2 days to go ....

So, after nearly being back for 11 weeks, it's almost time for us to leave this awesome country and go back home to the cold (I'm definitely not looking forward to the cold!).

In the 7 weeks since I posted (and we were in cold Tasmania), we have managed to do a lot of things.  We've been to Alice Springs and took part in a 3 day trip to Uluru with an awesome group of people.  We hiked, slept under the stars, had dinner cooked in a campfire, saw Uluru at sunset and sunrise, and walked around the base of Uluru (as it is disrespectful to climb Uluru itself). 

After our Uluru trip and staying at Alice Springs, we traveled to Darwin.  It was our first experience using Greyhound.  The trip took 22 hours and we were grateful when we got to our hostel so we could shower and sleep in a bed.  After spending 4 days in Darwin, we picked up our camper, Mildred, from Wicked Campers (I don't think we stuck out too much, do you?).

We had Mildred for 29 days and traveled from Darwin down to Perth.  It was an experience as we had to deal with kangaroos, emus and an echidna walking in front of the camper whilst doing our top speed of 80kmph.  All of the campsites we encountered were friendly and all had their quirks.  The campsite in Kununara even had a resident crocodile.  We had an adventure whilst traveling around Kalbarri National Park.  There were parts of unsealed road and at times I was surprised nothing fell off of poor old Mildred.  In the time we had her, we were very lucky, being able to see national parks and wild life in such a sparsely populated state.  You could drive for about 6 hours before you came to another town and waving at passing cars/trucks/campers became common practice.  

We planned our itinerary day by day so towards the end of our adventures, we ended up having 5 days to play around with before we needed to drop Mildred off in Perth.  We therefore decided to see Fremantle and booked 2 nights at a campsite there.  We took full advantage of the free bus service they had there which was a 10 minute walk from the campsite, which enabled me to enjoy a cider or 2 at the Little Creatures brewery.  We also stayed for 3 nights just outside of Perth and had a surf lesson (where I think I drank most of the ocean!), had an hour session on a jet ski (I of course did all of the driving as Kate wasn't that confident), and even had a BBQ on the beach in Rockingham.  

Since being back in Perth again, it has been filled with free things such as Christmas pageants, street parties and carnivals, we have been to the local bars and even been on a floating bar.  We have done self-guided walks, been to an Anzac memorial and the Bell Tower and of course, even partaken in some shopping (fingers crossed it all fits into my bag!).

So, I know we haven't published many updates on here, the only excuse we have is that we have been having too much fun experiencing things.  

Unfortunately this is it for the blog for this year, but stayed tune for more Pink adventures next year, as there will be a few.  

Wishing you all a lovely festive season.

Pinkies out :)

 

4 weeks down, 7 to go ......

So we've been back in Australia for nearly 4 weeks, and it's been nearly 2 weeks without Kris and Andrea. It feels like we've been here away from the UK longer and without the guys for longer too, we do miss them.

So, what have we been up to in 3 and a bit weeks I hear you cry, well. We spent 2 weeks with Kris and Andrea, travelling from Canberra (capital of Australia for those of you who thought it was Sydney), to Sydney, hiring a camper for 8 days and travelling around Sydney. We were lucky enough to be in Sydney on Kate's birthday and a nice meal in Newtown with Elly and Veronika who we befriended whilst in Sydney. We also enjoyed a few drinks in the Rose of Australia, nice bar!  After Sydney we headed towards Brisbane, stopping in Port Macquarie en route for some r and r. We were lucky enough to see some wild kangaroos in the morning at our campsite. Being back in Brisbane felt weird but it was nice showing our friends a few sights and before we knew it we were back at an airport waiting for a flight to Cairns. Flying with Qantas was awesome, they played Finding Dory on the flight and we got feed! We then spent our last 4 and a bit days in Cairns. We frequented the local pub, PJ O'Briens twice, hung out by the lagoon, spent a rainy day in Daintree Forest, and went to Green Island to see some fishes. In all it was a funpacked and enjoyable 2 weeks. It was sad to say goodbye to Kris and Andrea but also exciting as we were travelling somewhere else again.

In true Jetstar style, our plane was delayed by over an hour which wouldn't have been so bad if there wasn't an hour time difference in Melbourne and we didn't get to our hostel until 1am! After having 4 hours sleep we were up and ready to go on our Great Ocean Road tour to see the 12 apostles. It was a long and amazing day. Sunday was spent exploring more of Melbourne before our flight to Tasmania on the Monday.

