Surf meister!!!!

How's it hanging dudes and dudesses?!

I'm now officially one of the coolest people on the planet (according to Louis, one of our surf 'gurus' on the surf camp at Arrawarra Beach) because I've caught waves and surfed!!! :) Yes and above is the photographic evidence to prove it.

Ok so the 'wipeout' shot in the middle is not very encouraging, but it's funny!!! I was Xtra Hot in my wetsuit (that's actually what it was called, I'm not being cocky!) but it took quite a while for me to stand up. We had 2 surfing lessons. We arrived on the afternoon and had one for a few hours at around 5pm and then it was 7am the following morning to hit the waves.

The afternoon was a bit of a wipeout (as you can see from middle pic) due to the fact that I had a board that was too big for me that I couldn't carry! I had very little joy the first day but I was not going to be deterred (unlike some people on the Oz Experience bus) and my blind 'glutton for punishment attitude' paid off the second morning (the smaller board helped too, plus smaller waves) when I caught my first wave (see the bottom shot). YAY!!!! I've now done the 2 things I've always wanted to do since seeing the film 'Point Break' - surfed and skydived. And lived to tell the tale. Totally rad dude! ;) I managed to get up on the board 3 times too. I was rather elated (see elation in the top photo with my instructor Ally).

It was awesome and I enjoyed it but it was hard work. Total respect to surfers man, they make it look so easy. I had a hard enough time just standing up in the surf, let alone trying to get onto the board. I managed it though (ok, so I think Ally was holding the board for me, but hey, I won't tell if you won't). What an experience.

They showed the DVD of 'Point Break' on the Oz bus to Kroombit Cattle Station too so I was a very happy bunny for a couple of hours and could now say I've done that! :)

Kroombit was another experience entirely and one I'd like to forget. It was muddy (due to rain), the accommodation was basically 3 bunk beds in a stable that had a corrugated iron roof stuck on the top. There was bird shit on my pillow and all manner of insects in the sheets. We had to pay $22 for the privilege of staying here. We all slept fully clothed with the lights on! I learned to lassoo a goat, crack a whip and watched some mechanical bull riding - still not worth $22 though. Still, what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. :) It's all part of the fun!!!!

Catch ya all later. x

G'day, g'day.. how ya goin?...

...What do ya know? Well, strike a light!! As the Slim Dusty song 'G'Day, G'Day' goes.

Yes I'm trying to keep up to date now guys so here is my latest post from the home of the cork hat, the didgeridoo, the koala bear, and let's not forget the Aborigines (even though most Australian's do): Australia!

Yes I'm in Oz now (I've actually been here for 6 weeks but don't let that spoil a late blog). I'm currently in Adelaide but I'll start at the beginning and talk about Sydney and the East Coast...

I arrived in Sydney and got a free airport transfer to the Base hostel. You get that when you book more than 3 night's accommodation - nice! The dorm was what you'd expect from Base - comfortable dorms in The Sanctuary (the female dorms). I met some nice German girls in the dorm, as well as a lovely Canadian called Leah who is a tour guide. She was invited to the birthday party of some well off customers she met on one of the buses and ended up dating their son - nice one! I hope it worked out for you Leah - keep me posted! ;)

In fact it seems to be Germans all along the way here - it must be a popular destination for people from Deutschland. Sydney seemed quite daunting to me when I first arrived. I met my Danish friend Anna for dinner on the first night (even though I was stuffed from the food on the flight - the film was The Devil Wears Prada) and the city seemed like a rather large bustling, scary metropolis - well, compared to the relatively small cities in New Zealand. But in the light of day the following day it didn't seem to bad. The first day (Sunday) seemed to be a bad day for communication (my phone wouldn't recognize any numbers, even my mum's, and I was supposed to meet my Irish friend MaryEllen for breakfast but wires got crossed and she had waited for me the day before!), but a great day for finding things Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant-related (went in an excellent book shop that spanned an entire second floor of a mall - heaven!).

