I have called this one Hunter Valley, sounds a little more exotic than Newcastle, which is where we actually stayed. The main purposed of our trip here was to visit the vine yards and sample some Australian wine. We went on a little tour that took us to 5 wineries, a cheese shop and a chocolate shop. By the end of the day we were sick of wine, cheese and chocolate! We now consider ourselves to be wine experts and we tried all these in one day: - Chardonnay, Sa...

We went to Byron Bay for the beaches and the chance to surf. I had my first surf lesson here and I loved it although I nearly drowned as some of the waves were huge! Aidan tagged along to take some photos but wasn't quick enough to actually catch me standing on the board. So I had to pose on dry land. Every night we ate at Cheeky Monkeys because they sold dinner for $2. The only problem was that we had to order two as the dinners were so small! We walked to t...

When we were getting on the bus from Noosa to Brisbane the driver asked us for ID and I realised I left our passports hidden under the mattress in our room. We had to get the next bus which was in 2 hours. Brisbane is quite a big city, it's like Glasgow but slightly warmer. Our room had no Air Conditioning, only a fan, so the first 2 nights were really hot because the daytime temperature was 32 degrees. On the 3rd day the winds changed direction and it was only...

We were so excited about Noosa and the prospect of meeting the Irwin's. I think everyone goes to Noosa primarily for Australia Zoo. So we got up early and caught the Australia Zoo bus. During the bus ride we got to watch a video on Steve's biography. We saw loads of things at the zoo: - Harriet, the 175 year old Giant Galapagos Tortoise who is the oldest living animal in captivity. They thought it was a boy for years and it used to be called Harry. -Watched t...

Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world. It sounded impressive and was a must on our travels down the East Coast. As we were limited with time (thanks to that cyclone) we did Fraser Island in a day on a 4WD coach. The trip included a ferry crossing then a very bumpy trip around the island. The highlight for Aidan was probably the buffet, during which Aidan ate constantly for a full 45 minutes. We then had to go exploring and swam in some creeks and...