Our flight was on time this time and we got to the hostel okay in the morning. Our next 10 days in Tasmania was mainly spent seeing all of the nature we could, doing various walks near mountains and beaches, numerous hours driving and even bumping into another Sydney friend who happened to be staying at the same hostel in Hobart!

So, tomorrow we are off to Alice Springs and will be partaking in an Uluru tour which we're both excited and apprehensive about.

We hope everyone back home is okay and see you all in 7 weeks.

P.S. Uncle Reg, I will try and do another couple of posts before we come home 😀

We're still alive .....

For those of you not on Facebook, apologies for the delay in keeping our blog up to date. 

So what have you been up to I hear you cry, well.....

We have been working in Sydney for 3 months, temping as legal secretaries, in different law firms but in the same building.  I was working in General Insurance Litigation where Kate worked in General Litigation.  I wasn't so phased by the court work due to being a litigation secretary for 7 years but Kate felt a little out of her comfort zone.  Both firms were nice and we made some good friends from them.  They even gave us farewell cards and presents on our last days!

We were hoping to find an apartment to rent but ended up staying in the hostel for 3 months due to location (only one stop on the train to work!), and cost ($500 a week for a flat share seemed quite expensive).  Hostel living wasn't all that bad but it is quite an experience having 6 other room mates though most of which were workers too so we didn't have much of a revolving door of new people to contend with.  We were also fortunate enough to make some friends whilst we were there and even met some Brits, one of which only lives 30 minutes away from us!!

Sydney itself was a lovely city to live in.  We were based in Potts Point (near Kings Cross Station, also known as the Red Light District), which was walking distance to Circular Quay (where the Opera House is located), Darling Harbour (where you could see fireworks every Saturday night) and Hyde Park for a spot of relaxation.  Contrary to my usual alcoholic self back in the UK, we rarely went out drinking, apart from for a birthday and our last Saturday night in Sydney.  

So, since finishing work on 24 June, we flew to Darwin on Saturday 25 June, explored Darwin and picked up our camper (named Zelda) and drove from Darwin to the east coast.  We have had experiences of trying to put a bed together on the first night, cooking in a confined space and evening getting pulled over by the police and breathalysed (I was completely sober!).  We have been to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef, Magnetic Island, we have been to Whitsundays on a 1946 sail boat, seen kangaroos alive (and unfortunately more often than not, dead on the side of the road), seen koalas in the wild chilling in trees and have met a few different people along the way, including an American teacher who is actually living and teaching in Italy, to a French-Canadian teacher taking 12 school girls on an exchange trip to Australia. 

Anyway, that is all for now.  I hope that has made up for the lack of blogging in the past 3 months.  When we next get signal, we will do another post of our adventures :)

Pinks out :) 

The Pinks are back in Oz.....

I know you have all been waiting for updates and apologies for the delay.  Travelling around and bad internet haven't helped with being able to update, unfortunately. 

I will be posting more about our Fiji and New Zealand travels shortly but thought I would let you all know that Kate and I are still alive, we are currently in Sydney and I have been working as a receptionist for 2 days now and I will be working on Tuesday 29 March too!  We are both applying for temporary things so hopefully something a little longer than a couple of days will be in the pipeline for us. 

Here is a picture to prove that we are still alive, even though it was taken a few days ago.....

Fiji Travels

So we arrived in Nadi, Fiji on 9 February.  The weather was very warm when we got off the plane but the lovely welcome of people singing made us forget how hot we actually were.  After clearing immigration, collecting our bags and border control we walked to an area where a shuttle bus to take us to the hostel would pick us up.  When we got to the hostel it appeared that that I had (in my rush to book things the day before), had actually booked the hostel from Wednesday 10 February, not Tuesday 9 February.  Not to worry though, the very helpful receptionist found us a room in one of the 3 blocks they had.  We had a twin room with no bunk beds (hurrah!) and air conditioning (double hurrah!).  

The next couple of days saw us go on a tour to a local market and buy some papaya, go to the hot pools and mud bath (picture of our little tour group below), get rained on frequently, explore Nadi town where every shop keeper wants you to come in the establishment and purchase something, trying to work out how to get back to the hostel from town, have a quiet reasonable dinner in a little Thai a short walk away, have a day trip to one of the South Islands which turns out to be quite a funny trip in parts.  

