Last day in NZ

We've clawed back the NZ joy after missing the bus yesterday: after fuming for a few hours, we decided to get ourselves (and our bags) off the streets and went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - interesting. Very sinister and weird and cool in parts, pretty true to the book. They took away Willy Wonka's god-like aspect though, I think the whole troubled-childhood aspect was a mistake. It felt pretty decadent going to the cinema at 11am...anyway, after that we felt rejuvenated and had a fun day wandering around Auckland - it's an ok city; not incredibly cool and pretty like Sydney, and not huge either, but it has some lovely parks/sea views. We found a cool market. Then Rebecca picked us up on her way home from work and we had a barbeque at her house - yummy.

Today we're going horse-riding - we've wanted to the whole time we've been in NZ, but only just got round to organising ourselves. We'll be riding along the beach...hopefully it'll be lovely.

Anyway, tomorrow we fly to Fiji and we've been informed by Lonely Planet that there won't be many phone-lines or any internet access on the islands we're going to (we're travelling round the Yasawa island group) so this will probably be my last post for a while. (We get back from the Yasawas to the capital city, Nadi, on the 16th - day before my birthday!!). So, be warned that there may not be much emailing until then (arrgh!! don't know if I can cope...) but feel free to email anyway, I will reply as and when.

Canyon swing photos

Just got around to scanning these...check out the view




The harness is the same, you're just secured to the chair with a crappy rope, and you then have to sit backwards and lean the chair back til you tip over the edge...it's called the "chair of death".

As you can see, those guys really do their best to reassure you and make it as least scary as possible.

arrrrghhhhh

We just missed our bus to the Bay of Islands...which means that we won't get to go as we're pretty much out of time in New Zealand now. GRRRRRRRRRR rage...

We arrived in Auckland last night and we're staying with Rebecca and Mike...my mum's friend's daughter and her boyfriend. They're so lovely and it's been so nice to be back in a proper house after so many hostels (the night before last, we stayed in a REALLY disgusting hostel in Taupo - 6 people in a tiny, windowless room...ew). Their house is lovely and spacious, and we spent last night playing scrabble in a very civilised way, as well as watching all of our skydiving dvds (Mine and Vic's = embarrassing, Mike's is incredibly charming as it has Rebecca proposing to him on it!!)

The plan was that we would stay with them last night, then head up to the Bay of Islands at the top of the north island today, and return tomorrow night for one last night in Auckland. However, since we just missed our bus it looks like we've got 2 full days to play with in Auckland now...which is not a bad thing, make the best of it bla bla bla, but it's just SO annoying when we've already paid for the trip up north as part of our pass!! And we just missed the damn bus by under 10 minutes and the stupid driver didn't wait AT ALL...and our taxi driver didn't know where the pick-up point was which was a contributing factor to us being late...and we got up at 6:30am for NOTHING, and now we've got stupid bags in town...

OK, breathe. We now have time to spend in Auckland, more nights staying in a lovely house, it's fine, it's cool. We're thinking about taking a trip out to some of the islands in the bay.

Oh yeah - and yesterday we experienced yet another extreme activity, "Zorbing"...something you can only do here and, apparently, in Wales. You get inside a giant inflatable ball with a few inches of water in the bottom and get rolled down a hill, basically. Bizarre, but incredibly fun.

swimming with dolphins + skydiving

Did I mention that I love this country??

After leaving Christchurch with a sadly depleted tour group on Thursday, we headed north to a town called Kaikoura which was one of the most beautiful places I've seen in an incredibly beautiful country. It's been really sunny here and Kaikoura combined cute little town, blue sea, stunning coastline, and incredibly green rolling hills and cliffs, with snow-capped mountains in the background to complement it all...the colours just seem brighter and more vivid here! We were staying at a charming little hostel which really felt like a home, complete with saggy sofas and an old record player with an, er, interesting collection of LPs.

