The Gold Coast: Three days of theme parks

On the Sunday the weather had cleared up and we bought a pass for unlimited entry to three theme parks. We decided to go to Warner Brothers Movie World first. We spent the day on roller coasters (one of which we queued for an hour and a half for, only to get to the front and be told it had broken down!). At the end of the day we came home and went in the sea (just crossed the road from our flat). The waves were massive and I have never experienced a current like it in my life. It was the most powerful rip ever and kept dragging us out to sea and along the beach. When the life guards packed up for the day and told everyone to get out for their own safety, we got out and had tea and relaxed in the flat.

The next day was wet and wild, the most exhilarating day of the three. There were some really extreme slides and at the beginning I was very nervous about going down them (even more nervous than I had been about doing a bungy jump!). The best one was a big funnel that you got washed down on a tandem rubber ring. The scariest was one where you had to stand on a trap door at the top of a vertical drop and them you were closed in and after a countdown, the doors opened and you were dropped down a vertical slide that did a loop de loop at the end. Whilst in the queue for the slide, we saw signs saying 'in the unlikely event that you do not make it round the loop, remain calm and allow yourself to slide backwards down the loop. Exit from the emergency door once you have come to a complete stop'. We were told by the lifeguard that the chances of not making the loop were extremely low and the only people who didn't make it were usually children who were too light. Everybody had to borrow a surf top to make sure they had no friction and everyone in the queue was nervous as we watched one person after another be shut in the capsule and then dropped into oblivion. There were strict instructions that you had to follow: lie with your head against the slide, cross your arms across your chest and cross your legs. How hard could it be? Nevertheless my heart was racing at the thought of being dropped vertically on the count of three by a machine.

When our turn finally came, Jemma and I walked up to the slides (two slide next to eachother were released each time) and Jemma said that she wanted to go in the green one. I had had it in my head that I would go in the green one but I just got in the yellow one as it was too late to discuss. We were both shut into our capsules and my heart was pounding as the water trickled down my back. Then we heard an automated voice say 3, 2, 1 and we were dropped. Literally dropped through thin air down this slide. It felt like I was falling for about 10 seconds and then I looked down and my legs had uncrossed themselves. I quickly recrossed them but it was too late. I felt myself sliding down backwards and realised that I hadn't made the loop. I had got half way up and didn't have enough speed so slid back down backwards. I waited until I came to a stop, as the sign had said and then found the trapdoor to climb out of. I couldn't believe I of all people hadn't made it! Jemma and Louise both found it really hilarious.

The rest of the day whizzed by with some excellent slides including one called Kamikazee where two of you sit in a ring and then are dropped backwards down a sort of massive half pipe. There were also a couple of three-people slides but for the ones where it was two in a ring, we took it in turns to go down with strangers. By the end of the day we were exhausted from all the laughing and climbing up stairs. It was an absolutely fantastic day, probably one of the best of the whole round the world trip. We got back at night and were exhausted. Jemma kindly cooked us a BBQ and we watched the Oscars on TV.

The final day of the theme park trilogy was Sea World. We went there today and saw lots of sharks, penguins and sting rays. We also watched an amazing dolphin show, a jet ski stunt show and a seal show. After Sea world, we came home, went in the sea, came back to the apartment, went in the pool, hot pool, jacuzzi, sauna and steam room and then had tacos and chilli con carne for tea. And that's where we are now, sitting letting tea go down. Tomorrow we are heading to Australia zoo, made famous by Steve Irwin the crocodile hunter.  

Surfers Paradise

Oh the Golden golden coast is so amazing. We left Byron bay in the morning when it was pourring down with rain. We then had a short coach ride to Surfers Paradise (about 1hr 30). As soon as we arrived in Surfers I knew that I was going to love it. It is like a cross between Blackpool, Vegas and Rio de Janeiro. When we arrived it was raining but it didn't detract from the amazingness of the city. Our hostel was right next door to the bus station and I was really pleased with our choice. It was more like a hotel than a hostel. A big high rise hotel with a pool and it shared facilities with the hotel it was part of so it made a really nice change to staying in typical backpackers places. We shared a room with three French people who were really nice. On our first day there, we didn't do much because of the rain; we just enjoyed the facilities and went to Burger King (or Hungry Jacks, as it is called here in Oz) to go on the free internet. The hostel had a nice chill out room with a TV so we made dinner and then relaxed in front of the TV. The next day it was also raining so we bought a 24 hour internet card and spent most of the day chilling out in the hostel online. We booked our rail passes for Japan and did some research on that. It was a really relaxing day and that evening the rain stopped and there was a spectacular sunset over the beach. We were happy to be situated right next door to the supermarket (Woolworth) so we took full advantage of that and used the big kitchen to cook a nice meal (lasagne and beans mmm).

