Thursday 17th March - Sydney Australia

I clearly had way to much to drink the previous night, because I woke up with a major hangover.. I joined the boys for a bit of breakfast and we went for a walk through Sydney. I kept noticing everyone seemed to be wearing green and a dwarf dressed as a leprechaun ran past me with boxing gloves on.. I was wondering if all the drinking from the night before had broken my eyes/brain.. But then I realised.. It's St Patrick's day! It seemed that everyone in Sydney really get into the spirit of st paddys day unlike the UK that go crazy for Christmas and thats about it.
   Me and Tom decided to go and get a hair cut because I especially was in desperate need of one! They were fully booked and It was our last day in Sydney so it looked like I'd have to keep the mop until we touched down in New Zealand. So instead of spending money on a hair cut I decided to buy a boomerang.. well it would be rude not to after spending 6 weeks in the country that invented them!
   We got back to our hostel and our room mate Dan asked if he could join in on our dinner (he was clearly impressed with our cheffing skills)  he even volunteered to do all the washing up for us!
    After dinner the three of us decided to go for one last night time walk down to the Opra house and took some nice photos of the buildings covered in lights. As we arrived back at our hostel room one of the woman we were sharing the room with had clearly pulled herself a fella and taken him back to her bunk bed.. (yeah I laughed whilst writing that) So my last night in Australia was spent trying to drown out the noises coming from the bed next to me... 

Wednesday 16th March - Sydney Australia

So today we decided to go visit 'Manly beach' We were told it was a lot nicer than Bondi Beach and we were running out of things to see and do in Sydney so thought hey why not. You have to get a ferry to get there, Well I'm not sure if thats the only way of getting there, but thats how we got there.. It was clear skys as we arrived and all was looking good. We had a look around some surf shops and by the time we left the shops it was overcast.... great. we got to the beach and Tom bet Lewis a dollar that he couldn't swim out past the furthest away breaking wave.. Lewis accepted this challenge and I'm pretty sure Tom bet this because he wanted Lewis to get swept out to sea and rescued by a coastguard.. Annoyingly for Tom, he made it back alive and with a smerk on his face and an outstreched palm waiting for a dollar.
    We managed to get to the last ferry back just in time! I did like Manly beach but it was overcast the whole time we were there which means that Bondi won the battle of the beaches for me. We got back to Base hostel and had dinner. We then went back to our room and met up with the girls I was talking to the previous night. We decided to have a few drinks in our hostel room before going out to the bars and clubs of Sydney.. One slight problem.. the three of us didn't have any drink and we thought it would be rude to share the remainder of the girls half bottle of southern comfort. So we decided to do a quick bottleshop run.. It took longer than expected and we had to ask for directions from a blatent drug addict which was a bit scary.. But we made it back with what would be our last box of goon (wine) We played a load of drinking games with the girls (Nicola and Megan) We then left for a bar called 'scubar' which is a well known backpacker bar by all accounts. In there we met our old friends Nick and Chloe who we had met right back at the start of our adventures in Australia in Cairns. It was soo nice to catch up with them again after 5 weeks! After the lovely catch up we said goodbye to Nick and Cloe and carried on our night with the girls we went to a few more bars and clubs and after that we all headed back to the hostel.

   

Tuesday 15th March - Sydney Australia

Today we decided to re-visit Bondi... But this time it wasn't to spend the day on the beach. Instead we were headed to Bondi to play lawn bowls.. Yep I know what you're all thinking.. "that's an old mans sport Joe!" Well apparently it's really big in Aus and we were told through out our travels that you HAVE to play lawn bowls whilst in Aus. So we walked all over Bondi looking for this 'legendary bowls green' and we walked past some guy who I recognised.. Lewis, Tom and myself all looked at eachother, then it clicked... PSYCHO SAM! he wasn't dressed as a robot so maybe thats why we struggled to recognise him. We finally found the bowls green and I gave a look like 'Is this seriously one of the must do's of Australia?!' I think the guy who owned the place was pretty shocked 3 young English backpackers had turned up to play lawn bowls but hey..
      We started playing and had a little match between the three of us and I won! (of course) but It was a good laugh and we did enjoy it.. Don't think we're quite at a professional standard yet though.. We went back to the bowls 'clubhouse' and got a few beers in and watched the super 15 rugby highlights.   
       We then got the bus back to Hyde park. It rained while we were on the bus but stopped as we got off and we were treated to a great sunset over the city! We got back to the hostel and Tom and Lew went off to prepair dinner for us while I sorted some photos out on my camera in our dorm. Two new girls arrived and I had the general backpacker chat with them and they seemed like a good laugh So we arranged to all go out for drinks the following night.

