Perth-Alice-Uluru-Adelaide-Melbourne-Sydney-Brisabane-Noosa-Fraser Island-Cairns!!!!!!!!

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So Wednesday 10th December 2008 Amy arrived in Australia!!!! We met at Perth Airport, the weather was officially the worst days weather I’d seen all year rainy and cloudy and a bit miserable which was bad luck for Amy on her first day but anyway we made our way back to the hostel we were staying at Underground which is a nice newish big hostel in Northbridge. I’d already spent 10 days in Perth not really doing much, wisdom teeth had been bad and not got much money plus had my purse stolen so had just been chilling out really. So that night I just showed Amy round the hostel, caught up a bit and had dinner then got an early night.

The next 3 days we had in Perth, the first day Thursday we went looking around the city-Northbridge, the CBD, the swan river and then up to Kings Park. Perth is ok, quite a nice city, nothing too special, the river is pretty big and Kings Park is nice, looks out all over the city and the river. Then that evening we went to see the film Australia which I’d been waiting to see. The film was really good set up in the Kimberly and showed a bit about Aboriginals, so this was a good introduction to Australia and Perth for Amy.

The second day Friday we got the train to Cottesloe Beach and spent the afternoon on the beach which is a bit nicer than being in the city, the weather was pretty perfect again now probably around 28 and bright sunshine. From Cottesloe we then got the train along to Fremantle which is a nice small oldish town, where we had a nice drink in the sun and phoned mum as it was her birthday and then we had a nice dinner out which I hadn’t done for a long time so yum yum.

Our last whole day in Perth we went over to Rottnest Island on the ferry and we hired bikes to cycle all round the island on and explore the nice beaches and island. This was cool Rottnest island is nice so close to the city but yet so far away in ways. A nice place to go for a day out and for beaches etc. Was good to have the bikes so we didn’t have to walk, we called it Tour de Rottnest. We stopped at a few beaches and had lunch on the island before getting the ferry back to the city.

So we had 3 nice days out in Perth before it was time to already get moving, Amy had just about got over her jet lag and I was pretty well rested so it was time to get seeing the rest of this massive country. Amy is here in oz for one month or about 4.5 weeks or 31 days I think and we wanted to see as much as we can in one month, managed to get it so we see every state in one month. On Sunday 14th December we checked out of Underground hostel and headed for the domestic airport on a few buses ready to fly from Perth to Alice Springs with Qantas.

We arrived in Alice Springs around 5pm on Sunday 15th December we were staying at Alice Lodge which was quite a small little house hostel bit nice enough. We walked into Alice town to have a quick look around and get some food shopping and bits ready for our Rock Tour. Alice Springs is fairly small, in the middle of nowhere well in the middle of this massive country, the red centre, central Australia, quite a lot of Aboriginals in Alice but the town is ok got the shops you need, quite a lot of aboriginal artwork shops etc.

Monday 15th December we began The Rock Tour a 3 day 2 night tour of Ayers Rock. The first day we headed out of Alice and as usual there was a lot of driving as everything is so far apart in oz. We drove half the day until we got to Kings Canyon!!!!! Kings Canyon is a nice big massive impressive Canyon. Pretty nice to look at and we did a 3 hour hike up, over and around it, stopping at the Garden of Eden on the way round for a refreshing well earnt swim in a natural pool. That night we camped on a cattle station in swags which was an adventure for Amy who hadn’t done this yet, out under the stars we only got about 5 hours sleep though as everyone went to bed late and we had to get up early.

The second day we headed into Uluru and Kata Tjuta National Park and the first place we went was Kata Tjuta a.k.a. The Olga’s. These are big rock formations that would have formed millions of years ago under the sea. Very impressive and massive, we did a 3 hour hike through the Olga’s seeing them from all angles pretty amazing. Only problem is with walking out here is it is so hot probably at least 35 degrees and the flies are very very annoying as there is so many of them, you also have to drink lots to stay alive but then there are no toilets so lots of bush toilet stops, Amy didn’t find this the most enjoyable thing.

That evening we headed to Uluru a.k.a. Ayers Rock, first to the cultural centre and then to watch the sunset at Uluru. Uluru is pretty amazing it’s one of those things you have to see to believe it!!!!! Cool watching the sunset around it as it appears to change colour as the sun goes down. We camped this night at Ayers Rock Resort Campground again in our swags, we only got about 4 or 5 hours sleep as we had to get up at 4am to watch the sunrise over Uluru which was nice. We also did the base walk around the rock which is about 10km. We then had to drive all the way back to Alice that day and on the way back the bus tyre had a blow out which was interesting and we stopped at a camel farm to have camel ride see pictures for a few free laughs!!!!!