Our penthouse

The next day was Saturday – the day we were due to meet Louise and check into our apartment that she was renting out. We checked out of our hostel and met her at the apartment, which was actually more of a penthouse hotel suite. We were blown away! The apartment is right on the beach with the biggest balcony I have ever seen. It has two bedrooms with en suite, a big open plan kitchen and lounge and a washer and dryer all for our use! It also has 2 pools (indoor and out), a jacuzzi, sauna and steam room. We both felt like we had landed in heaven and it was like having a holiday in the middle of a holiday. We sat in the apartment for the whole morning and showed Louise some of our travel photos on the plasma TV. Louise had a nap because she had been up at 3am to catch the flight from Melbourne and Jemma and I both made ourselves comfortable in the flat (luxury shower, did our washing, watched TV...). At night we wandered into the city centre to get dinner and ended up getting takeaway. We then relaxed in the flat with a movie and some chocolate; it was absolute heaven.

Byron Bay

From Sydney, we took a 14 hour coach to Byron bay. I actually enjoyed sitting on a coach for 14 hours as it gave me time to have a much needed rest after the hectic rush of Sydney. Byron bay is a chilled out 'hippy' surf town on the east coast and we were lucky to get some really great weather there. We stayed in Aquarius backpackers and they gave us free boogie boards to go to the beach with. The beach was only across the road from the hostel so we spent the whole day there playing in the waves. At night we wandered around the town and had an ice cream. The hostel also gave us a free meal when we bought a drink so we didn't have to cook. The only problem with Byron Bay, and Aquarius hostel and a lot of the east coast of Australia in general, is that it is full of half naked 18 year old Swedish, British and German youths whose soul purpose for existing is to pull, flirt, check themselves out in all available reflective surfaces and congratulate themselves on how adventurous they are to be travelling around Australia. We have been lucky so far, in Melbourne and in Sydney to have avoided this scene, by carefully choosing hostels targeted at the older, international backpacker. However, in places like Byron it is simply unavoidable and it just really isn't my idea of travelling and not what I came around the world for. Not only this, but I can't help being annoyed that I am paying a lot of money for the hostels (much more than any other country) and yet the services are substandard (again, with the exception of Sydney and Melbourne where we chose our hostels wisely). Maybe if I were 18, just out of school and all I wanted to do was drink every night, it might appeal to me more, but this isn't what I came away for. However, as I said, we have been lucky enough to avoid this (apart from Byron) and we are now in Surfers paradise, just a 2hour drive from Byron Bay (Australia's answer to Blackpool, which I really like so far!) staying in a hotel come hostel which is very anti-social (suits me just fine as it means less naked drunken Swedish girls wandering the corridors). In a few days our friend Louise is arriving (Shauna's cousin) and we are renting out an apartment and plan to visit three of the big theme parks here (including wet and wild and movie world). Hopefully the weather will be ok, as Queensland is currently going through a period of heavy floods. We have also arrived in Australia at an interesting time politically, when the ex priminister (Kevin Rudd) is trying to overthrow the current priminister (Julia Gillard) who Jemma thinks looks like Scully off the X Files. There is to be a vote on Monday to see who will be the leader of the Labour party. We had quite an interesting discussion with our Ozzie room-mate last night about it, and laid awake until the early hours discussing politics and psychology whilst the rest of our room-mates were on an 'epic pubcrawl' around Byron bay.  

