Our first stop in Australia was Melbourne. And what a city it is! Me and sam fell in love with it! Well on the 9th december we started our 3 days Great Ocean Road trip (the road between Melbourne and Adelaide). We instantly fell in love with our tour guide and group and knew we were in for a good trip! (this wasnt hard as he had tea and chocolate biscuits! Lush!) Our first day out on the road involved visiting stunning beaches, seeing our first KOALA!!!!! and even a KANGAROOOOOOOO!!!! Very excited Sian and Sam banged at the windows (being the tourists that we are) shouting "Stop the van we need to take a picture!" which our tour guide did with a slight roll of the eyes, he then said "You will be sick of them by the end of the trip" and we were. As Cameron would shout out 'KOALA' and we would just be like 'Yeah cool...been there seen that...' hahaha. After doing the touristy things (twelve apostles, gibson steps, etc) we set up camp near the Grampians. We had a lovely dinner, cooked by cameron and relaxed with a few drinks. Well after we had heard about the Bulla ants carrying a dead huntsman (a spider) and eating it we were worried that they could carry our tent, Cameron Laughed at this and said "Who's gonna help me move thier tent!" Not impressed. So we headed off to bed, went we begin to feel the tent moving and were not going to lie we screamed when the door flew open. It was only then we realised we hadnt shut it properly and it was only the wind that blew it open. Sorry for cursing you cameron, we thought it was you :). Very impressed with the grampians (if you go on facebook this is the picture of me and sam (and cameron) on the cliff edge. However if you zoom in on this photo you will see cameron grab sams leg and try and pull her off the cliff, and her face is priceless, take a look! Sam now has a fear of hights!) Thanks to everyone who made that trip! Its still our favourite trip to date!

Back to melbourne and we needed to sort out our campervan for the east coast. Well 4 days, 3 travel agents, 2 hours online and numerous phone calls later we had our campervan!!!! Yay! (you may have seen the pictures of Sheila on facebook already.) Henry, decided we should go out for a cheap celebration meal. So the hostel reccommended an all you can eat buffet style lunch (pudding and a drink) for only $7.50. Bargain!!!! We probably should have realised by the price that there must have been some kind of catch. The catch was we turned up and ate in a homeless shelter. We only realised this when we were halfway through our tofu (hint) curry with squash and microwaveable pudding and custard. This was one of our lowest moments, we hope to never go back and we dont reccommend. :) We also spent the day at Melbourne Jail (where Ned Kelly was hung) where we were locked up for drug dealing (sam) and streaking (sian) and we can confidently say this is a one-off! Jail aint pretty!

After spending the rest of our time in st kilda we made our way to Canberra. Which after telling cameron we were spending 2 days there he said "Thats about 46 hours too long!" haha he was right. One pissed off Sam (as they tried to charge us a lot of money to store our backpacks for the afternoon) and another fire alarm we happily left and carried on to Sydney for Christmas and New years Baby!!!!

So we arrived at our hostel on christmas eve (the amazing wake-up!) only to find that we had been put in the same room as Dan (my friend from back home). After which me Sam and dan became inseperable. We had a rather amusing night out, involving Sam being punched in the eye (accidentally by a drunken person) Sam being Sam, was very panicked (i wouldnt let her google it though!!!!) thinking it would turn into a black eye, so the three of us decided to get a pizza to cheer Sam up. Sam again being Sam went to the pizza guy, "Im very upset and about to cry so please can you make this the best pizza of my life with every topping possible" so he did, and we sat down. Again Sam being sam, turned to the nearest guy in there and said "Does my eye look swollen will it bruise?" and the guy turned around and only bloody said "oh let me have a look Im an opthamologist' Typical! He reasured her that the eye would be fine and we left to demolish the pizza in the corridor of the hostel. This was the best pizza in the world (not just cause we were drunk sam should almost cry in pizzarias more often! :D)

So for christmas we spent the day with my stepdad's cousin and her family in Gosford, just north of sydney. We had the most amazing dinner ever!!!! (A big thanks to Frances and Maurice) (sorry to Sam and Sian's mums high expectations to beat hahahaha :)) And a day full of presents and being kids again! :) Our New years started off queueing from 8.30am in the drizzle and ended with a scorching afternoon full of an amzing picnic (thanks to colin's sandwiches and sams disco biscuits...) and ended with an amazing firework display off the sydney harbour bridge. Its only fair to say the fireworks are the best in the world!!! We spent our final 2 days with nina on Manly island. Nina (94yrs old) was an absolute legend one of the most interesting and knowledgeable people we have met so far.

