Australia... finally!

Hey there,

Australian mobile number is +61 416 836 117.

Well, to backtrack slightly as not written on the blog for a little while, we had a great time in Queenstown over Easter, relaxing and recharing our batteries (after a night or two of drinkies). I learnt where our bounds of friendship are - lets just say that Haz and J declined to do a certain type of wax for me, although Haz did hold my hand in the salon...

So we headed up to Dunedin (not much to do there), and saw the boulders at Oamaru. Beautiful balls coming out of the sea (the smaller ones had been stolen by people years and years ago). It was a lovely drive along the coast, but ran through quite a few towns which was quite unusual after driving through the centre of the South Island.

Oamaru - very strange little town, very twee, and not much there, apart from one yellow-eyed penguin (with about 50 people watching it from the observation post), and some blue penguins. But we had a gorgeous little cottage to ourselves that night, paying very little, which we really appreciated. Our own kitchen, bathroom, tv, electric blankets... yes it was freezing though!

Upwards and onwards to Christchurch, where we stayed in the Jailhouse Accommodation - a prison renovated to be a hostel. Our cell was small, and the whole place rather strange (look at the photos on Picasa). But again, quite an experience! We explored Christchurch - J and Haz went to the Antarctica centre and got up and close with some coldness, and I went to a museum, art centre and we visited the Christchurch Art Gallery too. Lovely gallery, interesting building and some good exhibitions.

So we got a shuttle bus to the airport on Wednesday night at 10pm, with a very strange lady. She was talking about setting her rottweilers on possom roadkill, and using the dead possom as bait for the eel pot.. very very weird. But we love those kind of experiences! We survived the journey, made ourselves a nest, and headed off to Sydney at 6.30am Thursday...

Sydney is lovely in the sunshine, and is a very strange mix of being very cosmopolitan, but also very relaxed too. Nothing like the frenetic pace of London. We have seen Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, many gardens (and giant bats), The Rocks... and that was just yesterday after our journey here! We have more sightseeing planned today, and will head to see our friends Dean and Josh tomorrow. Should be interesting... But Sydney is great, the hostel is alright, (although does great food deals for supper), and I finally think I have caught up on sleep...

So hope that everyone is ok back in the UK,
Lots of love from us all,
Alice xxx