It proved a great day for the weather too (really hot) and I met up with Stefan, who is currently working in a bank in Sydney, and he very kindly showed me around for the day. We took in the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, the botanic gardens (complete with crowds of large bats living in the trees!!?), the ferry to Darling Harbour, and an area called The Rocks. He very kindly bought me dinner and we had a drink in an English-style pub (which oddly shut at about 8.30pm - Sydney, party capital!;))

What they fail to mention in the guidebooks are the BLOODY FLIES!!! I now know what it feels like to be a cow - they land all over you!! On your face, clothing and even up your nose - arrrrgh! Not nice.

I think the Aussies go to bed early on a Sunday so that they can get up for work at ludicrous hours of the morning because when I set off to the Oz Experience office on Monday morning at 06.45 the city was already alive and buzzing! These Aussies are craaazy as man: their $2 coins are smaller than their $1 coins - what's that all about?!! And you have to dial 0011 before you can make an international call - it's true you know, everything si sdrawkcab ereh!!!

The Blue Mountains was nice - see the shot of the Three Sisters rock formation attached. Apparently the blue haze is formed from the oil evaporating in the heat from the Eucalyptus trees. I must say though, they looked like hills to me. You want mountains, go to New Zealand - they have PROPER mountains!! ;) The railway going up the hill at Scenicworld was possibly one of the scariest things I've done. Our guide Sarah kindly said that the front was the best seat - yeah, right!!! There was no barrier at the front and HUGE gaping hole for you and all your expensive camera equipment to fall straight through! It was a vertical railway - yes, VERTICAL!!! Still, the Tim Tam chocolate biscuits she bought us all on the way home kind of dulled the trauma for a bit.

That is one good thing here - Tim Tam biscuits made by Arnotts. MMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmm. Kind of like Penguins back home but sooooo much more chocolatey. You can get all kinds of flavours too: latte, chewy caramel, chocolate fudge, etc. It's making me hungry just typing about them..... may have to post some home for people to try. Especially good with a hot chocolate (not that you want one of those in this weather). They seem to add marshmallows to hot choccies over here and in New Zealand too. Nice but a little sickly after a while.

The Oz Experience bus up the East Coast has certainly been an experience! Not a fantastic one, but certainly an experience! The organisation is nowhere near as good as the Kiwi Experience and I've heard horror stories of people being left behind - and not being able to get back on the bus for a week if the buses are full. Not a good advert for them really, considering the price you pay. They didn't even give me a bus timetable - I had to ask for one. I've also had to pre-book all my buses right the way round to ensure I get on - kind of defeats the object of the hop on, hop off gimick they promote it as.

Highlights of the Oz Experience so far have been: the fire-cooked pizzas at Barrington Tops cattle station (where the time is always 17.10, therefore always time to drink!); surf camp (more of that in the next blog entry); Byron Bay (nice choccie shop with green tea chocolates, a nice walk to the lighthouse and ace kayaking with whales and dolphins); Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary outside Brisbane (see photo of me and my new friend Nivea - she was soft! - they had wombats too. I wanted to smuggle them all out. They weren't fenced in and there were different areas for each age-range of koala: kindergarten, pensioners, mothers and babies etc - soooooooooooooo cute!); the shipwreck on Fraser Island (see photo); Arlie Beach (ace sushi shop called Sushi Hi with boats that float on a stream, rather than a sushi train!); Magnetic Island (nice place to chill and I ran into Franziska for a few days); and Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island (turtles and beautiful white sand).

I've met some lovely people: Carrie the Canadian from Calgary (my ace kayaking buddie - we made a FAB team); Justin the Canadian also from Calgary (there's a pattern emerging here, can you tell what it is yet?!); Dave the Canadian etc. I also hung around with a couple of UK girls for a while, Tracey and Rosalind (from near Oxford and Northern Ireland). They're now somewhere around Melbourne. They weren't very used to backpacking, bless, but I think they're getting the hang of it now. Chelsea (guess where she was from - yes, Canada!) was also a really cool chick. I shared yoga, pilates and sushi with her in Airlie Beach. Hey there Chelsea - hope you're having a fab time and hope to see you before I leave Oz.

