Sweet Little Baby

Christmas day in Melbourne - the weather was good and it was a day full of food. There were 12 of us at the Westbury's for dinner. We had a lot of seafood and cheese followed by roast. Very similar to at home - Lar's nan made plum pudding which was lovely. We had a ping pong championship and in the afternoon me and Lara went for a walk as we had stuffed ourselves. In the evening we went to the cinema to watch Les Miserables - it's a bit weird that the cinema are open on Xmas day. I skyped the family in the evening it was good to hear them even if we couldn't see each other because their camera was broken. On boxing day we went to the People's Market in Collingwood. It ... read more

Saturday we went to steph, megs and Jarreds house for pre Foreshore drinks. Foreshore party is a beach festival in St Kilda. It's so fricking hot it got up to about 28 degrees. We got to foreshore after getting loose in the courtyard at stephs. It was like a scene from Geordie Shore the guys here are big on body building, tattoos, singlets (vests) and baseball caps. Needless to say there was no man hunting going on.... Had loads of fun though met lots of the girls friends - everyone is so friendly and made sure that I felt welcome. The music is very different from home. Afterwards we went to a place called cushion until about 1.30 then I went back with megs and crashed at theirs whilst they partied around me and built me ... read more

Forgot to add we drove along to Brighton Beach passed St Kilda to see the multicolured beach huts which is very similar to the beach huts in Brighton England.... read more

Day 2 & 3 in Melbourne - the weather hasn't dissapointed. Tuesday I awoke to brilliant sunshine which was perfect for us to take a road trip along the great ocean road. We headed to Lorne beach and sunbathed whilst the kids got a beach swimming lesson. The sun is hot and very easy to burn - the sea was too cold to swim though. We had an amazing burger at a place called the milk bar. The food and coffee in Melbs has been great so far. We took a drive further along the coast and did a little amateur trek in our 'thongs' to a waterfall in a national park en route. The road signs here are very amusing - one which made me laugh was 'Open your eyes - fatigue kills'. If you ... read more

After much deliberation and tears from my mum I decided I escape the freezing temperatures of my beloved London for the toastiness of Melbourne. There seemed no better time than now seeing as I had made friends with Lara and Bryce earlier this year and had my own tour guides! I endured a loooong flight with a monster hangover and possible concussion(Xmas party Friday). With a 10hr stopover in Singapore following a 13 hr flight, I finally resumed regular bodily functions after a kip in the snooze lounge at Singapore airport. The final leg of my journey was a 7 hr flight to Melbs. The sun was shining on my arrival, Lara met me at the airport and drI've us to her family home in West Footscray. Their place is like something off of MTV cribs ... read more

Biiiig delay since last blog - apologies but been pre occupied with partying hard since we arrived in Rio 8 days ago. In summary: Uraguay is not the best.... Visited Montevideo which is pretty unremarkable. It was bitterly cold and felt pretty soulless. The best thing we did whilst there was go to a salsa club and see snow white at the cinema! We wrapped up our time in Uraguay by getting another overnight bus to Salto. Salto is a bizarre place, it is a town full of people wandering around in bath robes as everyone goes there to visit the hot springs and thermal baths. We did the baths - again really strange. Onto Brazil! Got a horrendous overnight bus to Iguassu. The journey was well worth it when we visited the falls - one ... read more

Well going to squeeze quite a bit into this update. Spent some of my last days in Peru in Puno. Visited a man made island on lake titikaka called UNOs. The local people make it out of reeds and anchor it using long bits of wood as the island floats. They wear crazy neon costumes and dressed me and jade up in their clothes! Loved it. Such happy friendly people. We visited the island of tequile also on lake titikaka and trekked to the top for lunch with amazing views over the lake. Learnt about some of the local customs, most of which are very romantic. My favourite was the women grow their hair until they become engaged at which time they cut it to shoulder length andproduce a woven belt for their future husband which ... read more

So much to update! Loving Peru, we started our time off in Lima met our new group who we will be sharing the next 2 weeks together with. Mixed bunch, few annoying Australians and mostly couples so as usual we are the fly in the ointment. Spent 3 amazing days in the amazon rainforest. So humid and is adeptly named as rained a lot! We caught little motorised canoes up the river to see parrots and crocodiles. We did a night trek through the forest and saw tarantulas bigger than my hand, I didn't sleep well that night! We slept in little bungalows with no electricity so had to do everything by candlelight, including checking our room thoroughly for any spiders..... The local drink here is pisco sour, it's made with egg white, lime and I ... read more

Incredible time in the Galapagos Islands living aboard the Yate Darwin for 7 nights. We were given a lower deck cabin which we slept in for the first night, but jade felt sea sick so we slept on the upper deck for the rest of the trip. It was so beautiful sleeping under the stars in the open, feeling the motion of the boat sailing throughout the night. The only problem with sleeping up on deck is that we woke up early as the sun was up at 5am. Our days were pretty full we had breakfast onboard at 7am everyday, followed by a trek around one of the islands that we travelled to during the night. We saw so much wildlife and the animals varied from island to island. The main highlights were land iguana, ... read more