Cairns

Tuesday: Cairns

I guess it was because the flights to Cairns from Alice Springs yesterday were cancelled, but my flight was rescheduled for later in the day, and when I finally got to the airport, it was delayed even more. However, I eventually arrived in Cairns. I found a hostel from the airport, then got picked up and checked in. As we drove through Cairns, I could see trees blown over in quite a few places, but no other real damage. Cairns got off lightly with the damage, just receiving some high winds.

Once I checked in, I just spent the rest of the evening walking around Cairns. Many of the hostels here provide vouchers for meals in a couple of the bars. Although the meals aren't exactly great, you can pay extra to have proper food. A steak for A$6 isn't too bad!

One of the guys in my dorm was a divemaster working for one of the dive companies, and I found out from him that the visibility in the water wasn't great. I was hoping it would improve with each day I left it, as I was in Cairns primarily to do a diving trip!

Wednesday: Around Cairns

Upon talking to the hostel staff, it became apparent that the damage from the cyclone was worse than I thought. Although Cairns had not really been affected, towns south of Cairns (mainly Innisfall, but also Mission beach) had been hit quite hard. With the high volume of rain that the cyclone had brought, the main roads south had become flooded and the buses running south were not running. This was my planned route out of Cairns!

I spent the day walking around Cairns, visiting travel agents and trying to find some good deals on a trip to Cape Tribulation and a dive liveaboard. However, due to there being another cyclone off the coast and headed inland, I was also considering further options of flying to Brisbane and working my way overland back up to Cairns in the hope that the sea will have settled by the time I got back. However, this would require me to buy 2 extra flights as I'd have to get back to Brisbane at the end. I did actually decide to fly, but then realised this too late to book the ticket. In the end I just booked a 2 day trip to cape tribulation to do tomorrow instead, hoping that things would have settled by the time I got back.

Thursday-Friday: Cape Tribulation

I was picked up today to go on a bus trip upto Cape Tribulation, an area of tropical rainforest along the coast north of Cairns. The day began driving along the Cook Highway, with nice ocean views along the way. At the end of this, we took a smaller road and ended up at a river crossing. While the bus went across the river on a ferry, we took a boat trip down the river with the intend of finding crocodiles. Although it wasn't the best season to find crocs, we eventually found one sitting on a bank, and further along a female in the water next to some babies!

Back on the bus, we carried on heading north. It soon became apparent that this area had also received high rainfall, as some of the many creeks crossing beneath the road had risen to flow over the road. The first one we came to was preceeded by a line of cars unwilling to try their luck with the fast flowing water. The depth markers indicated 40cm of water. Our bus was fine though - obviously intended to do this sort of stuff! I did wonder how high the water had to be before the bus wouldn't go through!

Cape Tribulation is an area of tropical rainforest, where many areas of land had been given to veterans as somewhere to live. Some of these areas of land have been converted for tourist use, by the owners or by the government. We went for a walk around the rainforest, seeing mangroves and lots of other plants. And a very big spider! By this time people were starting to get bitten quite a lot by mosquitos, so we headed back to the bus to finish our journey. By lunchtime we arrived at PKs jungle village, where we would be spending the night. However, shortly after we arrived, it started to rain. A lot. It would be continuing this for the next 24 hours, the time we were meant to be staying here! My original plan had been to go kayakking, but this was cancelled due to the weather. Instead, I just went for some walks, dressed in swimmers and a lightweight shirt, just accepting that I would get soaked! The beach next to our accommodation wasn't as nice as I expected, but I was using pictures of another beach as my reference! I tried to walk along the beach to the nicer beach, but came across a creek flowing into the sea with a warning sign indicating crocodiles had been seen here recently. I decided not to try my luck swimming across and turned back.

