Bali, Singapore and Cambodia

Cambodia

We had wanted to go to Peninsular Malaysia after Singapore. However, as we had only planned to have a week there, we realised that a week was no way near enough time to get everything done, so we decided to add a week on to Cambodia and we will have to visit Malaysia on another trip!

We flew into Phnom Penh from Kuala Lumpar. Our first impressions were that that the roads were dirty and full of crazy drivers. There were also even more motorbikes and traffic than in Bali. Over the next two weeks, we frequently saw people trying to squeeze as much as possible on to a motorbike, without helmets, weaving in and out of the traffic. On our first day we went to Choeung Ek (The Killing Fields), about 20km from Phnom Penh. We got a tour guide who talked us through all the tragic events that happened in Cambodia. It was very upsetting and disturbing but worthwhile doing to try and appreciate what the Cambodians have been through. We also went to the Teoul Slueung Museum, where a lot of the torturing and interrogation occurred by the Khmer Rouge before people were taken away to places such as the Killing Fields.

The next day we got a private taxi to Koh Kong, on the boarder with Thailand. We could have got a shared taxi, but this would have involved 5 people sitting in the back with all their luggage on their laps, and 2 people in the front (not including the driver), and of course, no seat belts. We quickly decided to pass on that option! The cars do actually possess seatbelts, but the drivers hide them underneath the chairs so they give the passengers a more comfortable ride! The journey involved 4 river ferry crossings, but of course we were told that they were finished. These crossings involved the cars going on not much more than planks of wood strapped together and moving from one side to the other by the most pathetic engine. At night, the only light came from the car headlights and we saw some lorries get stuck as the ramp was too steep for them to drive up! On one of the crossings we had to wait for 1 1/2 hours for the ferry to come over (it was only 50m away - no idea!) The journey took 7 1/2 hours and was not much fun.

Koh Kong itself is not that great, the reason we went there was to go to the beautiful deserted island that is yet to be corrupted by tourism called Koh Kong Krau. As the island is in the Gulf of Thailand, it was lovely and the sea was clear and warm. To get to the island should be fairly straightforward and inexpensive, however, the Cambodians / Thai's living in the area were not that helpful. The price of the speedboat was more than we anticipated and unfortunately Koh Kong is bereft of many necessities including ATM's! We were left with a dilemma. Had we endured such a difficult journey for nothing, or was there any chance we could get some money; without either of us selling our bodies?!

We discovered that the nearest ATM was in fact in Thailand, which border's Cambodia to the west. We were told by a friendly part-time policeman, part-time hotel receptionist (who also let our room go the previous day) that he could give Dave a lift on his moto to the border - a mere 20 minute journey. Dave asked the obvious questions - how would he get into Thailand without his passport being stamped to leave Cambodia; thus preventing him from returning? "Not a problem" was the reply, "The ATM is this side of the Thai boarder". Dave was a little suspicious as he was told that he would still need his passport!

Desperate times forces one to do things that any rational person wouldn't dream of doing. Dave found himself speeding (no helmets in Cambodia) to the Thai border with the 'friendly policeman' (about 16 years old). On the way, literally 20 minutes into the journey, Dave was told to follow a few instructions that he would need for a successful transaction to take place. Dave responded "you said that the ATM was this side of the border"! When he arrived, the policeman left him in the hands of a very shady looking Cambodian who led him to the Cambodian immigration police. They were told that he just wanted to pop into Thailand to withdraw some money, but wanted to return with no new stamps in his passport. The Cambodian police found this amusing and strongly suggested that three bottles of 'green tea' would be required for this to take place. He reluctantly agreed and walked past them with his new shady friend. Then the friend explained that he could no longer go any further with Dave, and that he would need to follow his instructions carefully to continue. The Cambodian pointed to another crossing where there were several windows which contained unfriendly Thai immigration officials. Dave was instructed to go there, give them his passport (which they would apparently look after and not stamp) and say 'ATM'. Dave went over these instructions several times, before he strolled up to the window, past several Thai army officials doing routines with guns (not too scary really) and handed over his passport. The immigration official pointed in some vague manner to an invisible ATM nearby a very hectic market. Dave eventually found it and had to work out how to withdraw money from a machine where the instructions were entirely in Thai and the location was surrounded by hundreds of dodgy looking locals. Dave then had to calculate how much 1 Thai Baht was (never used them before) and then ask for a receipt. Fortunately both money and a receipt ejected out of the machine. He then had to barter with the locals for 3 bottles of 'green tea' from the Thai market, using US dollars. He needed the Thai Baht for the boat trip, Koh Kong uses three currencies, Thai Baht, Cambodian Reil and US Dollars. Basically, they choose the currency and screw you over with the exchange rate. Dave thought that Thai Baht would be the best negotiation currency for the forthcoming trip. He successfully haggled for the 'green tea' and then had the daunting task of returning to Cambodia without a passport. He walked up to the window where he had originally given his passport, only to find it closed! He went to the next one and just stood there looking at this angry Thai official. He pulled out about twenty passports, flicked through them all and produced mine; I guess there aren't many white Thai's in that area! Dave said 'thank you', which the angry man ignored, and proceeded to walk past the Thai army guards and back into the middle ground where the shady Cambodian waited. We walked together back to the Cambodian border police and presented them with their 'green tea', which apparently was very funny again. He walked onto Cambodian soil, took a deep breath of relief. Within a couple of seconds, Dave heard this noise 'tip', 'tip' in his ear. Surprise, surprise the shady man wanted some money. Dave gave him 1 US dollar which the Cambodian wasn't happy with, got on the friendly policeman's bike and headed back to Lins. When he arrived, the friendly policeman also wanted a 'tip'. He got less than the petrol it took to get him there and back and a firm 'no more' expression on Dave's face. Needless to say Lins was happy to see Dave again. All part of the experience they say - never again!

From Koh Kong, we got a ferry to Sianoukville. The ferry took 4 hours and had the usual one price for locals and another price for tourists (about 30 times cheaper!). On arrival we were hassled no-end by tuk-tuk and taxi drivers. Sianoukville was the only place since travelling that we have not booked our accommodation in advance as we were told that there were so many hotels there.....big mistake! We spent an hour driving and walking around in the scorching heat looking for somewhere to stay. We found one eventually and it turned out to be cheap but great and a 5 minute walk to Ochheuteal Beach.

We had a few days here to chill out. We went to Ochheuteal Beach for a day, but it was quite crowded and there was rubbish everywhere. It is such a shame, Cambodia is a lovely country in many parts but they have no idea of how to dispose of rubbish. Practically every road in Cambodia has litter all along the sides. The next day we went to Otres Beach, which was much nicer and quieter. We also did a snorkelling trip to three islands: Koh Kteah, Koh Russei and Koh Preus (Bamboo Island). We had a great time, although the snorkelling was pretty poor and we had some very drunk and annoying Russians on the trip who ruined it for everyone.

We also hired a tuk tuk for an evening and went to other places in Sianoukville: Sokha Beach, Serendipity Beach, Independence Beach, Victory Beach, the port, Weather Hill Station on Victory Hill, Sianoukville mountain, the downtown area and Wat Chotynieng where we saw the sunset over the town and learnt from our driver about how their used to be tigers roaming around not so long ago (before the Khmer Rouge).

We left Sianoukville to return to Phnom Penh by private taxi (which surprisingly was only a few more dollars than the bus and as usual we couldn't get a straight answer about how long the bus would take).

We met Lins' parents again in Phnom Penh and we all stayed at the famous FCC. We had 10 days with them in Cambodia and the south of Vietnam and they treated us to lots of things! It was very nice, although we got kept awake by the staff making bread all night (throwing it against the surfaces, making a very loud thudding noise)! Dave had to complain numerous times. We visited the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda (very nice), Wat Phonm, Wat Onnalun, the Russian and Central Markets and the Independence Monument.

We hired a private van to take us from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. It only took 5 1/2 hours but then we had to spend 45 minutes looking for the guesthouse; the driver didn't have a clue and hardly any of the roads have names and / or signs in Cambodia. Our guesthouse was lovely, with really friendly Cambodian staff. We had a private driver and tour guide for the duration of our time in Siem Reap. On the first evening we headed straight out to buy our three day temple passes and then to Angkor Wat for the sunset. This turned out to be quite frustrating as we did not know where to stand for photos to get the best sunset! We then enjoyed a complimentary Khmer dinner. Our guesthouse did a brilliant 'lots of luxury' package, so all the temples and routes etc were planned out for us....no hassle for a few days at last!

On our first day, our guide and driver took us to Angkor Wat. We walked round the incredible monument for a few hours and gained an insight into the Khmer Empire. Following Angkor Wat we went to the ancient city of Angkor Thom. We explored temples including the famous Bayon, Phimeanakas, Royal Palace, Kleangs, Preah Pithu Group, and heard about the stories of the Terrace of the Leper King and Elephant Terrace. The next day had an early start to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat, much better than the sunset. We then headed off to Ta Prohm (where Tomb Raider, starring Lara Croft was filmed). It was a really beautiful temple, with lots of huge trees and roots everywhere. We then went back to The Villa before going out for a day of temple explorations, visiting Preah Khan - Temple of the sacred sword, Ta Som, Banteay Kdei and Banteay Samre.

Trips around Siem Reap to the temples took us past rice paddies, buffaloes and local villages. We also headed out of Angkor Park to some of the outlying temples. We visited Banteay Srei, the most intricately carved temple in all of Angkor with many faces. Following Banteay Srei we journeyed on to Kbal Spean. We walked through the jungle, to the river that has a temple. Carved into the river bed are a number of sights. This was really disappointing to say the least; especially as we were all so hot and the road there was so bumpy!

