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G'Day Guys!
Greetings again from Down Under :) Heres a little update on the latest Australian adventures, and you'll be pleased to hear the last essay!! :))
From Hervey Bay we headed down to Rainbow Beach for a little stop over and bumped into our friends Katy and Tina, making the most of our hostels THREE HOUR happy hour, how cool is that? The following morning we headed off to Tin Can Bay and got to feed a wild dolphin (nick named Mystique) which was awesome! I love dolphins so getting to feed one in the wild was cool, it came right up to us and took the fish right out of our hand!
After a quick stop over in Noosa (a very posh beach town) we went onto Brisbane! We had a few chilled days here before heading to Australia Zoo which was a really cool day, although we dressed for summer and it poured it down hehe! We saw so many different animals and even got to feed an elephant and some kangaroos! Theres a massive kangaroo enclosure where you get to walk up to the kangaroos and feed them, pat them etc. They werent impressed with the food we were offering them though - to be honest it looked wrong but I did get one taker :) We even saw a kangaroo with a baby Joeys legs hanging out - sweet!
From Brisbane we headed to Surfers Paradise. We spent 3 days here and to be honest we were absolute bums! :) Each morning we made our jam sarnies, packed a lunch and spent the rest of the day soaking up the rays - bliss! :)
From Surfers we made our way to Byron Bay for some surfing, woohoo! We stayed in a really cool hippy hostel called the Arts Factory. It had an awesome cinema with massive cushion seats that you could just fall asleep in (and I nearly did...Ill fall asleep anywhere!) In Byron I did a two day surf course with Mojo Surf (very appropriate name!) which was great fun. Our trainer on the first day was prety laid back, and had us in the sea within minutes! I managed to stand up pretty much straight away which was a real buzz (although annoyed a few other learners!). Half way through our lesson though the lifeguard came over to warn us that there had been shark sitings *gulp*....but hey, we carried on! We were a little cautious as you can imagine but it added to the excitement I guess!? hehe.
On the second day the weather took a turn for the worse and it was like surfing in England! Poured it down big style but it was still really cool, we even got to see some whales! Later on when I was in the water I saw this blue carrier bag type thing floating next to me, so I thought it was a plastic carrier that someone had littered the beach with tut tut. Looking a bit closer though I wasnt so sure, so off I swam back to the shore with my board only to find out it was a jelly fish! Our instructor was so laid back saying 'ahh dont worry, you've got a wetsuit on, it wont hurt you that much'...hmmm ok then! I went a bit further up the beach after that :) It was a fun 2 days although I ached like mad after!
From Byron off we went to Sydney, woohoo! I was so excited about going there and it was an amazing week. We took a tour around the city with a guy called Stef from our hostel WakeUp. He was a good laugh, although took the mick out of me and Jo a lot because we packed our own lunch - and yes it was jam sandwiches :) We looked around Darling Harbour, China Town, Paddys Market, Hyde Park, Circular Quay and Sydney Opera House. It was pretty weird sitting down on the steps of the opera house eating my jam sarnies, I think thats when it hit me we were really in Sydney!
The following day we joined about free tour with Stef and did a walk from Coogee to Bondi Beach. A lot of people had told us not to expect much from Bondi Beach...and to be honest it wasnt anything too special, bit more like a beach at home :) (not that im knocking the beaches at home! hehe). The weather held out for us on the walk but tipped it down british style once we'd got on the bus back to the hostel...we looked pretty funny walking in our beach gear through Sydney City when everyone had their umbrellas up :) That night we met up with Katy and Tina for a 'quiet' one in the Side Bar...but as you all know, quiet ones are never quiet! We had a wicked time dancing the night away, and our friend Stef was very kind and got the drinks in most of the night! We had the worse hangovers on Saturday but it was well worth it :) Again on Sunday we met for another quiet one, but ended up in an Irish Bar watching Man U vs Liverpool and dancing the night away to the live band! Good times good times :)
The best thing and highlight in Sydney was climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge! It took 4 hours in all, with an hour of that being a safety briefing and a mini set up of the bridge itself to show us how it was all going to work. Our instructor was an absolute spitting image of our friend Hayley it was spooky! It was such a cool experience - our instructor talked us through the history of the bridge and how it was built etc. The views from the bridge itself were amazing - we had such a nice day and we could see right across the city! We couldnt take our cameras up unfortunately so i've bought some cheesy pics of me that i'll show you guys when Im back in the UK :) Our legs were like absolute jelly when we got the bottom of the bridge, we struggled to walk ourselves back to the hostel hehe!