So The Rock Tour was good, very hot and tiring, our guide was excellent and we had quite a good group so was a good tour pleased to have seen the red centre. We were back to Alice for one more night in Alice Lodge.

The next day Thursday 18th December (one week before xmas
!!!!) we got the Ghan from Alice Springs down to Adelaide. We just had the standard basic seats on the train but you got plenty of room, it was a 24 hour train ride overnight but this was bearable after having just camped in swags we could handle anything now. Was nice to travel by a different form of transport. We left Alice Springs midday and arrived in Adelaide 1pm the next day. The train was quite nice you could see a bit out the window and it was nice to try the Ghan.

So we arrived in Adelaide on Friday 19th December at the train station and Amy’s friend Sarah’s mum came and met us and picked us up as she lives in Adelaide. Jo and her partner Martin took us for a quick tour around Adelaide through the city and to one of the beaches so we could say we’d seen Adelaide!!!!! That night we went out for a really nice Thai meal with them which was nice and stayed at their house for free that night!!!! Was cool to see Adelaide briefly and stay in a house rather than a hostel for once.

Saturday 20th December we picked up a Wicked Campervan in Adelaide!!!!! We had hired this for one week over christmast from the 20th-27th and we were going to go from Adelaide round to Sydney. We straight away headed out of the city over the Adelaide Hills which is a nice drive and drove about 600km towards the Grampians. The first night we stayed at a campsite in a place called Horsham just outside of the Grampians.

So Sunday 21st December we spent the day in the Grampians which was really nice, I liked the Grampians, really green and white and open and not too built up or touristy. We mainly just viewed the Grampians from lookouts and did a tiny bit of walking, we also went to the very good cultural centre here. We camped this night in a campsite at the Grampians which only had hole in the ground toilets no showers and was very quiet sort of in the forest which was nice bit more isolated.

The next day we got up early to drive out of the Grampians and get down to The Great Ocean Road nice and early. We started our drive along the Great Ocean Road about 10am. We stopped to see the Bay of Islands, London Bridge, The 12 Apostles, Port Campbell and a few other points. The drive is quite long, but what you stop to see is pretty amazing just off the coast its an amazing piece of coastline. Amy bought me for my birthday and Christmas a helicopter flight up over the 12 apostles, port Campbell and London bridge so this was quite amazing, really nice present, cool to go up in a helicopter again as I love flying, the company was really good and professional and the helicopter was brand new so great views of the great ocean road from up there!!!!! I was quite impressed by the Great Ocean Road and glad I’ve now seen it. This night turned out to be a bit of a hassle we didn’t have a campsite booked and everywhere was trying to charge $50 to camp just as it was near to Christmas, we didn’t want to pay this so we drove and found a little spot of beach where we thought we could maybe stop for free anyway we asked a family who lived nearby and they said they thought it would be fine, Amy then got the campervan stuck in the sand so luckily the family had a big range rover so they pulled us out of the sand and offered for us to stay in their driveway. They then invited us in for a drink and in the end let us sleep in their spare room!!!! So this was really nice they were a really nice family and obviously quite well off and didn’t mind us staying with them for one night even though it was so near to Christmas, which was nice compared to sleeping in the campervan!!!!!!

So we left the Great Ocean Road and the nice family earlyish on Tuesday 23rd December and headed up towards Melbourne. We stopped in Torquay on the way and had a delicious little breakfast at a cute beach side café. We then got to Melbourne around midday to find again that campsites were charging $50 just to park there and use the showers so after a couple of hours of trying to find a cheaper or closer to the city campsite we gave up and decided as it was nearly Christmas and Christmas eve we would treat ourselves and pay to stay in a hostel not the campervan. So we found Base in St Kilda which is an awesome really nice new big base hostel. We even paid a few dollars extra to stay in the girls only Sanctuary rooms which are painted pink and are a bit nicer than the other rooms so this was a luxury and a treat to ourselves for Christmas instead of staying in the campervan!!!!! I spent the afternoon chilling out at the hostel and having a nice shower compared to the camping showers. Staying in the sanctuary also got us free champagne for one hour at the bar both nights!!!! So this night we made use of the free champers and had dinner at an Italian restaurant in St Kilda as we hadn’t bought any food shopping.