Swimming with dolphins was something Vic and I were both dubious about for financial reasons - it was pretty expensive - but which we really can't regret. It was wonderful...they were wild dolphins, you go out in a boat and tour the coast until the driver finds a pod of dolphins, then jump in. We were in about 800 metres of water apparently (freaky! the Pacific ocean!! Anything could be down there!), freezing cold, but then we were well equipped with wetsuits, booties and balaclava hoods over our heads, as well as snorkelling equipment. (They did me a prescription eyemask, well impressed!) We were instructed to try to attract the dolphins' attention by making noise, singing underwater, diving down and generally being interesting and entertaining. (Lucky it comes naturally to me). So, a group of about 10 of us piled off the boat...and there they were! These big animals, swimming round us, circling us, leaping out of the water, swimming away and coming back again...it was brilliant. They came so close, close enough to touch although apparently that would have freaked them out. They seem to find groups of swimmers curious or interesting or something, rather than threatening.

Neither me or Vic have any idea how long we were swimming with them for as we were pretty overexcited, but eventually we had to pile back on the boat, which is when things got interesting as the water was VERY choppy and the boat very small and rocky...there were at least 4 people who spent the whole journey back hunched over with buckets, being severely sick. Eew. It was enough to make me feel queasy and I almost never get seasick.

That was a really wonderful experience, getting so close to wild animals in their own environment (yeah, yeah, I'm so in touch with nature, ah, the spirit of mother earth and all that jazz) but I think we just managed to top it: we spent the afternoon doing a tandem skydive over Lake Taupo (we're now in the north island)...oh my god. It was amazing, so amazing, brilliant...after landing all I could really do was repeat "the best thing EVER!!", and it really was. Terrifying, exhilarating, and just so, so much fun. Vic and I did it along with 2 girls from our tour, Susie and Emily (we've each been given a dvd of us before, during and after which is hilarious). You get all suited up in this charming red jumpsuit (we all looked like convicts, except for Vic, who was working the butch look with her buzz cut and boilersuit) and get into a tiny little plane with your parachutist guy (someone had told us that all the guys were incredibly good looking, so we were...slightly disappointed) and climb to 12000 feet. (The tiny plane ride was good fun in itself, especially as the pilot was writing a text message whilst steering.) And then the guys strap themselves onto your back and you just...jump out of the plane. It was so scary, I really couldn't contemplate doing it but it happens so fast and there's no time to freak out. Then there was 45 seconds of freefall which was aMAZing, but also terrifying, of course...but because it was such a long period of freefall compared with something like the canyon swing that we did, there was time to relax and enjoy it - plus I felt pretty secure and wasn't worried about crash landing or anything. Then they open the parachute (which was really painful!! all those ropes kicking in and holding you up...ouch) and everything goes incredibly quiet. Then there was about 6 minutes of FLYING, drifting down at about 30 miles an hour with amazing views of the huge lake (biggest in NZ) and the countryside (we're not so far from the mountain that was used as Mount Doom in LOTR). Oh man. It was so wonderful. Even landing was not painful at all.

I'm completely wiped out now...but it was fantastic, really, one of the best things I've ever done.

Some pictures from Queenstown

The canyon swing...108 (or something like that) metre drop, see how scary it was, see?!?





Ah, these are some of our favourite people from the tour group, such a shame we're not together anymore...l-r, Stu, Paddy, Laura, me, Ben.


Vic and Laura looking hot


Queenstown is in SUCH a beautiful place! Love it!


Our whole group looking stupid at at bin-bag party in Lake Mehinapua...can't really sell that whole "we are sensible and mature travellers, NOT doing a stupid package tour with a load of other kids" line right now can I?...still it was fun. Vic and I could only find white (and also, charmingly, lemon-scented) bin bags, hence we stood out some.

People kept asking if we were nurses. Oh yeah, this girl in Queenstown, who we did the canyon swing with, kept telling me I looked just like Drew Barrymore. Actually she kept totally insisting that we were IDENTICAL and telling me that she felt like she needed to call me Drew...ah, it was so flattering. Obviously I expect all you guys to comment saying "Yes, I've always thought that but been too shy to say so", and not "shut up you narcissistic bitch" "Drew Barrymore is butters" or "you sound like that girl from New Hall who always told everyone that EVERYBODY said she looked just like Britney Spears". OK?

PS go to photobucket and to "victorialouise" for more photos...there's loads of beautiful NZ landscape ones.

