying the sunny weather back home.

Congratulations Laura on becoming a gymnastics judge! Well done. Good luck in your standard grades next week.

xxx

Sydney - Last Stop in Australia

Well I arrived into Parammatta at 6am in the morning and was met at the bus stop by Wayde (the person I met in the outback and who took me to Canberra back in January for those of are getting confused about all the people I have met!). We then went back to his house and I got all excited about the lovely mattress, pillows and generally being in a family home again - doesn't take much to please a backpacker. After a few hours sleep I got up to see Wayde for a couple of hours before he headed off to work. It was great being back and catching up with him and his family. That week we didn't do a great deal. Wayde was working a lot so we tended to go out for lunch and watch films. We spent one day going around horse shops comparing our different saddles etc. Although I do agree that stock saddles are comfier than what we use.

We also went to the cinema one night which was fun as I haven't been to the cinema since I was in Sydney in January! On the Friday night we went out to an Irish Bar to meet Wayde's friend Brendon who has got into the air force. It was such a fun night and was strange to hear guys speak about planes all night - not a topic I know much a about but I learnt one or two things! It was a great 5-6 days with Wayde's family. Thank you so much. In the photo below Brendon is on the left and Wayde on the right:Wayde then took me into town on Monday and dropped me off Uncle Grant and Ilana's house where I also got to catch up with Granny. It was rally strange to see her over here in Oz! I stayed with Grant and Ilana until the Friday and did so much during this time. I also got to see Uncle David, Auntie Kay and my cousins Kirsten, Anna and Cara from Edinburgh. We all had such a great few days. We had a barbecue one day which we started at 4.30pm and by 6.30pm we all thought it was much later as it felt like it had been dark for hours! Granny also treated me to lunch in the revolving restaurant. This was great fun as you sit and eat your meal the restaurant moves round and you get different views of Sydney. Thankfully it was a clear day as well so we got to see quite a bit. Thank you Granny. One morning I went back to Bondi to see it in the sun as it was raining last time I went. It was a lovely day. Which reminds me, when I was in Sydney I was finding it quite cold, even though it was low to mid 20's. I was wearing jeans and a hoody most days while Granny and everyone else from home were all in summer clothes. The day I went to Bondi however it was worm enough for me to have a skirt on! :) I also went to Manly one afternoon for a quick look round the shops there.

On the Thursday night we all went out for Uncle David's birthday. It was a fantastic night. We started at the house with some champagne and birthday cake so that Lara could join in on the fun of the birthday cake as she was not coming out for the meal. Uncle Grant had then organised a personal water taxi for us across the harbour to our restaurant. This was so much fun and a great experience. We had a lovely meal with lots of laughs and then got our water taxi back home again. Kirsten, Anna and Cara got on amazingly well with our Australian cousins. It was as though they all knew each other and spoke to each other all the time! Thanks David and Kay for such a great night.

Lara and Romy have grown up so much over the past 3 months. Romy now recognises you and spends all her time smiling at everyone. Lara is going through a stage where every female is called mummy and every male is daddy. However after a few days of me being there she had got the hang of all our names, except David was 'Dad' and Grant was 'Daddy'!

On the Friday afternoon Wayde came and picked me up again and it was a teary good bye to all my relatives. Everyone from Scotland was flying home that evening and it sunk in how long it would be until I saw my Australian Relatives again. Thanks Grant and Ilana for having me to stay. It was great to see you all and catch up. Will definitely be in touch more often from now on! :)On the way back to Wayde's, Wayde and I went out for a meal. Once again we ordered way too much and didn't manage to finish it all but it was a lovely meal. Back at the house we stayed up until stupid o'clock to watch films on TV.

On Saturday, my last full day in Oz, we got up at 8am and Wayde's dad, Steve, cooked us a lovely breakfast (on the bbq - what a great way to have my last Aussie breakfast made!). Steve, Wayde and I then made the 1hour 30mins journey up towards Newcastle to go horse riding. On the way there we happened to pass my cousins school so it was great being able to see it before I left. We went on an amazing 3 hour horse ride. It was so much fun as we got to go off by ourselves and ride around. The horses were fantastic, however, the saddles were not the comfiest and I think I can say that it wasn't just me who was suffering for a few days! It was such a great ride though. After saying bye to Steve, Wayde took me to a rodeo. I can't believe that I managed to get to one. It was so good to see it live. I can't get over some of the things the little kids were doing, including riding steers! I learnt so much that day. We got back to Wayde's house late that evening and watched some TV before bed. Thank you so much Wayde for the best day I could have had to finish my time in Australia.

Then it was 4.20am on Sunday 22nd April and my alarm was telling me to get up and get ready for my flight. We had to leave the house at 5am to get to the airport in time to check-in for my 8.35am flight to Christchurch NZ. It did not really hit me that I was actually leaving Australia until I was sitting at the gate waiting to board the plane. I kept thinking I was just going to another part of Australia - after all that is all I had been doing for the previous five and a half months! I nearly did not board the plane but I made it onto the flight and was bound for New Zealand.

