Auckland and The Bay of Islands...

After a great 2 months in Australia I left Melbourne and flew straight into Auckland, New Zealand. Feeling very tired from my flight and being a bit moody now that my boyfriend had left and I was again traveling alone I got some food and went to bed. Feeling in a much better mood the next morning I went on a day tour around the city. We went to see a dormant volcano, visited a small fishing village then took a walk along Auckland's harbour bridge and got to watch a few people bungy jump off. Watching the others terrified me enough so I chose not to jump! The next day I had my first day on the Kiwi Experience bus taking me up to the Bay of Islands. This was a really nice place and was still pretty hot so got to spend some time sunbathing on the beach. My first day here was pretty chilled out as was my next morning which was much needed as I had for some reason signed up to do a skydive... I was with 4 other people waiting to get picked up, all of us managing to freak each other out as we were all pretty scared however much the guys tried to hide it. I was a mess in the car on our way there, signing the forms made it all so official and I just wasn't sure I could go through with it but before I knew it we were there and after much convincing that I would be fine I paid my money and got suited up and strapped into my harness. The plane itself was a bit scary, it was a tiny thing with no seats, we were just squashed in as they shut the plastic door. It took half an hour for us to get up to 16000ft and I managed to remain pretty calm. I was going out first as I was the most scared and thought it best not to watch the others jump out as it would probably scare me enough to not be able to do it myself. The guy who was my tandem was so lovely, he had done over 3000 dives and talked me through the whole thing, once we were fully harnessed together he opened the door I closed my eyes and we fell out. It was the most surreal thing which is so hard to describe, you don't feel like you are falling all you can feel is the wind, it was so much fun. The free fall lasted for over a minute and when the parachute opened I was relieved but also a bit disappointed it was over. Floating down was a pretty cool experience as well however and we even got to float through a cloud. After landing I was feeling very proud of myself for doing it but I had gone deaf from the pressure, it took over a week before my ears were back to normal. Back in Auckland I spent the day exploring the city and visiting the art gallery were I found my old tutors book in the shop and was amused to see a picture of myself in a book in a shop in New Zealand. I got a pretty early night that night as I was starting my proper Kiwi Experience bright and early the next morning.

Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road...

I arrived into Melbourne airport for my last stop in Australia and waited there for about 6 hours for my boyfriends plane to land from England. After some hugs we set off to our hostel. Our first day we decided to go to Melbourne's botanical gardens and walked for miles around the place. I then introduced Andrew to the wonders of the Hungry Jacks stunner meal which we ended up having a ridiculous amount of in our 3 weeks together, it is a wonder how we are both not huge!

The next day was the day we picked up our camper van. We hired one from a company called wicked campers who cover there old vans in graffiti. Once we picked up our van we headed out to a shopping centre to buy some bedding some food (included the amazing Vegimite Cheesybyte which we ended up polishing off 2 quite big jars off in 2 weeks) and set off to our first stop for the night, Anglesea. We stayed in a pretty nice campsite cooked up some food and decided to name our van, Jeromy Alan Rogers was the final decision or little Jezza for short. After Anglesea we set off for our next stop Lorne and we were now officially on the Great Ocean Road. Lorne was a lovely little place so we decided to stay there for 2 nights, that was however after we found a nice campsite. We had been told about some free campsites that are located in national parks and decided to check one out. After about a 45 minute drive through forest we found it, it was basically just a bit of a gap in between the trees, there was no one there and the toilets were not even worth describing. We felt like we were in the setting of a horror film so quickly drove back to town and payed to stay in a really nice campsite by the beach. We spent most of our time at the beach, not getting in the sea as it was pretty cold but was nice just to sit and relax for a bit. We also decided to go to the cinema to see Black Swan. The cinema was an amazing building which was about 70 years old and we were told has stayed pretty much the same. All the light fittings, the seats the carpets...this place was awesome and the film was pretty good too. After Lorne we drove to Apollo Bay making a quick stop on the way to see some koalas in the wild. We saw 3 quite close up and 1 even had a stretch and a yawn, quite possibly one of the cutest things I have ever seen! When we arrived at Apollo Bay we didn't feel like doing much so had some food and I taught Andrew how to play cards. The next morning we were planning to stop at a few smaller places along the way as we had so long to do the Great Ocean Road but after passing through quite a few tiny little places were there was pretty just a couple of houses and a petrol station we decided to head straight on through to the next biggest place, Port Campbell. We had a great night here, our campsite was again right next to a beach so that night we decided to share a take away pizza from this great little Italian restaurant and eat it at the beach with a few beers. The next day was both horrible and hilarious at the same time as I managed to get myself quite ill and we had to take a detour to the doctors, we did however get to see the sunrise before we left which was an amazing sight. After our detour we headed off to see the 12 Apostles which is a series of free standing rocks in the sea, they were pretty impressive but after the day we had had we were pretty keen to just take a few photos and head on to our next stop of Warrnembool. This one of of the biggest places we had stayed out on our Great Ocean Road trip and we got a pretty nice site again right by the beach. We decided to take advantage of the BBQ's that are everywhere in Australia and cooked up some burgers. We had a wander around the town the next day and set off to our next stop of Port Fairy. They had the nicest camp site we had stayed in although the town was tiny so the next day we drove out to a place further inland called Creswick to play some mini golf and do a pretty cool maze which we got lost in for about an hour. We stayed in Creswick for the night in an interesting campsite run by a man with no teeth but lovely none the less. The next day we ventured back to Geelong and finally got ourselves another Hungry Jacks, we had missed them on the road although the amount of burger rings and cookies we ate made up for it. We had just the one night here before heading to the other side of Melbourne to check out Phillip Island.

