Cat257

I've been back in England for almost 3 weeks now (which by the way have gone extremely quickly considering that I have done nothing!) and I had to write another blog to talk about my time in Cape Town and round things off. I arrived in Cape Town with Ellie and we spent our first day exploring the area we were staying in (Long Street, the centre of Cape Town CBD) and we met up with Caz and Karl, 2 lovely people we had travelled part of the Garden Route with. Karl and I went to the castle in Cape Town for a little nosy around, then we all watched the England vs South Africa rugby game at one of the many bars on Long Street! Luckily South Africa won, as Ellie might have caused a ... read more

We spent one night in Port Elizabeth before starting along a part of the coast known as the Garden Route, which is a lot more westernised than other parts of South Africa (proof of that being I didn't see a rondavel for ages!). Our first stop was Jeffrey's Bay, a very good surfing town where big surf competitions are held, although we didn't see the beach as the weather was bad. Instead, we hit the discount surf clothing shops and I didn't actually have to hold Ellie back as much as I thought I would. After a day of retail therapy we left for Storm's River, where the weather was again completely rubbish and we were put in a very cold house which didn't seem to be part of the actual hostel for our nights' stay. ... read more

I seem to be getting nagged in all directions by my Dad to write another blog, and now that Ellie has gone to the orphanage and I have found the cheapest internet shop in the world (about 33p and hour!) I will finally settle down and write about South Africa, again in two parts otherwise this blog would be the size of my dissertation. Way back in the middle of October, we landed in Johannesburg after a fantastic flight from Perth (which, by the way, is a very nice city but one which I didn't get to explore properly so will unfortunately just have to go back again!) and spent one night in a hostel there before leaving on the baz bus for Swaziland. The baz bus has been our mode of transport throughout South Africa ... read more

After Mission Beach we arrived in Cairns and managed to fill over a week with lots of fun activities! On our first day we explored the town which has a lagoon and lots of shops - mainly souvenir shops and food places and in the evening we discovered the delights of the Woolshed for a free dinner (pasta or rice, yum!). The next day was time for our trip out to the Great Barrier Reef which was the cause of much excitement and an excellent day. We cruised out in the catamaran to the opolu cay, a tiny island made completely of sand (seriously tiny, about 30 people could stand on it and that was it!) and then everyone set off snorkelling over the reef and back to the boat. The sea was a bit choppier ... read more

I have come to realise that I am terrible at keeping up to date with my travel blog! So much so that I am going to write up the past month in two parts to save my fingers and to stop my avid fan's eyes from hurting! After Brisbane we headed on up to Rainbow beach, where we would go over to Fraser Island. As you might imagine, Rainbow Beach is home to a rather large beach and lots of large rainbow sand coloured cliffs. We couldn't see that it had much else going for it really, and headed off to our hostel to pack for the next day's activities. We were picked up the following morning in a 4 wheel drive bus with pink flowery seat covers and set off on the short ferry crossing ... read more

I finished my last blog entry in Port Macquarie, where we spent 2 great nights couchsurfing with a lovely guy who had a spa pool on his roof which was well used! His apartment overlooked the beach and we spent the full day we were there exploring the town and beach and looking for hidden beaches that can be found by wandering down a path along the side of a cliff. Port Macquarie is a pretty little place but naturally on the day we left it rained so much that we resembled drowned rats by the time we had got to the bus stop! We spent the journey to Coffs Harbour steaming up the windows of the Greyhound as we dried off and the sun appeared again when we got there - and stayed with us ... read more

Well, would you believe it, we have finally left Melbourne! After cluttering up Deanna and Paul's spare room for more than they would probably want (although when I pull out the family card they can't get rid of me!) we embarked on a greyhound to Sydney, but not before some last minute Melbourne fun was had! After a day exploring St. Kilda and the beach area of Melbourne, Ellie and I took in a game of Aussie Rules Football with Paul and some of his friends which was a lot of fun and surprisingly not too hard to follow. As well as lots of cheering crowds, the famous MCG stadium, people waving pom poms, silly footy players pushing each other and lots of nice legs, we were also introduced to the AFL fare - four and ... read more

Hello everyone! We have finally made it to Australia, after waiting many years to come here it is definitely worth it so far! For our last week in New Zealand we hired a small camper van for four nights, which seemed an appropriate way to end our time in the country as we started out by hiring a car! First on the agenda was a night in Hanmer Springs, and seeing as it is described as an 'alpine resort' we really should have guessed that it might be a bit cold! When we arrived we went for a walk up a nice big hill to look at the views of mountains, trees and other nice big hills, then on the way down we took a different track that sent us through some forest and lots of ... read more

Well, here we are in Christchurch, having made it all the way around the south island in one piece (just about!). It seems like a long time since I wrote a blog, and it probably has been, but we have seen and done some amazing things. The crossing on the ferry from Wellington to Picton at the top of the South island was absolutely amazing and luckily we had a beautiful day with clear blue skies and a bright sun shining on both us and all the cows that happened to be sharing our ferry crossing - I don't think they enjoyed the journey as much as we did! The Marlborough Sounds are so pretty and we saw an introduction to the amazing scenery the south island is known for. I also saw some dolphins swim ... read more

Upon arrival in Rotorua, we had a night in a hostel and then spent the following day wandering around town getting our bearings. We walked around Lake Rotorua and enjoyed the wonderful smell of sulphur that hangs around the town like, well, a bad smell, due to all the geothermal activity. In the afternoon we were picked up by our wwoof host Julie and taken over to Lake Tarawera and the farm we were staying at. I can't describe how nice the family were but we were only supposed to be there for 5 days and ended up staying for 3 and a half weeks so I think that speaks for itself! The farm overlooks both the lake and Mount Tarawera and has the volcanic crater lake of Okereka behind it. The views were absolutely incredible ... read more