Sydney

First view of the Harbour bridge and Opera house

(...by Jemma)

We took a coach to Sydney, deciding not to stop in Canberra. As we passed through Canberra on the coach we could see we made the right decision! The coach journey itself wasn't actually too bad. The seats aren't as comfortable as South America, but it was only 14 hours, which seemed like nothing after 20+ hour journeys we'd done before. We arrived at around 10pm, and realised we hadn't really planned how to get to the hostel. Luckily it was quite straight forward, and after a short trip on the light railway and after asking a few people we found our hostel. We stayed in Eva's Backpackers in Kings Cross which was a really nice hostel with private lockers and bedside lamps (you really start to appreciate the little things!) We had a lovely nights sleep and woke up all ready to see Sydney. On Saturday we had arranged to meet Jenna's friend from Contiki, Paul, and his friend, so we set off walking into Sydney. We walked through a big park past Wooloomooloo harbour, and as we rounded the corner saw our first view of Sydney harbour bridge (the coat hanger) and the Sydney Opera House. It was one of those 'Wow! I'm actually here!' moments for us both, and I think I took around 30 photos. We continued to walk round to Circular Quay and saw a huge cruise ship in the Quay. There were lots of faux aborigines playing the digoreedoo and posing with the tourists. It reminded me of Cardiff Bay a bit, but more upmarket. We met up with Jenna's friend Paul and went for a walk around The Rocks, which is a very historical part of Sydney.

With Paul and his friend

(continued by Jenna)... Paul was with his friend who lived in Sydney, and together we went for a drink in a cafe to get shelter from a big downpour (something that would be a common occurrence in Sydney during our stay). We walked around most of the city and they showed us the main areas for shopping and China town. We stood for a while and watched chocolate being made and they showed us where all the expensive shops were. We said bye to them in the evening and then headed back to our cosy hostel to get ready to go out. On the way, we stopped and had a cheap curry in Kings Cross. We had a few drinks in the hostel and then went to a few bars in the area surrounding our hostel but it wasn't as good as we had hoped.

The next day we had a lie in and then tried to find a doctors for Jemma's foot because she was in a lot of pain at this point from a bite that had become infected in Fiji. We found the doctors but they told us we would have to obtain a medicare certificate first from an office in town and that this could only be done on a week day (it was a Sunday). So Jemma just had to bare the pain a little longer and we wandered down to Darling harbour for a look around. By now it was mid afternoon and we had wasted most of the day trying to sort out medical stuff. We got to Darling harbour just in time for a massive thunder storm and had to shelter in the cafe next to the Aquarium. I guess we sat there for about 2 hours and didn't see much of Darling harbour in the end. The annoying thing was that I was very scantily clad because when we had set off that morning from the hostel it had been blazing sunshine. This meant that when it rained on us I was absolutely freezing and had no coat or anything to keep me warm. I sensed at this point that I would not thank myself for running about in the rain in shorts and flip flops but I had no choice. After two hours of non-stop rain and sitting bored in the aquarium, we decided we would just have to make a run for it and began the 40 minute walk back to the hostel. Luckily it stopped raining but I think by this point the damage had been done and all I wanted was a hot shower.

The next day we decided to begin the feat of getting Jemma's medical card so she could see a doctor. This was no easy task. We needed photocopies of visas and passports which we had to buy internet credit to print from offline. We also needed to fill in forms and were sent back and fro from various offices, before eventually being told by one lady that due to her heavy work load, we would not receive the medical card until 3 days later as the office had too much work to process so we should come back in three days and Jemma could see a doctor then! Jemma was quite happy to let this lie but by this point, having wasted a whole half a day queuing in lines at the offices, filling in forms, running in an out of internet cafes and printing forms, I wasn't about to be told that I would then have to wait 3 days before the card would be processed. After Jemma walked out the office and told me what the woman had said to her, I calmly marched back in and said that three days wasn't good enough, that the feet were infected and needed urgent attention and would she kindly point me in the direction of somebody who didn't have such a heavy workload and could help me. We were given directions to another office in the middle of a shopping mall and within 30 minutes, the nice lady in the next office had sorted it all and we had the card: All we needed now was to take it to a GP. The whole morning had been such an ordeal, I said to Jemma that I sincerely hoped I wouldn't get ill because I didn't want to have to go through it all again to get me a medical card.