On our last day of temple touring we did a trip out to the Rolous Group temples, which are some of the earliest temple sites. The temple of Bakong also houses a pagoda where many people lost their lives at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. We then visited a stilted village on the Tonle Sap River and took a relaxing trip out to the lake on a small boat. This was an adventure in itself.....a few minutes before our boat left, a bigger boat nicked our battery! This meant that half way through our journey, the engine simply stopped and we just sat there in the middle of the lake, waiting for a tow! As we were stuck for a few minutes, we had a few more than usual little kids hopping onto our boats from their family business boat of selling fruit and drinks to tourists.

That night we went out to see a traditional Khmer dance and have some Khmer food. During the week, we also visited the Siem Reap market, which was quite nice, and went out for some drinks with our old friend from Fiji and NZ. In our package from the guesthouse, we also got a massage (where they were insistent on clicking our fingers and toes) and pool passes at a nearby 5* hotel.

Lins' parents treated us to a helicopter ride over Angkor Wat, which was amazing. We really got a sense of how huge it is, although we all still chose other temples as our favourites. We left Cambodia for Saigon (south of Vietnam) by plane. It took off half an hour early, we couldn't belive it! Apparently this is quiet common in Asia and one of our good friends actually missed his flight as it left early.

Singapore

We flew from Bali to Singapore on January 1st, and stayed at the Summer Tavern hostel in Clarke Quay for four nights. Our hostel was in a great location, we were minutes away from the bars and MRT etc, but we had a quiet room. Singapore was fairly expensive in parts, but also quite a nice city with very friendly people. We had an exhausting but rewarding three days.

On the first day we did a river sight seeing cruise seeing Clarke and Boat Quay, the Merlion, Robertson Quay, and various nice hotels. We also looked round the Asian Civilisation Museum, which was very interesting, and walked around the town to see the Esplanade Theatre on the Bay, some churches and cathedrals, and the Kuan Im Temple. That night we got all dressed up and went for a Singapore Sling at the Raffles hotel (yum yum), and to some bars at Clarke Quay.

Next morning we got up bright and early to go to Chinatown. It was quite hectic as expected, with lots of tacky souvenir shops. We visited the Chinatown Heritage Centre, which was also really interesting, the Sri Mariamman Temple and the Thian Hock Keng Temple. We then went to the Singapore Zoo for the afternoon and the Night Safari in the evening. At both, the animals seemed happy enough (apart from the Jaguars, Polar Bears and some flying creatures) and the zoo is well maintained and tidy. The night safari was brilliant - we got driven around the zoo in a long tram and saw all the animals walking around. We particularly liked the mouse deer (little, fat deer with match stick legs!). Our last day was spent calling Cambodia in the morning (nightmare - no English!!!) and visiting the shops along Orchard Road. In the afternoon we headed to Little India, seeing various temples, which were really disappointing to say the least.

To get to Cambodia we got up nice and early at 4.30AM to get a taxi to Johor (in the south of Malaysia) to pick up a much cheaper flight to Cambodia via Kuala Lumpar.

Bali

To get to Bali from NZ, we had to fly via Melbourne. Both flights were pretty awful, full of extremely loud people! The first thing we noticed when we left Denpasar airport was the humidity and the number of motorbikes. They were everywhere and seemed to have a special driving law all to themselves. We were told that there are more motorbikes than people in Bali. During our two weeks there, it was not uncommon to see 5 adults crammed on to one motorbike! The driving was also horrendous at times, with everyone pulling out in front each other the whole time and continuously bibbing the horn to let people know they are around.

We met Lins' parents and sister at the villa they had hired for Christmas and New Year; they had come out to spend the festive season with us. We stayed in a luxury villa in Jimbarin Bay (the south of Bali), with great views over the Bay, Java and the airport. Plane spotting became a daily frequented activity, and turned out to be surprisingly quite fun with the binoculars!!! The garden was immaculate, with a refreshing pool, sun loungers and outside eating and sitting areas. We all had en-suite bathrooms and rooms decorated in traditional Balinese style. We had a private driver whenever we needed him and two ladies that cooked the most incredible food! We ate so well and pretty healthily. For Dave and I it was really nice to have a comfy bed and decent sleep. However, Lins' parents were not so lucky; for the first 7 nights they had to get out of bed in the middle of the night and remove the extremely noisy frogs from the pond outside their room and put them elsewhere in the garden!

Weather-wise, we had a good first day, and then 6 days of very heavy monsoon rain. We got the outskirts of the cyclone in Java that killed so many people. There were really relentless downpours, quite fun to watch at times from the safety of our villa. We had great weather for the last 5 days; when the sun came out it was extremely hot.

As our villa was in Jimbarin Bay, we had to drive through the town of Kuta to get anywhere. This was an absolute nightmare, the traffic was worse than the M25 at times. Hence after a few day trips we could all not face being in the car!

We did a river rafting day trip, down 16km of river amongst really beautiful scenery. We had a crazy guide and it was a good laugh. There were some safety procedures in place, although very brief! We saw a traditional Barong Dance, which involved dancers telling the story of an old legend to do with monkey's, tiger's, goodies and baddies. On our other day trips we went to the Kintanmani Volcano and Lake, Elephant Caves (Goa Gajah), Te Galang (with views of rice terraces), Gunung Kawi Holy Spring Temple and Celuk for some silver shopping. We also had a great day at Ubud and Mas, where you can buy all sorts of arts and crafts at the markets.

On Christmas Eve we had a gorgeous six course dinner at The Intercontinental Hotel not far from our villa. The service was impeccable and we watched another Barong Dance. On NYE we had another lovely meal at The Ritz Carlton Hotel and saw some more dances. At both hotels, the security was very tight.

Unfortunately we both arrived in Bali with an awful cold and couldn't shake it for the whole two weeks. We were just grateful that we got ill when we were relaxing and not rushing around everywhere. We said our good-byes to Lins' parents and sister at the villa; they were off to Borneo and we were off to Cambodia.

New Zealand

As we flew over NZ, it reminded us of England with all the greenery. New Zealand is such a wonderful country; we had a great time. We were met at Auckland airport by some old friends of Dave's, who are now living near Auckland. We stayed at their house for 3 nights as we started to plan our trip, catch up on washing and get over our tummy bugs still present from Fiji (which remained with us for a further 3 weeks). We picked up our campervan on the second day and we were really pleased with it. It was the best one that we have had so far - really clean inside with loads of space and the bed was slightly bigger than a double size. It was 2.6m high, which meant that we could permanently stand up in it, no more pop top and ducking like in Tasmania!

We checked out Auckland city for a bit and then headed into the Northlands. We did not warm to Auckland that much as it is so spread out and there did not seem to be that much to do there. At Goat Island, we went snorkeling to see the huge, friendly resident Snapper (some are up to 50-60 years old), Blue Maomao, Kelpfish, Red Crayfish, Crabs, Sea Stars, Sea Cucumbers and Sponges. The water felt ABSOLUTELY FREEZING to us, even with a 7mm wetsuit on! It was 12 degrees, and we had been used to snorkeling in the warm waters of Fiji, which were about 28 degrees. But we think we did well to last around 45 minutes.

We visited the Kaiiwi Lakes, which were a nightmare to find (signs and directions are useless in NZ, just like Australia). They were absolutely stunning, completely underrated, and we had a beautiful day of weather. The lakes were comparable, if not better than the famous lakes on Fraser Island, Australia. We also visited the nearby Waipoua Forest with the giant Kauri trees. We drove through Opononi, and went on the ferry crossing on the way to Cape Reigna. We only went to the start of 90 mile beach as we couldn't be bothered with the long journey to the end just to see an average beach! We then headed over to see Doubtless Bay, Tauranga Bay and Matauri Bay, which were stunning, just like a mini Bay of Islands. When we reached KeriKeri in the Bay of Islands, we stayed at a really nice house of some friends of Dave's grandparents for 3 nights. As we had both not had a bath for so long, Lins went in the hot tub with striking views as often as possible, enjoying it so much that she fell asleep most of the time. We were unlucky with the dolphin watching trip in the Bay of Islands - we ended up going 3 times to try and swim with them, but we met some great Kiwi’s on each trip. On our third time we managed to see them but each time the trip around the islands was amazing with really great views. In the same region, we walked round historic Russell and then saw the place where the Waitangi Treaty occurred and read all about the history of NZ.

We then did a long, boring but scenic drive to the Coromandel Peninsular where we caught up with some friends from Fiji. We went to Hot Water Beach, where you can hire a spade to dig up the sand and create a hot water pool to sit in and watch the sea (too hot in parts!). We also did a beautiful walk to Cathedral Cove, which had an amazing beach and view through coves out to the ocean. Then followed another long drive to Waitomo Caves, which are fabulous caves containing unique formations and glowworms that you can see close up. We did the 'Honking Hagis Holes' adventure option. It was absolutely brilliant and involved abseiling, rock climbing and crawling through small holes that did not seem possible to fit through (some people get stuck in the holes and need a little shove!). The first abseil was 30m into the dark, and the second and third were both down waterfalls, which was quality! We also did this with our friends from Fiji and some Italians who wore extremely small speedo's!

The sulphur smell from Rotorua hit us a few kilometers away as we approached the city. It really was overwhelming at times; we had to choose our campsite carefully so that we were a bit further out of town in order that our van did not get contaminated! We did white water rafting down the Kaituna River; with the best tour guides we have had so far...we had such a laugh and loads of fun. The Kaituna boasts the highest commercially rafted waterfall (7m) in the World. There are actually 3 waterfalls among the 14 rapids (Grade 5); two smaller waterfalls to practice on before attacking the 7-meter drop named Tutea Falls. One in three rafts capsizes as they go down the waterfall. Ours somehow did not as we paddled hard down the waterfall but we all got soaked and then watched other rafts capsize after us!