Queenstown

The good news is that I'm pretty much recovered from that awful cold that totally knocked me out for 3 full days...I spent a whole day in Wanaka just sleeping, then got to Queenstown (self-styled "adventure capital of NZ") got straight into bed and carried on with feeling ill and sorry for myself.

Queenstown was SO beautiful and amazing. From the way people talked about it we were really expecting a horrible package holiday town of hotels and bars, but it's just gorgeous - all built around this huge lake, lovely clear water and stony beaches, lush greenery everywhere, and surrounded by amazing snow-capped mountains. It's big for skiing in winter, and it really felt like a ski resort...full of tourists doing crazily active things all day and drinking all night, yet managed to be somewhat less soulless than that makes it sound. Well, I enjoyed it anyway, although it was a rubbish place to be ill - everyone from our tour was off doing bunjee jumping/white water rafting/sky diving etc, and then drinking all night, while I was just lurking in the dormitory. Vic's knees (alot better now also) were still playing up so she joined me mostly, although there was one night when EVERYBODY, including her, was out having fun and I skulked in the dorm, coughing and blowing my nose. That was a bad evening for the self-pity spiral...

Anyway, finally yesterday I woke up feeling so much better, and we decided to launch ourselves headfirst into the joys of Queenstown and partake in some adventure. We chose to do this in the form of the Canyon Swing - the world's largest swing: it's basically a bungee jump, only instead of bouncing, you swing out across this canyon. You're in a harness and everything...I was really thinking "come on, how scary can this be, I know loads of people who've done it, I'll be strapped in...and isn't this the most incredible waste of money?" (The last point I can't refute, obviously). However, it turned out to be...alot more terrifying than I'd realised. We had to stand on this platform on a cliffside, high above this gorge with a river running through it far below, and...jump off. Which is SO hard to do. It was the first time I'd tried to do anything so counter-intuitive I think. Oh man...I just couldn't believe that I actually had to jump. The guys who run it didn't help - they were standing there responding to my "oh man do I really have to jump off this thing?!" by feigning shock and going "what?! huh? Did you say you're going to jump off? No..." Funny guys. It must be such a great job, they get to mess around with tourists all day and do lots of free jumps.

Anyway, I didn't allow myself to hesitate for too long - because I'd seen that Vic did, and that it made it so much more scary for her - so I just launched myself off. And it was amazing - the first few seconds of freefall were so scary it was ridiculous, but after the rope kicked in and I realised that this wasn't actually the end it was fantastic. I went back and had a second turn, this time going for the "chair of death" where they tie you to a chair and you have to rock yourself backwards, over the edge of the platform. Eeek, that was fun.

We followed our afternoon of ridiculous thrill seeking by going out on the town with almost everybody from our tour which was so much fun - and I finally felt less left out than I had all week. We dropped into an open mic night for Vic to dazzle the locals with some singing - she did 3 songs and sounded really great - and then headed back to the beaten track for drinking games, being stupid and dancing about. We had to appreciate the group as we've now parted ways with some of our favourite new friends who are staying in Queenstown for longer (though we hope to catch up with them in Fiji).

The night was great and culminated in Vic and I climbing into bed at 5am. Which was very sensible as we had a 7am wake up call to get back on the bus to take us back to Christchurch (where we are now). Ouch...today's been a blur of sleeping on the coach, waking up to see amazing scenery (I'll say it again, NZ's south island is so so so beautiful...we went past Mount Cook today, and all these glacial streams and lakes that were that amazing petrol blue colour) and giggling hysterically. I'll be going to bed early tonight...possibly in about 10 minutes.

Franz Josef glacier + incapacitatedness

Since my last post we've climbed a glacier...Franz Josef. Six hours of climbing...it was definitely the most strenuous thing we've done, and also one of the highlights of the trip (the whole of NZ is the highlight: I LOVE this country).

We opted for the full day trek over the glacier, which was recommended as the best way of seeing the prettier parts whilst being cheaper than the helicopter-trip option, and set off at 8am (after the worst night's sleep ever: 6 girls, some of whom totally snored and/or sleep talked, in a tiny dormitory the size of, like, something small) with a really cute guide called Cliff who was a bit of a hippy (he was a fan of the "nappy-free baby", so I told him I had a cousin who practised that...wonder how it worked out). We'd put ourselves into the self-selecting "more confident" group for no obvious reason as we weren't particularly confident, but hey. They did really work us, and expected alot in the way of confidence and just strength, but we managed not to actually disgrace ourselves.