The next day I woke up with tonsillitis and we had to do it all again. As I wrote on my previous blog entry, what then followed, was three days of the most severe pain in my life – lying awake all night in bed sobbing because I couldn't swallow. (Jemma by the way got antibiotics for her foot off the doctor who had a 5 minute policy – if the doctor took over 5 minutes to assess her she would be charged more so he didn't even ask her to take her shoe off – he just said 'I am guessing you have a nasty bite that is infected, I'll prescribe some antibiotics).

Anyway, the next day, I somehow managed to get out of bed, crying with pain and we did the long 40 minute walk into the city centre to get my medical card, with Jemma practically carrying me half the way. Once we had my medical card, we went back to the same doctors (mistake!) and she prescribed me the weakest course of antibiotics ever to be taken once every 24 hours before bed! I was told to gargle salt water and take paracetamol for the pain. Well I wanted something that would kick in straight away, not to have to wait until bed! So I disregarded the instructions and took them straight away. Not that it had any effect whatsoever, in fact the pain increased, as did the lump in my throat. That night I had such a fever Jemma nearly rang an ambulance (temperature of 39 degrees!). In the morning I could barely stand up and hadn't drank or eaten all night because swallowing was far too painful. We went to another doctors near the hostel and were called from the waiting room after half an hour by a lovely doctor who took one look at me and was horrified. He couldn't believe the previous doctor had put me on such a low dose and he immediately upped the dose and gave me some heavy duty painkillers. He also gave me an injection of penicillin to hurry things along. He was very concerned and told us to come back the next day to see how I was doing. He told me to throw the other tablets away and start the new ones (goodbye £20 that I had just paid for that lot of tablets, hello another £20 for the next!).

The only problem was, the antibiotics he gave me could only be taken with food and this was just impossible. Even after the penicillin jab, the pain continued to worsen and I couldn't eat or drink. Nevertheless I managed to bare the pain and slip the tablets down with a sorbet. That night was the worst pain of my entire life – I actually thought I was going to die. I had visions of swimming pools of water that I wanted to jump into; I was so thirsty but couldn't drink because every time I did it felt like I was stabbing myself. I knew at this point that it must be more serious than the usual tonsilitis because usually that goes after a few tablets. I was also sick, probably because of the painkillers, so any antibiotics that I did take simply came back up.

The next morning we went back to the same doctors surgery and I was seen by a new doctor. She couldn't believe how ill I looked and said that I was really dehydrated and that I had all the indicators of needing to go to casualty! So off we went to casualty, which was luckily just across the road in the lovely St Vincents hospital and there I was seen to by a lovely team who admitted me over night and pumped me with fluids for 24 hours to re-hydrate me as well as IV antibiotics. They also gave me some serious painkillers, which did numb the pain, but made me feel really weird and gave me hallucinations. They also made me nauseas so the nurse simply pumped some anti-nausea drugs into my drip. And there I stayed for 24 hours and after 24 hours I could finally swallow again! Jemma was lovely and came to visit me regularly to give me chocolate, update me on facebook happenings and eat my free meals.

After I got out of hospital, we were supposed to be staying with some friends of mine in Newcastle, just north of Sydney, but I was too weak to go. We decided to extend our stay in Sydney by three days to try and get some sightseeing done as we had really not seen much of the city. We bought an open top bus ticket which took us all around the city and to bondi beach. It continued to rain heavily on and off and Jemma told me that the only day it didn't rain was the day I was in hospital. We visited two museums and Jemma went to a Harry Potter exhibition at one of them. We also took a ferry over to Manly where we watched the world surfing championships final. And that's about it! So in the end, not such a great experience of Sydney, but we did see most of the major landmarks and we were lucky to have a really nice hostel to stay in which made all the difference. On our last night in Sydney, we saw an old friend who we had met on the salt flats in Bolivia – Keira. She was one of the Irish girls who we had seen on the salt flats tour, in la Paz and in the Amazon. She is now the 3^rd person we have met on 2 continents.