Kayaking in Byron Bay was awesome. It was scary too though. It was a miserable day and the waves were rather large. There were 2 of us to a kayak (me and my fab teammate Carrie) and we had to negotiate the large waves (I was on the receiving end of these at the front of the kayak) to get out to the open sea. We saw several whales though, about 300m infront of us. These were humpback whales; they were jumping and showing their tails - truly magnificent. The instructor was so busy chasing the whales that we only saw a few dolphins on the way back (I think we'd missed most of them) - they were about 100m away from the kayaks. Amazing. Then it was Tim Tams and hot chocolate on the beach afterwards (one of the instructors is like me - hates coffed but loves coffee-flavoured things, which is why there was hot chocolate - a pleasant surprise). My whole body ached. It was hard work but so worth it. Your arms break through the pain barrier eventually...

I also tried snorkelling off our boat around the Whitsunday islands. Sadly I failed. My mouth was too small to get round the snorkel spout and the mask cut off my nose which didn't help my asthmatic chest etc. Needless to say I swam out quite far and then panicked. I tried to swim back to the boat but the current was much stronger and the boat just didn't get any closer. Thankfully I got to a girl with a 'noodle' (a foam float thing that looks like a draft excluder) and she signalled for the dinghy to come and get me. I got rather upset as I'd really wanted to see the Great Barrier Reef. Oh well. At least I tried and know for future reference. :( The other thing about that boat was that there were no showers. We were on one called Broomstick and spent 2 nights on it. You can imagine the yucky mess after 2 day's worth of sunscreen, salt water from the sea etc. You've never seen people run so fast for the shower in the hostel when we got back to Airlie Beach! I got to see a couple of shooting stars though and the food was excellent. I'm discovered an allergy to Dijon mustard though. ;) I eat it and thick head cold here I come!

The best place, however, had to be Cape Tribulation, north of Cairns. Once you get to Cairns you're in the Tropic of Capricorn which is tropical. The heat definitely soars once you pass that point. We passed through Port Douglas on the way to Cape Tribulation, which is where the rich and famous apparently stay. It was very nice and I kind of wish I'd had the chance to stay there really. I almost had a brush with Hollywood too: we'd just missed filming of a new Hollywood movie called Fool's Gold starring Kate Hudson and Matthew Mconaughey - darn! Just a few days too late. Apparently it was doubling as Florida and they blocked off all the roads to re-route the traffic on the opposite sides of the road, one lady at the hostel I stayed in told me. Ok, so it's not as good as Shari and Andy being near a film set in Ecuador, but I'll keep trying! ;) Cape Tribulation Beach House was a really nice hostel. I shared the shower with a large spider, beatle and a gecko. The gecko was the cute one.

The beach was beautiful and practically deserted (apart from the crocs, which thankfully we didn't see). The rainforest was stunning too. A really nice remote location to get away from it all and I even managed to catch up on my journal - shocker! The Dragonfly Cafe and Gallery was beautiful - the only place for miles (it was a 45 min walk from my hostel and near the only other hostel, PK's) and the gardens were lovely, complete with dragonflies everywhere. Beautiful. The large wooden cafe was nice too. Really idyllic and there was hardly anyone around. Apparently it's rainy season up this end around Xmas. Nice to chill though.

Sadly I got eaten alive when I got back to Cairns - something decided to live on me for a few days and the bites were all over me. It looked like I had chicken pox again - not nice. I've got rid of it now though - I declared war with bug spray at least 3 times a day all over me. It won't take me alive! ;) Cairns was a nice town. Got some paltry free meals from the hostels I stayed in and met up with Franziska again - yay! :) She pulled the captain of her dive boat and I managed to pull a really sweet guy off my Oz bus called Richard - then I realised he was 19!!!! So that was the end of that. Still, it was flattering to be noticed for once. :)

Other interesting animals I've met along the way include some snakes (see photo with my other new friend) and crocodiles. We visited these at a crocodile farm outside Cairns. I didn't really think much of crocodiles until we got there - now I really don't like them. They are so BIG!!!! They can grow up to 7 metres long - horrible, horrible things. I guess they're the closest relatives we have to dinosaurs. Yuk. Snakes I can handle - as you can see from the piccie of one around my neck. It was really soft and smooth - I wish I had skin like that!