Christmas Eve we spent the day in Melbourne, it was nice and hot and sunny again. In the morning we did the Neighbours tour as standard for a trip to Melbourne!!!! Was pretty cool to see Ramsay Street in real life even though we found out a lot of tricks and trades of neighbours and how they make everything look bigger and better in real life and how really Ramsay St is called Pin Oak Court!!!!! So this was cool, then in the afternoon we got the tram into the city which was free as it was Christmas eve and spent the afternoon looking around the city and the shops, had an ice-cream etc. Then we headed to Coles to do our Christmas Day Food Shopping lol!!!!!! Chrsitmas Eve Evening we again went to the bar for our free champagne to get the evening started, there was also free BBQ at the hostel that night as a Christmas treat so we had free BBQ for dinner, we then caught the tram into the city to the centre and went for a few more Christmas eve drinks in a pub that had a really good live band on, we hit the midori’s and they had a midori promotion on so were giving away free midori light up cocktail glasses so an early Christmas present lol!!!!!! After a few nice midori’s with a Dutch girl Cindy from our hostel and a few other randoms that tagged onto us in the pub it was nearly midnight so we went out to Federation Square where they had a massive big advent calendar thing that they were going to unveil at midnight!!!!! So this was exciting like a new years eve sort of event for Christmas, was nice to be in the middle of Melbourne where lots of people were for Christmas!!!!!

Christmas Day!!!!! My 25th Birthday!!!!!!!! We decided we wanted to see Canberra and the Blue Mountains on the way up to Sydney and we only had 2 days left to do this so it meant we had to leave Melbourne on Christmas Day morning to drive up to Canberra. So we checked out and left Melbourne about 10am ready for a 8-10 hour drive up to Canberra!!!!!! Not the ideal way to spend Christmas Day but it hardly felt like Christmas anyway as it was so hot and in oz not with all the family so we didn’t mind. We drove all day in the heat up to Canberra. We stopped at about 3pm to have our Christmas Dinner!!!!!!! No not the average normal Christmas dinner of roast turkey…..we couldn’t quite manage this in the campervan so we had bbq kebab sticks!!!!! Lots of nice vege’s and seafood and meat for me!!!!!! Was really nice. We had Christmas music all the way on the drive, crackers with lunch, tinsil and banners in the van, I had a b’day badge so it kind of felt like Christmas. Also Amy got me the t-shirt from the helicopter company as a surprise present to give to me on my b’day/xmas. We arrived in Canberra to a nice campsite at about 8pm that night, where we had cheese and biscuits, crisps and dips and birthday cake and of course some goon!!!!!!! Was quite a good day not the average Christmas day but one to remember!!!!!

Boxing Day we got up and went into Canberra for a look around, we found a really good lookout by chance which had good views of the whole city, we then drove to near Parliament House and walked down form there to Lake Griffith and then we drove over to the Australian War Memorial for a quick look and a bite of lunch. Canberra seems like a nice City, lots of nice museums and they call it the garden city lots of bushes and grass etc. Not really a backpackers place but a good Capital City. We left Canberra around 1pm to drive up and into the Blue Mountains. We arrived at the campsite we’d booked in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains around 7pm. We cooked a thai green curry to use up our left over bits from xmas day kebabs which was yummy and camped here.

Saturday 27th December woooooo one week in the campervan has been long and hard work, tiring as hard to sleep in it and we did a lot a lot of driving and saw a lot of places in one week. We were pretty knackered by now but we still had a few hours to see the Blue Mountains before we had to head into Sydney ready for new years eve and drop the campervan back. So Sat morning we got up pretty early and left the campsite and drove to a few nice lookouts to get a good picture of the blue mountains and they really do look blue when you look out over them!!!! We stopped at Echo Point which is one of the main tourist points in the Blue Mountains in Katoomba, the 3 sisters are here which are cool ( see pics). We also stopped at some waterfalls and then it was time to head out of the Blue Mountains and back onto the motorway into Sydney!!!!!!! I found the Blue Mountains a lot more built up and touristy than I expected and compared to the Grampians, I guess this is because they are so near to Sydney. We drove into Sydney over ANZAC Bridge where we could see the Harbour Bridge which was cool. We found the hostel where we were going to be staying Base on Kent St, which was in between George St and Darling Harbour. We checked in and dumped our bags and then we had the last hard bit with the van finding the depot to drop it back. We did this by about 4pm and got a taxi back to the hostel to chill out for the evening!!!!! The week in the campervan was very long, hard and tiring, doing the driving yourself and finding the sights yourself is very tiring especially as we did it so quick but we did well in one week and it was an experience to drive for ourselves and live in a campervan. We spent the evening sorting our stuff out, getting food shopping, showering and relaxing and getting an early night in a bed!!!!!! We weren’t impressed by the standard of the base hostel in Sydney though it wasn’t as nice as most base hostels which was a shame.