Sydney photos

Sydney and the Quinsy

A little note to anyone following this blog, wondering what has happened to me and the Sydney update. Thanks to a peritonsillar abscess (or quinsy), that decided to strike me down and live in my throat for 6 days, we haven't seen quite as much of Sydney as we would have liked. We have however, become very familiar with the doctors surgeries and hospitals of Sydney and are now very well versed on the reciprocal healthcare agreement and its clauses. After 3 days lying in bed in the hostel, with a temperature of 39 degrees, not being able to swallow or sleep and crying with pain, three visits to three different GPs, a shot of penicillin in the bum and a bumper pack of prescription only heavy-duty painkillers that made me hallucinate and vomit, I was admitted to A & E where they took one look at me and put me on a drip and fed me antibiotics intravenously for 24 hours.
I am now happily out of hospital and can swallow once again without feeling like I am gargling on razor blades. We have been on a whistle stop tour of Sydney on an open top bus and have visited a few museums today. Tomorrow we are heading to Byron Bay which is 14 hours drive north of here. I will update the blog soon with info about what we did in Sydney when we weren't inspecting the medical facilities.

Melbourne continued – Great Ocean rd, Ramsay st & Dr Karl

Neighbours

On our fourth day in Melbourne, we got up, had the free breakfast in the nunnery and then headed out for our Neighbours tour that we had booked ourselves onto. During childhood, we were both obsessed with Neighbours and couldn't wait to see the real Ramsay Street in the Flesh. We went to the Neighbours office where they had all sorts of memorabilia, videos and photos of the old cast members and episodes. We then got on the Neighbours bus, with about 12 other Brits (no other nationalities watch Neighbours. Apparently, at its peak, there were more people in the UK who watched Neighbours than there were people living in Australia! ) and the guide told us all about the tour, how we would visit Ramsay st and then meet a Neighbours star at the end. We both hoped it wouldn't be somebody we didn't know as neither of us had watched Neighbours for about 12 years. There were only a handful of cast members remaining who we would stand a chance of recognising, namely Karl, Susan and Harold. The tour guide drove the bus to Ramsay st and on the way we watched dvds of old episodes. It was such a trip down memory lane and took me back to my childhood. When we stepped off the bus in actual Ramsay street, even more childhood emotions came flooding back and I felt like I was visiting and old familiar place that I hadn't been to for years! Some of my earliest memories are connected with watching Neighbours when I was 4 so it was quite a strange sensation to visit the road that it is all filmed on! We had pictures taken on the street and with the sign and then we continued on to a few other locations that they used for filming, including Erinsborough high school and Lou's mechanics. After this, we returned back to the Neighbours shop on the bus, where the surprise guest was waiting to greet us. To our absolute delight, it was none other than Dr Karl Kennedy!

With Alan Fletcher - Dr Karl

Apparently he had been drafted in last minute and we were meant to meet a different cast member who we had never heard of, but luckily they couldn't make it and Karl came to the rescue. It was happy smiles, photographs and autographs all around! 

Later that afternoon, we spent a bit of time just wandering around the city and then in the evening we went out to meet a friend of mine who I met on a contiki tour of the USA three years ago. I had kept in touch with Ruth through facebook and we met her outside federation square which is the main square in Melbourne. She generously offered to 'shout' us for dinner and took us to a lovely (posher than we're used to) restaurant by the Yarra river, overlooking all of the skyscrapers. It was a fantastic place to eat, with great views of the city and we sat and chatted and caught up on memories of our holiday over a meal and wine. We all had chicken parma because apparently that is the typical dish in Melbourne and everyone raves over it. After dinner we wandered along the river and she gave us a guided tour. We then went to an ice cream parlour that she raved about and again she treat us and bought us both ice creams! It was so nice of her. It was absolutely lovely to meet up with Ruth again and we told her that she must come to Cardiff the next time she's in the UK. We left Ruth at about 10.30 because we had an early start the next morning. We walked along through the cosmopolitan city all lit up and Jemma had a go on one of those electronic dance mats.

With my friend Ruth

The next day we got up at 6.00 and snuck out of the the nunnery to catch our bus to the Great Ocean road. We booked a day tour as we didn't have much time to play with and it took us from 7am to 9.30pm to complete the whole thing. We drove along the Great Ocean road stopping at various places on the way, including: the light house from 'Round the Twist' and the Twelve Apostles. We also stopped at a place that had lots of trees with parrots and koalas in them! We were delighted to see koalas in the wild, and so many of them! They were so cute – mostly asleep, perched in between two branches, or hanging from a branch with their babies! Jemma got some bird seed and we had the parrots all over us on our hands and heads and we also saw some kangaroos and an echidna all in the wild! At lunch, we stopped at a lighthouse and had a BBQ. It was a long, action packed day and when we got back to Melbourne, we were just in time to catch the Wednesday night hawker international food markets. We saw some inca cola and it reminded us of South America. We didnt find any food that seemed value for money so we ended up going to a little Chinese dumpling house that our tour guide had recommended.