Thank you so much to everyone I have met while in Australia. You have all made my time there an amazing experience and I have so many amazing memories to go home with. A special thanks to the Quinlan family for all your hospitality and sightseeing, Grant and Ilana for taking care of me and having me to stay, Jo for all your help when I was going through my indecisive spells ;) and everyone else for being there. Can't wait to catch up with you all again.

Love to you all.
xxx

Melbourne

Well I think I have to say that Melbourne has been my favourite city in Australia. It is so laid back and there is so much to do. It reminds me a bit of Edinburgh in terms of it's atmosphere and activities.

On my first full day there, Stef and I went shopping in the morning and got a feeling for the town. As we stopped in past the tourist information centre (opposite Flinders Station - photo below) we found out that there were tickets available to go to the second last night of the World Swimming Championships. So yup, we bought tickets! However before we went to that in the evening I did manage to fall down some stairs and hurt my ankle just as we were away to go to an Australian Football League game! Not very clever of me. Anyway I hobbled along to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) with Stef and some others from our Great Ocean Road trip and we wet to see the game. It was Collingwood versus the Kangaroos. As I knew nothing about the teams I decided to support whichever team didn't score first - then I could hope for a come back. I didn't think this come-back was ever going to happen until the last 15mins of the last quarter when Collingwood scored quite a few goals (sorry can't remember how many now) to become the winners of the game. It was great fun.

Stef and I then headed back to Federation Square in the centre of town to watch the Water Polo on the big screen before heading to the Rod Laver Arena for the swimming. The Rod Laver Arena is the centre court for the Australian Open Tennis competition but for the week of the swimming they put a pool in it! The evening was fantastic and we ended up sitting next to the uncle and aunt of one of the Australian swimmers, Danni (silver in the 50m butterfly). So we got to meet her when she came up to see her relatives. This was such a great day to start my time in Melbourne.

While in Melbourne I also met up with Hannah and Helen again. On the Monday night, Helen and I went to the Neighbours Night. It was such a shock as when I was in the queue waiting to enter, I bumped into Rick from Uni. He was there with Claire, Amy, James and his friend Craig from home! It was so good to see them and catch up. Craig and I also found out that he lived with Richie Cameron, one of my school friends, when they were in Halls in 1st year. Such a small world! The neighbours night was fantastic. I met Darcey Tyler, he was lovely and really down to earth. We got some really good photos with him. We also got to meet Karl and Libby Kennedy and Izzy! It was so much fun. Karl and his band also played at the end which was very entertaining. I would definitely recommend people to go to the quiz night. I had such a laugh. Also Claire won the dancing competition that night and managed to win a 2 for 1 sailing trip round the Whitsundays on the same boat as I went on! I have since found out that they actually managed to get 3 on for the price of 1 with that voucher!After Hannah and I had gone out for a meal one night we went to the hostel bar and was asked by James and Jannis to join their quiz team. Little did I know that this would result in me finding my drinking partner for the next week! Yup James and I then spent the next week touring Melbourne together and we went out drinking every night. I really cannot remember when I last went out for so many nights in a row! It was great fun though. Between all the drinking though we did see a lot of Melbourne. We did a tour of the MCG, in one part we had an old man guide us around the museum, we were a bit worried he was going to collapse on us though as he didn't seem too strong! The tour was good though.

I also visited Ramsey Street. It is so small!! Was good to see it in person though. Also on the tour I got to meet Susan Kennedy. She was lovely but all the characters are so small!

One night we went to the Casino where I managed to shock both James and Jannis by winning money on Roulette, I even scared myself a bit as to how many times I got it correct! It was a good night though. The comedy festival was also on so we went to see Ardal O'Hanon (think I have the last name right but not 100% sure!!) from Father Ted. He was so funny. It was such a good night. I also did a tour of the Australian Open complex which was really interesting. One night I met up with Sara who I met on the east coast and joined her and her friends for her birthday. That was a great night too. James and I also went up to the top of Rialto Tower to get views of Melbourne from above. Here is a taste of some of the photos I got:Lucie - there is a photo of Albert Park for you!! We went for a walk in it one day too and James had been helping take down marquees after the F1! We did lots of other things too but I'll tell you more when I come home. Thanks for a great week James. I really enjoyed it.

I then left Melbourne on an over night bus to spend my last 11days in Australia in Sydney. More about this in my next post. I can definitely see me coming back to live in Melbourne in the future. It was fantastic fun.

The Grampians and Great Ocean Road

To get from Adelaide to Melbourne I did a 3 day tour via the Grampians National Park and the Great Ocean Road. The Grampians National Park is named after the Grampians in Scotland as it reminded the Scottish explorer of home. It was lovely although it was badly affected by bush fires a year ago. Unfortunately the fires were so bad that a number of the plants have not yet recovered and started re-growing. It was amazing to see how a forest recovers from fires though.