So we were now in Sydney for 4 whole days and 5 whole nights!!!!!! Longest we’d spent anywhere since Perth which was nice. First day in Sydney I showed Ame around the city cause I’d been there already I knew where to go quickly, we went down to wake-up to see if they had free beds but they didn’t and then we headed back up through the city towards the harbour. We went up George St, across to Hyde Park, up the Sky Tower briefly, up to the harbour, around by the bridge and to the bridge climb shop and then we got the ferry from Circular Quay over to Manly!!!!!! Sydney was crazily busy I guess Christmas and New Year time what else can you expect, the ferries were absolutely packed, we got to Manly and I’ve never seen a place so busy the streets were flowing and the beach was crammed mental but cool. We sat at the beach for a bit but then it clouded over just our luck. So we got ice-cream’s and the ferry back over to the city seeing the good views from the ferry coming into the city of the bridge and the opera house. The sun was still shining over here now so we went for a glass of wine at Darling Harbour mmmm. Woooo Amy had seen most of Sydney in one day!!!!!!

So the second day 29th Dec we first headed down to the opera house to see it more closely, into the botanical gardens to eat our lunch but by now the weather had clouded over and was a bit windy and chilly. Today was the day we were doing the Bridge Climb!!!!! So we headed over to the Rocks for a look around the shops and to the visitor info centre to find out what the go was for new years eve. Then at 4pm it was time to do the Bridge Climb. I had wanted to do this and bought it for Amy for her Christmas present not aware of the fact she was scared of heights way more than I was. Anyway she bravely had accessed the climbers on the bridge and decided she’d be able to do it!!!!! The whole climb experience takes 3.5. Hours, they kit you all up and give you training before you actually go out on the bridge!!!! It took one hour to get up to the top of the bridge and one hour to get down!!!!! It was cool I’m glad I’ve been to Sydney and done it, I love the bridge its pretty cool sight so wanted to say I’d climb it. The climb is a bit scary in places when you can see down and see the traffic underneath you but climbing up the arches of the bridge is fine. It’s cool to have stood on top of it especially 2 days before new years eve when all the fireworks will go off it!!!!!! Amy managed to do it with a few scary tears and was so pleased she’d done it bought a t-shirt as proof and one of the photos of us up there!!!!!! This evening we celebrated by having dinner and drinks in the hostel bar Scary Canary which was yummy yummy.

Tuesday 30th December we got the bus from the city to Bondi Beach!!!!!! My first visit to Bondi!!!!! It’s cool not as big and wow as I thought it would be, the beach wasn’t too busy when we first got there about 11am but by 2pm it was packed!!!!!! We spent the day at the beach and had sushi for lunch nice nice hey!!!!!! We bought our food and drink ready for new years eve and showered and did bits on the internet and got an earlyish night before new years eve!!!!

New Years Eve the last day of 2008 where I’d spent most of the year in oz apart from maybe 23 days in England, been an awesome year done some mad stuff and had fun. We got down to the Opera House at 10.30am to get good spots ready to watch the fireworks off the bridge at midnight!!!!! Along with about 6000 other people that were sitting by the opera house alone and thousands of others everywhere else Botanical Gardens and other side of the harbour etc. It was a long day in the hot hot bright sunshine but we waited nearly 14 hours with lots of others to see probably the most amazing new years eve fireworks in Sydney!!!!! The day was a bit long and boring and they could put on other entertainment to make it a bit better and more fun so it goes quicker. There were the kids fireworks at 9pm which were impressive as it was and the midnight fireworks off the bridge were pretty incredible along with the 6 other points across the harbour where they also go off!!!!! So a good sum up to 2008 and welcome to 2009!!!!!

New Years Day we checked out of base in Sydney and went to the domestic airport for a short little flight from Sydney up to Brisbane, only 1 hour 8 mins and we were now up in Queensland the last state for Amy to go in and I’ve been in all of them now minus Tasmania!!!!! We got to our hostel in Brisbane about 5pm and went for a quick look around Brisbane which was very hot and humid!!!! We had good old backpacker $10 meal and a drink in the bar so no cooking for us today whooop whooop!!!!!!