Still in Rotorua, we did a very interesting tour of Te Pau Maori village and again learnt a lot about Maori history and the smelly geyser fields. In the evening we were really looking forward to a relaxing natural spa at The Polynesian, but the smell was just too bad for Lins and we had to walk out! The next morning we did ‘Zorbing’, which is a fairly new activity that involves rolling down a hill in a huge hamster ball type thing, filled with warm water (or you can be strapped to the ball). It was sooooo much fun! We slipped and slid our way down the hill together in hysterics! Our only criticism was that it was too short.

The drive to Matamata where remnants of the original Hobbiton village set from The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy was beautiful, although frustrating being stuck behind slow campervans. We were not expecting a lot of this tour due to what we had read, but it really was great. Our guide was fantastic and gave us lots of insight into the making of the film. Bilbo Baggins' house can still be seen and entered, as well as Samwise's (Quinny's!) and lots of others, there were around 37 hobbit houses still remaining. We got our photos taken at The Party Tree, the lake and in some of the hobbit holes! We had some absolute LOTR fanatics on our tour, who knew practically everything about all three films!

After our time at Hobbiton, we started heading south in the north island to Taupo. Our first morning here was spent getting really nervous and going to the restroom a lot (Lins!), and then jumping out of a plane at 15,000ft! Our skydive was absolutely amazing. 15,000ft is the highest commercial skydive you can do in the world, and it allows you to freefall for just over one minute at speeds over 200km/hour, and then cruise down slowly for 6-7 minutes. We both got to steer the parachute when it opened towards the ground and add some spins! The set up and welcome was very professional and all the instructors had done thousands and of jumps. We were both fortunate to have really funny guys jumping with us, both who tried to wind Lins up with safety worries, but it was all good fun. We went for the full package, which meant that we got 40 photos, a handy cam video and another jumper who dived with us and took a video from a different angle. Lins was pretty nervous but very excited in the build up, asking questions such as ‘what if my parachute does not open' and 'what if your parachute does not open' and 'what if you black out!?'. The instructors seemed to find it all quite funny but did a good job of reassuring Lins. Dave was surprisingly not nervous at all and was just really up for the jump. The fall was completely exhilarating. You don’t really have any time to turn back once you are on the edge of the plane...it’s so noisy that even if you said ‘I don’t want to do it’, I think your buddy would be pushed to hear you. The views of Lake Taupo, the mountains (including Mt Doom from LOTR) and the forest were brilliant. We were buzzing for hours afterwards and immediately started to think about when we could do our next one. Still smiling and talking about the experience over and over again, we went to Hokua Falls and rapids (very blue water in parts), and to see the dam opening. We loved, Taupo, the town is really beautiful and has a great feel to it.

Just south of Taupo is the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, one of NZ's most famous and stunning walks. It is 18.5 km and we were prepared for lots of rain. We were really lucky though; it started off nice and warm, but got very cold and windy at the top of the mountains (we felt like we were going to lose our fingers when we stopped to take photo’s)...but no rain though! Again, the views were amazing and on the walk you pass through lots of beautiful and varied types of scenery, including turquoise blue lakes and active volcanoes. We got up nice and close to Mt Doom and finished the walk in a leisurely 7 hours, stopping to take hundreds of photo’s...literally.

Further south at Palmerston North we visited the rugby museum and had a little look around the town, very pretty actually. We then headed down to Wellington, doing a city walking tour, shopping, Te Papa Museum, and the Botanical Gardens (with a ride in the old cable car up to the top). We met up with our friends from Fiji again for some drinks and ended up having a very near death experience. We were just walking along to a bar and all of a sudden we heard an incredible 'bang'. We looked to our left across the road and witnessed a bus with hundreds of sparks and a loud electrical cracking coming from above it. At the same time that we looked left, we saw a tram-line cable coupled with a metal rod flying across the road towards us with sparks flying everywhere. Fortunately it narrowly missed us all. Lins and Carolin were short enough for it to miss their heads. However, Dave (Mission Impossible / James Bond style) ducked down and grabbed Leigh next to him. Both of them very nearly got hit in the face. Surprisingly, only some pedestrians near by asked if we were alright; and the bus driver who had hit the overhead cables was more concerned about his bus! The road was closed off, and we just casually continued to walk to the bar for our drink and some interesting conversation! We really liked Wellington; it's a great, vibrant city, apart from the weather. It was extremely windy at times with lots of drizzle.

We took our van onto the ferry for the crossing across the Cook Straight to the South Island. Fortunately we had a good crossing weather-wise; it is not uncommon to have really stormy conditions and for lots of people to be sea sick. We were both prepared though and had sea sickness tablets, which made Lins very drowsy as usual and not that useful for the rest of the day.

We went anticlockwise round the South Island, apart from our first leg to Blenheim. We did a wine tasting tour of the Marlborough wine region, famous for Sauvignon Blanc’s, and sampled some great wines. We had a mixture of people from different countries on our tour, everyone was really friendly. It was quite funny as everyone got really drunk (we got a little tipsy too), most of all some really posh older ladies from England! Some of the wineries included Cloudy Bay, Kathy Lynskey Wines, and Highfield Estate. After sleeping off our wine overnight, we then went back to Picton, doing the Marlborough Sounds walks, which were very beautiful. The drive out of Picton was spectacular; we stopped so many times to take photos of breathtaking scenery around each corner.

We loved Nelson (the sunniest place in New Zealand and therefore one of the most desirable places to live). There is a great beach with background views of snow capped mountains. We then went north to Abel Tasman National Park and Pohora, which were stunning. We did a full day kayak and walking tour, seeing turquoise water and glittering gold sand beaches, again we had great weather and the views were incredible. We did a road trip to Golden Bay, taking in extraordinary sights, the highlight being a scenic drive over Takaka Hill, known as the Marble Mountain. We stopped at many lookouts along the way. Near Takaka we walked round Te Waikoropupu Springs, New Zealand's largest freshwater springs.

When we drove down to the Nelson Lakes, we couldn’t quite believe the sights. The lakes are surrounded by the snow capped mountains of the northern end of the Southern Alps and are surrounded by forests and wildlife. We did some short walks and Dave did a 3 hour speed hike (average time is supposedly 5-6 hours), whilst Lins rested her back.

We then headed west, on the way stopping at The Buller Gorge to do a ‘Superman’. This was brilliant and involved running off a cliff edge over the gorge and being pulled along by a zip wire, pretty fast. We both laughed all the way. This was our first experience of running and throwing ourselves off a cliff and we loved it so much. The west coast is referred to by many Kiwi's as the 'real' NZ and is supposed to have really bad weather most of the time...not for us though! Our first stop was Westport, where we saw some smelly seal colonies at Cape Foulwind. We drove as far north as Karamea to go to the Oparara Basin featuring the majestic Limestone Arches (near the Heaphy Track). We then continued south along the west coast, stopping frequently to view the beautiful rugged coastline. We saw some famous jade shops, Punakaiki's pancake rocks and blowholes (spectacular cliff formations), and passed through Greymouth before reaching Franz Josef Glacier. The drive was equal if not better than the 'The Great Ocean Road', Australia. New Zealand is very underrated.

We spent a couple of days at Franz Josef, choosing to do a heli-hike of the glacier. This involved an exciting scenic helicopter flight over the glacier and landing over half way up the glacier where the ice is much cleaner. We then followed our guide through spectacular ice formations of towering pinnacles and brilliantly blue ice caves and crevasses. We had panoramic views of the surrounding mountains and learnt a lot about the magnificent glacier. We were incredibly fortunate as the trip has to be cancelled over half the days in the year due to poor visibility. Apparently it rains / snows over 300 days a year here! We had clear blue skies for most of the trip and saw amazing scenery. We enjoyed wearing our crampons that allowed us to go almost vertical up the ice and it was one of the best things that we have done so far. The next day we did a base walk to the glacier to get a different perspective of it.

On the way to Fox Glacier, only about 30km away, we stopped to do a walk with views over Okarito Lagoon and a great sunset over Mt Cook. We did a base walk to Fox Glacier. It was much bigger than Franz, but supposedly not as nice actually on the ice, but we really liked it.

Wanaka is beautiful, the lake has such an amazing setting and the town is very pretty. We did some walks here and spent time relaxing in the pretty town. We also visited Puzzleworld, which had some great illusions and a very annoying maze. The drive to Queenstown was picture perfect; again we stopped many times to take photos. We really loved Queenstown, it was surprisingly not too touristy but very clean with some really nice streets and shops. We had an action packed few days. We took the very steep gondola up to the top of Bob's Peak. At the top are numerous observation decks offering breathtaking views of the Coronet Peaks and The Remarkables, over Queenstown and across Lake Wakatipu to Cecil and Walter Peaks. Here, we also had 3 goes on the luge, which was brilliant fun. We went all the way down without braking and we were laughing all the way!

On our first morning we both did the Canyon Swing. It is like a bungy jump, as you jump off a cliff tied to a cord. The difference is that the cord is around your waist, and after falling vertically, the way that the cord is tied means that you actually travel in a huge arc at the bottom, like a swing shape, rather than bouncing up and down like with a bungy jump. This was great for Lins as she cannot do a bungy because of her back, but the canyon swing is smooth. It is hard to put the experience into words, if you check out: www.canyonswing.co.nz you can see video's of the different jump styles. The jump is 109m (60m free fall) and the arc is 200m ... it was AWESOME!!! We both decided to jump off forwards; again the action of throwing yourself off is like a bungy and most unnatural. The guys supervising us were fantastic, so mush fun and really encouraging. The hardest part was obviously jumping off the cliff with the Shotover River below, but what made it harder was that the guys simply said, 'right, you're ready, go when you like'. This meant that we had a few minutes of psyching ourselves up and delaying the inevitable. We both screamed on the way down, but also loved every second of it!