The next day, I found the beach I was looking for by walking along the road instead. I still had to cross the same creek however, as it had risen above the road. Not as bad as the one from yesterday, but still 20cm of fast flowing water. I was more concerned about a car coming through at the same time and soaking me! When I reached Cape Trib beach, it was probably the nicest I've ever been to, the mythical white sandy beach with rainforest behind, and no signs of other people in sight. If only it had been sunny, it would've completed the image by adding green and blue water as the reef was just off the beach.

On the trip back to Cairns, we stopped off for some more walks and photo opportunities. Back in Cairns, I found out that while I had been away, the second cyclone had changed its course and was almost down in Brisbane! A good thing I didn't fly down there in the end. I booked a dive trip to leave tomorrow, and went for some food.

Saturday-Monday: Dive Trip

I was collected in the morning for my 3 day trip aboard Cairns Dive Centre's boat, the M.V. Kangaroo Explorer. KE spends its time on the outer reef, where the best dive sites are, and customers are transferred out there by their day boat, Sunkist. This trip took 2 hours, and had a few of the passengers making trips to the toilet with seasickness! KE was a twin hulled boat which was much more stable and more comfortable. After a spot of lunch, we were shown to our cabins. Comfortable, but very small beds and with a ceiling about 2 foot above my bed!

Over the next 3 days, I did 10 dives. After the first dive, I was quite disappointed by how low the visibility still was - well below 10m. In my previous dives, I've been spoilt with 20m visibility normally! However, there was still plenty to see - in the first dive we found a turtle, and there were hundreds of other fishes around. For our first dive, a guide was provided. However, on subsequent dives, we had to pay extra for a guided dive. Lots of people took this option, and on the second dive we ended up with one guide for about 10 people! This was more of a problem than originally thought when Kate (my buddy) and I realised that we were following the wrong group when they started doing open water course skills! The two groups had got quite close in the water, and with the bad visibility and unfamiliar people we'd followed the wrong one! We decided to surface as we had no idea of where to go to rejoin them, and neither of us had done unguided dives before!

The third dive was a night dive, another new experience for me. We were given torches and then proceeded as normal, with a few extra procedures for signals in the dark. This time, Kate & I were making sure we stuck right behind the guide, although it was actually better visibility with the torches than during the day! Didn't see anything extra special on that dive, but I enjoyed it! For the rest of the dives, we had pretty much the same visibility. However, in the middle of the second day we went to a much better dive site with hundreds of fishes, swimming about in big groups. Saw turtles, sharks, stingrays, nudibranches and much more that I haven't a hope of remembering!

At our final dive site, I had to do an unguided dive as the guide wasn't available. We'd seen quite a few turtles swimming around on the surface, so my objective was to see another one up close. Fortunately, this was accomplished very quickly as we saw one at the start of the dive! Navigation on this dive wasn't really a problem, as we could see where to go from the boat, and no matter where we came up at the end it wouldn't be a long swim back! This was good as we actually surfaced on the far side. This marked the end of my dive trip, and we got the day boat back to Cairns. Now I have to try and find somewhere else in Australia to get a dive or two with great visibility!

Melbourne to Alice Springs

Thursday: Rugby 7s

As the commonwealth games were on in town, it seemed like a good thing to do to go and watch something. I didn't really fancy watching badminton or table tennis, but the rugby 7s sounded like it might be interesting. So at 5:30, I headed back up to my original hostel (I'd had to move to a much worse one, All Nations, due to there not being any space available at Friendly for my last night) to meet Nicky and go to the Telstra Dome, conveniently located just behind our hostels.

The Telstra dome is a huge arena, fortunately covered. After queuing up for ages to get to the security checkpoint, I opened my bag showing my camera and was told I'd have to go to a different checkpoint "so they could give me advice on using my camera". Grr. Went to the second checkpoint and didn't bother opening my bag, the guy didn't even notice the bottom section of my bag full of cameras, my ipod etc! Anyway, I eventually found my seat to watch the end of South Africa thrashing Uganda. Prior to this holiday, I didn't really know anything about Rugby 7s. Basically it is like rugby with only 7 minute halves and 7 men per team, making it very quick. I was surprised that the scores were so high in such a short period of time! There were a few matches with good teams in our session, including England, Wales, Scotland, New Zealand, Fiji and Australia. However, many of these were obviously unmatched (Fiji-Scotland for example, watching the scottish bounce off the big Fijians!). The most entertaining games were the ones between two smaller countries, like Tonga & Uganda. Until the final game of course, England-Australia! Australia scored one try in the first half, but we were able to come back with 2 in the second half. In the last seconds of the game, Australia managed one final try, making it 14-12 to us, all resting on the final conversion. Which was missed :) That shut up the noisy australians sitting next to us :)

