Day 8 - Today was Christmas Eve and as most things are closed on Xmas Day we headed to 'Skyline' just outside Roturua to have some fun! We took a gondola ride up a huge hill which gave us some amazing views over the town and Lake Roturua. Once at the top we embarked on the first of five luge rides down the hill followed by five ski-lift's back up! There were 3 luge tracks, scenic, intermediate and advanced. The scenic was 2km long and you could stop on the way do...

We arrived in Auckland late at night and woke up the following morning to yet more rain (we forgot to mention that during our Great Ocean Road trip it rained almost the entire time). For our few days in Auckland if it wasn't pouring with rain, it was humid with a constant drizzle. Still, we braved the weather to do a few things whilst in the city. We took a long walk to 'the Mound' which is an area containing a large park, some 'winter' gardens, and the Auckland...

Melbourne - Our first glimpse of Melbourne came as our train neared the end of our journey from Adelaide and rounded a corner to show the city as a whole sat in front of us. It's a very good looking city with a lot of modern skyscrapers and buildings. We settled into our hostel, slept and prepared for a very packed few days. During our time here we: •Walked around the city (several times!) taking in the sights and looking in the shops.•Visited 'The Old Melbo...

If a few days in the Outback was an adventure, then Adelaide was the complete opposite! We had quite a few days booked to stay here simply because we didn't need to get to Melbourne for the final part of our time in Australia until a certain date so we split the time we had left as best we could. During our 5 days here we really didn't do much at all. The first day and much of the days afterwards were spent in the lounge of our hostel, on the sofa in front of the...

Our flight from Sydney to Alice Springs was just under 3 hours and the view out of the window was unreal! Huge mountain ranges and lush green forests gradually disappeared and all we were left with was hundreds of miles of flat red landscape. It went on for over an hour and felt like we were flying over Mars! After we'd arrived at our hostel 'Annie's Place' at around 11am and organised our 3 day outback adventure, we chose to spend the rest of our day exploring t...