That afternoon Dave did the Nevis Bungy jump. The Nevis is the third highest bungy jump in the world, and apparently the scariest. The reason it is so scary is that the platform where you jump from is part of a cable car suspended by wires over a canyon. Many people who simply watch, find it too difficult just to sit in the cable car, as it sways side to side in the wind constantly. The jump itself is a terrifying 134m of freefalling at over 150km/hour for over 8 seconds before the cord kicks in. You jump in weight order, with the heaviest jumping first. There were over twenty people jumping, and Dave was about number nine. To be honest, the longer you wait - especially after hearing everyone jump before you scream (even the men) - the more nervous you become. As Dave had completed the Canyon Swing in the morning, he was slightly more confident. In fact, he found it a little easier, despite the obvious height and exposure to the elements; the procedure was very swift. As soon as they had tied his feet together with numerous ropes, he was instructed to waddle to the end of a tiny platform jutting out over the canyon. As soon as he was there, the instructor shouted "three, two, one, bungy"! Fortunately, Dave didn't have time to think about what he was doing and just jumped head first out into the abyss. What followed was a raucous shout for about 5 seconds. It certainly was an experience Dave will never forget.

The next afternoon we did river surfing, which was surprisingly quite tame (Dave didn't think so, not quite as good a swimmer as Lins) and disappointing; although the scenery and experience of being in the river was great. It involved going down The Roaring Meg section of the Kawarau River, twice. There was 6 km of continuous whitewater, graded 2-3 because of its fast flowing water with rapids and whirlpools. We also did the famous Shotover jet boat ride, which involved skimming past rocky outcrops at close range and full 360º spins. It was good fun and incredible how the driver came so close to hitting rocks but narrowly missed every time. Our last activity was hang gliding over the Coronet Peaks, which was great, it really felt like we were flying. We ran off the cliffs with an experienced hang glider on our backs and watched the amazing views for miles around.

We then did the long drive to The Milford Sounds Fiordland National Park. The drive was extremely scenic, we were stopping the whole time to jump out of the car and look at things. The Park is beautiful and we did some short walks around the lake, where we got hassled by some big Kea's (they are like huge parrots that can turn quite aggressive if they want some food from you). We did a scenic cruise that took us all around the peaks and even right underneath one of the waterfalls. It rains here most days of the year, but we only got some light drizzle towards the end.

We drove through the Southlands along the Southern Scenic Route, stopping at some lovely beaches and rock formations along the way and of course the most southerly point of the main islands of NZ. We drove through Invergargill, only stopping briefly to check our emails. It really is as bad a place as the Kiwi's say....not much to do there and quite run down. The Catlins region to the east of Invercargill has some great scenery: lots of beaches, lush and green rolling hills, forests and rivers. Lins had a scare on the beach near Curio Bay as she almost walked into a HUGE sleeping sea lion, which looked just like a rock! When it heard her, it sat up and did an almighty roar, in which she responded with a squeal and ran off! On a more enjoyable wildlife encounter, we were driving along and Dave happened to spot two yellow-eyed penguins sitting on a rock! They are the rarest penguins in the world so we were well pleased. We got some good photos without getting too close, but we were so lucky to see them in the wild. We also saw the supposed 180-million-year-old fossilised forest, called the ‘petrified forest’ of subtropical kauri and other trees, apparently dating back to the Jurassic age. We did a lovely little walk along Nugget Point, the views out to the ocean were incredible and we saw Hooker's sea lions, elephant seals and New Zealand fur seals basking on the rocks down below. We also visited the lighthouse at Waipapa Point, scene of New Zealand's worst shipping disaster. We did several short walks to some of the many waterfalls in the Catlins region, including McLean Falls, which is one of the best.

After the south coast we continued north to Dunedin, which we liked, and we stayed at a nice campsite near St Clair beach. The main attraction on this part of the island is the Otago Peninsular, which has beautiful rugged scenery. The coastline really is stunning, with a line of high cliffs, arches and headlands that provide endless vantage points for breathtaking views of the ocean...again, lots more photos. We stopped to do short walks at Sandfly Bay, Hoopers Inlet (where we saw The Chasm and Lover’s Leap), and Allans Beach. We also did a tour of The Royal Albatross Centre at Taiaroa Head, which we think we remember correctly as having the biggest population of Albatross birds in the world. We were again so fortunate to see about 10 adults flying over us for about 20 minutes, their wing span was incredible and it was great watching them glide though the air. We drove back along the other side of the peninsular and saw Portablello and the great views of Dunedin Harbour.

One of our best short walks in NZ was to Tunnel Beach, just south of Dunedin, which draws its name from a passage that was hand carved through a rock promontory to allow access to a lovely secluded and sheltered beach at the base of the cliffs. Whilst Dave was taking some photos, he noticed something moving through the lens. After a second look, he noticed it was a seal that had come ashore to look around. He waddled out of the sea and remained in the shallow waves and started posing perfectly for our photos! We were the only ones on the beach and it was great to watch the seal looking around inquisitively at us and the surroundings!

Further north at Moeraki, 40km south of Oamaru, there are huge spherical boulders scattered along the beach and emerging from the sandstone cliffs. Each boulder weighs several tonnes and is up to two meters high. Continuing north along the coast at Oamaru we did a yellow-eyed penguin tour. We were lucky to have a private tour and this time we got really close to the penguins in their den (as we were with a guide, this was ok apparently). The mother penguin was looking after two chicks, and they were all so sweet. We also did a blue penguin tour (again, private as no-one else turned up; perhaps we smell?). These penguins are the smallest in the world. We watched the ‘penguin parade’ as well. This involved over 200 penguins coming back to land at around dusk, after a full day at sea, and then watching them shuffle into their homes. Further up the coast we stopped off numerous times to see lots of wildlife, which gave our memory cards a severe denting.

We had two days in Kaikoura, a small coastal village which has a large mountain range that provides a dramatic backdrop to the town centre, located on the east side of a small peninsula extending out into the Pacific Ocean. We had planned on doing a whale watching trip, swimming with the dolphins trip and swimming with the seals trip. Kaikoura has lots of unique marine life due to the location of the peninsular and the huge drop off canyon in the ocean about 6km off shore. On our first day, the weather was awful. Our whale watching trip turned back after thirty minutes as over half the boat was being violently sick again (haven't we told this story to you a few times before?!). Thankfully we got a full refund, as we were expecting more arguments about getting our money back. However the next day was one of the best days of our lives......we got up at 4.30AM to go swimming with the dolphins and it was AMAZING!!! The dolphins were wild Dusky Dolphins, the most playful and acrobatic in the world. We were all sitting on the boat, half asleep in our wetsuits, when after 20 minutes, the guide said, 'right, we've got a pod of about 400 dolphins, get to the back of the boat and get ready to swim'. We rushed to the back and sat on the edge of the boat, waiting to see them. We were still thinking, '400 dolphins, yeah right', as we couldn't see anything in the ocean. Then, all of a sudden, tens of dolphins were jumping around the boat everywhere!! The boat stopped and we entered the water and swam out about 10m. There were dolphins everywhere...literally! They were bumping into us and everything, swimming around us, looking right into our eyes and practically jumping over us! After 10 minutes or so, we all got back on the boat which then moved up to the start of the pod and then we did the whole thing again! We were extremely lucky as we went swimming with them 5 times, for a total of around 50 minutes. Towards the end of our time we got some great photos of them jumping out of the air and doing summersaults. We were quite shocked by this amazing encounter, we really hadn't expected to see that many dolphins and so often.

At the end of the trip we rushed over to the seal swimming place. It was not very well organized (very laid back), but we ended up having 45 minutes swimming with the wild NZ fur seals! Again, we really weren't expecting to see anything. Pardon the cheesy phrase but it truly was a magical experience again. At one point Dave and I had 5 seals swimming around us and playing with us. You could look into their huge eyes and see that they were being inquisitive. At times they swum really fast straight towards us, and then at the last minute darted away. They were extremely powerful yet very graceful. It was brilliant!

Apparently it is not cruel to swim with the dolphins and seals when done properly. The seals especially seemed to really enjoy having us around. At times when we swum towards them, it was easy to lose track of how far you had gone, so the guide called us back. This meant that the seals also followed us in. With the seals we were told to copy their actions as much as possible and not arch the top half of our torso out of the water as this is a threatening position. We were also told to be as quiet as possible. In contrast, with the dolphins we were told to entertain them, copy their actions, also making lots of noises. We all looked and sounded so stupid!

The last few days were spent staying with Helen, a teacher friend from Quilley School, near the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch. We had a great time and it was so nice to have some normal conversations rather than the whole travelling talk of 'where are you from, where have you been?' Christchurch is really lovely, a great city with lots going on. We checked out The Arts Centre, Cathedral Square and many other local sights. Helen drove us up the mountain range for great sunset views of Christchurch, the Canterbury Plains, Banks Peninsula and Lyttelton Harbour.

We were extremely lucky with the weather for the duration of our trip in NZ. In the whole 8 weeks that we were there we had 5 days of rain, 3 of which we were mainly driving on, and none of which affected our activities. We just kept dodging it!

Unfortunately we had a quite a few problems with our van (the Cheeseman luck with hiring vans continues!) However, we did love living in it, we had enough space and it was really clean. It was also so nice not to have to pack and unpack everyday.

We absolutely loved NZ (a.k.a the land of bad haircuts and where everyone pulls out in front of you on the roads), and actually preferred it overall to Australia. There was so much to write about! If NZ were closer we would love to live there. Overall it has been our favourite country so far. The weather made a lot of our trips better than expected, but the Kiwi's are such great people, so friendly and genuine. Most of the campsites were really beautiful, either in the middle of a forest, surrounded by huge trees, or right next to a stunning lake. Most also had excellent facilities and really friendly Kiwi staff! We drove close to 10,000km and completely maximized our time, seeing many things that other people don’t have time to; getting up very early and arriving at campsites between 8-10pm on most nights. This left us totally satisfied but exhausted and in need of a holiday!