After making it out through the huge crowds at the end, popped into a bar next to the hostel for a few drinks.

Friday: Melbourne to Alice Springs

I had an early start in order to catch the Airport shuttle today, which ended up being an entire minibus just for me. Obviously noone else would be silly enough to leave Melbourne that early in the morning! Upon arriving in Alice Springs (which is in a wierd time zone, 9h30 ahead of England, quite confusing!) I was greeted by lots of heat, and a few flies. I'd been warned about the flies beforehand, and this was immediately obvious why. The temperature was about 35C, and there are always flies buzzing around you when you're outside. I found the hostel minibus and went to check in. Other things I'd heard about Alice Springs - there is nothing there apart from a dry river and lots of aboriginees drinking. This turned out to be true. Once checked into the hostel, I went for a walk into town, finding nothing apart from tourist shops, bars and places to eat. I was trying to find the supermarket, and this was made easier by the regular aboriginees walking towards me carrying boxes of cheap wine!

Didn't do much for the rest of the day, as there wasn't much to do! Dinner in the hostel was surprisingly good for $5, and I sat in the bar trying to watch the rugby finals. Unfortunately, after showing Australia lose out on the bronze to Fiji, they decided to show some local rugby instead of the England v NZ final. Got an early night as next day was an early start (again!).

Saturday: To Kings Canyon

Today I was beginning a tour of the Uluru area with Wayoutback safaris. This meant being picked up at 5:45, way too early! However, I would find out later that this was a lie in! Two of us from my hostel were collected (both of us Richards!). Upon getting into the minibus I was glad that it was fairly comfortable, as we would be spending a lot of time on the road. After picking everyone up, we drove up to Anzac hill to watch sunrise and sort out payments etc. The lady there strongly suggested that we buy some fly nets, so an extra stop was made to pick up some of these. Then we headed off towards Kings Canyon - a long drive, including a 100km long dirt road. Fun for the first 5 minutes, but gets a bit boring after a while! I was glad to be back on sealed roads so I could read more. We reached our campsite at about midday, when we made some lunch. And hundreds of flies descended on us. I am not normally too bothered by flies, as long as they don't try and fly in my eyes, mouth or ears. Which they did of course, so we had to resort to wearing our fly nets. This became a very common practice over the next few days! The afternoon was spent walking around Kings Canyon, in the heat of the afternoon (36C on the thermometer at the base of the canyon). Kings Canyon is part of the central australian desert, but it was still covered with plant life, that has adapted to the environment. This was more obvious when we got to a sheltered part called the garden of eden, full of plants and with a large rock pool, which we went for a swim in. And the good part about this was that when you are in water, the flies aren't interested in you!

When we got back to the campsite shortly before sunset, our guide started cooking dinner and we sat around with some beers. We slept under the stars, in swags (like big sleeping bags with mattresses and pillows). Fortunately the flies all disappear as soon as the sun went down.

Sunday: Uluru

Another early start (5:30am) today so that we could get to Uluru quickly. It was still dark by the time we'd finished breakfast, and we were on the road for sunrise. With a couple of stops on the way, we reached Uluru by midday. First we walked around the cultural centre, which seemed to be more full of signs telling you not to take photos or videos and signs saying please don't climb uluru than cultural stuff. Can't say I think too much of the aboriginal art, which seems to be predominantly made of dot patterns. Not that it's bad, just that they seem to try and sell it for extremely large amounts of money!

