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Published: October 18th 2009
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Hello again boys and girls!
Welcome to Australia! Its really crap out here! As if! We love the place! We arrived in Melbourne which was lovely. It was a bit cold so our illusion of Australia being sunny all the time was shattered! Ah well, armed with our jumpers we set off to explore! We booked our Greyhound Bus passes (Defo worth getting for anyone else following in our footsteps) to get us up to Cairns then went for a wander round Federation Square and checked out some possible tours we could do. The city was lovely we saw lots of photos of Tim Cahill (The aussies love him!) which obviously pleased Mark :-). The next day we booked our Great Ocean Road and Phillip Island tours and because of this we got a Neighbours tour free - result!! Obviously that was for me not Mark but secretly I think he was pleased :-). After that we went for a walk to the Rod Laver Stadium, the MCG Stadium the War memorial and a small par of parliament house (it was the only bit we could see!) The next day we decided to visit the Science Museum because they had
a Star Wars exhibition on. Mark was in heaven as they had lots of props and costumes from the films, I enjoyed it too to be fair they had some fantastic exhibitions including a flies eye view of things (see photo). We also had a v.nice pie dinner then we came back to Melbourne to visit the cup cake shop where you could get gorgeous cup cakes and a hot drink for $5! It was v.nice. When we were in the shop we heard a great album so we decided to buy it its called Recovered by Ministry Of Sound its v.good!
The next day we set off on our Phillip Island trip. The day started with a visit to a wildlife sanctuary where we saw Koalas, Dingos, Kangaroos, Wallabies, a Tazmanian Devil, Wombats and an Emu (we fed the last two which was pretty cool! We ended the day watching the Penguin Parade on the beach. This is basically where all the penguins head home from the sea once the sun has set. It was amazing they were very cute and there was loads of them. The highlight was when one of the poor things threw up and
a thousand seagulls decended on it for a free lunch!
The following day we went on our day trip along the Great Ocean Road! We saw Bells Beach, the 12 Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge (A shipwreck site) and London Bridge before finishing with a Mcdonalds tea (not quite as amazing!) It was fantastic and we got some great pictures.
Our last day in Melbourne started with the Neighbours tour! It was good we watched old episodes on the tour bus (the old ones are the best!) and we visited Erinsborough High, Carpenters Mechanics, Grease Monkeys and of course Ramsey Street which is v.small! It was v.surreal! We also met the character Donna who was lovely she was a bit too pretty though!! That was the end of our time in Melbourne!
We then headed off to Canberra. Everyone kept telling us not to go because theres nothing to see there but it is the capital city so well worth a visit! We only spent a day there and saw the main things - Parliament house x2 (old and new), Anzac Parade etc. It was good for a day but glad we left for Sydney the next day!!
Sydney was amazing! It has everything; a big city, parks, lovely beaches and stunning scenary! We met Natalie (a friend from home) and her partner Eric who very kindly gave us two guided tours where we saw loads of stuff and increased our knowledge of Sydney and Australia! Thanks guys x We were also lucky enough to see two whales on one of the days while we were eating lunch in this pub which overlooked the ocean it was fantastic! The following day we went to Bondi Beach with our two new friends (Thumbs up high pitched friends in an Inbetweeners kind of way) (Lucy and David). We had a lovely day, the weather wasn quite warm enough for sunbathing (we had hot drinks on the beach!) so we decided to go on the clifftop walk from Bondi to Coogee beach. It was lovely and we had some great views (we also saw Jimmy 2 hats house - a homeless guy with the best views in Sydney!) The next day we went to the Blue Mountains with Lucy and David. One word - Stunning! We saw the mountains themselves and the three sisters and we went on a lovely
walk then had a picnic mmmmm. Our last two days were spent visiting Manly beach and finally doing some sunbathing! and of course seeing the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House which again were amazing! On our final evening Natalie and Eric treated us to a lamb roast dinner which was awesome and reminded us of home. Aw!
All in all if we were going to emmigrate anywhere it would be Sydney. Don worry though, we
e still coming home to lovely Manchester. We would miss the ship canal views and regular rain far too much if we made it permanent.
We have just spent two days in Newcastle. It is slightly nicer than the version back home and after lots of time on the beaches the Fiji tans are on there way back. Next up is Coffs Harbour, Byron Bay, Surfers Paradise then Brisbane. Surfs Up!
Hope your all well back home.
Love Mark and Christine x x x
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Chris and Margaret
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YES its still raining here
Enjoying following your journey - and all the photographs. Chris is a shade of green - and that's from thinking about the river trips too. Loved hearing about the cold weather... but the scenery sounds tremendous, especially New Zealand. Penguins in Australia? Don't they get eaten by the crocodiles? But how lovely to see them. Your mum told me about a certain incident when you saw the whales - glad Mark saw them, but say no more! All well at this end, usual colds and sniffles. Enjoying a late Indian summer at the moment, or were until today. Monsoon rains have started. Manchester, we love you! Take care, both of you, and don't eat too many Macdonalds, Love, Chris and Margaret. XX