Our holiday begins!

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Hello everyone!

Hope you are all well, sorry its been so long since the last blog but we have been stupidly busy the last couple of months. We are currently in Sydney and are doing well, but will talk more about that later.

You could say we were sad to leave work in Darwin that would be lying. We will miss some of the crazy phillipino ladies but not the scrubbing and stuff. But I am sure that that lobby floor will never be as shiny!!

To get updated I will be fairly brief, largely because of my poor memory, but also it takes ages to upload pictures, therefore you shall get this part of the trip in installments. Exciting! Part one...

After we had finished work we had a nice couple of days being tourists again. We had fish and chips down by the wharf and watched dolphins swimming about in the sea which was really cool. The next day we went to Litchfield national park thanks to Helen's friend from the Deck Bar, where she had been working for the last few weeks.

Next was the long coach trip (20hrs) to Allice Springs. It was pretty uneventful apart from several strange roadhouses, all with different themes and varying amounts of animal life. We got to Allice Springs the next morning tired and smelly. Allice wasn't as bad as some people make it out to be, it has quite a bit of character for a place in the middle on nowhere. We had booked ourselves on a 3 day tour of the centre to see all the sights. The tour was a lot of fun, and was amazing to see Uluru, Kata Tjuta & Kings Canyon. We had a great time round the campfire, thanks to Australia's very cheap box wine (They call it goon), some drinking games and a didgeridoo! Anyway, its better just to look at pictures than read things so I'll go.

Have a great Christmas everyone, with much merriment! And enjoy your New Year!

Love, Ben and Helen xxx

By the way its really strange, the days being so long and bright and it being so close to christmas, but its one of those things you have to cope with when you're travelling!

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Photos

A Frilled necked lizard
They frill their neck like one of the dinosaurs from jurrassic park when they get mad. We saw this beast in the park.

Stokes Hill Wharf
On our 2nd to last night we went to this big pier and ate fish and chips and watched dolphins swimming about.

A big termite mound
Exciting!

Litchfield Park
On our last day we took a little road trip with helens friend from work

Secret eating
on the rediculously long journey you were not supposed to eat on the bus. we survived the journey on several ham cobs and muffins.

Darwin - Alice Roadhouse
On the 20 hour trip by bus to Allice Springs we stopped many wierd roadhouses.

A wedge-tailed Eagle
We saw a few of these picking at dead kangaroos in the middle of the road, which is why this one ended up injured.

Cane toads doing something
This roadhouses' theme appeared to be amphibian. A couple other frogs were seen hanging around the toilets.

Emus!
at another roadhouse

One big rock
Its pretty large

Uluru
Looks very different up close

Maurice
Just taking it all in

Uluru at sunset
honestly, not sure if it changes colour, looks like it just got darker. Things do when the sun goes down.

Us by the rock
You had to fight the crowds for a photo like this

Kata Tjuta (the olgas)
This was where we were going on the next bit of our tour

Valley of the winds
was pretty windy

Kings Canyon
The last place we visited in the centre and probably the best.

A Boyd's dragon
Our guide was a bit of a steve irwin type, and tried to catch anything that moved.