Holly’s Travels

I am now writing this from Byron Bay. Our Journey here was really fun. We left Sydney about 6.45 on tues morning and had a long day of driving. Although we did have a few stops including a Koala hospital which was really cute! A woman called Bridget took us round and she was just absolutely hilarious! She told us that after she finished the tour she was off to her daughters house to go swimming naked! And that everyone should experience peeing in the sea. It was so random but so funny! Plus we actually got to see koalas climbing a tree, normally all we see is them sleeping!

After the koala hospital we got to our surf camp in spot X around 5pm. Then we got shown around the camp by some surfer dude, settled into our cabin and then had some dinner. Spent the evening round the camp fire chillaxing with some goon! Was a very nice evening. In the morning we had a surf lesson. As you can imagine I was amazing! NOT! Well I stood up a few times but wasnt the best, was really fun though!! Alice and Mikaela managed to surf all the way to the beach so wooo for them 🙂

We left surf camp around 1 and had another drive till we got to Byron at about 5. Our accomodation is really cool here! We’ve got an apartment (not as glamourous as you may be thinking) uiits got a kitchen and a lounge and then two doors to the bedrooms with 4 beds to a room. Me Alice and Mikaela are in one room and then Bob and Jack (other friends) are in the other with 2 other guys but its pretty fun. Last night we went to a bar called cheeky monkeys!!!! We could dance on tables etc but they were pretty dangerous, few bruises this morning!

Today we went to the beach but it starting raining shortly after we got there so we left and did some more Laundry! Ha but this time it was a success!!! YAY all perfectly clean and dry! Spent the rest of the afternoon in the apartment and cooked ourselves dinner this eveing. I may have burnt my fingers which wasn’t fun! Typical of me though!

Tomorrow we are off on a trip to Nimbin. We plan to stay in Byron till monday morning!

Hope everyone at home is well! And in case your wondering I do get all your comments which I enjoy getting! Can’t believe we’ve been in Oz two weeks tomorrow!!!

Think thats all for now!

Love Holly xxxxxxxx

We spent th 

Right so the weather hasn’t been so good this week, but we are still having fun.

 We went on another party type bus thing again on saturday, but it just wasn’t the same! But still had a good evening.On Valentines day, it was absolutely pouring down with rain, so we decided to go to the cinema with two friends, Mikaela and Camilla. And guess what we saw, thats right, Valentines day! Good old chick flick and we loved it!!! Then due to rain decided to go back to hostel and just relax for a while! In the evening we went to WAGAMMAS!!!! Ahhh it was amazing 🙂

So today, we thought we definitely need to see the opera house and the harbour bridge. We tried to find it the other day but it ended up we were on the wrong side of the harbour (typical of us) but we got ourselves a map today! Woke up to glorious sunshine, so decided we’d walk all through hyde park and the botanical gardens which were very pretty. Looked at Mrs Macquaries chair and then walked all round to the opera house and half way over the bridge! Have a fair few iconic photos, some of which it looks like the background is a backdrop someone has superimposed in!

Anyway we then decided to go to dinner and had one of the best curries ever!

Have decided I prefer Melbourne as much as Sydney is amazing and everything I couldn’t live here, its so much bigger and spread out than we expected, it takes like an hour to get to a beach! But hey we still like it, and now we can get ourselves around it’s not so bad! We have done A LOT of walking!!!

Oh and the washing we did the other day, didnt quite go the way we expected. Me Alice and our friend Mikaela decided it would be cheaper etc to shove everything in one washer, and then shove everything in the dryer. Oh hey pink clothes! Nevermind, it’s like having another wardrobe!

Anyway we must go pack and shower soon, as we have an early start! 6am!!!! The bus is picking us up and we drive up to byron bay staying over night at a surf camp and having a surf lesson. We think thats what we’re doing anyway! Will report back soon.

Holly xxx

So where I left off before we were in Melbourne. On Sunday we went on the Neighbours tour! Had to get up early though as it started at 8. But a bus picked us up from the hostel which was handy and we had about an hours drive to Ramsay Street, which isn’t actually called that and people actually live there. Its so much smaller than we expected but was fun to see it in real life. Then we went back to St.Kilda for our star meet! It was Janell (stingrays mum). She was nice but clearly in a rush to get on with her day! So we had a picture and then by 12 we had got changed and were lying on the beach!