Fiji

On our first morning in Nadi, we were shown how coconut's were cracked open by the locals and got to drink the fresh juice inside. Very nice. We then headed into Nadi to get some bits and pieces and got completely harassed by all the shop keepers saying, 'come into my shop, very good prices'. It was a bit tiresome after a while, but we did get a couple of bargains. The next morning we got up bright and early to start our four day Feejee Experience tour of the main island, Viti Levu. We were greeted by 3 friendly tour guides another friendly, but typically scary driver. We had 20 people on our tour, mainly Europeans.

The tour went anticlockwise round the island. On the first day we went to Natadola Beach, driving through some amazing countryside on the way. Fiji is very diverse, with great beaches, rainforests and mountains. We also saw some self-sufficient villages reliant on crop growth / sugar cane for income and family meals. The beach was beautiful and the sea was lovely and warm. The only annoying thing was that we kept getting asked for money by some of the local kids. After the beach we headed to a coastal village. Our guides were really good and explained a lot about the structure, tradition and culture in Fiji. We then went on to Sigatoka sand dunes to do some 'sand boarding'. It was so much fun again, but extremely tiring walking up the sand dunes as the sand falls away under your feet. We had a competition to see who could finish the furthest from the bottom of the sand dunes, and one of the local girls won.

After getting sand blasted, we headed to the Coral Coast for the night. We stayed at The Beachhouse, where one series of Celebrity Love Island was filmed, and still looked very similar to the tv set. It was actually a really nice hostel and it was our first experience of staying in a Bure. We got up in the middle of the night to watch England beat Australia in the rugby!! It was great fun watching it with the Fijians, about 15 English people and 2 Australians, who typically gave us banter throughout the match, but couldn't take any back or accept that we were better (the Australians generally do not accept criticism very well at all).

Day two of our tour was so much fun! We drove to Navua and did a trek into the mountains. We ventured through the rainforest amidst the inner mountains of Fiji. We went up and down lots of steep 'steps' and waded through creeks (often for forty minutes at a time) where the water often came up to our waists. We did not want to think what was in there! It was very much like those Vietnam War films where the camouflaged soldiers quietly walk through the water with their guns ready.... and then suddenly get ambushed. We went 'Fiji time' at the back of the group with two of the female Fijian guides. It was such a good laugh and the rain poured down on us when we were in one of the creeks. We got really muddy and kept slipping over but no-one cared.

The trek took around 4 1/2 hours and then we stopped for an eagerly awaited lunch. The end of the trek intersects with the Navua River, where the film 'Anaconda' was filmed. There was a collection of rubber tubes waiting, which we sat on and cruised down the river in! Tubing down the river was really peaceful, but also funny trying desperately to paddle so not to hit the rocks that sporadically popped up. Looking around was so surreal, like being in Jurassic Park, with huge cliffs covered in amazing plants, trees and waterfalls. We stopped at one of the waterfalls and all took turns at jumping into the pools below. The final sector of the trek / swim was on a long boat (again, crazy drivers), back to the bus.

We headed into Suva for the night, the capital of Fiji. We saw the main buildings of significance, but unfortunately we couldn't go out as it was Sunday, and everything closes down on a Sunday in Fiji. We had a nice group meal at the hostel and a great Fijian dance show. Again, we woke up in the middle of the night to watch Fiji against South Africa; a great atmosphere once more with the Fijians. Dave got up earlier to watch the repeat of the upset quarter final, France versus New Zealand; and drank kava (perfectly legal) late into the night with the locals.

On our third day, we navigated the 'Banana Highway', which consisted of gravel roads and hence not a very nice journey in a bus! We stopped off to visit a local village, where we were involved in a traditional kava ceremony. Kava is a plant with long roots that many Fijians drink the whole time. However, a lot of them actually do not like it, especially the women. It gets mixed in a bowl with water and basically tastes like muddy water, yuk! When drinking it, your mouth goes a little bit numb. If you drink a lot of it, you can feel quite sleepy. Lins only had one bowl, and that was enough! As Dave was nominated the chief of our group he had to keep drinking it or it was considered rude. He slept well that night!

After leaving the village we headed to the Wanibuka River, where we got involved in some bilibili rafting. A bilibili raft is the main method of travel and transport that a lot of Fijians use up and down the rivers. They are made of around 16-berth bamboo rafts and can fit up to 10 people on them in a squeeze. We got into teams and the first part was spent cruising down the river, like on a gondolier. We then all gathered at the bottom of the river where we raced upstream to the finish line. It was actually really tiring but great fun.

We stayed the night at Volivoli Beach in Rakiraki. We had a great night as it was officially 'Fiji Day', the Fijians put on lots of games and dancing for us to do, as well as a bonfire night. We were lucky that it was Fiji Day during our tour, as all the Fijians were in a really good mood. The next morning was spent relaxing on some sun loungers, what a luxury when you are travelling! We then headed to a local school. We had a look round all the buildings and most classes greeted us with welcome songs. The kids were really sweet but you could tell that some of them were quite naughty. We didn't get to see any lessons being taught, but the school seemed more structured that we had anticipated. There were similar rules etc on the walls like in the UK.

Another long journey took us back to Nadi via the bottling plant where the famously good (?) 'Fiji Water' is made, The Ba district, where we tried some local curry (apart from Lins!), and then on to the Sabeto hot pools located at the base of the Sleeping Giant mountain range in the Sabeto Valley. First we jumped into the mud pools for some gooey beauty treatments and then into the hot mineral water pools. It was so relaxing and really hot (you would have loved it Dad!).

Unfortunately, Lins got ill on the morning of the first day, and the bug stayed with her for the whole tour. She went through stages of having a bad tummy, being sick, severe stomach cramps and coming out in hot flushes and cold sweats. Some of the terrible road conditions did not help. When we returned to Nadi, she went to a private GP, and was told that she had a bacterial infection. She was given some antibiotics and two injections, which completely knocked her out! We had to delay the next part of our trip as she was too ill. The tour was great though, we met some really nice people. During the whole of the tour our guides played the same cd, REALLY LOUD, on loop all the time. Slightly grating after a while.

We then had 2 weeks in the Yasawa Islands. We bought a 14 day hop on hop off boat pass. Our first night was spent at Kuata, which had really basic accommodation, but the really friendly staff made up for it. We did a summit walk to watch the sunset and a snorkel trip with white tip reef sharks, which was amazing, one of the best things that we have done since we have been away. It only cost us about 6 pounds each and we got to swim with 5 reef sharks for 30 minutes. We got some great photo's and on a few occasions the sharks came within a metre from us! It wasn't scary though but surprisingly calming watching them swim.

The next night was spent at Sunset Waya, a stunning beach with snorkelling. Again basic accommodation but this time also with slop for food. We were not impressed! Dave's meal was brought out with 10 ants on it, compliments of the chef. You have to wonder how long the food was sitting there for that many ants to be on the plate! As Lins was still ill and Dave was starting to get ill, sleeping at these places was unbearable. We both woke up sweating buckets and feeling that we were being suffocated by our mosquito nets. It was so hot and humid and there was no breeze or fans. Therefore we decided to stay at more expensive places to get a fan and decent food. This completely blew our budget, but it was worth it as we were too ill not to have a fan etc, and the accommodation was significantly better.

We then headed up to as far north as you can stay in the Yasawa's to Oarsmans Bay, our favourite place. The beach was white sand with crystal clear blue water, fringed with beautiful coral reef. The staff and accommodation were great. We met lots of really nice people. The meals in Fiji lend themselves to meeting people as you usually sit on a table of around 10 people or more. Again, the snorkelling here was amazing. We went to a traditional church service and village.

A week into our trip now, and we were starting to have had enough of ‘Fiji time’. 'Fiji time' is supposed to mean that when the locals say five minutes they really mean an hour at least. Everything is so laid back over there and the pace of life is extremely slow. However, we soon discovered that 'Fiji time' means 'lazy time' or when it suits the locals. We worked this out the hard way; missing a boat was one of many ocasions. We had put our names down for the 'church visit' the previous day with the leaving time clearly written on the board as 9:30. We were there at 9:20 and the boat wasn't even in sight! On this occasions 'Fiji time' meant leaving earlier without telling us! We also got told off for making a boat wait, when we were 2 minutes early, and the most frustrating of all, got left on an island while the locals forgot about us and went to get kava. Meanwhile, the sun went down, it got pitch black and we both got bitten by lots of mosquitoes, gnats and sand flies. We weren't impressed.

Oarsman's was amazing though; unfortunately Dave was really ill with stomach cramps, hot sweats, severe fatigue, heat rash etc. Being over 5 hours away from the mainland, where they have doctors, running water, cooked food ... he made a decision to see a local 'nurse' AKA witch doctor. She simply confirmed that the antibiotics that he had started taking (brought from England) were suitable for his symptoms. He began to feel better after a few days, but never really shook it off. Both of us were still feeling ill a week into our trip in New Zealand! Back to Oarsmans Bay and a little more drama. We found out that 2 days after we left, and literally right where we had been snorkelling, a Tiger Shark was caught in a fishing net! A lucky escape. Tiger sharks usually never come close to the small islands, but this one was tempted in by some lazy Fijians who killed a pig for a wedding feast and threw the insides into the ocean rather than disposing of them properly. A severe telling off for the staff all round!

We then headed south and stayed at Bay of Plenty, a new resort. This turned out to be a bit of a nightmare ... Lins' food had chicken in it (they had tried to pick out all of the meat in her meal to pretend that it was vegetarian, but failed), and we had no water in our bathroom for the whole of the morning; not ideal when you need a shower as you are sweating profusely, and need to flush the loo! However, what saved this place form being the worst resort ever was the fact that we went over to the local village for the evening for a rugby training session. Dave joined in with all the locals and it was great fun. Most of the Fijians were super quick. The best bit was that the Fijian 7's captain, John, was also from this village, and had just arrived back playing in the rugby World Cup in France. We got to chat with him and have our photo taken with him, he was extremely modest. Dave had bought a Fiji shirt in town so he got it signed; another one for the wall!

