Hello to you all from Auckland, New Zealand.
We landed yesterday afternoon after a very eventful flight where I had an argument with a French guy (well, family actually!) and managed to get red wine all down my front! Not my proudest moment so I was glad the flight only lasted 2 and a half hours!
So now that we are in a new country I think it's time to update you on the last 2 weeks so that my next blog is full of New Zealand stories.
I last updated nearly 2 weeks ago when we were in the beautiful Port Douglas right up in the North of Australia in Queensland. It's up past Cairns and just below the Daintree Rainforest and is just the most idillic, quaint town, really stunning. We were actually quite glum about leaving but we have some lovely memories to think back on. One day we walked around and did some window shopping and in the evening went out to a local bar which held toad racing twice a week. We did manage to see a race which was incredibly bizarre and actually looked quite cruel so we didnt stay very long for that. Then we moved onto another lovely bar which didnt really have any walls so was nice and cool and full of very friendly people. I think because we're not drinking that much when we do drink it affects us quicker so I was a bit tipsy and talking to all kinds of people at the bar about where we'd been and where we are going. Everyone is always fascinated about our trip and they seem to embrace travellers and very proud of their nation - you dont really get that as much back home. So the next day I was suffering hugely with a hangover on a very hot day and Kav insisting we go to the beach!! I managed to walk the 5 minutes there, after having to stop at our caravan park's tiny pool for 10 minutes to cool down and rid my constant queasyness, and we found a lovely man selling time on sun loungers and sun umbrellas for the day which I of course insisted we buy! I'm not a huge fan of the beach, all that sand and wind just ends up angering me all day, so when a chance to sit under an umbrella on a sun lounger comes up particularly when I'm hungover, I jump at it! So I was quite happy there for hours, watching Kav in the sea, dozing off now and then and staying cool with the breeze. This day was also my beautiful sister-in-law's birthday so Happy Birthday Ems! xxx
The next day we drove our RV to the stunning Mossman Gorge. Mossman is at the bottom of the Daintree National Park and the gorge is a big stream with a waterfall midway and you can have a swim with the fishes in the clear water and take in the sun. It really is gorgeous and a very popular spot with tourists and locals. Kav had a little swim around but apparently it was as cold as running the cold tap so he didnt spend long in there! Then in the afternoon we did a fantastic Crocodile Boat Cruise up the Daintree River looking for wild saltwater crocodiles, with a guide of course! We happened to go at the worst time of day and sort of out of season but still mananged to see 3 crocs! Kav was ecstatic as he's got a fascination with them and I was nervous but exhillerated to see them up close and so wild. We saw Fat Albert, who weighed approximately just under a tonne, Lizzy, a female who was just swimming around the banks, a little baby who wasnt actually in the water but sitting up on a bank taking in the sun. The boat we were in wasnt huge and there were only 4 of us on there so it did get a little unsettling, in fact the guide was teasing me about how jumpy I was! Fantastic trip though and so worth doing!
On the Sunday we took the 3 minute cable ferry across to the Daintree National Park which is actually a rainforest and quite different from the other National Parks we'd been to. We secured a powered site for the night at a caravan park and then headed to the Discovery Centre to get some information. But when we got there we found the Discovery Centre is actually a lot of things rolled into one. We walked on boardwalks through the rainforest high above the ground looking at trees and wildlife, climbed the tower they have which allows you to get higher than the trees to see the rainforest from above and watched videos and read information on the local wildlife and how the rainforest survives. I was enjoying myself until our walk back through the bottom of the rainforest and I came face to face with many enormous spiders. I'm not talking about biggish black spiders like we get in the UK, I'm talking size of your hand (and bigger), with yellow backs, the biggest webs you've ever seen, funny legs with joints and just disgusting scary spiders. I ran out screaming to the cafe where the exit was and told Kav I wasnt going walking in or near the rainforest ever again! We did take a drive to the entrance of a 2km boardwalk walk to see if I could do it but after 30 seconds and another huge spider later I was crying, Kav was laughing and we decided to go get some ice cream instead. Now, this was the higlight of the Daintree visit! They make ice cream from local dairies and it's amazing. We got a mixed punnet each which had mango, wattleseed, raspberry and macademia in it and all 4 were gorgeous. A must if you ever decide to visit the Daintree Rainforest. This day was KJ's 30th birthday so happy birthday gorgeous, hope you had a good one!! xxx (I'm missing so many birthday's!)
That night we were the only caravan right at the back of this holiday park and it was actually quite creepy. Normally we're surrounded by other vehicles, artificial light and people coming and going. Here there were no lights, no other people and just the sound of rainforest all around. I went to the amenities block (toilets to you and me) and I'm absoutely not kidding, met by about a million bugs. Some of which I never knew existed and wished I didnt know existed! Kav could here me yelping and screaming from the RV! But I managed to get through it and have a shower! I kept my eyes firmly on the bugs that were in there with me to make sure they didnt move anywhere they shouldnt and after the quickest shower ever I ran back to the caravan and settled my nerves with a G&T! The next morning I went to the loo, washed my hands and came back to the RV to get ready to set off for Cairns. As I was moving around the RV getting dressed and putting things away my legs started to itch, then more, and more, to the point where I was practically bleeding from scratching. I looked down and all I could see were red lumps. I'd been bitten 35 times in the 3 minutes it had taken me to pee-pee! It's a shame that's the lasting memory I'll have of the rainforest! They didnt last long though and I was fine that night.