The Great Ocean Road was really good as well and we stopped off at London Bridge, the 12 Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge and numerous other coastal formations. I also did a helicopter flight over the 12 Apostles which was really good fun. We also had the chance to experience sun-set at the 12 Apostles but unfortunately it was pouring with rain and the sky was covered in clouds, however we did see some mini penguins come up the beach for their beds for the night!

We also stopped off at Bell's Beach and saw it being set up for the Rip Curl Pro Surf competition. We saw a few people out practising so that was good fun. Then we got to spend an hour shopping in Torquay which has the factory outlets for a number of surf shops.

We arrived into Melbourne on the Friday night and Stef, Adam and I were staying at the Base Hostel in St Kilda so we went out for a nice meal that night.

The trip was great fun even though the weather was not in our favour but that just meant we got to see bigger waves. I'm glad I wasn't trying to learn to surf on them as I think that could have caused some accidents!

Cairns to Adelaide and Kangaroo Island

Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of posts on here, I've been quite busy since leaving Cairns at the beginning of March. I'm not going to go into too much detail as to what I have been up to since then but will give you a rough outline by starting with the Cairns to Adelaide part of the journey. To see the photos you will have to wait until I come home - I can't have you seeing all the photos before I get home lol.

Well Helen, Hannah and I left Cairns around the 9th March and took a 3 day bus tour to Alice Springs in the centre of Australia. The trip was really good fun. We stopped at a number of places on the way including the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton, numerous cattle stations, Australia's smallest bar (it's in an area with a population of 2, 3 if the grandchild is visiting!!), and we also stopped to do a nothingness walk! It was a good fun trip and definitely the way to get to the centre of Oz if you have the time as it shows you how big the country actually is. It was strange being back in the outback and it did make me think I made the wrong choice not to work in the outback again, but then I remembered what I had planned instead and it was all good.

Alice Springs is an "interesting" place! After my first night I changed hostel as the hostel I was in was awful and I wanted to be in a nice place for my birthday! After settling into my new hostel, Annie's Place (anybody going to Alice, this is the place to stay), I went for a wander around the city. There were a number of drunken aboriginals wandering around and it didn't feel the safest of places. On my second day I joined up with 3 others and we rented a car to go out to the West Macdonell Ranges. We spent the day swimming in lovely waterholes and was great fun. My third and final day in Alice was my birthday! It wasn't a very eventful day. I went to see the Flying Doctors base. The flying Doctors is the medical service used in the outback. If people on properties (farms) require any medical assistance then they call the flying doctors who either tell them what to do over the phone or send a medical team out by plane. In the evening I just had a meal and a few drinks in our hostel bar with some people I met either on tours or in Alice itself. It was a good night.

The next morning we left Alice on the Adventure Tours tour to Adelaide. Over the 6 days we visited Kings Canyon, the Olgas, Ayres Rock, Coober Peddy (an underground opal mining town), Flinders Ranges and a number of other place. We saw lots of wild kangaroos and emus on our trip as well. It was a really fun trip and we had a really good group which thankfully included a mechanic who managed to fix the bus when it broke down on the second last day! I will tell you all more about this trip when I come home as I don't want to go into too much detail at the moment or you will all give up reading and wont read the exciting Melbourne post! the evening we arrived in Adelaide we all went out for a lovely meal and was a great way to finish off the trip.

When I was in Adelaide both the Adelaide Fringe and the Police and Fire World Games were on so there was plenty to do. On my first day I went to see some of the Police and Fire Games and then went down to the beach at Glenelg. It was a lovely beach and a good fun day. On my second day I went to see the Police and Fire Netball and Athletics events before meeting up with Hannah and Helen for lunch and some shopping. While at lunch I started to get tooth ache and so went back to the hostel for painkillers. I ended up sleeping all afternoon and when I woke up I noticed my left cheek was rather swollen! I struggled to eat some food before taking more painkillers and tried to sleep. After little sleep that night I went to the dentist the next morning to be told I had an infection from my wisdom tooth. So again I spent most of the afternoon sleeping and doped up on antibiotics!

The next day the swelling and pain had thankfully calmed down a bit as I was away on a 3 day tour of Kangaroo Island. It started off with a surf lesson which I managed to do half of before running out of energy and then we headed over to the Island. It is a lovely island and the wildlife is amazing. We saw kangaroos, koalas, penguins, fur seals, sea lions, possums, wallabies and I'm sure I have missed something! It was great to see all the animals in the wild. We also slept outside in our swags while we were there which was great but cold. Kangaroo Island did make me feel as though I was back in Scotland as I was so cold the whole time. I didn't have much cold weather gear with me at that stage as I had just spent four and a half months in the heat but we survived by lighting campfires. It was really worthwhile and I am glad I did not cancel the trip due to my tooth.

After the trip I had one night in Adelaide before leaving for Melbourne. I liked Adelaide and was gutted to have been ill and not see much of it. There isn't a great deal of things to do there but one more day would have been nice - another excuse to come back here in a few years! ;)

Sorry about the lack of detail, but I've fallen way too far behind in this to try and write much more!

xxx