Friday 27 September 2013

Introducing Ipswich

We arrived in Queensland to do our third Australian house sit. We are staying in Ipswich which is about 40 minutes drive from Brisbane.

We had an awesome sleep after our massive load of travel the day before and then we got up to meet the dogs properly and to meet Bryan's wife Kerry.

Kerry was as equally lovely as Bryan and we all got on really well. The dogs were great too, just look at them!:

Sealy

Temperance





They're perfect, they are dogs but they feel like cats, best of both worlds! 

On Friday night we had fish and chips. Although the Ozzies do amazing pies their chips are rubbish so we were a little apprehensive, but we were very pleasantly surprised! It was some of the best fish and chips I'd ever had. 


On Saturday we had our first Ozzie bbq, it was awesome:





The weather is soo hot in Queensland, it was the first proper Australian weather we'd had, and when I say proper I mean what we thought Ozzie weather was like, it was at least 30 degrees on most days! 

Thursday 26 September 2013

South Australia

We arrived in South Australia on the 3rd September 2013 and stayed in Glen Osmond (near Adelaide) then went to Kangaroo Island. We left for Queensland on the 26th September 2013.


Thursday 26th September 2013
Kangaroo Island to Queensland - Up All Day and Night
Today we woke up at 5am to get back to Adelaide, we took a mini bus from Kingscote to Penneshaw and then the ferry back to Cape Jervis and a coach ride to Adelaide. The best part of the journey was the [...]
















Wednesday 25th September 2013
Kangaroo Island - Wild Kangaroos and Pina Coladas
Today was our last day on Kangaroo Island and the weather wasn't as good, personally I think it was sad that we were leaving ;) So we had a great day with a 2L box of Pina Colada[...]













Tuesday 24th September 2013
Tour of Kangaroo Island 

Today we got up early to go on a tour of KI, for the first three days we'd stayed in Kingscote, there is no public transport on KI and everywhere is too far to walk to. Anyway we got up early:[...]












Monday 23rd September 2013
Kangaroo Island - First Time Backpacking 

Today we said goodbye to our lovely unit and hello to our first time backpacking! It's great that we've been here since July and haven't backpacked at all yet. We are proper travellers ;) but really it's ironic that this was the first place we'd had to pay for but the worst place we'd stayed in. Not that it was bad or anything, it was very[...]










Sunday 22nd September 2013
Beaches on Kangaroo Island  

Today it was terrifically sunny. We went back to the first beach and hung out:[...]















Saturday 21st September 2013
Wild Seals on Kangaroo Island!

We had to get up so early because we were going to Kangaroo Island! We were very excited, after the Great Barrier Reef, Ayers Rock and Sydney Opera House, Kangaroo Island is in the top five best places to go in Australia (according to my guide book)[...]







Wednesday 18th September 2013 
 The house we are living in is on a hill next to a reserve, so we have been seeing lots of nature [...]







Sunday 15th September 2013
 Today Nick took us to the Barossa. The Barossa is a famous wine producing region near Adelaide [...]

















Friday 13th September 2013
Windy Point Restaurant

This evening Nick took us out for the most amazing dinner. This is what the view from the restuarant looks like: [...]











Wednesday 11th September 2013
Adelaide Royal Show

This morning we saw the koalas and this evening was just as good! My Grandpa's cousin Nick (so my first cousin twice removed..) picked us up and took us to the Royal Show in Adelaide. [...]








Wednesday 11th September 2013

Wild Koalas in South Australia

We've been living here over a week and have only heard koalas and seen koala poop [...]











Monday 9th September 2013

South Australian Museum


Today we went to the South Australian Museum, but first here's a picture of my mozzie bite:[...]
















Saturday 7th September 2013


Botanic Gardens - Adelaide

Today was a beautiful day: [...]











Thursday 5th September 2013

My 22nd Birthday in Adelaide


Today was my 22nd birthday! It was strange to be without my family and friends, at first everything we did didn't seem very birthday like because every day here is like a birthday! [...]

















Wednesday 4th September 2013

Adelaide
 We arrived in South Australia to do our second Australian house sit. We stayed in Glen Osmond which is about 15 minutes drive from Adelaide [...]




















Kangaroo Island to Queensland - Up All Day and Night


Today we woke up at 5am to get back to Adelaide, we took a mini bus from Kingscote to Penneshaw and then the ferry back to Cape Jervis and a coach ride to Adelaide. The best part of the journey was the pie we had on the ferry. It was soo good, Australians do really good pies and this one was fantastic! 

The rest of the journey was uneventful and we arrived in Adelaide at 11am. 

Carole (who we house sat for in Adelaide) was really really generous and picked us up from the coach station and we had a lovely day together. She took us back to see Skip (the cute jack russell) and he was so pleased to see us. 

We had a yummy lunch (tuna bake and cute cupcakes). Then we went to a waterfall: 






Not bad

We had an early dinner and then Carole took us to the airport (how kind is that!)