Monday 14th March - Sydney, Australia

Today was a really chilled, relaxed day.. In other words.. We over slept and so didn't have enough time to do anything exciting. We checked out an art museum because It said it was free, We arrived there to find out only a tiny bit of it was free and you had to pay to see the rest so we didn't stay there long as we weren't going to break into the backbackers budget just to see some art! So we then walked to darling harbour and decided to check out this huge aquarium they have there. I really like aquariums, I wish I could have my own at home but I can't see it happening some how.. We spent ages walking around and looking at all the amazing marine life they had on show and then headed back to the hostel. We cooked dinner and then we decided to go to a bar next to our hostel called 'scary canarys' and it was full of people and the atmosphere was decent. We had a few beers and a few games of pool and then noticed a crown gathering at back of the dancefloor. We went over to find out what it was and to our delight, it was another jelly wrestling contest. This time the girls wrestling were wearing a lot less clothing than the Cairns girls!

Sunday 13th March

Today we got up early because we were finally leaving the horrible hostel! HALLELUJAH! we aren't a fussy bunch by no means (I'm happy sleeping on the ground) but we couldn't put up with another night with the other 300 people in our room (not literally) So we checked in to a new hostel called BASE which was brilliant! clean and surrounded by friendly backpackers! So we dumped our stuff and decided to go check out the legendary 'Bondi Beach'.
    On the way there we stopped of at Hyde park (not the one in London..) and had a bite to eat then got the bus to Bondi. The weather was perfect, not a single cloud in the sky and a gentle breeze so you weren't too hot! There was a surfing competition going on so as you can imagine, the beach was rammed full of people. I had heard a lot about this beach before setting off on this trip because there's a show about it on sky called Bondi rescue which I was told to watch before going there. The sea at Bondi beach is notorious for being a bit dodgy.. and when I say dodgy, I mean swimming along in what you think is shallow water and going to put your feet down and the ground has literaly dissapeared.. yeh that sort of dodgy. If you've watched the show you will know how dangerous it can be to try swimming outside of the coastguard flags.. I'm not the best swimmer anyway so I made sure I could always touch the ground and was keeping an eye out for sharks..
     Just as we were leaving we noticed a camera crew on the beach. It was the camera crew for Bondi rescue! they were actually filming an episode right next to where we were stood!

     We got the bus back to our hostel and Me and Lew decided to stay up really late to watch a rugby match in a nearby bar. All in all it was a great day!

Saturday 12th March

Had a massive lie in today (can't really blame us after the horrific coach journey) It was a nice day in Sydney, so we decided to get the bus from our hostel and visit the world famous Sydney opra house and harbour bridge!
     When we arrived we got a bit distracted by a street preformer who went by the name of 'psycho Sam' who did crazy things like do a robot dance and eat balloons.. To be fair he was really entertaining, But the three of us couldn't help but wonder what it must be like to pass the balloon out the other end (If you know what i mean..) After we finished watching this crazy nutter, it had clouded over.... Thanks Psycho Sam! We took loads of photos regardless of the weather. We walked to the nearby botanical gardens to chill on the grass and would you believe it the sun came out! So we got ice creams and spent the afternoon getting great photos of the sun setting over the opra house/harbour bridge.
    We missed the last bus so had to walk all the way back to the dreaded hostel (Sydney Backpackers) so we decided to find the nearest mcdonalds and stock up on snack wraps and 50 cent ice cream cones for the journey. I may have already said this previously in this blog, and I'll probably say it way more times throughout.. But I wish they had 50 cent ice cream cones in the UK.

     So we made it back to our horrible hostel and thank goodness we had some normal people that had joined our room. We got chatting to them and they were two girls from Devon who had just arrived from New Zealand (they were doing our trip but the other way round) We spent ages chatting and telling eachother what to see while your in Aus/Nz. We went out for a few drinks and came back to the hostel room to find that there was one person who didn't have a bed.. This was because one of the guys who had been at the hostel for ages had his friend staying in our room for about a month and the workers didn't even realise... just about sums this hostel up. 

Friday 11th March

Last nights coach trip was the worst I've ever experienced. Pretty much a sleepless night on a coach sat bolt upright. Thank goodness it was our last greyhound journey of Australia! We arrived at Sydney bus station around 10 am We decided to try and find a hostel we were recommended called 'Base'. The weather was overcast and we were walking around Sydney for about an hour before we found it. We were all pretty fed up and just wanted a hostel bed to collapse on. We arrived at Base and we were told that there were no rooms available until Sunday. So instead our only other option was a place called Sydney Backpackers. Now I advise you all to stay clear of this hostel.. It's situated down a side ally off George street and it was the worst hostel I've experienced so far. We got to our 16 bed dorm (yes 16!) and opened the door to an absolute tip of a room. clothes everywhere, the rooms clearly never got cleaned and it took us about half an hour to find a bed that wasn't being used! We dumped our bags and decided to go explore the city a bit more.
We found ourselves walking to a place called Darling harbor. It was pretty nice, but would have looked a lot nicer if the sun was shining! We went to the supermarket and bought some kangaroo mince then bumped into one of the guys we met in Thailand! We had a chat for a while, then went back to our hostel to cook dinner. We found ourselves glued to the tv for most of the night as the Japan Earthquake had just hit.