So how should I sum up the East Coast? Well, lots of beaches (sadly the more beautiful they get further north, you can't swim in the sea) and a real surf culture. Ok but not amazing. Scenery wise New Zealand is far more spectacular, although Cape Tribultion was definitely worth seeing.

So the centre of Oz here I come. Stay tuned for the next instalment!!!

Later dudes! x

Piccies that didn't post last time!!

Tardy, tardy, tut tut....confessions of a lazy blogger!

I'm no angel! Well, the photo begs to differ - but the red eyes belie my true nature! ;)
Apologies most sincere to everyone wondering where I've disappeared to over the past 2 months!!!
Never fear people, I have not vanished off the face of the earth, or been kidnapped by a giant Kiwi (as Shaz thought - she meant man, not bird!). There are no excuses - well, there are. I"ve been busy hopping on and off buses - Kiwi and Oz Experience. But when I haven't been busy on buses I"ve been trying to catch up on my paper journal.... but now I'm (almost) up to date so I thought I'd better show my face in cyberspace once again.
So where did I leave you guys. Ah yes, Windy Wellington. Well, the South Island of New Zealand was even more fun than the North one! A BIG shout out to my mates Stefan, Franziska, my new lifelong dance partner Harry (see pic), Laura, James, Mark, Olivia, my other friend Marc (Swiss) and 'random hairy bloke' Richard who we last saw heading off to hitchhike along the far south of the South Island to Dunedin, Invercargill etc - hope you made it safe and sound buddy!
We had our ups and downs on the South Island, but some really nice drivers; namely Cuddles - bless him - watched everything BUT the road (ie iPod, mobile phone, paperwork etc), and Bloke who took charge of the Bottom Bus and a bit of a fancy to me I think (slightly worrying considering his advancing years).
The Poo Pub at Lake Mahinapua had to be one of the most bizarre experiences ever: we slept in effectively a tin can and when there's a huge thunder storm raging outside that is not a reassuring thought). The fancy dress party was a hoot though. All of the guys dressed as men and me, Laura, & Franziska dressed as 'The 3 wise men' - ie in baseball caps and lumberjack shirts. I had a fetching pair of rainbow coloured braces which I didn't want to give back. Harry painted flattering eyeliner beards and tashes on us and we were away. Thanks Mark for sending us that characature of us all dressed up - it was ace. You could tell Cuddles had done this before as his fake breasts were a little too genuine for my liking...
Anyway, some of my fave places were on the South Island: Wanaka was a really beautiful, laid-back snowboarding town with a gorgeous lake (without dolphins - like our cheeky driver tried to dupe us into thinking, and wouldn't you know, the whole bus fell for it!) a nd mountains behind it. They had a bead shop too - what more could a girl ask for?! I spent a while creating a nice choker for myself there. They had Puzzling World too - a craaaazy place with some really clever optical illusions in them, including a room that made people look small on one side, and giant on the other (a technique used in the Lord of the Rings films for the Hobbits). They also had a maze which took me 30 mins to find my way out! Fun and frolicks.
Queenstown was also cool too with the backdrop of the Remarkables mountain range. These mountains were the ones cut and pasted into most of the backgrounds of the Lord of the Rings nature shots! They are stunning though and truly live up to their name. Queenstown is the adventure and party capital of New Zealand. You can bungy, skydive, paraglide, hanglide, ride the Shotover Jet - you name it, you can do it. A few people - namely craaaazy people called Harry and Laura - decided to tackle the Nevis bungy (the second highest in the world). I've seen photos. Brave or stupid? You decide.... all I know is they had a blast doing it and are still here to tell the tale. I'm not that brave... a skydive is enough for me!