The 12 Apostles

On our final day in Melbourne, we spent a bit of time on the internet trying to book flights to Japan but had no success and were frustrated that we had wasted the whole morning doing it. In the evening we met Louise one last time with another friend of hers for tea and went to the casino where we got a free $5 credit to gamble and both lost. We both agreed that we would have like to have spent a lot longer in Melbourne but we are on a strict time scale in Australia and have now moved on to Sydney! I have decided that I would definitely like to come back to Oz one day (not as a backpacker on a budget) and do the middle of Australia, i.e. the outback. So far, Australia knocks the socks off New Zealand.  

Melbourne - clubbing, carnivals, picnics and penguins

Australia has, so far, turned out to be much better than I had expected! In fact, we are having an absolute whale of a time!
We arrived in Melbourne late last Friday night (early Saturday morning) at 2am. We got a bus from the airport to the centre and then a taxi to our hostel in St Kilda – the beach part of Melbourne. We were both really tired and when I first saw the crowded dorm with people's mess everywhere, I said to Jemma that I didn't think I could stick it out in Australia for 5 weeks if it was going to be like that. People had warned us about Oz, telling us that not only was it expensive, but you got less for your money and the hostels were overcrowded with 18 year olds living there who were messy. So my first impression when we walked into the dorm wasn't the best. But I went to sleep as I was exhausted. The next day we got up late and didn't have time to dwell on the cramped dorm as we had a lot to fit into the day. We had agreed to meet up with Louise (Shauna's cousin) who was going to take us out clubbing that night and she was picking us up from the hostel at 18.00. So, we walked out and found Aldi to get some food. I was pleasantly surprised by the food prices – food in Oz is actually cheaper than in New Zealand. I got some cocopops and after I had eaten them, had a quick nap before getting ready to go out. When we were in Fiji, our two friends Charlie and Alex kindly gave us a mobile phone with an Aussie sim in it so we have been able to keep in contact with people whilst we've been here much more easily than elsewhere. Louise called us to tell us she was outside and we got in her car and met her friend, Katie who would also be joining us for the night out. We drove into St Kilda and went for food at a restaurant where Louise very kindly picked up the bill and then we met Shaz, another of Louise's friends and we all walked around St Kilda beach for a bit, around the theme park area (Luna park) and then onto a club. It was a good night and I think we got home about 2am and then slept in the next day.

The next day (Sunday) there was a big festival in St Kilda so we met up with Louise again and her friends for a picnic in the park and to have a look around the festival. Jemma had a really badly infected mozzie bite that she needed to get seen by a doctor but as it was a Sunday, we had to settle with just going to the Pharmacy and getting some iodine to rub on it. After the festival, we went for lunch and then they took us to the Casino in the CBD (central business district) which is an attraction in itself (we didn't gamble, just looked around).

When we got back to the hostel, I tried to book us in for some more nights (I had only booked three but we were staying in Melbourne a week and I decided that the hostel wasn't too bad after all). However, they were all booked up so we had to find somewhere else.

The next day, we checked out of our hostel in St Kilda and moved to our new hostel in the CBD – the nunnery. It is an actual nunnery that has been converted into a hostel and still has the nuns theme running through it (a themed hostel a bit like the jail we stayed in). We put our stuff away and then had to dash back into town to meet Louise after work at 4pm as she had kindly offered to take us to Philip island (normally costs $100+ dollars, but with her it would only cost us $20).

Philip island is and area of coastline known for its penguin parade:

You pay $20 to get in (about £15) and then you sit on some benches and watch the sun set and see the colony of penguins swim into the shore and waddle into a little reserve. You can then watch them waddling around the big reserve, which is where they stay for the night before swimming back off into the sea. On the way to Philip Island, we stopped at Louise's house so she could get changed and we met her mum and had a look around her lovely house, complete with pool and BBQ, which reminded us very much of Neighbours. We then drove out of the city to Philip Island and sat on the benches on the beach waiting for the sun to set and for the penguins to come in. It was the first time I have seen penguins in the wild and they were so cute! They are actually called 'the little peguins' and they are the smallest penguins in the world (sometimes called 'fairy penguins' or 'little blue penguins'). After they had waddled in off the shore, we watched them for about an hour in their burrows and on their parade and then we drove back to Melbourne, stopping for a late night 'Maccas' on the way. (Mc Donalds). Lovely day.