Our next hotel was Nanula Island resort in the blue lagoon; our nicest accommodation. We had the luxury of sun loungers, something much missed. We then had a free night on the Wana Taki boat. It is supposed to cruise round the islands, but only moved about 100m, no joke. At least it was free. We then stayed at Manta Ray resort, and Octopus resort for two nights each. At both islands we met up with some people form Oarsmans again. The snorkelling was absolutely amazing again, right off shore. Our last night on the Yasawa's was at Bounty Island, where some of the series to Celebrity Love Island were filmed (the one with Lee Sharpe, Paul Danan and Abi Titmuss). Here we had the privilege of air conditioning but also very rude staff!

At a couple of the budget hotels, the generator packed up around 8.00PM, leaving everyone in the pitch black. On one such time, the generator stopped working just after our evening meal. The staff stuck a torch in the middle of the room (meaning that all the bugs and huge moths swarmed round it) and sped off in their boat to get one from another island (without telling us what was going on)!

Most nights the Fijians put on a really great dance show (mainly the men), with great music and ‘Haka’ style moves. This was invariably followed by us getting up and dancing with them, brilliant fun. Dancing Fijian style is quality!!! We also had one show that involved a guy twirling a machete around and catching it. We were in the front row, extremely nervous as he kept dropping it. He actually miss threw the machete one time and it hit his neck...he just carried on though and all the staff (watching from outside the Bure) were laughing. Fire dances were also really common. These involved twirling long sticks with fire at both ends and the men putting them back and forward between their legs (again quite nerve racking at times to watch, bearing in mind the non-existent safety procedures in Fiji). The Fijians found it all very funny spinning these fire sticks around their bodies!

At every hotel in the Yasawa's, we were greeted by the staff singing and playing a traditional Fijian welcome song, in which we had to respond "Bula'. ‘Bula’ is a funny word....everyone says it the whole time and it seems to mean lots of other things apart from 'hello'. We also had beautiful fresh flowers put on our bed, bathroom and around the room. At most of the hotels, there were no safety precautions in place. We could take a kayak out at any time, and not leave our details or anything. It could be days before they realised that you were missing if something happened as they do not do any checks on equipment at the end of the day!

At most of the hotels in Fiji, people sit at big tables for meal times. This lent itself really well to meeting lots of people in a really chilled out atmosphere. We did love our time in Fiji but we did find it frustrating trying to get things done and constantly being told what people thought we wanted to hear rather than the right answer!

Up the east coast

We left Sydney bright and early the day after we finished work. We left at 6.15am; just as everyone from the Kings Cross area was going home (not a very pretty sight if you've seen Kings Cross at night time). Our first stop was sunny Newcastle. We saw the beach, Nobby's Head and the city buildings. It was a pleasant enough place where everyone seemed to be walking a dog along the beach. If the owners looked friendly, we asked if we could stroke their dog (Lins misses having pets a lot now). Everyone so far has been more than willing to oblige. It was dead in the city centre though and we went to the most surreal cinema with psychedelic carpets and tiny speakers on the wall, which produced hardly any sound throughout the film!

We then had a week of heavy rain, the worst in Australia for years! Some of the places that we visited had a month's rain in one day! Great fun when you are travelling and have to walk everywhere with extremely heavy bags on both your front and back. We stopped off at Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour, both of which had lovely beaches, but we just saw stormy seas and grey skies. We spent 3 days in Byron Bay, where we had lovely weather for one of the days and grey skies for the remainder. We did the long walk round Cape Byron and were lucky to see a large pod of dolphins that came about 50m from the shore line.

After Byron we went to Surfers Paradise for 4 days. We went to Dreamworld and Movie World theme parks; each of which had a few good rides each and torrential rain. We didn't warm to the high rise buildings too much all over the city but it was a bit more happening than Byron. We then arrived in sunny Brisbane and stayed for another 4 days. Brisbane is nice but there didn’t seem to be a lot to do there. We did the city walk, the Botanical Gardens, and looked at all the buildings on a boat cruise. We walked all along south bank, which was really nice. We also did a day trip to Moreton Island (about 75 minutes away). It was a gorgeous island and we had beautiful weather. We sat by the Tangalooma ship Wrecks and we practically had the beach to ourselves.

After Brisbane we stopped at Maroochydore for 2 days and visited Australia Zoo. We stayed in the hostel from hell! We got rudely awoken at 5.15am both days by travellers going fruit picking! ARRRRHHH! They were so noisy that we woke up completely startled, not knowing whether there was an earthquake outside! However, Australia Zoo was very excellent. All the animals seemed to be well looked after and the grounds were really clean and spectacular to walk around. However, it was also very sad as there were pictures of and tributes to Steve Irwin everywhere.

An hour up the road was Noosa; a much nicer place where it felt like we were on holiday rather than backpacking as it was quite posh in parts! We did a 2 hour surfing lesson, which was fun and we both stood up lots of times, although Lins struggled with the sea going in her eyes with her contact lenses. We also did a 2 hour kayak trip round the lagoon....nice houses!

We then arrived in Hervey Bay, where we were doing our Fraser Island tour from. We were so excited to be going to Fraser; the biggest sand island in the world. We ended up going with the YHA tour, which was quality. We had great food and accommodation (including no cooking or washing up for 3 days, woo hoo!). We were really lucky with our group. We only had 8 of us, but on the second day we joined with the group that started the day before us, which made 20 people in total. Everyone got on really well and we had a laugh with all of them. We went out quite a few times with a really funny and knowledgeable German guy from our tour up the coast. Our tour guide was also sound, but we think that most of them are over here. Our accommodation was at the Wilderness Lodges at the hotel on the island and we went out both nights to the Dingo Bar, very funny times. Highlights were: Basin Lake, Wanggoolba Creek, Lake Mckenzie, driving up 75 mile beach and the endless dirt tracks in our 4x4, swimming at Eli Creek, sand boarding down the dunes into a beautiful clear lake at the bottom (SOOOOO much fun!) and Lake Wabby. The sand at the lakes was so fine that it worked like it had some kind of cleaning powers so we all scrubbed our rings and they came out sparkling. It was such a great 3 days.

When we returned to Hervey bay, we did a Humpback Whale watching tour...infinitely better than the sea sick boat from hell in Sydney. We saw about 8 whales, including a mum and a calf. The mum and calf were sleeping on top of the water (called 'logging') about 50m away and we watched them for about 10 minutes, which was pretty awesome. We also saw some whales breaching a bit further away from the boat and one spy hop (where they 'stand' vertical in the water and stick the top quarter of their body out of the water) about 100m away from the boat. Hervey Bay is the best place in Oz to do whale watching trips. Lots of people were lucky enough to get the whales coming right up to their boats, but we were pleased with what we got.

From Hervey Bay, we had a 12 1/2 hour coach journey up to Airlie Beach. We loved it there, apart from the numerous tourist adverts and shops etc that line the main street. We did a sea turtle kayak trip round the Whitsunday Islands, which was great fun. We saw a white tip reef shark, which was brilliant! It swam right next to our kayak for about a minute and then swam off incredibly fast. We also did a 65 minute scenic plane flight over the Whitsunday Islands and Great Barrier Reef, which included a sea landing on the water out in the ocean - surprisingly smooth! It was brilliant to get an overview from the air and a better grasp of the scale of the reef. We also flew over heart reef, which was very cute! We were both fortunate enough to have a window seat. We were even luckier to see a Humpback Whale with a calf and 2 pods of about 8 dolphins! It was well worth the money.

The highlight of the east coast was probably our 3 day / 2 night sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands, which left from Airlie Beach. We went on the Derwent Hunter boat, which was a classic tall sail ship. The boat was beautiful: made from classic timber with huge sails and a lot of space. We had a private double room with a shared bathroom with one other couple and the food was good.... lots of fresh fruit for breakfast. The food for vegetarians is pretty poor in Australia, so it was nice going on tours as the food is usually good quality. We were really lucky with our tour group, as we have been on all of our tours; we had 14 people on the boat and most people were in their late 20 - 30's. We had 3 crew and they were all really nice too. The skipper was into his stars, so we had a star talk both nights. We had perfect weather; it was so calm that we only had the sails up for about an hour over the 3 days, and even then we didn't move very far! This suited us fine though as with the wind would have come choppy water and the dreaded sea sickness! The boat only rocked a few times so no-one felt sick thank goodness.

Our trip consisted of eating, cruising along, snorkelling, visiting beaches and some more eating. We had to wear stinger suits when snorkelling, which are a million times easier to get on than wet suits and they keep you a little bit warmer too. At one of the snorkel sites that we went to (Blue Pearl Bay), the fish were being fed so there were literally hundreds of them swimming around, right into us. It was really funny! Out on the sea, we were so lucky to see about 14 humpback whales. We saw some mothers with their calves, and we also saw some adult males breaching in the distance and a young male breach quite close. They are so remarkable. We also saw lots of sea turtles (some really up close), quite a few dolphins and a young sea eagle dive fishing from about 30m in the sky, which was pretty spectacular.

It was sad to leave the beautiful Whitsunday’s, as we continued north to where it got hotter and hotter and we started to sweat as soon as we got out of the shower! Nice. The sea was a lovely temperature though. The beaches continued to get better and more impressive. We went to Townsville (nothing to do there), Mission Beach, Dunk Island (a water taxi ride from Mission Beach, great day), and Cairns. We didn't warm to Cairns very much. It is a bit of a dump to be honest with not much to do apart from go to the pub. It is not very pretty.