The first couple of hours, getting up the initial slopes to the top of the glacier, were the hardest. The scenery went from a flat, stoney valley, through steep rocky areas, to steep, rocky, icy but very dirty areas, until you got higher up where the muckiness eased off and the ice was just dazzling. We had kind of mini-crampons on our boots, which gave us amazing grip on the ice, and alot of the steepest parts had steps carved in the ice by our guide using a pick-axe type thing, and there'd be the occasional rope to hang on to...apparently Franz-Josef is the steepest commercially guided glacier.

Once we got to the top the ice was fabulous, with that amazing blue colour that you see in pictures. We spent the time climbing around, often through these really narrow crevasses - our guide checked that none of us were claustrophobic before, which none of us took very seriously until we were sliding through these cracks between towering walls of ice, sometimes so narrow that you had to turn sideways and shuffle your feet along! At least in the crevasses you were less scared of falling or slipping as you could wedge yourself in by the elbows.



It was so wet up there - alot less cold and frozen than I expected: there was constant dripping, and there'd be little waterfalls coming out through gaps in the ice and pools of icy water - sometimes deep enough that you were scared of falling in them. There were also strange muddy areas, where all of a sudden it would seem like you were walking on rock instead of ice, but a bit of poking around revealed that there was still ice underneath. The ice formations were just so amazing...it looked really active, like waves frozen in motion.

So, a fantastic day, which did, sadly, totally mess us up. We woke up next day with a really bad cold (me) and swollen knees (Vic). Those people who know Vic know that she's always had trouble with her knees...well, all the climbing was too much for them apparently, so now they've swollen up and she's very stiff and actually paid to see a doctor yesterday, who said that it was just too much impact for the joints to handle and that she should see a physiotherapist and try to modify the way she walks...hmm. He also suggested that she "might want to consider walking with a stick".

Eeek. I laughed alot when she told me that. So did she, I hope it was genuine and that she's not secretly really upset. I want us to find her a really classic walking stick that she can do fun dances with, but I don't think she's convinced. Apparently the doctor said, by way of encouragement, "I walk with a stick".

It's like, yeah, but you're an old man, right?!

Anyway, hopefully she'll feel better after resting for a few days. At the moment she's just walking very slowly and going downstairs is difficult. Meanwhile, I came down with this awful rotten cold and have been in bed for pretty much the whole of the last day and a half. We're in a really beautiful town by a lake in the mountains called Wanaka, and we've extended our stay here so that we leave tomorrow in order to have today to recuperate. Some very cool people from our tour have stayed on too, and they're all going out tonight, which is lame as I'm going to have to go to bed at about 8pm...so ill...grrr.

More photos at www.photobucket.com under victorialouise, and at www.getjealous.com/vicandmary.

Kiwi experience

is so much fun. This country is AMAZING. We've been driving around for 2 days and we've already seen so much amazing countryside, forests, rivers, snow-capped mountains, waterfalls, coast. It's so lush and green. It's gorgeous.

We're currently in a place called Greymouth, on our way to spend the night at Lake Mahinapua (sic, sorry) where we will hopefully get to go kayaking...we just stopped for lunch at a place with weird "pancake rocks", stacked in layers, and a blowhole. The morning was spent walking round a seal colony, and last night we went jet-boating on the longest river in New Zealand (can't remember the NAME of the river, but anyone who knows their stuff could figure it out, I guess) which was cool, not as scary as I expected, but fun.

This tour is incredibly active. For some reason, Vic and I weren't expecting it to be anything like this - we thought it would just be transport, and we'd be organising everything else ourselves, but it's actually very similar to the Uluru one - they drive you around, stop at various places and tell you stuff to do, take you to accommodation, tell you what activities are on offer...which means you have to take, like, NO responsibility for yourselves. Very relaxing, though it sometimes goes against the grain a bit, it can feel like a school trip but...hey. We get to do and see some amazing stuff this way that I very much doubt we would get to on our own.