Melbourne photos here

Australia

We are now in the land down under and I am a little anxious about the costs here. We knew it would be expensive but no matter how much you prepare yourself, its always a shock. We are now hoping to couch surf our way up to Cairns from Melbourne because the hostels are ridiculously expensive. Its just a shame neither of us have any relatives here like most people seem to! We will be staying with a friend I met on holiday three years ago in Newcastle and hopefully a girl we met in Fiji on the Gold coast but apart from that, we have no plans.

Final days in Fiji

When we eventually got off the ferry at the mainland, we took a taxi to a hostel we had booked online in advance on Bounty Island. I am so glad we did, because everywhere was booked up due to the cyclone. We decided not to stay in the same hostel as we did at the beginning (Bamboo) because I had such depressing memories of it and it was just a wooden hut, so no the best place to sit out a storm. Instead we checked into Bluewater which turned out to be one of the best hostels I have stayed in on this trip! It is a big house that has been converted into a hostel and it still feels just like you are staying in someone's home. The staff go out of their way for you and the meals are excellent. Best of all, when we arrived there, we saw Charlie and Alex, our two friends from Mana Island and they were staying there for a few days. We have spent the last three days just chilling out in the cosy hostel whilst the cyclone batters away outside. The hostel has free wifi which is such a luxury and it also has a lovely pool and garden area where everyone sits and night. The people here are lovely at it has been a very relaxing end to our Fiji trip – just what we needed before the chaos of Australia begins.

Jemma and Charlie outside the hostel after being rained on

P.S. A happy ending to our worry about getting the deposits back: We went back to the place where we booked our island hopping and the guy gave us all of our money back. We were so relieved as we had met people who had lost out on a weeks worth of accommodation and boat transfers that they paid upfront. In the end, we have actually saved money thanks to the storms.

In summary: we brought our flights to Fiji forward by a few days and when we first arrived I was sure that this had been the wrong decision because of the weather. However, it actually meant that we got more days of sunshine and met the amazing people we did, and had the amazing experiences we had. I would not want to change a moment of our Fiji holiday.

Our Fiji song: 

Fiji: Bounty Island

'Bounty Island in the sun'

Bounty Island is the island where 'Celebrity Love Island' with Callum Best and Rebecca Loos was filmed. It was very different to Mana; it was a lot smaller and there were no Fijians living in villages on the island – it was just a resort. When we first go there we were surprised and happy to be reunited with our friend James off Mana island and the two Swedish girls. We went on a walk around the island and it only took 15 minutes. It was a really relaxing place. The beach seemed cleaner than the main beach in Mana and the hostel was a big step up. The meals were serve yourself all you can eat buffet style and the food was excellent! I had beans, eggs and toast, cereal, juice and pancakes for breakfast, salad, chips and chicken for lunch and Indian curry with popadoms and naan bread for dinner! You could also have afternoon tea with cookies if you could squish it in. On our first night there, after dinner, because it was a Sunday, the staff sang some Fijian hymns for us and then sang a goodbye song to the leavers (the same as the song they sang at Ratikinis, which I later found out is a popular song in Fiji). It was a shame about the weather because it was very overcast and rained a lot. However, we didn't let this stop us and spent most of the day in the pool in the rain. At one point we tried to go snorkelling but the staff wouldn't let us because they said it would be too dangerous in case the cyclone came.  