We checked in fine and we had plenty of time before our 2030 flight

Adelaide airport

But then our flight was delayed by two hours..




We were not amused 



The flight was definitely in my top three of worst flights, we seemed to be in the kindergarten section.. there were 10 kids travelling without supervision (apart from the stewardess) and then there were three babies.. what is that about? One baby was really naughty and sat right in front of us. YEY

So we didn't get much sleep, but at least we were finally flying together and we were still excited to see Brisbane!

The plane landed really badly as well, I had really bad ear pain and then the plane literally bounced when it landed, that was fun though, it was like being on a roller coaster.

Our next house sitter (Bryan) kindly picked us up, he's a really nice guy with a really nice car (Prado) it was about an hours drive to his home so by the time we'd got there we'd been up over 24 hours and had been on a minibus, ferry, coach, car, plane and jeep :) 

We met their beautiful dogs and fell straight asleep on our new King sized bed, it was soo comfy :)

Wednesday 25 September 2013

Kangaroo Island - Wild Kangaroos and Pina Coladas

Today was our last day on Kangaroo Island and the weather wasn't as good, personally I think it was sad that we were leaving ;) 

So we had a great day with a 2L box of Pina Colada:





and playing cards on the beach:



But after lunch we thought we should try and find some kangaroos, we saw a couple the day before but we didn't have any photos, and it is Kangaroo Island!

So we took a walk to the cemetery:


It was too much for Tanbay who had to lie down: 


but I went onto the other side of the cemetery and I saw them!




Kangaroo Island was really amazing, I'm so glad we got the opportunity to see it :) 

Tuesday 24 September 2013

Tour of Kangaroo Island

Today we got up early to go on a tour of KI, for the first three days we'd stayed in Kingscote, there is no public transport on KI and everywhere is too far to walk to.

Anyway we got up early:


The hostel guy was telling us there was no need to be out so early as the tour buses are always late, and then the tour bus rolled up. Ha 

The bus actually dropped us off at Emu Ridge where we learnt that Emus get squeezed to make emu juice and it's great for curing everything, including cancer. You go emus. 


We even got to meet an emu: the guy said that they used to call her 'the bitch' because she toed her husband to death, but then Julia Gillard became Prime minister of Australia and they renamed her Julia.. 



 The emu guy talked to us, he was a bit of a douche: sexist, racist you name it he had it. He did say that KI used to be one of the richest places in Australia but it's now one of the poorest!
who knew. 


After a half hour of his ramblings the next bus came and picked us up, it was completely full and Tbay and I had to sit separately. You know I hate that ;)

But our first stop was Seal Bay and it was gorgeous!




These seals were actually Sea lions, though to me they looked like the other seals we'd seen. 

This photo below was taken through the grates that you can see in the photo above. I'm really proud of this photo, it looks like I edited it or something but I didn't and I love it. 






 It was great to see the sea lions up close, but like the back packing this was really the first time we'd been with other 'tourists'. They are actually pretty annoying, they shove and try to get in the front, and it brings out a really horrible competitive side of me...




But the plus side of it was we finally had someone to take a picture of the both of us!!



we saw a lizard!

We got back on the coach before anyone else (competitive Laura) and sat in two seats together where there were no personal belongings on the seat or above, but the woman who got on afterwards was like 'omgg they sat in our seats lalala' even though she still sat with her partner.. She didn't even say it to our faces it was really lame. It's also lame I can still remember that, but I think you should know because it reminded me how annoying people are.

So next we found wild koalas, which was great but we'd done that on our own which was better:






Next we went to Flinder's Chase park it's bigger than Singapore


Then was the best part of our day: the Remarkable Rocks.






They were really remarkable






We had a great time, the driver said we only had ten minutes at the sight and if we weren't back in time he'd leave without us so we literally ran round the sight. Lots of the 'older' members of the group didn't even bother going down to the rocks because they knew they wouldn't get back in time, so we had more pressure to be back in time. 


The rocks have been shaped by wind, sea and rain for over 500 million years and they are red because of the lichen.



it was pretty windy





ah they were so remarkable though, it was even better than seeing seals I think, they look pretty Australian and I love them. Well done rocks.

Next we went to see Admirals Arch:


Again it was spectacular and this time there was no time limit so everyone had a look:




Then we saw a black tiger snake! They are really venomous, I heard they are the fifth most venomous in the world, but it might have been in Australia? Either way pretty dangerous stuff



It actually went past this seal and I thought it had killed it, but the seal was still breathing so I guess it wasn't dead. 




This is the first ozzie sign I've seen where the animal it's warning you about was right next to the sign! 


It was a very good day, if I'd had hindsight (and more confidence) I would have driven across the island, everything that we saw was amazing, but the other tourists were really annoying. We did meet some Queenlanders though who were really kind which made up for it.