It seems like a pretty cool group of people as well. Not too many loud drunk British 18-year olds (in fact none, I think). Excellent.

Everyone reading this would love New Zealand and should come here as soon as...it's just so...brilliant. Kind of like the nicer bits of the UK (note that I initially wrote England there, Victoria, I'm being diplomatic here!!) only better, lusher, greener, prettier, more striking and impressive. It's so incredibly green. They keep telling us about the huge annual rainfall in this area (west coast of the south island) and it's just so weird that a few days ago, we were in Brisbane where they're on water restrictions because the reservoirs are running low. The way the world is organised is...weird.

Christchurch

I'm in Christchurch New Zealand!! It's SO nice here, it's such a lovely city and it totally reminds me of Cambridge. (Which is intentional I believe, they do punting on the river here using punts brought over from Cambridge or something). The city's very cute and small and just generally lovely. Today a guy in a bar called me "Matey Potatey" which really made me realise I was in NZ. Wicked.

We arrived at the airport at 4am local time yesterday, after our flight was delayed. As a cunning money-saving measure, instead of heading to a hostel we found some, uh, cosy bench seats and bedded down in the airport, which was initially rubbish but after a while, I managed to sleep some and it was cool. We got to our hostel at lunchtime yesterday and although we were really tired, we did succeed in exploring the city some. In the evening, as a staying-awake measure, we went to see "In Her Shoes": SO good, Toni Collette is brilliant.

Today we've been up in a cable car to this mountain which overlooks the city and the harbour...it was so cool, amazing views with the scenery starting to be reminiscent of Lord of the Rings.

We start our Kiwi Experience tour tomorrow morning.

Happy birthday to Jemima

We're off to New Zealand today. We would be on the plane about now but our flight was cancelled and they put us on the next one. It's annoying for 2 reasons:

- today was the thing where you know you have to go somewhere later so you don't do anything interesting and end up just packing and sitting around all day
- our flight now lands in Christchurch at 3:30am. Which means that, excited as I will be to be in the homeland of the Patchetts, it will be the middle of the night and we will not get much in the way of sleep. We were going to check into a hostel, but then we thought we'd save the money on a night's accommodation and just sleep in the airport and check into the hostel at 10am, thus only paying for TOMORROW night. Sound like a good idea? No.

In other news, I've booked myself into a hostel for my solo arrival back into Sydney: the 19th of November. I will be staying here http://www.billabonggardens.com.au/ for a couple of weeks while I look for somewhere to stay. Newtown, Sydney - compared by this hostel to London's Camden, my favourite place ever, and hometown of my favourite people...I hope you're reading and that compliment's not wasted Toerzy!!

Fraser Island

Vic and I spent the day doing a tour of Fraser Island - this island off the Queensland coast which is basically just a big sand dune - it's all made of sand. Amazing, that it's so big (over 100km long) and has so much vegetation in the way of subtropical rainforest. It was really cool.

The day started with me being unable to sleep much. I woke up at about 5am and really couldn't get back to sleep, so I ended up going for a charming sunrise run along the beach. It was so lovely...I think I've decided that, in the long term, I have got to live by the sea. And have a dog. (I'm afraid I just want to turn into Vic...)

That set me up for the day but did mean I was somewhat sleepy at times. On arrival to the island (via a ferry ride which was beautiful and sunny but during which we sadly did not spot any whales or sharks, despite this being the most shark-infested stretch of coast, or something) we were initially somewhat disappointed to find that our tour vehicle, rather than a small, rugged, adventurous-looking jeep, was an enormous mother of a 4-wheel drive COACH. Eeek. It was a beast. I tend to feel slightly uncomfortable about taking tours like this one - it just seems so lame in an "I'll just stay on the coach", see Australia in air-conditioned comfort-type way. Basically I feel like the tourist that I always try to pretend I'm not, but hey...if you can't beat them, join them.

The tour was much fun, with the terrain really requiring a 4-wheel drive...it was mad, driving over sand dunes and along a huge stretch of beach. The island was uber-beautiful. We swam in a fresh-water lake, with exceptionally acidic water apparently (all my rings are now really shiny, score!) which was just amazing. We also did some paddling in a creek which was lovely but freezing cold.