We stayed for 2 nights at Phillip Island in a really nice campsite and finally had some good weather. We put our picnic table out to keep our spot at the campsite and headed down to the beach and had a wander around this really cute little town. We then headed back to camp to find that someone had taken our picnic table and placed it nicely by their tent and surrounded it with chairs, we found this hilarious and left them a friendly note although we were considering a less so friendly note, table stealers! The next day we went to Amaze'n'things! or Amaze'n'tings as we called it, awesome name, for some more mini golf, this one was much more epic than the last however and we even managed a few holes in one and a bit of cheating! After demolishing nearly a whole tub of cream cheese and crackers we headed down to one of the bays for a walk and saw a tiny penguin hiding under the walk way. We then drove back down to the beach got all cosied up in the back of the campervan opened the door and watched the sunset. Now both feeling sick, most likely from the amount of cheese we went back to camp opened some beers and had our last night in little Jezza...sad times! We left pretty early the next morning, said goodbye to our good friend Jeromy at the depot and got the train back to Melbourne.

We stayed in a really nice place right in the city with a cool roof garden where we spent most of our nights. It was Andrews birthday so we got dressed up and went out to an awesome little Italian restaurant hidden away down a back street. It was a strange place and looked like a sort of college canteen from the 70's with wood chip walls but the food was amazing. We couldn't decide what to have so the waiter gave us a big plate with 3 different types of pasta, some of the best pasta I have had in a long time. After we went to a cute little bar over the road for some drinks before heading back to the hostel. The next morning we went for a good fry up then visited the aquarium, Andrew is strangely terrified of fish so was shocked when he said he would like to go. The penguins were the best bit we watched and laughed at them for ages and even went back for a second look on our way out. We then took a walk along their south bank and had a little nap in the sun by the river. We were running a bit short on money by this point so decided to get some frozen lasagne and some beers and spend the night getting drunk on our roof garden. Our last day in the city we went to check out some of the art galleries and had a look round some of the shops we also randomly saw Mark Watson. We spent the night back at the roof garden again with beer and lasagne. We stopped for another fry up the next morning then caught the tram over to St. Kilda. This hostel wasn't as nice as the others and we preferred being in the city really but the weather was great and it was nice to be by a beach. We even had a quick dip in the sea although the water was freezing! We found a really nice bar on our way back with a couch outside which we remained in for the next 3 hours drinking jug after jug of beer. The next day we found a really cool area in St. Kilda which reminded us a bit of Shoreditch and the brick lane area so spent the day here and came back on the evening for some drinks. Our last full day together we spent chilling out really. It rained a lot in the evening which put us both in a bad mood, the fact that we would not be seeing each other for a while again may have added to this. We found a really nice little restaurant to spend the evening in and hide from the rain, we had some amazing pizza with some beer, not full from this we then shared a massive sandwich, still not full we shared a dessert and had some coffee then headed back to the hostel to pack.

My flight was at 6 in the morning so we took the tram back into the city at about 12.30am and spent the early hours of the morning at the airport eating our very last Hungry Jacks. Andrew nicely waited at the airport with me until I had to get on my flight to New Zealand. We said our sad goodbyes and off I went. These 3 weeks were definitely the most fun I have had traveling, I left looking forward to New Zealand but also looking forward to coming home.

Sydney...