After this, we walked around the base of Uluru. Even though I wasn't planning on climbing Uluru (not for cultural reasons, more because I didn't think there would be much of a view from the top!), we couldn't anyway as there was a rescue in progress. The walk around the base was still good enough, and seemed a lot easier. There were also considerably fewer flies around today, which made it a lot more comfortable.

We got back to the campsite well before sunset, so that we could walk up a hill to a lookout over both Uluru and Kata Tjuta (the Olgas). We had some champagne and nibbles to take up with us too. I got up there early and set my tripod up with the camera pointing at Uluru, mainly to reserve a spot. Unfortunately, the few clouds that were around decided to get between the sun and Uluru, meaning that it didn't go the brilliant red it was supposed to. The sunset over Kata Tjuta was more impressive, and eventually I had to move to take pictures of that. Oh well, we were going to get to see sunrise too!

Once it got dark, we went back for dinner, and had an even earlier night, as we were having an even earlier start!

Monday: Kata Tjuta

Worst start of the trip so far - 4:45am wakeup call! This was in order that we could reach a lookout at Kata Tjuta for sunrise, which we did. There were considerably fewer people at this lookout than the sunset one (rightly so, most of them were probably still in bed!). This time, there was nothing in the way, and the sunrise over Uluru was spectacular.

When we got to Kata Tjuta, it became obvious that yesterday's reprieve from the flies was only temporary. However, the walk we did was through the Valley of the Winds, around some of rocks making up Kata Tjuta. Today we found out how both Uluru and Kata Tjuta were formed - movements of the earth forced the rock to rotate up out of the earth. This is more obvious in Uluru, where lines of sediment are almost vertical. At Kata Tjuta, the lines were only about 20 degrees. Both of these rock structures extend below the earth some considerable distance.

At the end of the walk, we got back on the bus to begin the long journey back to Alice Springs. I was a little troubled to hear that Cairns was currently being battered by a cyclone, as that is where I'm flying to tomorrow! When we eventually got back, everyone from the tour went out for dinner and drinks in town.

Tuesday: Alice Springs to Cairns

I'm sitting at the hostel waiting for my shuttle bus to the airport - although Cairns has been battered by a cyclone, flights are still on, and I'm going to be mainly doing diving up there anyway, so will see what happens when I get there. There isn't much else I can do without having to buy extra flights anyway. Hopefully everything should be settling down, and the areas I want to visit might be unaffected anyway. However, there's another cyclone that might be heading that way - I may have to move once I get there!

Sydney to Melbourne

Friday: Zoo and night out

For my final day in Sydney I left Matt & Cate to do their own things, and went for a look around the Chinese garden in Sydney. This was a whole load of ponds, waterfalls and plants in a nice peaceful garden. After this I walked around the markets in Sydney very briefly, before going to the Outback centre to catch a free show from a guy playing the Didgeridoo. This was quite impressive, with the guy playing it showing us how it was played, and the origins of the word (apparently Gaelic, something along the lines of "black person blowing a horn". He also offered some insight into other Aboriginee words, saying that many things were named after what they look like, or how they behave. For example, Kangaroo is Bunda, as that goes with its movement. Kangaroo apparently means "I don't know", as a white person asked an aboriginee the name of the bouncing animal, and the Aboriginee didn't know what the white man was talking about! :)



After this, I decided to catch a ferry over to Sydney Zoo. Unfortunately, I didn't really plan this very well, and managed to miss pretty much all of the shows on during the day. However, I did manage to see plenty of animals - Koalas, Kangaroos, Lions, Tigers, Snow Leopards, Bears and Otters amongst the highlights.



In the evening, I met back up with Matt & Cate for some food, then we headed up to Circular Quay to have a few drinks. Our first port of call was the Minus 5 bar, a bar in a big freezer where everything is made of ice. Because it is so cold in there, you get nice furry coats to keep you warm, and are served drinks in glasses made of ice! As you go in, you are told to make sure you use the coasters if you put your drink down, to prevent it from becoming a permanent fixture in the bar! After this, we visited a few more bars on the way home.