On the 4th of december we got Sheila (campervan) and the journey up the east coast (5 people; Henry, mark and sonja - what an experience!) began. In reflection her name probably should have been sweaty betty!!! As it was 27 sweaty nights! After paying for the most expensive campsite in the world we needed to find somewhere free to stay which bought us to Port Macquarie's lighthouse. This turned out to be somewhat of a love-making hotspot as people were 'getting-it-on' everywhere!!!

Next stop Byron Bay, a lovely coastal town, where we spent 2 nights in a campsite, the first morning we took much enjoyment watching an iguana trying to climb in someone elses campervan (thankfully not ours however we dont want to know what may have crawled on us in the night) this was followed by a turkey (yes a turkey in a campsite!) trying to break into our neighbours rubbish bags! (try explaining that!) We also drove though Nimbin as described in the lonely planet guide as "sort of reccommended but very strange" this little hippie town was just very strange and we were happy to move on (especially after being given directions that almost got us lost!)

Well we spent a night in a park just before Brisbane, and the next morning awoke to discover we were not alone. There were dogs and their owners surrounding us. Eek! Well our only hope of a shower (we described how sweaty it is especially when you are woken at 7am by the sun!) was a tap and a saucepan. :) (again see photos on facebook!) After a very interesting 'shower' we hit the road stopping off in brisbane and headed up to hervey bay, to begin our Fraser Island trip.

So fraser island...the only way to describe our tour guide is Father Christmas's tanned evil twin. An interesting 3 day adventure driving bright pink 4x4 along the beach and off roading (so awesome!) one slight hitch Father Christmas to put it nicely had anger management issues and spent the 3 days yelling at us so we had paid for boot camp! The only good thing about this trip was our amazing group (minus lee - hahahaha) taking the piss out of him all the time! We visited beautiful Lakes and boot camp was overall pretty fun (we are laughing about the experience now) Thanks guys!!!

We also stopped at a Cattle station called Kroombit, and it was Brilliant! We had a great day and wished we could have been there longer. The guys had a great time riding horses and herding goats (which sam caught - see pictures) and we had an even better time learing to whip, goat herding competition (followed by trying some goat) and then riding a bucking bull!

We then started our whitsundays tour, which didnt begin too well due to a bout of sea sickness but we all quickly recovered (being the whole boat) and woke the next day to enjoy the picturesque Whitehaven beach (see profile pictures!!!!! :) We had an amazing relaxing 2 days and made more friends and the snorkelling was imense. Two beautiful sunsets and one eye infection later (of course Sam) we sadly had to return to the main land even though we would happily stay if we could!

We then spent Australia Day on Magnetic island. The only highlight to Australia day was bumping into Matt and Jennie (who we had been trying to meet up with the whole of the east coast!) as it was fair to say nothing was going on for Australia day (not even a bloody bbq!) A dissapointed then checked into our not so nice accommodation... But it soon got even worse when the lads went for a shower and discovered human number 2s were spread all over the walls and floor!!!!!! Horrified the lads complained and took a shower in the ladies instead. We cheered ourselves up the next day by getting out bikes and exploring the island. Our highlight of the day was feeding rock wallabies apple... :) Yay! That night was a rather dissapointing full moon party, all in bed before 12 :) We wouldnt have lasted until 12 if it wasnt for the goon supplied by sonya and Darren thanks guys! Great meeting you both!

We then made our way to cairns and headed straight up to Cape Tribulation (for the hottest day of the year 35 degrees and scorching!) Dont get us wrong we loved seeing the Daintree rainforest meet the sea, but all we wanted was a beer and a swim (impossible as we were driving and its stinger season!!! :(

We are now in Cairns, just got back from an amazing scuba diving trip, we got to see turtles, sharks, stingrays, and of course nemo, we held a sea cucumber and saw countless amounts of stunning coral and fish. We even got to swim through a cave! What a day! We are now exhausted and are looking forward to our next adventure from Darwin to Adelaide visiting Ayres Rock and Alice springs.

We will update you again soon! Miss you all!! Lots of love and thanks for following our journey! Love Sian and Sam

PS Sam heard that the staff from Ulverley School have been following our journey, thanks guys and hope you're all ok and i think you all come travelling!