Jamie and Jenny

Well, many of you will already know that Jamie is back at work in Manchester now. I however was lucky enough to have another month off, and I thought you might be interested to hear a little bit about what I've been up to. As I said in the last blog, I went down to Bunbury and had a lovely couple of days there with my cousins. After that it was back to Perth to stay with the in-laws for a whole month! Yes I can hear you all wondering, did they really invite me to stay for a month without Jamie to keep me in check?.... well no, of course not! I invited myself, not just so that I could enjoy the good Aussie weather for a bit longer, but also so I could do ... read more

Moving on from Newcastle, we bypassed Sydney, and in the pouring rain made our way up into the Blue Mountains. Just an hour out of Sydney, this national park boasts some of the most amazing scenery in Australia. First we headed to Katoomba and to the Echo Point lookout where the famous view of the Three Sisters can be seen. Not today however, as all the mountains were shrouded in mist. So instead, we headed off to find a campsite in Blackheath, a short distance up the road. Then back to Katoomba, to the Edge cinema. If we couldn't see the views in real life, we were going to see them on the six storey high screen at the Edge cinema. The short film they show gave us views of the mountains and descriptions of the ... read more

Jenny: Well, where to start? We don't usually leave it this long, but the internet is more expensive here, and computers less common in hostels etc. Well we picked up the car in Cairns, headed up to Port Douglas for a night, we spent the afternoon in the pool and just had a quick peek round the town in the rain the next day. From there we drove up to the Daintree National Park. First stop (of course) was a tropical fruit winery, to provide lunch for the mozzies! Seriously, I've never seen so many mozzies (well except maybe in Peru in the jungle). We tried 13 different types of wine, actually some were very nice and they weren't all sweet either. We particularly liked the passionfruit wine, but they also had a good black sapote ... read more

Hello folks, did you miss us? Happy new year! Hope everyone had a good Christmas. We certainly did! But before that we had 3 days in New South Wales, catching up with my relatives in Valentine. As well as enjoying delicious seafood and a few dips in the pool we also managed to squeeze in a wine tasting trip to the Hunter Valley (-thanks Paula) and our first 'Christmas Dinner'. On Christmas eve we flew over west to arrive in Perth. On Christmas Day we were up bright and early due to the time difference (and of course the call of presents). The Perth weather was a bit of a shock to the system, whilst it had been warm in Easter Island and NSW, the Perth heat was something else. On Boxing Day we actually reached ... read more

We had planned to go straight up the coast to Horcon, a quiet fishing village, but we got into Viña Del Mar so late (stupid borders and accident) that we had to leave it till the next day. In fact we nearly didn´t bother, but I´m glad we did, as it was lovely to get away from the bustle here and chill out on the beach. It wasn´t glorious sun, but was warm and we still managed to catch the sun. The beach we went to on the first day had a red flag and said it wasn´t suitable for swimming, so we had more of a tentative paddle. The water was freezing and the waves very strong so that was enough for us. We went further up the coast, walking for about an hour to ... read more