Saturday: Flight to Melbourne

Today I had to leave Sydney for my next destination, Melbourne. I spent the morning sorting out a few travel arrangements, booking some future trips in the travel agent. The weather in Sydney was quite overcast, the coolest day so far (but still 20C!). When I arrived in Melbourne, it was clear where the warm weather had gone! Bright sunshine, and easily 30+C. After checking into my hostel, the Friendly Backpacker, I went for a short walk around Melbourne and to do some shopping, then met up with Nicky & Charlie, two girls I'd met on the Kiwi Experience who were staying in the same place. Bit tired that day, so made it an early night.

Sunday: Around Melbourne

Today I went exploring Melbourne on my own, first getting the free city circle tram for a while to Federation Square, the main centre of all things Commonwealth games. The opening ceremony for the games is on Wednesday, with games starting on Thursday, so everyone was still getting ready. In Fed Sq a large TV had been put up for people to watch the games, and on the Yarra river a short distance away, a number of floats had been set up, one for each of the 70 participating countries. Each float also had a big fish next to it, for part of a parade.

I walked further down the river, and spent the rest of the day walking around the gardens and memorial sites and enjoying the weather (34+C, very sunny!), before going back to my hostel. In the evening I met back up with Julia & Linde from NZ, who were staying around here to earn some money.

Monday: Around Melbourne

Unfortunately the weather wasn't so good today, as I'd intended going off to visit the beaches at St Kilda. Instead, we walked around the art gallery and sorted out getting some tickets to the commonwealth games. The most interesting sounding event on the last day we were all in town was the Rugby 7s, so we decided to get a ticket for that. We'd picked out a session at random, but while in the queue we managed to find out who was playing. We'd definitely picked the right session - England v Australia, plus some more from England, Wales & Scotland.

The rest of the day was spent arranging a hire car so we could do a road trip tomorrow to the great ocean road, before meeting up with some more people for drinks in the evening.

Tuesday: Road Trip Day 1

First thing today, I had to check out of my hostel and collect a hire car, so that we could go on a road trip. Before we could depart for the great ocean road, however, we had to make a detour to Pin Oak Court, that very famous road (more commonly known as Ramsay St!). Nicky & Charlie were both quite keen to see this, so rather than paying the money for the official tour, we opted to find our own way. It was pretty easy to find, especially given away by the 4 white lorries parked in it - they were filming today. Not having watched Neighbours since I was an undergraduate, I had no idea who most of the people were. Unfortunately we weren't allowed up the road as they were filming, but we loitered at the bottom watching them filming. There were at least 5 of the cast there, Toady, Paul Robinson, Izzy (no idea who she is), Max, and Paul's daughter. The official tour soon turned up, and now rather than 4 people standing on a street corner with cameras, we could be part of a larger group. As we were standing there, a car pulled up and the driver said Hello. I didn't really know who he was, but apparently everyone else did - the guy who plays Max. He stopped and posed for photos with all those who wanted to.

We headed back to the hostel to drop off Charlie and pick up Orla, another from Kiwi Experience, and head off onto the great ocean road. This is a stretch of B-road that runs along the coast, with some nice views and good beaches. It took 90 mins to get to the actual road. We stopped pretty much at the first beach, as the first section of the road did not run alongside the coast (well, we couldn't see it anyway!). All the places on the road seemed to have British names - the road started in Torquay, then we stopped in Anglesea for lunch (this Anglesea is probably a lot more sunny!). After getting to the part of the road with all the nice views, we stopped a few times to take photos at viewpoints. The next mission was to find Koala bears - there were signs up along the road to beware of Kangaroos and Koalas, and Orla (who'd done this trip before) said that she remembered a place we could see them. It turns out she didn't remember that well, and we stopped a couple of random places she thought could've been it before arriving at Kennett River, at the Koala Cove Cafe (perhaps the name was a giveaway?). We parked up and walked along a road until we found a few people standing by the road pointing cameras up into trees. This looked hopeful, and sure enough there was a Koala very low in the trees eating Eucalytus leaves, and 3 more sleeping higher up in the branches. The one eating was almost low enough to reach up and touch, and many photos were taken!