That is where we spent the afternoon, till we got too hot and headed back. We decided we’d eat at the free BBQ in the hostel which wasn’t too bad. Finally met our dorm mates who seemed nice but everyone is changing round all the time so we’ve met quite a few now. Had an early night because on Monday we did the Great Ocean Road tour!!!

In summary we had a tour guide who took us to, Bells Beach, the sign for the great ocean road where the memorial is, to see wild koalas! Then had lunch in appollo bay wghich was meant to be included in the price but because it was disgusting me and Al had some fish n chips! 🙂  It had been really cloudy all morning but as soon as we got onto the other side of a mountain it was beautiful sunshine which was nice!!! Next we went to a fern forest for a walk, to the stunning 12 apostles, Loch Ard Gorge -where there was a gorgeous beach! Last stop was London Bridge which again was beautiful. Had a long ride home stopping for a maccy D’s on the way and we got back about 8pm. Good day!

So on tuesday we were leaving Melbourne. Got picked up at 7 so very early start! This was the beginning of our 3 day tour to Sydney. Which we had no idea would include so much. Our driver was called Luke, and there were 22 of us on this small bus which was called the ‘love bus!’ The first day we went to Wilsons Promontory national park and had a lovely walk to pillar point. Where the we ate lunch to an absolutely gorgeous view. Then we walked down to squeaky beach to have a quick paddle. This beach was one of the prettiest beaches I have ever been too!!! And as we were leaving we realised why it was called squeaky beach…when you walk along it, it squeaks! After playing games on the bus, including pictionary on the windows, we arrived in Lakes entrance. Stayed in a YHA hostel which was fairly basic and had a fish and chip supper! Next day had to be up at 6 and on the road by 7!!! Had a long drive along a very windy road, through the biggest national park! Stopped off a few times at some random towns, including Suggan Buggan where the population is 1! By 1pm we were in a ski village called thredbo! Here we were to climb Mount Kosioscko which is the highest point in Australia. You get a chairlift up most of the way but had to walk about 5km to the top and get back to the chairlift by 4.30 before it closed. Alice and I were first up and down and as soon as we got to the hotel we were straight in the Jacuzzi, which was lovely!!! Had a nice evening chilling with all the other passengers and quite an early night!

Last day and we were off to Canberra. Here we went to the parliamentary building, had a tour and then went into the house of representatives and we even saw the prime minister in session which was pretty cool! Had lunch in the city and then we left for Sydney. Was quite a long drive but we played lots of games and by 6.15 we were in Sydney! YAY!

Checked into our hostel, quickly got changed and all went out on a pub crawl! But this was no normal pub crawl, we had a party bus! It had a DJ, was completely packed, with lights and fans and everything! Was so fun! We went to 4 bars all around sydney and had a great time!

Yesterday we had a lie in for the first time since we got out here! Spent the afternoon on Bondi beach and had a lovely dinner on the Harbour. Today we had to sort out our next bus to Surf camp which we leave for on tuesday! Then went to the aquarium and going out again tonight!

Just done our first load of washing, so hope we haven’t shrunk everything! Off to get it now, so on that note, speak soon, hope all are well!

Lots of Love

Holly xxx

This is only a quick message to say we’re alive still, it’s been like 5 days since I’ve had time to get on the internet, and we’re off for dinner in 5mins so I will do a proper blog tomorrow! But we’re now in Sydney after an awesome road trip style 3 day tour from Melbourne which was great fun!

A nice dinner along darling harbour now. Speak soon!

xxx

Hi again!

So we had the absolute longest day on thursday!!!! We had a lovely well deserved sleep til 10 and then out of the hotel by 12. Over to Hong Kong island and up ‘the peak!’ Up there we had a glorious view of clouds! Such a shame but was fun anyway AND we ate proper chinese food, none of that KFC rubbsih today you’ll all be glad to hear!!!  Then we had to start making our way to the airport for our flight to Sydney! On the plane we’re just finding our seats and we’re only sitting next to a family, baby and 2 small girls which we were just praying would be good, but we did have the seats where no one is sitting in front of you so we could put our legs up….of course neither me or Alice slept AGAIN!!! But have to say baby was very good!  Anyway once in Sydney we were very excited althought the extra flight to get to Melbourne was a drag!