Sadly I managed to trigger my sun-allergy again (it was REALLY hot and we forgot to bring hats) so the journey home was a bit of a feeling-sick nightmare. I feel better now after eating tons of Chinese takeaway, however. Woohoo. This was definitely a good little trip to do before we fly to New Zealand (thursday!)

(More pictures at www.photobucket.com under "victorialouise", then "east coast oz")

Photes

Vic, fake beach


In Australia, they call Greek and Italian people "wogs" and it seems to be, like, ok. We can't get used to it.


Cousins


Pancake Manor. It was about 4am, don't I look so pissed off?!


Sushi train, it's so much fun

So, so hot

I just went for a run. It's really hot (about 35 degrees I think) so clearly if you're serious about running you would go at 6am, but I couldn't quite bring myself to do that and got up at 9am. Too late. It was too hot, and there was not enough shade...still at least I managed not to get lost.

We're enjoying Brisbane and are planning a trip up the coast to a place called Hervey Bay this weekend, where we may very possibly see whales.

Yesterday I booked my ticket home for July 20th, 2006. Woohoo!! I have to fly from Australia via Fiji and LA, so that's going to be a fun couple of days on a plane. I was going to try to break it up with a few weeks in LA - and I still might, if anyone wants to come and meet me out there for some fun in the USA - anyone? (Mary M?) However, staying for longer than just a stopover in the airport will require me to pay various taxes to the fascist American government, and also probably provide a DNA test and denounce all my Islamic relatives, so unless I've got plans, I'll probably just change planes and get the hell out of there. (It would cost an extra AUS$250).

It would have been nice to have a couple of weeks holiday in LA but on the other hand, I would probably have ended up how all girls who go out to LA do, working as a topless dancer, addicted to coke, and trying to break into the business.

Yesterday we located another Hare Krishna place in which to have lunch. It's so great, there are these Hare Krishna restaurants around which serve really nice vegetarian food for ridiculously cheap ($4 for a meal) and they don't even actively try to convert you! There may be books about chanting and inner peace on the tables, and fun twangy music playing in the background, and everyone who works there may have crazy hair, but generally it's all very subtle.

I bought a new bikini so I think maybe we'll go to the fake beach today and do some swimming...then we're going to see a band tonight. (This, as you may be able to tell, is all in the interest of getting us out of the house and preventing us from spending 12 solid hours watching the OC: we're already over halfway through season 2, arrrgh).

Vic's birthday

It was Vic's birthday on Tuesday so she's now 23 and I've had to counsel her through various crises ("Am I too old for this skirt??!" etc). Actually, I'm lying - that was never questioned.

We had thought about spending the day at Australia Zoo, hanging out with Steve Irwin and getting our photos taken with giant crocodiles etc, but in the end sleeping in late won over that. Well, Vic slept in - I got up extra early in order to raid my aunt's kitchen and make her a cake. It worked out ok except that, like everything I cook, it came out looking like it was made by a 6 year old. What's with that?! Tasted ok though. It also supplemented the only present I'd managed to buy Vic (not for financial reasons but more for getting-time-away-from-Vic-in-order-to-shop reasons): a Sinead O'Connor CD. Since the head-shaving we've had I think 3 or 4 genuine Sinead O'Connor comments, mostly from drunk guys, but hey.

We went out for breakfast and then spent the day in town. The South Bank area here is amazing. It's got theatres and concert halls like the one back home, but with the addition of a cool park and fake beach. Yep, a fake beach. Brisbane is a river city, it's not on the sea, but they imported a load of sand and fashioned a salt-water pool right next to the river. It's got life guards and "safe to swim" flags and everything, plus no fear of sharks.


Then we headed out for evening fun in Brisbane.

