Settled in Sydney...East Coast Adventures

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Ok so I guess its time for a well deserved update!!

Can’t remember where we left off but I’ll tell you all about our fantastic journey up the east coast of Australia. We started out in Melbourne, spent a few days with an old friend of mine before Hannah and Jonny joined us. Melbourne was nice, we went to a comedy festival show, toured ramsay street, met the neighbours cast, drove the great ocean road which would have been superb if the weather was better. It was still pretty outstanding; saw the twelve apostles and the rip curl championships at bells beach which was awesome. So after Melbourne we headed to Sydney with a night stop off in Canberra, not too much to report, government buildings, boring cultural stuff!!

So Sydney…what a city!! The opera house is mind-blowing, very humbling, made us appreciate what we are doing so so much. Spent a few days looking round, went across to Manly which was beautiful, spent a day on Bondi…such an iconic beach and the weather was lovely!!

So after enjoying the capital of New South Wales we headed up towards Byron Bay, by this time the group had expanded two include our two girlie friends from Manchester who lived with a friend from home at uni!! An Irish leprechaun named Dave and our live-in chef Jay! The weather in Byron was not great, lots of rain which was encouraging sharks!! Did not stop us though, we all had a surf lesson in which we all stood up, even if it was for a split second!!! By this time the girls had started chatting about New Zealand and asked if Charlie would want to join them. We thought this was a fantastic idea, she could see the beautiful New Zealand and avoid sitting around whilst we were at work in Sydney. We had by this time decided that Sydney was the place we could settle, although the weather was not going to be as hot as Cairns, we could really see ourselves there. By the time we are in Byron we had already started looking for flats, I had found one in Bondi which coincided with the time we wanted to move back. So up the coast we continued, next stop Brisbane. A nice enough city, very similar culture to back home. Going out drinking, the centre was quite rough which put us off a bit. However we did spend one day in Brisbane which was magical. We went into the town for some lunch and then headed to the city beach, which is basically a fake beach or lagoon in the middle of the city. We all went for a dip and the sunbathed for a while. The weather up here was lovely. Then we could hear a live band playing so went on the hunt for the music! We ended up s[pending the rest of the afternoon listening to an awesome band, drinking jugs of beer and singing our hearts out. It was such a good day and a great memory of Brizzy!

Then upwards onto Rainbow Beach to do Frazer Island, the biggest sand island in the world! I think!! The idea is that you buy a package which enables you to do Whitsunday’s and Frazer island for cheap cheap cheap! So we rocked up at a hostel called Dingoes, had a meeting with everyone who was doing our trip and were separated into groups! We were in a group of 11, the 5 of us, 3 Irish, 2 German and a guy form the midlands!!! We got up bright and early, loaded up our 4x4 and set off for the island. Our convoy was 6 trucks, with a total size of 66 people, all nationalities, we had a team Mexico( the nutters!!) team Ireland, the crazy chicks, team bongo/brits…us!! Plus a few others! And we had a hoot! Spent 3 days and 2 nights driving round this island, setting up camps, shelters, trying to avoid storms and the tide!!! We saw stunning lakes, creeks, a shipwreck. Seriously it was stunning and so much fun! We had such a good group, 3 of the vans teamed up and had to save eachother from the tide coming in and drowning the lot of us! Good times!! We headed back to Rainbow beach for some well deserved celebrations! Next day we went to a pretty town called 1770. It was here we rode the choppers!! So much fun, I was the worst, at the back, the slowest out of about 50 people!! Luckily everyone came off scot free, took some fantastic photos and saw a beautiful sunset…another great day! Then it was time to head to Airlie Beach, the gateway to The Whitsundays! We had already booked ourselves on the clipper which was renowned to be the party boat and we made sure we lived up to this reputation! We got on the boat, started drinking cold beers (you can see the photos on FB, they do it far more justice than I could in words!) Truly magical! We sailed for a while then moored up, started partying, 50 18-30s going mad on life!! Next morning we went Scuba Diving, the visibility was not too great! That evening we all chilled out on the deck of the boat, had a few beers, soaked up the sun. As the sun was setting on a perfect day, a dolphin started swimming around the boat. It was out of this world, we all had photos and were ecstatic! The next day we went snorkelling again and the visibility was amazing, we saw so many different types of fish!! Then we headed back to Airlie beach, so happy with the past few days excursion! After a well deserved shower we headed out to our after party and celebrated in true clipper style!!

Too much to go into each place but we made a few more stops on the coast worth mentioned…Australia Zoo, home of Steve Irwin. Noosa, a tiny place where nothing really goes on!! Then we ended up in Cairns….so so warm up there! When we arrived in Cairns it was party time, I know you think its been party time all the way up the coast and to be fair you wouldn’t be far wrong, but this was the place where we all met up. All of the people we met up the coast, from as far down as Melbourne, all the way through the Whitsunday’s, Frazer, Brizzy, we were all in one place having the time of our lives. The mood here was electric. We spent quite a few days enjoying company we would not share for we didn’t know how long for. We spent a couple of birthdays here, had a karaoke mayhem night, bbqs on the lagoon and also squeezed in a trip to the barrier reef. This was also beautiful, Charlie dived, me and Sara just snorkelled as we had a flight to catch the next day back to our new home of Sydney.

So here we are, we said our farewells to some fantastic people, packed up our belonging for the last time in a while and headed south for the bright lights of Sydney. We moved into a flat in Bondi Beach, metres from the beach. We are now living with 3 kiwi boys, in a serious party house…having a super time. We had a party last weekend for Sara and Leroy’s birthday, we all dressed as pirate and spent the night on our decking playing games! Lots of fun. We also had a surprising addition….Hannah the girl we met in New Zealand and have spent the last 3 months with decided to fly back from Asia and join us! So we are all sharing a room, paying next to nothing in rent, we all have jobs. I am working in an investment bank in the city, on reception with some lovely girls. A very social job and when the phone is not ringing I can do things like this! So long overdue im sorry!! So Sara has landed a perfect job, she is working in a retirement home on reception but has just been offered a care-worker role for when reception is done with! So she is thrilled, and poor old Hannah is doing data entry..very very dull!

Think that is pretty much it, Charlie is having a ball in New Zealand, have a few birthday plans but nothing massive, We are both so so happy with where we are living and what we are doing. Very much still living the dream!!!

Miss you all lots and sorry this is so long! I’ll try and keep you posted more, please look on facebook for the photos, they have calmed down a bit now as we are back to the real world!

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