Queenstown is also the place where even if you say you're going out for a couple of hours, it turns into half the night. Well, 3am several days in a row... even when I had to catch a 7am bus the same morning - Harry you're a bad influence but a mean dancer man! ;) I loved every second. And Franzie got very drunk, VERY drunk and thrown out of Altitude bar - so World Bar was the venue instead. And how un PC was that - a 'fag machine' with a photo of Freddie Mercury on it! And a giant moose's head on the wall along with old telephones, and teapot shots for everyone.... surreal is not the word!
So after everyone went their separate ways I got on the Bottom Bus and went to Dunedin (Gaelic for Edinburgh - but sadly not a patch on its namesake), Curio Bay (cold, cold, Curio Bay),
Te Anau (see rainbow shot with plane) and Milford Sound. The mountain ranges between Te Anau and Milford Sound were spectacular (see the Mirror Lakes image) and this is where they film the BMW car adverts apparently.
Sadly Milford Sound was cloudy when we were there and we were told that it's at its best either pissing it down with rain (to make the waterfalls really impressive) or really sunny. It was neither and the underwater observatory was a bit of a washout too but nevertheless it's an impressive fiord.
I saw some lovely sealions, albatrosses, yellow-eyed penguins and seals playing in rock pools on the Otago Peninsular on a fab Elm Wildlife Tour - Shannon was our guide and he (yes, HE) was really lovely, despite the fact he had a girl's name. My marvellous Swiss friend Marc accompanied me on that one and we had a great time. I hope you're settling back into Switzerland ok. The Oz Experience is proving interesting, but more on that next blog...
It was back to Queenstown (and NOT in Discovery Lodge hostel cos it was AWFUL) and the YHA Central which was like a hotel - 4 bed dorms, a TV in the room and en-quite bathroom. Plus mega-spotless kitchen with a COOKER (shocker!) and a balcony looking over the Remarkables. I had dinner one evening listening to the jazz festival below. Very civilised. I also met a lovely Israeli lady called Mikael - hello! I hope you had a good time with your friend in Auckland (sorry if I spelt your name wrong - I don't have the piece of paper infront of me). We shared kumara (sweet potato) fries on the lake front.
Then it was on to Lake Tekapo en-route to Christchurch - the Garden City. Tekapo's lake was a beautiful turquoise colour and the YHA there had an awesome view of the lake which I enjoyed while I wrote my journal. Then it snowed - yes it SNOWED! I was walking to the pretty little Chapel of the Good Shepherd when it turned a bit nippy so I went indoors and then it descended. It was rather cold.
Christchurch was gorgeous. It had trams, botanic gardens, the Canterbury Museum, Nici, a cathedral and my friend Harry! We had a FAB time in Boogie Nights - a club that had unashamedly nicked the logo from the Mark Wahlberg film of the same name. It was funky though. It had mennequins of the Village People in the entrance, an orange VW van as the DJ deck, a lit-up dancefloor, ace 70s music and mannequins of John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever and Olivia Newton-John from Grease outside the male and female toilets!!! How groovy is that?! Harry & I had a blast - despite the slight nausea induced by the dancefloor. There was one guy who thought he was John Travolta though in the dance stakes and he clearly wasn't... bless. I filmed him for posterity. :)
I also met a lovely Taiwanese girl called Pei ('pay me the money', as she said) - hey there Pei! I hope work is working out for you. We had lunch in a lovely Japanese restaurant (which made me miss Japan) and then looked round the Canterbury Museum which was an interesting mishmash of things, but fascinating nevertheless.
In Kaikoura I saw sperm whales - got shots of their tails too - see pic. That was awesome and I would have like to stay there longer but sadly the weather was not great - it cleared the day I left. I met some ace people there - Jo and Tom - hey guys. Hope you're still enjoying the Kiwi Experience. And of course Marc was there too - thanks for walking me back to my hostel in the torrential rain!
So I left New Zealand - sad but glad to be moving on after several colds & 2 courses of antibiotics, but GREAT memories and friends! Tune into the next instalment for news about my whereabouts now - I'll give you a clue, it's the home of the kangaroo!!! ;)
Ciao for now! x