After leaving the Koalas behind, we made another stop for ice creams. At this point we realised that we would soon be running out of daylight, and still had about 100km to cover in an hour to reach the twelve apostles, a series of rock columns out in the sea. Our objective had been to take photos of these at sunset. I put my foot down, but the great ocean road isn't exactly straight! However, we just about made it in time, reaching the twelve apostles just as the sun began to set. However, this meant it was now dark and we had to try and find our hostel. Contrary to the advice given by the lonely planet, this was not in "Loch Ard Gorge", which wasn't even a town. Eventually, after many circuits of Port Campbell, we found the hostel and checked in, before going for food in the only place left open.



Wednesday: Road Trip Day 2

After possibly the most comfortable night's sleep since I left home, we checked out of our hostel and went to visit more of the attractive rock formations in the area. The first was "The Arch" (an arch - no really!), followed by London Bridge, what was previously two arches before the top of one collapsed, leaving two people stranded at the end in the early 90s. Then we went to Loch Ard Gorge, which consisted of many more arches. We could also see some of the apostles from here, which we went to visit again next to take some daylight photographs.

After this, we tried to cover a decent amount of ground as we were aiming to be back in Melbourne for 4:00, ready for the opening ceremony of the commonwealth games. We stopped for lunch, at which point I realised that I was not feeling particularly well. Unfortunately this got worse as we went on. Still, managed a few more viewpoints. We had a mission on this trip too - we wanted to see Kangaroos. I'd found a bit of paper saying that the golf club in Anglesea was home to 1000 kangaroos, so we'd decided that this was probably the best chance we had of seeing them. After taking a picture of a Kangaroo sign (we did this with the Koalas minutes before seeing them yesterday!), we got to the golf club. It was not well signposted, and it took us a while to find our way in. Eventually we were driving alongside a fence at the edge of the club, when we saw a couple of Kangaroos. We stopped for a bit to take some photos, then proceeded further to see if we could get any closer. We managed to get onto the course where there were a couple more, before turning around to head back. However, during this time, a load more had congregated back at the fence to say goodbye!




Eventually we made it back to Melbourne, and with me still stuggling with feeling very ill, managed to find the underground car park where I was supposed to leave the hire car. That marked the end of my day, as I wasn't feeling well enough to go to the opening ceremony, although I saw some of Nicky's photos later.

Thursday: Sorting stuff out

My last day in Melbourne, I am only really still here because I couldn't get my flight to Alice Springs on the day I wanted it. However, I still have some sorting out stuff to do, and we are going to the Rugby 7s tonight. Tomorrow I will be flying to Alice Springs to see Uluru, and the weather is forecast to be 34-35 for the next week :)

End of NZ, Start of Oz

Saturday & Sunday: Free days in Christchurch

As I'd already spent some time in Christchurch on arrival in New Zealand, I didn't really have much in mind to do with my second trip to the city. Hence, most of my time was spent wandering round, looking at stuff and doing shopping. On Saturday, there was a Korean thing going on in Cathedral Square (the centre of the city) involving Korean men trying to throw one another over in a big sandpit. Entertaining for a bit anyway!

On Saturday night, I'd arranged to go to a rugby match, as we were offered a good deal of $20 for the game, transport and a couple of beers (compare that to any english prices). The match in question was a super 14 match between Crusaders (from Canterbury) and Blues (Auckland). Although the atmosphere at the game was good, it was nowhere near as good as I expected it to be! However, at least the home side won.

Sunday was spent walking round with Jo, both of us trying to fill up our last day in the country. I would've liked to go out for my last night, but most people we knew had already left, and I'd got the nice sensible flight time of 6:45am, meaning I was going to have to leave my hostel at 4am! Hence, an early night was called for.