Thursday 10th March

Today we had to check out of our little cabin before 9am which was a bit of a struggle. We booked our coach to sydney for 12:20 am. So we spent a lot of the day just enjoying the sun waiting for dinner. Me and Lewis decided to go for one last surf which was good fun. Dinner soon came around and we didn't have to pay for it because they thought we were part of another group! saying that, we managed to get away without paying for 4 days worth of meals and surfboard hire! It was a big shame after dinner because 2 whole coachloads of people arrived at the surf camp the night we were leaving so we missed out on a good night there! We got a lift to the bus stop from one of the surf instructors there and our Greyhound bus was about half an hour late! When it finally pulled up it was packed full of sleeping people. So we had to all split up and sit next to strangers who were angry as we woke them up by sitting next to them.

Wednesday 9th March

Today was another day of surfing in the sun, which I cant complain about one bit! There's not a lot else to do in spot x but surf or just lounge around on the beach all day. I envy the surfer's life!

Tuesday 8th March

I woke up this morning a very warm boy, thanks to the new duvet! We got up and missed the morning surf. So we had lunch and then went out for a surf until 3pm. We then decided to go play 'kangaroo golf' We got on the mini bus and drove to the local golf course. It was $5 for club rental and a bucket of balls. It was such a laugh hitting them about and trying to aim for thew holes. We soon ran out of balls and headed back to camp. The three of us then sat on the beach with a paddle pop for a while then had dinner. After the dinner, we decided to share a box of goon, and had a good night playing drinking games with the rest of the camp.

Monday 7th March

Woke up this morning freezing cold because my duvet smelt vile when I went to go to bed last night so I threw it on the floor and just slept in my sleeping bag liner. The weather still wasn't great outside.. We got up and had breakfast which was also a huge portion. We then put our boardies and rashies, and went for a morning surf. I've never surfed before in my life and we decided not to bother with lessons and just do the 'Lewis Jones crash course on surfing' Turned out to be a good course as I was catching waves and standing up within minutes! We were out in the surf for a good 2 hours before we got bored and decided to come in for some lunch ( unlimited sandwiches .. can't go wrong!) By this time all the clouds had disappeared and all we had for the rest of the day was baking hot sunshine! We went back out for an evening surf then came back in for dinner. After dinner there was a massive game of musical chairs involving the whole surf camp which was a laugh.Then I went back to fresh bedding! What a day!

Sunday 6th March

We got up this morning around 9 am and had breakfast. Finally we had some Sun!! Typical.. the day we were leaving Byron, we get nice weather.. Me and Lewis decided to walk to the beach and get some photographs of Byron bay Beach as we hadn't taken many photos due to bad weather! We then caught our bus out to a very small town called Woolgoolga. The bus driver wouldn't let me on the bus with a 'singlet' on (vest) so I had to open my bag up and put a t shirt on before I could get on! The trip was around 2 hours and would you believe it, as we arrived.. It started raining! From Woolgoolga, we got a shuttle bus to Spot X. Spot X is a surf camp right next to the beach. We paid 80 dollars for 2 nights accommodation and breakfast, lunch and dinner vouchers. We stayed in a cabin, which was a nice change from a hostel. We met the other people in our cabin and then Lewis and Tom went for a surf. Your supposed to pay around 15 dollars for surfboard hire, But for the whole duration of our stay at Spot x we just took the surfboards without paying and so saved us a small fortune! After the surf sesh, the three of us and our other room mated had dinner, which was amazing! such huge portions and it was an ENGLISH ROAST! which i've missed a lot! After dinner we all had a game of killer pool with our new roomies and then one of the surf instructors joined it. In the end I won (of course) and we decided to go to bed as we had to be up early to catch the morning surf.

Saturday 5th March

We woke up today and the weather was still horrible. We left to go get lunch and dinner for later and as soon as we left the hostel, it started to chuck it down! We had to shelter under a tree for 15 mins because it was hitting so hard! We had another walk through town then decided it was best to stay indoors at the hostel as it just rained all day! Me and Lewis decided to go out at night, but ended up coming back early as the queues were all huge and we were too tired and also had to leave for Spot X the next morning.

