A very early rise on the first morning of our travels saw us get up at the very unsociable hour of 3.30am(!) To catch our 6 am flight to Melbourne, and we were all excited to get there. - we wish we could have gone for The Melbourne Cup but it’s not held until November and we have quite an itinerary to get through by the end of January. Our home for the next few days is Hotel Discovery, the term ‘Hotel’ very loosely used! We had our 8 bed dorm to ourselves which as fellow backpackers know is like hitting [View Full Entry]

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We have summarised our time in Brisbane because …let’s be honest….we’re crap at keeping up to date with our blog! Apologies! But we’re just too busy having the time of our lives guys  In brief, we absolutely love Brisbane! Honestly, we have come up trumps with our decision to make our temporary home here. We arrived here at the end of summer and stayed through the winter, and without doubt this has been the best ‘winter’ we’ve evr experienced. The temperature hasn’t ever been below 26deg C and honestly, we can count easily [View Full Entry]

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G’day Adelaide! One of the things we first noticed about Adelaide in the following daylight was that it has hardly any high rise buildings, and it turns out there are restrictions as to how high buildings can be built to keep with the theme - which makes it quite a unique city, especially in Australia. It’s the main city in SA yet is a very small city in comparison with all the other we’ve visited here. Whales had told us about the small town feel here which we could immediately notice, and we quite like the slower pace around here. We [View Full Entry]

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We got picked up at 6.30 am for our Great Ocean Road tour with Groovy Grape Tours, and straight off, our Tour Guide ‘Whales’ was a friendly chilled-out Kiwi who had a great sense of humour. We were on the bus for 2 hours and still hadn’t left Melbourne!  picking various people up from all over the city and finally one straggler who delayed everyone’s departure…who will later become our much loved friend Mark. We had a mixed tour group, Spanish, Dutch, English, Welsh, Canadian and as with every trip…Germans ( I’m not going to beat aroun [View Full Entry]

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Taronga Zoo We visited Taronga Zoo in Sydney on my bday weekend, it's set looking over the harbour! It was a fab day out! Check out the pics............................. [View Full Entry]

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Brisbane Apr & Sydney/ Becka bday We’ve just said goodbye to Steve & Carter as they head off up the coast then onto SE Asia. But all is still going well here in Brissie, we’re both working now and settled back into a work routine, which is strangely nice as it’s been tough to find work and we want to stay in Oz to explore a few more months (so much to see & do!). On our days off we’re exploring the city and surrounding suburbs. The weather is still fantastic (I can’t actually remember the last time I wore a [View Full Entry]

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Brisbane - March & Allan's Bday! Well, 10th of March arrived and we finally moved into the apartment and we’ve settled in nicely (see pics). It’s so nice to have our own space and some creature comforts again (number 1 being the sofa!!) especially after staying in some less than desirable rooms recently! Just being able to leave toiletries in the bathroom and unpack clothes is soooo nice! The backpacks are stowed away in the wardrobe not to be seen for a few months! Haha. We will both be sending stuff home to lighten the load through Indo/Asia too I think! [View Full Entry]

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CRIKEY! This zoo is awesome! Transport & entry package from the hostels were almost $100 so we decided to make our way to the zoo & save some $$$ - we left around 10am and got there about 12pm - it took a bit longer than we’d expected as we had to wait 45 minutes for the bus connection from the train station! So that left us with 4 1/2 hr hours to explore and we enjoyed every minute there! We made our way around the park and saw a couple of shows, the croc show was brill - they fed [View Full Entry]

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Brisbane - Feb/Mar ‘09 Another short bus ride later and we’ve arrived at Brisbane- our home for the next few months. We’re staying at Bunk where our friends Julien, Adrian and Claudio are staying, and it’s a cool place. We’re shocked by their no alcohol on the premises rule (wtf!?)…though it’s because they have a bar on site and want everyone to drink there….we’re rebels and sneaking our own in! We’ve adopted the cheap backpackers way of drinking…boxes of goon (cheap boxes of wine) and it’s a relief then that even ch [View Full Entry]

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Surfers Paradise After a short bus ride we’ve arrived at Surfers along with Julian, what a difference from Byron - the polar opposite in fact- it’s so commercial and built up here. Skyscrapers line the coast which is cool it’s in own way. We arrived at Surf & Sun our hostel, it’s lashing it down outside and we literally have to wade our way to reception….then I spot two girls I know from Swansea who are working at the hostel- pretty random start to our visit. The hostel is pretty fun, what is lacks in décor (kitchen is flooded when we [View Full Entry]

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