Monday: Moving to Australia

As I mentioned above, I had a really early start to catch my plane. I was finally leaving New Zealand after about 7 weeks of being here - was definitely hoping Australia wouldn't be a let down after all I've seen so far!

Upon arrival in Sydney, I checked into my hostel (and was very surprised to be able to actually check in at 9am!) before meeting up with Matt & Cate, who had arrived the night before for their 2 week holiday in Australia. First stop of the day was Sydney harbour and the opera house. After looking around the outside for a few minutes, we decided we should really spend some money and go inside on the tour. This was actually quite interesting, showing us that the opera house is actually a number of buildings inside another building - the "shells" or "sails" are just the outside, with the theatres a separate building inside. We were shown around the two major theatres - the first being just a concert hall, and the second being the opera theatre. Both of these were impressive, the concert hall most of all. Everything has been designed with acoustics in mind, from chair upholstery that absorbs the same amount of sound as the average human (so a half-empty theatre sounds the same as a full one) to the wierd UFO-like rings reflecting the sound back down on the orchestra. The organ at the back looked quite impressive, with 100 pipes. The guide then told us that there were another 10,000 pipes behind what we could see! I would've liked to hear something being performed in there, but I think that's a bit out of my league for now!

For the rest of the day, Matt & Cate decided to part with large amounts of money to walk up a lot of steps on top of the harbour bridge; I decided to skip this and instead did the cheaper 200-step walk up one of the pylons at the end of a bridge to get some photos of the harbour.

Tuesday: Bondi Beach

Since arriving in Australia, the change in climate from NZ has been remarkable. The first day was quite warm (30C) and hardly a cloud in sight all day. As today was going to be the same, we decided to hop on a bus to Bondi beach to see what all the fuss was about. After following Matt round in circles a couple of times to look for the bus stop, we eventually made it. To be honest, I wasn't that impressed with the beach - sure it was a clean beach with nice surf, but I couldn't understand why it's so famous. Anyway, we sat on the beack and went in the water for a bit, with Matt & Cate needing to apply more factor 50 sun cream every half an hour.

After this, we went for a walk round to Coogee beach, about 5km away. By the time we got there, I think we were all a bit tired, definitely not used to this climate. Matt had managed to miss large areas of skin with his suncream and was already beginning to develop burnt bits. By the end of the day, Cate has also managed this! We went in search of an ice cream, before heading back.

Wesnesday: Blue Mountain Day Trip

On Wednesday we got out of the city by hiring a car and driving out to the Blue Moutains, a moutain range about 100km out of Sydney. They appear to be covered with a blue haze from a distance due to light hitting droplets from some of the trees. Our first stop was Katoomba, the main tourist centre of the blue mountains. From here we did a little walk to see the three sisters, 3 columns of rock. They are so called because the aboriginees thought that they were once three aboriginee sisters, turned into stone by a witch doctor. Must have been rather large sisters! We walked down 900 steps to get to the bottom, and was disappointed to find nothing much down there. From here, Matt & Cate went back up to the car, and I continued on a walk through the rainforest to Scenic World, a very touristy loop walk through the rainforest on a boardwalk. Matt & Cate had driven round to the top of of scenic world and come down on a train; we all returned up on a cable car.

Next stop was Jenolan Caves, another 80km away. This was at the end of a very narrow and windy road, and consisted of a tourist settlement which appeared to have been built to serve many more than were there at the time - I guess it isn't the high season any more. We did an hour-long tour through one of the many caves here. Loads of interesting stuff to see in the caves, and quite an informative tour.

After a long drive back (with a wasted stop at Wentworth falls, inaccessible due to most of the tracks being closed), we had a meal and went back to our hostel/hotel.

