Once again we got up this morning and took the ferry to Circular Quay and again to Darling Harbour. We had planned to go the the aquarium first, but the queue was extermely long, and as it was open until 10pm we had then rest off the day to go back. Instead we went to the Maritime Museum. The indoor museum is free to look around and contains lots of relics relating to the Maritime history. The most interesting part was The Destroyer warship and a submarine, both moored in the harbour, which you could freely explore. The submarine was partically [View Full Entry]

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After saying our goodbyes to Stu in the morning, we booked out of our hotel, caught the underground to City Quay, followed by a ferry to Manly, and a walk to the Summer Manly YHA. It took us a while to find and with our heavy backpacks Shelley started to get a little fed up with carrying them. Eventually we found it, and it was very very nice. Basically, it is a Management College that opens in the summer as a youth hostel. The place was large and very impressive. Unfortunately they only had single rooms left - so we had [View Full Entry]

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After a late night we opted for a late morning and again met Stu about midday. We'd decided to have a relatively easy day with a visit to Bondi Beach with a short walk to another beach. The weather was fantastic - sunny and warm. The tube ride was busy and the bus to Bondi Beach was crammed; it seemed everyone else had the same idea as us! Bondi Beach certainly was very nice but it was also very busy so we decided to walk along the cliff top path hoping to escape some of the crowds. We didn't - it [View Full Entry]

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Today was a long day relaxing day not really doing much at all. We met with Stu about midday and made our way to the Botanical Gardens ready for the New Years Fireworks. When we arrived at the gardens we greated by thousands of people - or more simply, one massive queue! Two hours later we were inside the Botanical Gardens and found ourselves a nice spot to sit and wait until the big moment some nine hours later. The time seemed to fly by, and after some food, beer, and watching the antics of a drunk scottish bloke, there were [View Full Entry]

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Day 54 - This morning we were up at 4am to get a flight from Hobart to Sydney. We arrived at the Ibis Hotel near Syndey Airport at 9am and thankfully they let us check in early. It was nice to have some luxury at last! The first thing we both did was get another couple of hours kip. Around midday we caught the underground to City Quay which was really easy. The transport system in Sydney is really good and fairly cheap for a city, you can pretty much go anywhere at anytime. City Quay is a very busy area, [View Full Entry]

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Day 48 (24/12/2006) - After collecting our van we headed onto the Tasman Peninsula where we stopped at several coastal sites, namely the Tessellated Pavement, Tasman Blowhole, Tasman Arch and Devils Kitchen. Unfortunately it rained the whole time which somewhat spoilt the sight seeing. It started to rain quite heavy in the afternoon so we could'nt go and explore some of the gorgeous beaches that we saw along the way. That night we camped at Port Arthur. Day 49 (25/12/2006) - On Christmas Day we woke up to find it still raining, and not [View Full Entry]

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Today was a very long day as we had 3 flights taking us from Alice springs to Hobart at Tasmania. Unfortunately Phil woke up feeling unwell this morning, so he did'nt enjoy today very much. We arrived at Hobart Hostel about midnight. [View Full Entry]

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Day 42 - On the 18th we caughts a flight early in the morning from Adelaide to Alice Springs, and the heat hit us as soon as we got off the plane. We headed straight away to collect our 'Wicked camper' which was basic but pretty cool and quite nippy, even Shelley had a drive in this one. We had a brief look around Alice Springs and got all the information we needed for the next few days, then started the long 6 hour drive to Ayers Rock Resort. It took longer than it should (normally 5 hours) as we did [View Full Entry]

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The Great Ocean Road was a long drive (1500km) from Melbourne to Adelaide stopping off at lots of cool things along the way. For this trip we had a smaller camper van, but it was not very nice to drive - a slight breeze would try and force it off the road! Day 37 - Shelley tried to get booked in on the neighbours tour at Melbourne but it was fully booked for the next few days, so she was pretty gutted (sad, she knows, but she is a neighbours fan). The first stop on our drive was Werribee Open Range [View Full Entry]

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Today we returned our van (our home for the past 5 weeks) and caught the shuttle the airport. Typical of our trip so far, this looked like one of the nicest days so far - just as were about to leave! The sky was blue and it was very hot! The take off was the worst we've ever experienced: even when the plane was speeding up on the runway it was bouncing around, as soon as we left the ground it was up and down, up and down, side to side, bounce, bounce, bounce. The turbulance was bad, but fortunately subsided [View Full Entry]

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