Friday 2nd January we left Brisbane on the Greyhound to travel a few hours up to Noosa!!!!!!! Unfortunately when we got up to Noosa it was raining quite a bit. We’ve been really lucky with the weather so far no bad days at all really so we were due some bad weather. So we checked into the hostel and got the free shuttle bus into the main bit of Noosa, looked around the shops on Hastings Street and strolled along the beach and then headed back to the hostel for $10 pizza and a drink bargain!!!!

Our second day in Noosa the weather was also pretty wet, we checked out at 10am and had to wait until 4pm to get the greyhound up to Hervey Bay. We decided for the first day since Amy had been here not to do much or anything really just sit about the hostel and chill out, go on the internet etc. We’d had a bit more sleep than normal which actually made me feel more tired than normal so couldn’t be bothered to do much. We went to get the greyhound at 4.40pm but it was 2 hours late not so much fun and then on the journey up to Hervey Bay we came across a road accident involving two coaches so we got delayed even more. In the end we arrived at Hervey Bay at 2am 5 hours later than we were due to.

Sunday 4th January we had to get up at 6am after only 4 hours sleep due to the delayed greyhound. We got up and had to have a briefing with all of the people that were going to Fraser Island. I booked my Fraser Island ticket last September when I was in oz before travelling the east coast but last year I was too ill to do the trip so I had saved it for this year. So a long awaited trip was just beginning. A 3 day 2 night self guided tour, we were put into groups of 10 and you get a 4x4 vehicle for the trip which you drive yourself around the island in. First of all we had to have a lot of safety instructions etc, we had to get together a deposit of $1000, then we had to go to the camp shop and collect all of our camping equipment, then to Woolworths to do the food shopping for the trip and then to the ferry by 11am, so it was a hectic morning getting everything sorted. Amy and I ended up with a fairly good group though, two northern lads Steve and Chris, two Japanese people Keiko and Yoshi or Sushi as we called him and four Brazilian people Junior, Andrias, Viviane and Paula. So a nice mix of nationalities and ages ranging from 24-31 so nice group. We arrived on Fraser Island off the ferry around midday and we then had a suggested itinerary we could follow and we chose to do this for the few days. So first we headed inland across the middle of the island and stopped at Lake Wabby on the way which was pretty amazing, great big sand dunes and then a nice green lake. From there we headed further east across the island until we reached the eastern side beaches. We had to wait for the tide to be out enough to then cruise along the sand highway. Driving across the inland of the island was very bumpy and slow but on the beach it was a bit faster and not quite so bumpy. The destination for the first nights camp was a place called Eli Creek. So we choose our spot to camp at and set up camp. The weather was still a bit miserable on this first day raining on and off but not too bad. We put up our tents and got the bbq food on the go for the first night. We also played some fun drinking games and most of the group ended up pretty drunk before passing out in our tents good fun.

The second day on Fraser Island we all woke up fairly early in the morning in the hot tents dehydrated from the alcohol. We got up pretty quickly to get going early like the itinerary had suggested. We had breakfast and packed up the tents etc which is a bit of a mission especially to get everything back in the 4x4 neatly each time. But we did it and got going by about 8am heading further north up the eastern beaches to the good sites on the island. First we stopped at Eli Creek and paddled our feet to wash them off a bit as no showers on a sand island was quite dirty. Next thing we came across was the big massive shipwreck on the beach. Pretty incredible I’ve never seen a shipwreck before and definitely not one on the very beach. It was pretty big and incredible to see it there. Then we stopped to view the Pinnacles and then Red Canyon. By about 11am we were up the north end of the island at a place called Indian Head. Here we stopped and walked up a big hill or cliff to see some awesome views looking down over the beaches and the sand dunes and sand island. Pretty cool. Then from here we carried on up and round a bit more to a place called Champagne Pools this was the only place on the beach where you can swim as the rest of the beach is too dangerous with big high waves, jellyfish and risk of sharks. So we stopped at champagne pools to have a swim we were all looking forward to this as we hadn’t had showers and were feeling pretty dirty and hot. They are called champagne pools because they are like pools of water where the rocks are blocking them out from the rest of the ocean and when the waves hit the rocks they spray up like champagne out of a bottle so looks pretty good. We went down to the pools to have a swim and on the way down read the signs warning that there were sharp shells on some of the rocks so to be careful, so on the way into the pools we were all very careful and we spent about 10 minutes having fun in the pools jumping the waves etc. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere a big massive wave pushed most of our Fraser group back and up over the rocks that were covered in razor sharp rocks. It was unbelievable out of all the people in the water it was only people in our group that got pushed back this far and basically it was very very painful. The moment it happened I had just looked at Amy and said are you ok and then as it happened we were looking at each other after having just spoke to each other and were getting cut to pieces getting washed over the rocks. It was pretty scary as there was nothing we could do to stop from getting cut. We all then got out of the water as quick as we could. 7 out of 10 of our group all had cuts of some sort and some shape or size, wasn’t too nice at all quite a lot of blood. I had a massive great big scraping cut over one of my ass cheeks not nice or attractive. So after this horrible incident our group decided to head out of the champagne pools. We drove a bit further up the island to a place called Waddy Point where we had showers and lunch which was refreshing. We headed back south down the island about 5pm to find a spot to camp for the night. All 4 of the groups camped in the same spot this night which was fun.