Before we arrived in Cairns, we both had our medicals to do our PADI diving courses. We were really gutted to find out that Dave cannot do diving over here due to his asthma. After our medicals, the Doctor was adamant that he should not do it as quite a few people with asthma have died after diving. Lins couldn’t decide whether to do it or not, and in the end decided that she would just keep doing introduction dives as it would be cheaper and take less time out of our trip.

From Cairns we hired a car for a week to go north. Along the way we stopped at Cairns' Northern Beaches (Holloways, Yorkey’s Knob, Trinity, Clifton, Ellis, Palm), which were all really pretty. We spent our first few nights at Port Douglas (beautiful), where we had a day on the gorgeous 4 mile beach and did a day's snorkel trip to the outer Great Barrier Reef. We did the Quiksilver trip to the pontoon based out on the reef, which was not what we had booked on to, but typically the boat we wanted to go on had broken down. However, we got the upgrade to the pontoon free and it was nice to try something different to what we were planning on doing in Cairns. It was a brilliant day and the food was gorgeous. Lins did an intro dive and snorkelled for about an hour and Dave snorkelled for ages, seeing lots of huge fish.

We then continued to Mossman gorge where we swam in the clear but freezing water, and The Daintree River where we did a crocodile boat cruise. We went on an electric boat, which was very quiet and also had a camera that zoomed in on all the crocs sunning themselves on the banks. Before arriving in Cape Tribulation we stopped at some more lovely beaches along the way (Cape Kimberly, Cow Bay and Thornton beach), which were all stunning. We stayed at two fabulous hostels in Cape Tribulation; they were right in the middle of the rainforest and we were literally surrounded by trees, lots of creepy crawlies, possums, cassowaries and birds that are amazing in the day time, but not when they wake you up at 4.30am! Our rooms were huts that consisted mostly of netting slightly thicker than mosquito nets, so we could hear all the wildlife outside as if it was in our room. It was very special waking up and looking round the room to see rainforest all around us.

We spent one and a half days on the beautiful Cape Tribulation beach....extremely relaxing and the water was a perfect temperature. We did jungle surfing too, which involved swinging from tree to tree in the rainforest on zip wires like flying foxes (like ‘Go Ape’ in England). We also stayed at Myall beach (round the corner) for a while and then headed back down south. It was great having a car as we got to see lots of lookouts and more beaches along the way. However, rather than dodging huge kangaroo's every 50m as in northern WA, we were trying to avoid cassowaries (big birds similar to but smaller than emu's with a blue, yellow and red head), snakes and goanna’s on the road!

Back in Cairns, the weather was not in our favour so we had a couple of days to catch up on dreaded admin and tax forms. We then did a boat trip with Quiksilver again to the outer Great Barrier Reef and visited 3 amazing sites. Lins did a dive at the first site and then snorkelled at the remaining two. Dave happily snorkelled at all three and was always the first one in and the last one out the water! He is now quite a competent swimmer after all of Lins’ coaching sessions! We saw some beautiful fish, including ones that had very striking colours and some simply huge ones. We were extremely fortunate to see two turtles. The second one gave us our own private reef tour for a whole twenty minutes! There was no-one else around. It was quite happy to swim along about 5-10m below us and we both dived down a few times to swim alongside it! We saw it munching on the coral, having itself cleaned by other small fish and swim along effortlessly. It even came up to the surface for air 2m in front of us. It truly was a wonderful experience.

Up the coast we have mainly been staying in YHA hostels. They have generally been of a higher standard for facilities and cleanliness; the hostels vary so much over here. Some are like hotels, and others are so gross that they attract people that have not washed for days or even weeks and have all sorts of horrid bugs. YUK! To be honest, we are a bit fed up of hostels now and severe lack of sleep.

The Greyhound bus continued to be a pretty good way of travelling and cheap. For most of the journey's we got two seats to ourselves and a film. Although we did come across several rude and grumpy drivers! We only had two buses that were delayed, amazing when you think of what 'Australian time' means.

We have seen lots of uncanny 'doubles' of our friends from the UK over here. It's quite surreal seeing these people as we have had to take several looks at them, which probably makes them feel extremely paranoid! The following people, we know where your double lives: Kate Ruszala, Graeme Stevenson, Nick Carroll, Jenny Pater, El Shaw, Paul WIlliams, Jo Edwards and Cherry Cheeseman.

After 6 months exactly, we have just left Oz to go to Fiji for 3 weeks, NZ for 8 weeks, followed by Bali for Christmas and NY. We have loved Australia, it is amazing to think that we have been to every state and driven so far. However, we would never live here, which is funny because we thought we might do one day. Although it's a great lifestyle over here in many respects, there are so many things different to England that are quite annoying and would stop us emigrating. But most importantly, it's just too far from our friends and family.

Today we arrived in Fiji early evening local time. We flew from Cairns via Brisbane, where we had the pleasure of waiting for four hours for our connecting flight. Both flight's were pretty good and the food was edible. About twenty minutes before the plane landed in Fiji, the hosteses came round with an insect spray and sprayed the whole of the plane! We felt like we were being gassed; it was really strange and lots of people held tissues to their mouths. On arrival in Fiji we were met by Fijians singing and playing the guitar. We were then taken to our hotel by a guy who thought he was Fiji's answer to Lewis Hamilton, although he didn't handle the bends too well! We were quite petrified as everyone seemed to be crazy drivers and not take too much notice of the road markings. Anyway, we are really looking forward to the next three weeks.

Sydney

G’Day. We have finally finished teaching! No more work for 7 months! We have actually had a really good time teaching and we have learnt a lot. We worked for 8 weeks in total. Lins had 3 weeks at one primary school, 2 at another (lovely), 1 at a different school (same school that Dave was at for 6 weeks) and 2 weeks doing odd days at schools. Dave had 6 weeks at one school and 2 weeks at different schools each day. The blocks of work were at primary schools. It has been a great experience teaching abroad and also seeing what the primary aged kids get up to. All our schools (mainly slightly west of central Sydney) were very multicultural; the vast majority of the pupils (usually over 90%) were Korean, Chinese, SE Asian, Kiwi, Middle Eastern or ‘islanders’ (Cook Islands, Fiji etc). We did one day of child care in the school holidays, not our best experience.

Teaching in Oz has not differed too much to that in the UK. One main difference is that most of the primary schools teach split classes (e.g. Years 5 and 6 together). Also, most of the schools do not seem to care much what ‘casual’ teachers do. Often if we asked whether any work had been set or what topics or textbooks we could follow on with for continuity for the kids, the other teachers looked at us as if we were mad, and just said ‘do whatever’! We think that this was mainly a primary thing though. However, it has been interesting to use other school systems and curriculums. Another variation we have noticed in terms of the syllabuses is how much they teach their kids about state and federal governments and the environment in primary schools. They seem to do this really well; perhaps this, along with singing the National Anthem every week in assembly, is one of the reasons that most Aussie’s are so country proud. We were also quite surprised that the sport in public schools does not see that great compared to that in the UK. Perhaps we were expecting too much. One of the best things about teaching in primary schools was the free time they get on occasions, where we could play Monopoly and other games with the kids, not bad for a hard days work!

Most of the kids also use those ridiculously big bags, like you see on Home and Away. Quite different to our senior school kids that use handbags that can barley fit a pen and pencil in along with their make up. The kids themselves do not seem to be that dissimilar to those in the UK, the main difference is simply that a lot of them do not speak English very well.

The schools are more informal than those in the UK, for example, the dress code (or lack of one). A lot of teachers wear jeans, trainers and no ties, and the women often look as if they are going out on the town (really low tops, extremely tight jeans and high boots!). Quite strange.

In the school that Lins taught at for three weeks, 90% of the children were from China, Korea, or India. She got called Mr Chee Man by a little Vietnamese boy for a week until he finally clicked on what her name was. She also taught Michael Jackson for three weeks! It amazed us how some of the kids would speak half Chinese, half Korean and half rubbish, yet the other kids would somehow still understand most of what they said and be able to translate it to us! Lins did not like it very much at this school, they had really strange policies, such as parents being allowed to come into school at break and lunch and spoon-feed their children their food, literally. Lins also taught at a lovely private boys prep school for a day, really sweet kids that REALLY wanted to learn!

Here are some quotes from the lovely primary school that Lins was at for 2 weeks, which you would not usually hear in a typical secondary school in the UK: “Teacher, please can we have peace and quiet’, “Miss, please can we do some more learning”, “Miss, please can you tell my friend to stop talking to me so that I can work”! This was definitely the exception to the rule though.

At the primary school that Dave taught at for 6 weeks, the staff were really sound and the kids were not far off mini versions of Quilley kids! He was really sad to leave. They had a really good Aussie Rules football team and were crowned the AFL champions of all primary schools in NSW at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG).

Whilst we were in Sydney, the kids were on holidays for 2 weeks, so we did loads of sightseeing. We loved Sydney so much. We did: the Oz tower (great views over the city; we had a really good view of the tower from the end of our road), climbed the harbour bridge at dusk and had a really great sunset when we were at the top, toured the Opera House and saw Burt Bacharach one evening on his farewell tour. We cruised around the harbour on a coffee cruise with lots of scrumptious blueberry muffins (now Lins’ favourite ahead of chocolate!), did a whale-watching trip (where 75% of the passengers were violently sick 30 minutes into the trip for the next 3 ½ hours; we were not sick thank goodness as we had learned our lesson form last time). We also went on a day trip to the Blue Mountains and did some beautiful walks, went to Star City, saw 2 short 3D films at the IMAX cinema (the largest screen in the world), saw some AFL and NRL (rugby league) games, comedy nights, watched Oz defeat S Africa at the Telstra Dome in the Tri Nations (unfortunately). We checked out all the markets, sunbathed and swum at Bondi beach and walked to Coogee beach, went to Manly and the Northern beaches (Freshwater and Curl Curl), Palm Beach (where they film Home and Away), went to Sydney aquarium and saw the Kaiser Chiefs play in concert for our third year wedding anniversary. We think our favourite place was probably Darling Harbour, we went there many times for a drink (Boost Juice, YUM!) and to sit and relax, looking at the water and boats; it’s so clean and pretty. We have also done loads of reading, which has been great; we usually don’t get that much time in the UK. Lins is now a Potterholic (having not succumbed to the pressure of reading the first 5 books, silly mistake), and is desperately trying to find out the ending before someone spoils it for her!

