Hello from the sunshine state!

I am writing this from Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast. A fair old amount has happened in the past couple of weeks, as we have made our way from Melbourne to here, the equivalent of about 3 UK's...no mean feat! We have smooched dolphins and babysat Chickens amongst other non bestial things. So here we go...

So after an eventful last night in Melbourne in which we had to move dorms at an ungodly hour after someone kindly decided to vomit everywhere, we made our way, this time on the overnight train back to Sydney. Here we did a few of the things we didnt get round to the first time, we went to the harbour bridge, sat in the sun at circular quay and headed over to the Blue Mountains. We had as great day here, and it was amazing to see how quickly the landscape changed as we left Sydney, where it went from high rises to lush, blue (randomly!) landscape. The Blue Mountains are called this for a reason and the whole area is astonishingly blue. The Eucalypts in the mountains give of some kind of pollen that has the Blue hue that hangs in all the valleys (or at least that is my understanding of it). Whilst here we went on a day trip to all the main sights, our mode of transport: a london bus, as you do! We also went for a few walks, and managed to get lost thanks to Toms university-level map reading skills failing us. Fortunately, thanks to Liz's GCSE level map reading skills, we made the last bus, and said our farewell to Sydney!

So we headed up the coast to our next destination; Coffs Harbour, where we stayed for 3 days. Coffs harbour was nice and sunny with a gorgeous long beach, but our hostel was a little out of town, one day we walked for about 10 miles just going into town and then going to the supermarket. All the same, we were about 3 minutes from the beach, where I would be quite happy all day. Unfortunately the week before, someone had been killed by a shark on the bay along from where we were so we were a bit reluctant to go into the sea, but we spent a couple of days just topping up our tans. Whilst in Coffs Harbour I also had my birthday (thanks for the messages!). On that day we went to the beach in the morning, and then headed down to a little hippy market for lunch. We watched a band that had a drummer who drummed and didgeredooed (no idea how to spell that!) at the same time, impressive! In the afternoon we headed over to the dolphin sanctuary there where we got to kiss and play with seals and dolphins. It was an absolutely fantastic day topped off with a curry, which was bizzarly the only restaurant open in Coffs, and being that I was bunged up I couldnt taste any of the food, but the sentiment was there! We also went to Coff Harbours biggest tourist attraction....the big banana, which is what it says on the tin! We had banana shakes and banana cake and had our photos with the banana, good times!

So moving on from Coffs, we grabbed the Greyhound down to Byron Bay. Byron bay is a little alternative town on the east coast. It is a bit of a backpacker haven with a lovely beach and some quirky little shops. Whilst we were here we ended up doing some house-sitting through Wwoofing, and after a few days in the town itself, we headed to the outskirts to look after a dog called Tara, a cat called Rascal, 15 Chooks and Bunbun the Bunny. The house we were looking after was what you might call 'rustic' with a compost loo and a book shelf full of hippy reads. Tom and my favourites where; 'drumming the spirit of life' and 'communicating with animals', alongside other treasures on Magic and Wicca and anything else a little unconventional.We had a pretty chilled out time whilst we were here, apart from our encounters with some massive spiders which was anything but chilled. Picture me shreaking and jumping up and down on the coach, with Tom chasing this huge spider, then Tom drowning it int the sink, only for me to go a check a minute later and the 'dead' spider has started walking along the bottom of the sink!!! Scary stuff! Turns out it was a water spider, so really, trying to drown it wasnt the cleverest idea! Other than this we had some bikes so we could cycle into town, however it rained 90% of the time so we spent most of the time playing with the animals and watching some australian TV. Again, I had the temptation to try and take one of the animals with me in my bag. Unfortunately this time it was a full-sized Labrador, so she had to be left behind.

After a week here we were ready to move on, and left Byron Bay behind, luckily the weather started to cheer up and we headed up to Surfers Paradise,on the Gold Coast. Surfers Paradise is a bit liek the Costa Del Sol of Australia. It has a nice beach, but unfortunately planning laws have totally ruined it with Highrises blocking out the sun after mid-day. It has a great night life with plenty of bars, and there is always something to do, but it is tacky and cheap and it is not somewhere we will be staying here long. Tom and I are staying in a great hostel, literally on the beach and we have met some really nice people. But really it is just killing time until we pick up our campervan from Brisbane niext week! We are both mega excited about that so for now we will just work on our tans!

Anyway, I am running out of time on the internet so I had better say goodbye! I hope you are all great, check out the photos, leave messages, missing you all lots!

liz and Tom xxx