The Third day on Fraser Island we got up early and had breakfast and packed up the camp again it was about 8am by the time we set off. Today we headed further back down south on the island, we got lost for a bit and ended up taking an hour detour inland a bit on the island, when back on track we headed inland to a place called Central Station to use the toilet etc and then we headed to Lake McKenzie, the highlight of Fraser Island. We spent a couple of hours at the Lake sunbathing and swimming and then had our last lunch together. We got the ferry back over to Hervey Bay at 4pm and unloaded the 4x4. So after 3 long tiring hot days we had now seen Fraser Island as well. The island is cool nothing too amazing think I’ve seen nicer places, cool how it is all made of sand and good to drive the 4x4 ourselves. We spent this night in Hervey Bay, had pizza at the hostel and caught up on some sleep.

Wednesday 7th January we checked out of the hostel in Hervey Bay and at 1pm we got the Greyhound from Hervey Bay down to Brisbane we arrived in Brisbane around 7pm, had dinner and sorted ourselves out for the last time ready before we fly up to Cairns the next day.

Thursday 8th January we left Brisbane again and flew up to Cairns with Jet Star at midday. This was our last internal flight, our final destination on this trip and I have now been the whole way around Australia. Left Cairns on October 1st and am now back in Cairns for a few days before I fly home to England.

We arrived in Cairns about 2.30pm Thursday 8th January and it was boiling boiling hot, very humid and the heat was very close. We went to my old house where we were going to stay for the few days and saw Carys my house mate. We also hired a car from my old land lord and land lady. It then began to rain, the rain had been waiting for us to arrive and the rainy season had now pretty much began. It basically rained the whole time we were in Cairns it hardly stopped, this was kind of good though because if it had been bright sunshine I wouldn’t have wanted to go home but the rain made it easier to not mind leaving Cairns. I showed Amy around the town and we popped into the Coffee Club where I used to work for a drink. Then we went out for a Ladies Night in Cairns and without meaning to get absolutely smashed!!!!!

Next day we got up not feeling the best and decided to make use of the hire car so headed out of the city north heading up towards Cape Trib, we got as far as Mossman Gorge and Port Douglas so showed Amy these places and did a spot of shopping and saw Stevey who I used to work with on the dive boat. That evening we had fajitas back at the house.

Next day we headed out a bit earlier and headed west of Cairns out to the Tablelands, showed Amy the farm I worked on and went to Kuranda to the markets etc. Also went into Cairns town shopping for souvenirs and to the coffee club once again.

Sunday 11th January was time for Amy to fly home after once month in Australia. It had been a hectic month, we’d done loads, seen loads, travelled loads, been in every state in Aus, celebrated Christmas, my birthday and new years eve and now it was time for her to head home from Cairns back to England and back to the cold and work. So I took her to the airport about 10am. I then finished off my packing, saw my friend Bec from the Coffee Club and a few others who I worked with at the Coffee Club. Then I spent the afternoon with my old house mates. We went to the pier for a few drinks and P.J.O Briens for dinner. Was a nice day bit more slow paced and relaxing.

Monday 12th January was my last day in Cairns this was a busy day getting everything done and sorted before I leave the country, included a hair cut and colour, bank stuff and tax and superannuation stuff, last minute packing and returning the hire car. I had to fly down to Brisbane as Japan Airlines had stopped flying out of Cairns. So I flew to Brisbane and spent the night in a hotel there and then the next day Tuesday January 13th I left the country after having been in Australia for nearly one year.

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