Before leaving Wanaka we stopped at a Puzzle Museum with a Maze that we couldn't find our way out of and tons of puzzles and optical illusions including one they used in the Lord of the Rings films to make one person look much bigger than another one. It was very cool and realy messed with your mind! After that it wa only a short trip to Queenstown, where we were to stay for 4 days! All the talk of bungy jumping made me change my mind about doing one (I was dead set agains the idea originally)! There were 3 [View Full Entry]

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After falling asleep before the plane had even taken off we arrived in Christchurch NZ feeling slightly more refreshed. Christchurch itself was a fairly cool city - nothing terribly exciting except the Cathedral in the appropriatley named Cathedral Square, some cool and trendy bars at Sol Square and a free buskers festival in the park - but it was an ideal place for us to have a few days rest and get accustomed and prepared for the rest of NZ - and boy did we need it!! A big green bus came and picked us up early one morning (both us [View Full Entry]

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Relieved to escape the rain and humidity we arrived at sunny Airlie Beach feeling quite refreshed!! AB itself is quite small - just one main street of surf shops, hostels, travel agents and cafes! The place was buzzing though. There was a cool lagoon and an empty beach as you can't swim in the sea there either! It didn't take us long to look round!! Known as a bit of a party resort we spent our first night sampling the local nightlife. The next day was spent chilling out by the lagoon and soaking up the gorgeous weather then an early [View Full Entry]

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We've had a bit of camera trouble and not much time to upload photos but here are a few - not necessarily in corrsponding order with the blogs!! [View Full Entry]

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... and a few more! [View Full Entry]

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ok - this is your lot for now!!! Enjoy! xxx [View Full Entry]

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After a quick nap and a wander around Hervey Bay we headed for the beach and (finally) were able to swim in the sea. The break was short lived however as we had a briefing to attend at 6pm where we were to meet our group and get some general info on our Fraser Island self-drive Safari! Fraser Island is the world's largest sand island and is a National Heritage site making it one of the most beautiful islands in the world and also one of the most difficult to get round! The only way to explore the island is in [View Full Entry]

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Well it seems our blog entries always seem to start with "after a gruelling 12 hour bus journey we finally arrived in..." or words to that effect. Well, this one is no different!! After a fairly easy 9 hour bus journey from Hervey Bay we arrived at the quirky, cool beachside town of Byron Bay. Famous for its good surfing, light house and chilled out nature, it was an ideal place for us to recover from Fraser Island! The first day was spent having a wonder around all the cool surf shops, souvenir shops and funky boutiques and making some plans [View Full Entry]

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Late arriving and short on time we had to put the terrible bus journey behind us and make the most of out last day in Australia! After a quick shower and turnaround we headed straight back out and down to Circular Quay. We're quite au fait with finding our way round Syndey these days! We took the ferry accross to Manly which is part of the mainland but the fastest way to access it is by boat rather than drive! Manly was cool - very busy with tourists and teenagers making the most of which, to us, was an even nicer [View Full Entry]

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We slept most of the 3 hour flight up to Cairns, exhausted from the hectic week in Sydney! The first thing we noticed when we stepped off the plane was the humidity. It was like nothing we had ever experienced before - we hadn't realised that Cairns was actually in the tropics!! We found the humidity a little bit too much on the first day - so much so that we needed a nap and a dip in the pool before we were fit to do anything. Although on the coast it's not possible to swim in the sea there for [View Full Entry]

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