Thursday: Aquarium & Manly

After yesterday being a slightly cloudy day to the delight of Matt & Cate, today was back to clear blue skies and hot weather :) First stop today was Sydney Aquarium. I'd heard good things about this from other people, and was not disappointed. Lots of very big fish, but the highlights for me have to be the Little Penguins, huge stingrays and some of the sharks. The low points were the hordes of screaming kids running around visiting the aquarium as a school trip.

After this, we hopped on a ferry upto Circular Quay for some lunch, before catching another ferry over to Manly. Manly is a nice beach town north of Sydney, but the beach was a lot more populated than Bondi was! We first walked round to Shelley beach, where Matt & Cate stayed to sunbathe. I then walked back to start the Manly Scenic walk round to the spit, a walk I've heard a few people say was good! When I got back to Manly beach though, I was surprised to find hardly anyone in the water. The few people that were in the water retreated when an announcement came over the tannoy reminding them that a shark had been recently sighted!

The walk to Spit was 10km long, although I'd already walked a fair distance by this point. Walking it on my own meant I could be very relaxed about it, and as I didn't have any reason to get back by a certain time I stopped at a lot of viewpoint of photos, and found a nice beach to have a swim towards the end. By the time I did get back to Manly, I was quite tired! Had dinner in Manly, before catching more ferries and buses back to my hostel. I'm now using the rest of the night to catch up on burning CDs and writing this blog - should really stop leaving it so many days!

Bungyyyyyyyy!

The rest of Wednesday was a quiet day - I'd already done most of what I wanted to do in Queenstown, and it was raining. So I just went to the cinema, then met up with a few friends in the bar.

Thursday: Jumping off very high things!

The time had come - after having a bit of a lie in, I made my way down to the AJ Hackett centre and met up with Nicky (who I'd met on the bottom bus) who was also jumping with me. After checking in and being weighed, we were both surprised when they got us to sign our certificates saying we'd jumped, without even leaving downtown Queenstown! We didn't take up the opportunity to collect the certificate and just tell people we'd jumped. To be honest, I wasn't really nervous... yet. When we eventually got out to the bungy site (quite a long drive away!) this began to change.

The Nevis bungy is the tallest fixed jump in NZ, from a pod suspended over a canyon by wires. You reach this by going over in a small gondola. Once I got into the pod, I started to get a bit nervous. This changed to a lot when my name was called (fortunately rather early on!). I was attached to the bungy ropes and shown what to do. Didn't quite manage the whole smiling for the camera bit, but hobbled over to the edge of the platform. We'd been told that we have to do a swan dive to ensure that we clear the other bungy ropes hanging down, so there was no question this time of how I should be jumping. You get told to look at a tree in front of you (a long way away) and to jump for it. On the count of 3, I did this without hesitation (mainly because I didn't really get the chance to think about it!) A couple of seconds of scary falling before this changed into being great - I was quite surprised at how difficult it was to tell my orientation, or when one bounce was ending and another beginning! At the top of the second bounce I managed to pull the cord which unclips from your feet, turning you from a hanging upside down position to one sitting in the harness, at which point I got winched back up. Once standing on solid ground again, I was buzzing with adrenaline, and shaking like anything! It was really good, and I'm glad I did it. I pitied Nicky, who had to wait around until almost last to jump (as she was nearly the lightest one there).

After looking at the videos when we got back, I decided to buy the DVD. So at some point, I'll get around to putting a version up here, but don't hold your breath!

By the time we got back, most of the day was over, so we just grabbed a bite to eat then went back to the hostel. I went out to the normal bars in the evening to try and find the rest of my groups, but everywhere was strangely dead. I found one person and went out for a drink, and was just about to head off for an early night when a load of other people came out and joined us, making it a good night in the end.

Friday - Queenstown to Christchurch

This morning I had to catch a 7:55 bus, which I didn't really appreciate, only having got back 4 hours earlier! A long bus journey today, with nothing particularly interesting on the way apart from views of Mount Cook over Lake Pukake (which is a very strange blue colour!). Christchurch will probably be my last stop in New Zealand, as I am flying to Australia on Monday.