That afternoon we arrived in Cairns and took a walk around the city. We did a 5km round trip and bought some souvenirs and decided that Cairns is actually a very nice place, although like many other big towns or cities, there's not an awful lot to do unless you have lots of money to shop or go out for dinners etc which we dont! So we spent a day by the pool at our holiday park the next day to top up those tans and pack up the RV before giving it back the next day. Now this may sound mad or weird but we were actually very sad at having to return the RV. We'd lived in that thing for a month and it's funny what you start to call home after a while. We got into our routines like putting the bed up and down, cooking with such little space and limited means, how to manuevere around the tiny spaces and how not to kill each other when you just cant take it anymore. In fact, I'd go as far to say if you really want to know if you should or could spend the rest of your life with someone, live in an RV with them for a month! I'm telling you, if you can do that you can get through anything, and luckily Kav and I did it perfectly. I think they only 2 things we ever argued about was Ludo (I've had more strops over that game than anything else in my life) and Kav's awful driving!
So on Wednesday we finally handed over the keys and were left stranded with no vehicle and a plane to catch down to Melbourne. Can you believe it took 4 and a half hours to get to Melbourne from Cairns and only 2 and a half hours to get from Sydney to New Zealand? That's how big Australia is.
It's funny how Kav has lived in London most of his life and loves it and I've lived in the big city for 2 years and really love it yet every city we go to in Australia we dont like. Anyway, Melbourne was the same for us. We picked up our Toyota Yaris, drove around looking for a motel for the night, decided it wasnt for us and drove out of town down towards the Wilson Promontory, which was actually closed because of a cathedral fire so we ended up heading to the Croajingalong National Park instead (no I didnt make that name up!). We drive around the town of Mallacoota looking for somewhere to stay and found a lovely motel that had 6 'holiday units' for just $60 (thirty pounds) and were actual little houses. This was such a treat for us after living in a vehicle for 30 days!! We were so happy, and we had a kitchen, a living room with a TV(!), a bathroom and 2 bedrooms. It was sheer bliss so we celebrated with a bottle of wine, a couple of pizzas and lots of TV! The next day wasn't so laid back as we did an enormous climb to the top of Genoa Peak. It was a 4km walk around the bottom of the peak and then a climb up rocks and ladders to get right to the top where there was a platform surrounded by metal guards which only held around 5 people. We think we were about 500m and pretty much on par with all the other mountain peaks around. It was exhausting but one of the most rewarding things ever - just amazing. We've got fab pictures which we'll try and put up soon. Again, if you ever go there please do that climb!
After a couple of nights in our little house we headed back up North towards Sydney, went past it and stopped for a couple of night in Hunter Valley AKA Wine Valley. It's home to around 150 wineries (as they're called here) and is a very pretty area with lush restuarants, some cute little shopping parades and a nice town. All the wineries are close together and on around 10 different roads so you can just take a drive around doing tastings all day, well I could, Kav was driving! We visited Rosemount, Lindemans, McWilliams, McGuigan and other places and tried some lovely wines but our favourite was the Peterson's Champagne House where we had some lovely sparkling Sauvignon Blanc and some wonderful dessert wines. In fact, we've posted home 4 bottles for when we get home! We also visited some cheese and chocolate shops and had our own little picnic at our motel which was fun.
After Hunter Valley is was time to head back to Sydney to drop the car off and fly over the Auckland. Not being huge fans of the city we were dreading being back for 2 days but we killed time by climbing the Harbour Bridge - yes I actually did it!! I didnt really have time to think about it as we just walked in and booked it there and there, and 10 minutes later I was signing my life away and putting on the snazzy jumpsuit and learning what to do. Now let me just say I'm not a fan of heights. Nope sorry, too soft, I suffer from terrible vertigo so I'm glad no one told me just how bad this was going to be because I wouldn't have done it and that would have been a travesty. I've never been so scared in all my life and the overwhelmings feelings I had that I was about to faint every time I looked down was just incredible but when I got down and looked at it from a far and when I see photos now I just think how amazing it is that I did it. And we have some fantastic photos from it too so it's something that I will be proud of for the rest of my life. Thank you to Dad, Rosemary and everyone else who said I should do it or I'll regret it!!
So that takes us up to Auckland - all caught up now. I feel better. It really plays on my mind when I know I haven't written a blog for so long and I'm just desperate to put all my thoughts down.
Some of you will be pleased to know I've started writing and getting ideas down for when I'm home, so maybe one day I'll get published, who knows! I'm writing funny little poems about things we've done, places we been etc, ideas for a book (non fiction) and magazine article ideas so we'll see. Something to keep me busy during long drives and boring motel nights.
Tonight we've found a cool bar/pub to watch the ever important Man Utd vs Liverpool match. This could be interesting as I'm a Liverpool supporter and Kav is ManU so we'll try not to drink too much and abuse each other and it's on at 1am in the morning here so we'll be exhausted tomorrow but I think the plan is to take a ferry to the North Shore and do a walk up a volcano!! That's not something you can say everyday is it?!
So take care all of you, hope everyone is well and happy. We're 10 weeks down so only 5 months left before I see you all again!
Lots of love,
Sally xxxxxxx

PS - I'm also going to do an Australia highlights list on a blog straight after this to take a look at that too if you're interested. It's just a rundown of amazing things we did or saw while here which I still can't believe myself.