So, picture this, we are on a big ferry heading out to the South Pacific Ocean when we have to go down to the bottom deck as our boat has arrived to take us to the South Island.  Well, the water wasn't the calmest which means that when the ferry jolts slightly, I fall onto some poor person's big bag bruising myself slightly.  After trying to negotiate ourselves into the boat which was immensely fun, we then had to negotiate getting off of the boat when we got to the island.  We removed our shoes and socks as the boat didn't quite get close enough to the sand.  I went first, missed my footing for the last step and launched myself into the water.  The nice Fijian people did help me up though.  Next was Kate, now she managed to out do my display by slipping down the stairs and launching a sock and converse into the sea.  The nice Fijian people picked her up and located her sock and converse for her (such service you probably wouldn't get in the UK).  After we finally composed ourselves we were free to pick sunbeds under some palm trees and help ourselves to the unlimited drinks before embarking on the glass bottom submarine.  

It was very hot in there and it smelt of diesel which I didn't really appreciate and needed a sit down to recover afterwards but it was still nice seeing the coral and fish and even managed to take a few videos.  Back on dry land we chilled under our palm trees and enjoyed some water whilst having a nap.  Lunchtime arrived and we had an amazing selection of food from the BBQ.  Because the water was quite choppy we couldn't do any snorkelling unaccompanied or do any kayaking so we decided to stay on the beach and wander round.  It wasn't until near the end part of the day after reapplying sun cream that we noticed how red we were!  Even sitting under the shade we weren't safe.  At 5.15pm a boat came to pick us up to take us back to the ferry.  It was a nightmare, no-one thinks to queue and just barges you out of the way.  We finally got back on dry land and headed to get a bus back to the hostel.  We arrived back at about 7pm.  We were both quite sore from our sunburn and didn't feel like eating so we hung out in our room and packed as we were heading to Auckland on Saturday and had a 12.45pm flight.

The Pinks' adventures are to be continued .....

Pinks on the move ....

So we have been in sunny Australia now for 3 weeks!  Time does indeed fly when you're having fun (or waiting around to hear about jobs!).

So, I hear you ask, what have we been up to in those 3 weeks.  Well, when we arrived we had a 2 hour journey from Brisbane Airport to Surfers Paradise where we had our first "home" for a week and 3 days.  We had orientation on the Tuesday with the agency and told about 2 potential job opportunities.  It wasn't until the Friday that we actually got an interview (unfortunately we didn't get the job, there was tough competition as there were 62 applicants and only 8 positions going!).  After that, we decided to see if there was any office temp work we could do.  Most of the jobs that were advertised were in Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne.  So, after discussing any other job opportunities with the agency, we decided to try our hand at Brisbane as we had been in Surfers Paradise a week and 3 days at this point and had done everything that we wanted to do (highlight was definitely holding a koala!)

Don't get me wrong the beach and scenery were nice but I don't like being in one place for too long where there are other things I could see.  So on Thursday 28 January we took a bus and a train to Brisbane (which is no mean feet with a heavy rucksack and backpack to try and negotiate in the very hot and humid climate!).  The hostel we were at was really nice and clean and the staff really friendly - we even did the true "backpacker" thing and got food to cook rather than spend $ on food a day.

Brisbane is a lovely city and has so many things to see and do (even some free things!), such as the Museum of Brisbane with an old clock tower, city ferries that run every 30 minutes, South Bank Parklands, Queensland Museum and Art Gallery.  We were in Brisbane for a week and 5 days and decided (after not hearing back from a potential employer if we got the jobs we had interviewed for), that we would give up on finding work for the moment and travel to Fiji and New Zealand.  So for the next 4 and a bit weeks we will be in Fiji and New Zealand!  Fingers crossed you won't have to wait so longer for the next post!   

Only 5 days to go .......

So today is our last Monday in the UK!  This time next week we will have landed in sunny Brisbane.  

The last couple of days have been quite emotional saying goodbye to family and friends and myself (Emily) turning the grand old age of 29! (only 363 days until I turn the big 30, as everyone keeps reminding me!)  We had a lovely surprise party on Saturday night (I cried AT LEAST 3 times), thank you all for coming and for all of our lovely leaving presents.  For those of you who are not on Facebook (and there are a few), here are some pictures from Saturday night. 

You will pleased to know that packing has (finally) commenced.  Though I do get Kate asking me every day "what are you taking" and her asking advice on her wardrobe (do I look like I following fashion?  As long as it fits and is comfy, that is as far as my advice goes).

Mother Pink is getting better with the Skyping.  Have had a few sessions now and she even has an email address!  Next thing we'll know she will be buying up everything on Amazon and has advertised our rooms for rent.  

And so comes the end of our last entry in the UK (sob).  Check back soon to hear that we have landed safely in Oz and what jobs we will be doing.

Pinkies out