Friday 4th March

We woke up and decided to walk to the most easterly point in Australia! The walk was really long and the weather was still rubbish! we thought we had got there but turned a corner and saw that it was still miles and miles away so decided to sit on the bench nearby and just enjoy the views of 'near the most easterly point in Aus' On the way back we decided to walk back via the beach, which was about 10 times faster than the way we had come! After we got off the beach we went into a few shops and then went to get dinner and another box of goon. We got back and cooked our dinner then had a few cups of wine in our room. We got chatting to some of the people from the room nextdoor and we all went out into town together. We went to a few bars together then headed back to our hostel around 2am.

Thursday 3rd March

We had to be up and ready to catch our Greyhound bus to Byron Bay at 11.20 this morning. The journey was around 2-3 hours long which wasn't too bad. We arrived in Byron and we hadn't booked any hostel, so we wondered around for ages looking for one with spaces. We were walking for ages in the humid heat which was horrible. Not what you want after a 3 hour coach drive! We finally arrived at a hostel which was right next to the beach which was good! We got settled in our room and went out to get some lunch. We took our lunch down to the beach and sat on the rocks and watched some hippy woman on drugs beat up an abbo, which was a bit of entertainment. We walked to the shops and bought dinner for later and spent the rest of the evening in the hostel as the weather was horrible today.

Tuesday 8th February

Today we had another lazy day by the lagoon, as it was finally open. We spent most of the day they catching rays and going for swims. later that night we decided to check out the Cairns nightlife and we ended up getting front row seats to a womens jelly wrestling tournament, was an experience (dont worry Gentlemen I will put the photos up) Were definitely starting to feel the strain of the backpackers budget. a pint is 5 dollars during happy hour. Compare that to Thailand where a pint was about 1 pound 20 !! Definitely miss Thailand when it comes to budgeting and spending money!

Monday 7th February

We woke up at 7 and got the coach north to Port Douglas. This is apparently the best place to go to see the Great barrier reef. It was a 2 hour coach drive, but I actually enjoyed it as the sun was finally out! and it was a coastal road so the scenery was pretty awesome. We got on the 'super sonic' boat and departed the port. whilst on the boat, Myself and Lewis had to fill out scuba diving forms just incase we died or went missing! We arrived at the reef and had to watch a safety video, where they explained that if you hold your breath while accending, your lungs would explode and you would die ... right. So We both got kitted up in all the scuba gear and jumped in the sea. The water temperature was 28 degrees! Luckily we had a expert instuctor all to ourselves which was good. At first I stuggled with the whole 'don't hold your breath' concept, but after a while I had mastered it and it was AMAZING! completely different to snorkelling and it feels unreal! our dive was for 30 minutes, and then we all went for a snorkell together. We moved to the next spot and we all went for another snorkel sesh together. I lost the other 2 and ended up swimming with a turtle! then my luck got even better and the other turtles mate turned up and I basically watched them get it on.. which is apparently really rare! The third and final stop was another amazing reef. Me and Lewis decided to fork out another 40 bucks each and do another dive. This dive was even better than the first. We went deeper and were down for a lot longer. It was a really strange feeling swimming alongside a huge wall of coral, and I saw a nemo! We then headed back and had a rocky boat ride back to dry land. We got back and were so shattered from all the swimming we didn't stay awake for long.

Sunday 6th February

We woke up pretty late this morning, the weather wasn't that great so we didn't miss out on anything. We went to a nearby tourist info place and myself and Lewis have booked to do a scuba dive on the Great barrier reef which is exciting. All three of us will also get to do a whole day of snorkelling. We also decided to go with the greyhound bus service to take us down the East coast to syndey stopping off on the way at Townsville, Airlie Beach, Agnes Water/1770, Rainbow Beach, Frazer island, Noosa, Brisbane, Surfers Paradise, Byron Bay and then Sydney. We also recieved enough free meal vouchers for every night we are staying in Cairns which is good for us backpackers! Later that evening we decided to stay up late and watch the 6 Nations rugby match between England and Wales and tried our first pint of proper aussie beer. Good times!

Saturday 5th February

We landed in Cairns airport around 9.30 am and got a transfer to our hostel (Gilligans) But we couldn't check in untill 2pm so we dumped our rucksacks at the hostell and went for a wonder. We had a nice breakfast at a local cafe. I've noticed that there is a lot of Aborigines around in Cairns, and they are always drunk and being followed by the police here. Because of the cyclone the lagoon (big community swimming pool area) is closed. But hopefully it will be open tomorrow or the next day. We finally killed enough time to check in and the dorm was pretty nice. It had all the basics so we were happy. We met a nice couple from London who we shared the dorm with. They were here during the cyclone and they said they were just stuck in their dorm for 2-3 days! We were all pretty shattered from our flight this morning, so we just had a lazy day and explored Cairns.