Watching sport over here is not what we were expecting at all. They do not seem to be as passionate as the UK. From our experience it seems more like a social thing to do rather than watch your team play. At the Oz v S Africa game, the crowd was so quiet, it was almost ghost like. The only time any noise was made was when the Aussie's booed the SA's when they were going forward or taking a penalty kick. They also do very little singing and chanting, and the songs that they do know are unoriginal to say the least. We have been supporting the Roosters in the NRL and the Swans in AFL. AFL is a bizarre sport, it goes on for about 2 ½ hours including all the breaks, never starts on time (but what does over here?!) and has really annoying referee’s. Every game of sport we have watched over here, live or on the TV, has had some type of brawl, whether it be full on punches or handbags.

It was great living in the city and being able to get to things whenever we wanted. We were 2 minutes walk from the supermarket (surprisingly expensive over here), gym, restaurants, bars, train station etc. We were members of Fitness First whilst living in Sydney. There were amazing views of the Sydney harbour bridge and the opera house whilst we were working out! We also had the best Thai restaurant round the corner from us; the food was divine and the portions were big enough that Lins could make two meals out of it (Dave could not), and it was really cheap. We have also seen quite a few films in our spare time; we had a really cheap DVD hire shop round the corner from us and a Greater Union cinema, which had a cheap movie deal on.

For our first two weeks in Sydney there was heavy rain and flooding. We were not expecting it to get that wet and cold in Australia and it was a bit of a shock at first. After that we had a mixture of cold and hot days but it was nearly always a sunny day. The average was about 17 – 19 degrees, not bad for winter. For the last two weeks the weather has been markedly better, reaching 26 degrees on a couple of occasions! Dave actually got burnt one day, which he is quite impressed about considering the season.

We have both loved our time in Sydney and it will be sad to leave, however we are looking forward to getting back in the sun again. We begin heading up the coast as far as Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation tomorrow. Can't wait to get back to some proper sun and relaxation!

Tasmania - Melbourne- Canberra - Sydney

For our duration in Tasmania we hired a "Devil Campervan". It was our third campervan and by far the nicest. We had a fridge, microwave, 2 gas stoves, 20L water tank, pop top and an external power source. Having an external power source meant that at night time we stayed in a powered camp site and plugged a cable into a power socket outside, and then we could use all our electrical goods inside. Very exciting!

All the campsites and rest areas that we have used throughout Australia have had amazing views; many were by the lakes, cliffs and beaches, often with only one or two other vans at the same site. They have varied from having no facilities to just having horrible outside toilets (spiders!) to having hot power showers with washing facilities.

We both loved Tasmania so much and we think it will definitely be one of the nicest places we visit this year. The scenery is incredibly beautiful. Every corner we turned we saw amazing beaches, mountains, cliffs, rainforests, gorges, lakes and waterfalls. The roads are extremely windy and hilly, at times making us feel like we had been on a big dipper rollercoaster all day, and quite sick.

On our first day in Tas, we got our priorities right and headed straight for the Cadbury's factory in Hobart. We took full advantage of the free chocolate and stuffed ourselves silly until we both felt extremely sick. We rolled ourselves through the factory tour like Umpa Lumpa men. It was good fun and nice to get some free chocolate seeing that you have to take out a mortgage to get it over here. Oz chocolate is no-where near as nice as that in the UK, we told our guide this but she was Tassie through and through and couldn't bear to believe us.

After seeing the sights of Hobart, including the view from the top of Mt Wellington over the city, we drove SE to Port Arthur, which has a lot of history for the Australians. It was surprisingly really interesting and the grounds were pretty. We did a ghost tour of the jail and other old buildings at night time, which was really good fun. We all walked round in the pitch black and our guide told us about ghost sightings and tried to scare us along the way. We also did a history tour of the buildings in the day time. After Port Arthur, we went to a Tasmanian Devil Wildlife sanctuary! It was brilliant. We saw them feeding, which was a very aggressive and noisy affair. They are actually really sweet and they have lovely shiny fur coats. Afterwards the girls curled up together to go to sleep like cats, but they wouldn't let the male near them! He had to sleep on his own in the cold! The girls only go near the boys in mating season, which is only for a couple of weeks in a year! It was also amazing to hear their voices change from sounding like a dog, to roaring loudly like a lion. We both loved them as they are really sweet and fun.

We then headed up the East coast, stopping at Wineglass Bay, Bay of Fires and many other small beaches. We loved Wineglass Bay; we did a hike to see the amazing view and then walked along the beach. It came second in some recent poll of the world's best beaches and we could see why. It was surrounded by mountains and the sand was white. The tough hike there makes it all the more special.

At The Bay of Fires beaches, we had a gorgeous sunset.We then travelled across the northern part of Tas, seeing St Columbia Falls, Ralph Falls, Launceston, Stanley, Cradle Mountain & Dove Lake, Lake St Clair and Nelson and Russell Falls. We did lots of beautiful walks and saw lots more animals. We both love the animals over here and we have been really lucky to see lots of wildlife wondering around. We have noticed that the animals get more furry the further south you go in Oz!

Every evening we played poker, rummy and black jack with a mug of hot chocolate and some marshmallows. The places we were staying at in our vanwere in the middle of no-where, often freezing and there was nothing to do, but we both enjoyed cards! We were lucky with the weather during the day. It was really warm for Hobart and the East coast. For the rest of the time it was quite warm and we only had two days of rain, we were expecting a lot more.

It was good to see that Tasmanian's keep up the tradition over here of having equally as bad road signs as the rest of Oz. Signs, when rarely present, are very unclear and at extremely late notice. For example, a sign for a major highway will usually be at the turning, very occasionally with prior notice. We have only seen a handful of signs pre-warning you about a junction, and even then the distances are wrong (e.g. if the sign says turn in 300m, the actual turning will most likely be in 50m!). Anyway, enough of the road rage (don't get us started on Australian drivers!!). We did another 4,500km of driving in Tas so we feel like we got to know the roads pretty well.

After 12 days in Tas, we returned to stay with our friend Lee from uni. It was so good staying at his, not only because it was lovely to have some great company, but also because he has an amazing flat on the waterfront in St Kilda, which includes a bath (something Lins really misses form the UK). We did all the city highlights in Melbourne including the Eureka tower (great views over the city), tour of the MCG, the Crown Complex, the museums, the Botanical Gardens, visited Ramsay Street on the Neighbours tour, met the 'stars' at the Neighbours quiz night, and we joined a gym for 3 days! We also drove to the Dandedong Mountains (30k from the city) and got a really nice view of the city. We went to two AFL games (ok game, silly referees and very annoying men in luminous yellow running all over the pitch the whole time), one at the MCG and one at the Telstra Dome. We also went to a comedy night with Lee - we were quite worried about being picked on for being Pomes, but we were ok in the end!

After Melbourne we got the Greyhound bus to Canberra. We had 1 1/2 days there, which was plenty of time to see everything on offer. We went to the Australian Institute of Sport, which we both thought was good but we were expecting it to be a bit better, and all the main buildings and tours. We hired a bike, which was amusing! We both really liked Canberra for the time we there, the buildings looked lovely in the sun.

From Canberra we took the Greyhound bus to Sydney, and we stayed in a really grotty and noisy hostel for three days. We got a lot done though: registered with a teaching agency for work, spent hours looking for a flat and joined a gym. After two days we were finally successful in the flat hunting and we have got a really nice studio apartment in Darlinghurst (7 minute train / tube ride to central Sydney and 8 minutes to the brilliant shops at Bondi Junction). It is on the top floor of a block of flats in a quiet cul de sac; it has wooden floors, is nicely decorated and is very clean. We were keen on living near the beach, but we need to base ourselves in the city where the work is. We are only a 15 minute train ride from Bondi Beach, although we certainly won't be sunbathing while we are here as it's a bit chilly! It will be really nice to have a decent place all to ourselves for the next 9-10 weeks and unpack our things....what a luxury! We have everything we need literally 90 seconds from our flat, so it really is a great location.

We started work doing supply teaching on Thursday….in a place called Liverpool (we were at the same school)! We both had good days, although the kids were quite tough. It was a nightmare journey (2 hours door to door), so I don’t think we will be going there again unless there is no work anywhere else. They thought our accents were hilarious; quite a few kids thought we were from Scotland and most of the others couldn’t really understand the concept of an accent, frequently asking us if we thought they sounded different to English people. Bless the little darlings. On Friday Dave worked at a tough all boys school, similar to Quilley! Lins was at a primary school teaching Years 5 and 6 (although this is the same as UK Years 6 and 7). In their assembly, everyone stood to sing the national anthem at the end. Everyone got well into it, including the teachers. I couldn't help but grin. They are very patriotic here. Again, we both had good days, although it’s quite tiring when the kids keep trying it on all day (but we didn’t let them get away with much!). It was nice as we both got asked to go back to the schools on Monday so we must have done something right. We will tell you more stories when we have finished all our work, we are sure there will be lots. It will all be great experience. There is a lot of supply work around, which is good for us; if none is available then we will definitely get childcare work, which should be good fun (?!).

Most of you will be pleased to hear that we have had really bad weather over here. There have been storms and lots of heavy rain in NSW; some of their reservoirs are overflowing (unheard of over here). Parts of The Pacific Highway have also collapsed. It has also been quite chilly at night and Lins has had to buy a hot water bottle! It should clear up by the end of this week. Typical.