(Paris Hilton faces)

We started with Sushi Station fun with our friend Matt. We were introducing him to sushi, which I have to admit didn't...go great. Ah well. Then we headed to a sleazy backpackers pub for drinks, but quickly decided we were just so way superior to their target audience, so went to the Valley to find somewhere to hang out...the initial plan had involved crazy drunkenness and staying up all night (til the buses started running again; no night buses here!) but seeing as how we're so mature and Vic's 23 and all the atmosphere turned out to be rather calmer and maturer than that: we had drinks sitting outside at this fun bar place (we'd just missed seeing a live band, booo) and when it got to 2:30am and everything seemed to be closed, headed to a joyful 24-hour pancake place my cousin Katie had told us about. Yummy. Then we got a cab home at 4am...just 1 hour 40 mins short of the first bus. Damn.

Yesterday was then spent being tired, wandering around in the sunshine and watching the OC. The OC is so addictive. We rented part of the 2nd series on video and...actually got to go watch more right now as the videos are due back today.

Suburban nightmare

I just got lost. It was terrifying. I woke up early (read: 9am. My uncle gets up at 5:30am, so clearly there's no contest) and went out running, cos I'm healthy like that. It was a charming sunny morning, and I thought I'd turn off the main road and follow this little stream in a kind of wooded nature reserve place...
when I emerged onto the road, I had no idea where I was. All the streets looked the same: wide, tree-lined, big houses with balconies. (Think of the road in American Beauty). There were no passers-by and no traffic.

I wandered around aimlessly for a while, feeling myself start to get sunburnt. I thought I might collapse from dehydration and lie at the roadside until my body was discovered by a passing SUV. However, luckily I came upon a man on a ride-on mower, mowing his front lawn. He pointed me in the right direction, and some nice old ladies helped me find the right street. I got back, and Vic was still asleep. I don't think she really believes I've been out at all.

Photo fun:

Byron Bay...love it



Most Easterly point



Tropical paradise


Me and my cousins! Liz, 14, left, Katie, 16, right

Sunshine state

The bombings in Bali are so awful. I can't believe that that poor economy gets hit again...oh man. It's just so...oh man.

We're now in Brisbane! Up in the tropical area now, so it's hot and sunny, and staying with some (more) of my relatives...Uncle Richard, Fiona, Katie and Liz. It's great, the house is lovely with a huge terrace, and it's so good to see my cousins again.

Plus we're being SO well looked after. Seriously - we were greeted with home-made shortbread and magazines! It's such a contrast to hostels and dorms and yucky, cheapo pasta-and-sauce meals.

We arrived on friday after a coach journey through Surfer's Paradise, Palm Beach etc. This is the Gold Coast, which is known for wonderful beaches and weather but is also uber-touristy. Lots of high-rise blocks.

I didn't know anything about Brisbane as a city - it's so much less famous than Melbourne/Sydney (right? - or was I just ignorant?!) - but it's really cool. Built on a river, with a river-bus ferry service which is very charming and affords gorgeous views. Yesterday Vic and I did some ferry-rides, some exploring, and ate lunch at Sushi Express - where the sushi travels round on a model train. Ah, so gimmicky, but so enjoyable. Then in the evening we went out to meet our friend Matt, a guy we know from our hostel in Sydney. On the way, we made a new friend at the bus-stop. No joke. People really ARE more friendly in Australia. We just got talking...she seems nice, if a bit, um, cheery. Plus she's doing a PhD on the clothing label Billabong...beautiful choice of subject, right?!

Hanging out with Matt was fun and we went to the area known as "the Valley" - feels like we're in LA everytime we say that. We found a cool gig venue inside a converted church, but decided not to splash out on the entrance fee and spent our time sitting outside in the courtyard. It would have been a great night except that we failed on the public transport front and got the bus going in the wrong direction, missed the last bus in the right direction, and had to get a cab. Then we got home and couldn't get the TV to work. Very sad.

However, today's been great again - Fiona took us out for yum cha lunch, which is what they call dim sum over here, which was delicious. Then the girls took us shopping in the Valley. (Hehe, sounds like somehting out of Clueless). I bought a t-shirt, and some thongs (flip-flops: "go-forwards", as they're called in Barbados). And a ring, and a necklace. Man, sounds like I really splashed out, but everything was on offer and very cheap. I also managed to sneak off and get Vic a small, comedy gift for her birthday, which is on Tuesday. I need to get her something more, but it's so hard to get the chance when we're together all the time...