Our pool (celeb love island pool)

On the second afternoon, one of the hostel staff came up to the pool and announced that anyone from Britain had to come and read a notice that had just been faxed through from the British Embassy. We went to read it and it was a letter from the British Embassy warning all British nationals that a cyclone was about to hit Fiji and we should adjust our plans accordingly. Later that night at dinner, after Bula hour (which they seem to have on every island, although the one on Bounty wasn't a patch on the Mana Bula hour), the head guy made an announcement that everyone would be evacuated off the island the next day and taken to the mainland because it was unsafe for people to stay out on the islands. This meant that we had to cancel our plans to visit the Yasawa islands, which we were a bit gutted about but knew that we were definitely better off sitting out the cyclone on the mainland rather than on an island. We were a little worried we would lose our deposits but we didn't have any choice other than to return to Nadi. That night we played monopoly with two very pleasant Aussie girls who by the end of the game became just as aggressive and competitive as us. In summary, we basically spent our short time on Bounty (2 nights) in the pool in the rain, playing board games and eating. Bounty was a lovely cosy little island and it was very relaxing. The most unrelaxing part was on the last night when we found a massive crab in our room and couldn't get it out. In the end, the security guard had to come and pick it up and throw it out, but not before he had made me stroke it :s . Also that night, I thought I found bedbugs in my bed and couldn't sleep then for the rest of the night and had to get in Jemma's cramped bunk with her. The next day, we had breakfast and then everybody was herded onto a little boat on the rough sea and we were taxied across to a bigger boat that would take us back to the mainland. On the bigger boat, which was packed to the brim (mainly with Japanese tourists), it was so rough that loads of people were throwing up everywhere and the journey that should have taken 20 minutes took 2 hours! It wasn't so bad though as we sat together with the people we had met on Bounty and they all played cards whilst I listened to my mp3 to stop myself from feeling sea sick.  

Fiji: Mana Island continued...

Our third day on Mana was the best day ever. The weather was glorious and after breakfast we decided to take a boat trip out to the sandbank to go snorkelling. The sandbank is basically just a lump of white sand (about the size of a tennis court) in the middle of the sea that you can just about see from Mana island. We piled into the little boat with our new friends (Americans, British and Kiwis) and coated ourselves in suncream and then the boat driver took us out to the sandbank. It only took about 10 minutes to get there and when we got there it was spectacular. It was everything I had imagined Fiji to be – just what you see in the brochures.

The sandbank

We all got our snorkels and flippers on and then set off swimming around the sandbank until we reached a ledge where the water dropped to hundreds of metres in depth. As the guy who took us out described it: 'this is like in finding Nemo where Nemo gets told not to go any further'. So we didn't go any further because there might be bigger fish out there. We stayed close to the sandbank but the fish were amazing, with lots of corals and Nemo type fish. Apparently you can also spot sharks (the friendly ones) and dolphins but we didn’t see any. It was pure paradise and the waters were crystal clear. After the sandbank, we all got back in the little boat and returned to our hostel for lunch and then a man showed us how to climb a coconut tree and how to cut open a coconut and make jewellery.

Later on we decided to walk to survivor beach again for some more snorkelling to try and see sharks. We set off through the jungle again with Ally, Alex and Jemma and walked until we found some rocks, which we had to clamber over and then jump into the sea. We didn't see any sharks but we saw a lot of fish and an eel. It was fantastic. When we got back, we had a shower and then joined the Kiwis and our other friends for tea and Bula hour. By now we knew all of the Bula songs and sang and clapped along. We then spotted a bonfire further down the beach so walked down to check it out. We found some people sat around playing guitars and chatting. We joined them for a bit before returning home to Ratikini to go to bed. A perfect day.

Bula hour (James on the right)

The next two days on Mana were just spent relaxing on the beach and snorkelling. One morning the hostel did a free guided walk to a lookout point at the top of the hill where yo could get a good view over the island. We borrowed a girl's underwater camera one afternoon and went snorkelling with Alex and took lots of cool pictures. On the last night we were all leaving the next day (all of our friends too) so we decided to have a few drinks. The hostel had also put on entertainment (traditional dancing and fire-throwing!) which was cool, however, half way through I got stomach cramps like someone was punching me and had to go to bed. I blame it on either the water or the dodgy mixed grill we had for dinner.

Snorkelling at survivor beach

On our last day on Mana it was so hot, we spent most of our time sat in the internet room which was the only air-conditioned room in the hostel. We didn't pay to go on the internet, just sat chatting. At 11.30 we waved all our friends off who left on a little boat to the mainland. It took them about an hour to set off because the battery ran out. The we hung about until 4pm, walked along the beach and then caught a boat to our next island – Bounty.




Photos: Fiji