On our way to the Cook Islands we flew past the dateline so we had the bizarre experience of re-living a couple of days! Basically we left Fiji on the evening of Saturday November 18th, and then landed in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands on the evening of Friday 17th November. So, we had 2 17th’s and 2 18th’s of November! It was late when we landed and it was really windy and raining! On the flight they had even mentioned that we might have to land on another island because of the weather. Luckily, we landed on the right island [View Full Entry]

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We landed in Fji on the morning of Tuesday 7th November. The heat hit us as we stepped off the plane - it was a lot warmer than New Zealand! We got the free shuttle bus from the airport to our hotel. Our hotel was really nice and we had booked to stay for 3 nights. Basically, we didn't want to tour the different islands in Fiji for the simple reason that we wanted to do as little as possible. So, we had had a certain island and resort recommended to us (by a guy we met in New Zealand) but [View Full Entry]

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After quite a rocky boat journey, we arrived in Wellington on the North Island. First impressions were that we liked Wellington a lot but the weather was awful - rain constantly! Unfortunately, it remained like this for the next couple of days whilst we were there so we didn't get to do a great deal. Our first evening there we spent driving around the city in the campervan (so we could at least see it and stay dry!) Then we went to the Embassy Theatre. Its a lovely theatre that had been renovated for the Lord of the Rings Premiere. Its [View Full Entry]

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We landed in Christchurch the afternoon of Saturday 7th October. There is now 12 hours difference between us and home so we really do feel like we're the other side of the world! We had already booked a hostel so we caught the shuttle to it and were very impressed (we had been told that NZ hostels were great and ours was!) We headed out to explore the city. We spent the next few days in Christchurch and we really liked it. We looked around and went on the tram, to the botanic gardens, and the art centre. On the Sunday [View Full Entry]

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We landed in Melbourne at 5.30am (Tuesday 19th Sept). By the time that we had cleared customs the time of day was a little bit more respectful (but not much!) We headed into the City to our hostel. The room wasn't ready so we had to hang around the T.V. room (like dropouts), exhausted and looking like zombies - we'd travelled overnight and hadn't had much sleep! When the room was eventually ready, we were raring to explore so we went out instead. We walked around the city centre for a while and liked what we saw. Then we had to [View Full Entry]

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So we landed in Perth in the late afternoon (Thursday 13th July). We went to our Northbridge hostel which was lovely and then walked into the city to explore. We instantly fell in love with Perth and thought (still do) that its a great place. On the Friday we started early - ready to hunt for work (some of you will be glad to know that we had to work for a bit - not all travelling!) Well, we didn't have to do much of a 'hunt' as we walked into a travel recruitment place that we had been recommended and [View Full Entry]

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Well..we last left you with the thought of our 15 hour coach journey to Alice Springs (ahh!) Turns out that the tour we were about to embark on was well worth the journey!!! We had a couple of days in Alice Springs before the tour started so, in true form, we spent them 'pottering' around and exploring. We really liked Alice Springs. It was quite different to how we had both imagined it. We thought it would be a really small town, literally just used as a base to start Uluru trips etc but it was really nice and had a [View Full Entry]

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So....finally the moment we'd been waiting for...the arrival of the Hawgood parents!!! We had an amazing and fabulous 10 days with them but it all feels so long ago now! Before they arrived, it was all feeling completely surreal but exciting at the same time. We had arrived in Townsville on the Monday (12th June) and had spent a couple of days 'milling' around and exploring Townsville. On the Wednesday morning we moved from our Hostel, round the corner, to a hotel (going up in the world now the folks were coming!!!) Yvonne and Alan arrived at the hotel at lunchtime. [View Full Entry]

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Hello again.......We are extremely sorry that it has been absolutely ages since blogging, you all must be getting fed up with waiting!!! The time over the past couple of months has gone at a lightening speed so we have fell well behind, but do not despair we will continue with our blogging and will be right upto date ASAP. When we last left you we were on our way to Hervey Bay. Well, after a 5 hour coach trip (with an idiot girl sitting behind us singing the 'La la la Long' song - our worst nightmare come true - yeah [View Full Entry]

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.....Well, we didn't actually sleep very well on the coach at all - 12 1/2 hours overnight from Newcastle to Byron Bay - so we arrived in Byron at 8.30am really VERY tired!!! (Wednesday 17th May). We had booked into the YHA so, despite it only being a 5-10 minute walk, they picked us up from the coach drop-off (better than walking with our rucksacks!) We were given a loft room which was quite cool so, even though we were still in a dorm, we had the loft space to ourselves. We spent the next couple of days exploring Byron Bay [View Full Entry]

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