The following day we took a trip to Palm Beach - where Home and Away is set for all your soap fans! I had to go there, I had to get some photos for Mum :) (plus I would have kicked myself for not going!). It was weird seeing the beach itself coz you can remember areas of the beach from certain episodes! I got some cheesy pics of Alfs Surf Shack though for you Mum :)
We left Sydney just after a week for our road trip down to Melbourne! We hired a car with Katy and Tina - a rather nice Hyundai Getz! Goodness knows how we managed to fit three massive backpacks, all our foodbags plus ourselves in this tiny thing, but we got there :) We took a short trip up to the Blue Mountains and checked our Wentworth Falls and Katoomba Falls which were pretty stunning. The following day we begun our roadtrip down to Melbourne! We drove all day and ended up in a place called Eden - we treated ourselves to a Motel room which was really cool! Our own bathroom, yay! We even had the luxury of a TV so we sat and watched How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days that night :)
Melbourne is great - a real mixture of new and old buildings which makes the city look pretty impressive! We've had some fun chilling out here, but the highlight has to be the Neighbours night and tour (haha)! The neighbours night was great fun, although I got far too star struck hehe! We got to meet Ned, Sky and Dylan which was cool (Harold pulled a sicky doh! and Karl is in the UK!). The celebs all took turns to come around and meet us. I got totally star struck when I saw Ned coming over - girls he is gorgeous!! I went bright red (as you will be able to see from my photos!) and acted like a right div! He asked us if anyone watched Neighbours, and I stuck my arm up in the air like an eager kid at school, jumped up and down shouting I DO I DO!! My god, I cant even blame that I was drunk!! Apologies to Katy and Jo for letting the team down, hehe! Sky was pretty cool although I have to say shes a kinky one! Dylan was a sweetie and actually took the time to talk to us a bit more which was cool, I wouldnt have messed with his body guard though - scary fella! :) After the celebs had left we joined in with the quiz but im pretty sure we didnt do that well :) Afterwards we danced the night away before getting Katy safely home....bless her, she was a wee merry!
The next stop on our Neighbours tour down under was Ramsey Street itself! We first stopped at Erinsborough High for a quick photo, its weird coz you recognise some of the parts of the school from old episodes! It was real random though being there on the street that i've watched on the tv since I was ickle! I had to laugh though...they have to have a security guard 24/7 due to tourists trying to nick things...oh and a couple of backpackers were caught on Harolds lawn 'making love' to put it nicely :) We did the tourist thing...stood there with a Ramsey Street sign in our hands outside a few of the houses!! It was all brits I must add hehe! Janelle who we met was a real sweetie, although some stupid girl kept saying 'is Harold going to come out, we really want to see Harold'...some people are never satisfied are they? :O)
Our last part of Melbourne was to be the Great Ocean Road....but to cut a long story short, me and Jo had our blondest moment yet and missed the bus. We were stood next to the wrong red post box...doh!! (To be fair, I phoned the company and she told us to wait where we were so we're not all to blame). We were so annoyed with ourselves, but luckily we got put onto another tour that day to Phillip Island which was fun! We visited a winery and did some wine tasting...getting my moneys worth I tried all of them, even though they tasted pretty wrong (nothing beats weight watcher wine haha!). I have such good taste :) We then went to a mini animal sanctuary and fed some wallabies, kangaroos and emus before heading off to the penguin parade! We sat on the beach and watched all these cute little penguins waddle out of the sea and into the grassland around us into their burrows...it was pretty amazing to see! Fab day out :)
Well next stop now is Perth where we'll spend our last few weeks in Australia! I wont be writing anymore journal entries (i mean essays!) so yoi guys take care, thanks for posting your messages and keeping in touch!! I look forward to seeing you all at Christmas and in the New Year :)
Hugs
Rachie xxx
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