My last stop on my Oz Experience bus was Sydney and quite aptly we watched finding nemo on the bus 'P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way Sydney!' We arrived pretty late at night so after a couple of drinks went to bed. The next day I went on a trip out to Hunter Valley for a day of wine tasting, the weather was lovely and we all managed to get pretty tipsy so after a quick nap on the bus on the way back I was ready to go out and carry on drinking. That night I met up with a couple of guys I was on Fraser Island with and off we went to a club for a few free drinks (gotta love backpacker vouchers!) The day after me and a couple of girls went out to explore Sydney. We saw the Harbour bridge and the famous Opera House, which was a lot smaller than I thought it would be. Sadly it rained all day so we decided to check out the art gallery full of aboriginal art. For my final day in Sydney, Marion and I took a trip out to the Blue Mountains which we never got to see as again it rained all day and was so misty you couldn't see a thing but our tour guide was hilarious and despite the weather we ended up having a really good day. It was my last night in Sydney so we all went out and danced to some really cheesy 90's tunes. The 18 year old's had no idea what most of the songs were as I sang along to every word, I felt old. I woke up pretty excited the next morning as I was off to get my flight to Melbourne to meet my boyfriend.

Spot X surf camp...

After Byron Bay I spent one night at surf camp in a place about an hours drive away from Byron Bay. The camp itself was so cool and reminded me of American summer camps. After a quick buffet lunch, me, Marion and French girl who had joined us had our first lesson. After a quick briefing and being told the first rule of surfing - look cool we grabbed some boards and headed out to the beach. We were shown how to stand up on the board and quickly went into the sea. I was convinced I would be rubbish at surfing so was shocked at how quickly I managed to not only stand up but stay standing for quite a while and, most importantly, looked pretty cool doing so. We were in the water for about 2 hours and all managed to do pretty well but surfing is tiring so didn't do much for the rest of the day. Our only night at surf camp happened to be paddys day so a lot of drinks were had around the camp fire. That night I also randomly bumped into 2 Swiss boys who I spent some time with in Thailand. I had no idea they were even coming to Australia so it was a nice surprise to see them again. The next morning we could barely move we ached so much and were pretty battered and bruised from the boards as we got on our last Oz Experience bus for Sydney.

Byron Bay...

After Brisbane I stopped in Surfers Paradise...far from paradise! I did not like this place at all and so will skip straight to the lovely Byron Bay. My first night here a group of us from the Oz Experience bus headed to the infamous Cheeky Monkeys for free food and lots of free drink followed by some dancing to cheesy music on the tables. Day 2 in Byron was pretty much spent in bed recovering. Day 3 I went on a day trip to Nimbins described as the Amsterdam of Australia. Where drugs are illegal but the police really do seem to turn a blind eye, the whole place stinks of weed. The town however is a really cute little place full of aging hippies. The bus ride to and from Nimbins was my highlight as we traveled in an amazing old bus similar to ones you see in films when they drive army men out to Vietnam all painted up in bright colours and blasting out some typical hippies tunes. That night there was a hippie style market in town and I decided to get a tarot card reading, good job I don't believe in that stuff as mine didn't paint my future out to be to great! The next morning I went to try out sea kayaking which didn't look too hard once you are out in the sea but getting through the waves looked pretty difficult and unfortunately the day I chose to go was a pretty bad day and the waves were huge! It took a really long time to get all the kayaks out and by the time it got to me and my partner the waves were even bigger so a guide hopped in made me sit in the middle and said he would get us out as it would be too difficult for 2 people who have never kayaked before. So off we went getting hit by 2 pretty big waves that through us all straight from the kayak, lucky I was wearing a helmet as I lost count of the amount of times I got smacked in the head by not only the other guys but the kayak itself. We dragged ourselves back on and were swiftly hit by another wave twice the size of the last one and I got sucked under the water for what felt like forever. By the time my life jacket bounced me back to the top I got hit by another huge wave, now really not happy and struggling to breath the guide threw me over his shoulder and swam me back to shore. The guide was so apologetic, gave us a full refund and insisted we come back to try again tomorrow for free despite it not being their fault at all, you can't help how big the waves are. Nervously I returned the next day bringing with me my new friend Marion. The waves were a lot smaller but we still managed to fall from the kayak and so I decided I was done, happy to have tried again but I was too scared to go in for yet another attempt. After at least 20 minutes worth of convincing one of the guides talked me into joining him in his kayak which I did, we got straight through the waves and had the best time out in the sea and even got to see a huge turtle catching some waves. My last couple of days in Byron Bay I spent mainly at the beach enjoying the last bit of sunshine I was to get in a while.