Short flight went very quickly and we were here! Just had to find our way to our hostel. Hopped on the tram, in the wrong direction, soon sorted ourselves out though! Our hostel was very swish ‘BASE’ its called and nice and modern! Got our keys and off to the dorm we went. Opened the door and woah all we could see was clothes and smell -boys! Couldnt even tell there were beds free but we had two top bunks! Shattered and hungry we went to explore the area for a bit then went back, went on the internet and went to our dorm, to await to see who we were sharing with. Met two of the guys briefly who seemed nice and then now we still havent met anyone else as we were asleep and they went early this morning!

Anyway today we went into the city, went up the eureka skytower which had a bit with glass floor 250m high!!! Scary but beautiful views!!! Next had some lunch along the river and then went into the australian centre for the moving image which was very interesting about how film has developed etc. We spent the aftrenoon on St. Kilda beach and watched the sunset it was bliss!

Tomorrow we are going on the neighbours tour and i can’t wait, and also we might go to Phillips island! I think that is all for now, first impressions of melbourne is a massive thumbs up!!!

love you all

Holly xxx

Right, woah we’re actually here sitting in a hotel in Hong Kong, it’s 6.19pm and I  don’t think i’ve ever felt this tired!

Flight wasn’t too painful in the end, we watched a lot of films, ate a lot of rubbish food (note to self and whoever else is thinking of trying bacon and mushroom fritatta don’t because it is disgusting!!!!!!!) tried to sleep for about an hour and it just wasnt happening! One of the air hostesses definitely had it in for us, Mandy, and the others we loved mainly because they had Ozzy accents!!

Anyway once we landed, only about 20mins late, at 8 in the morning local time (that’s right we just skipped a whole nights sleep) we had to find the right bus to get us to the hotel. A21 to Jordan Station was the one we got, and using our octupus card (equilvalent to oyster card) it was fairly cheap. Once we found the hotel down what looked like some dodgy back street but actually for the money, turned out to be ok, well does the job anyway! By then we were hungry, instead of having a nice chinese we chose KFC, don’t ask why, but we were looking around for ages and were starving. So KFC in HK is not the same, no chips, and rice with chicken soup….very odd! I wouldnt recommend it thats for sure.

After food we headed up into Kowloon, to the Jade Market which was hilarious. Millions of stalls full of all the same stuff so as soon as you go near, or glance at any of the stools, the owners run at you and try to sell you everything! If we saw them running we’d hurry onto the next stool!

Then we went to the ladies market where I bought a fake links london bracelet but it looks very real! We’d walked for ages by then so decided to catch the underground to our next tourist attraction….a temple. You get to look around the temple and see people worshipping with inscence, we were gonna get some but didnt think they would appreciate us flapping inscence around for no reason. Instead we got given a pot of sticks and told to shake them until one fell out, on the stick was a number and this is said to be your lucky number, you can take it to a fortune teller and they’ll tell you your fortune (really?!?!…ha) I got number 2 (which is not technically my lucky number) but we are about to go out again to the night market and will go to a fortune teller and see what they have to say! We are also about to go and see a spectacular light show down at the harbour!

The only thing is when we returned from the temple at about 3, we were very much becoming deliriously tired! We have now been awake 26 hours and had a small nap of about 40mins as much as we could have slept right through we decided to make the most of our time and forced ourselves out.

Tomorrow we are going up the peak on Hong Kong Island and then we leave to go to the airport at 4. Great, the thought of a 9 hour flight right now is just not very appealing, but cannot wait to get to Australia.

I think that is all for now, i get the feeling we might be chucked off these computers soon but we are safe, loving Hong Kong, and very much enjoying the beginnings of our adventure!!

Love you all

Holly xxx

p.s. i apologise for the amount of mistakes there may be in this blog, lack of sleep does not bode well for correct grammer (well thats my excuse anyway!)

So I have decided to set up this blog for while i’m away. I will be able to post blogs for you all to read, you can find out what i’m doing and where I am and also when I’m back I will be able to go on here and re-live my travels!

I don’t know how often I will get to write a blog, depends whether I can be bothered and when i’ll get to go on the internet but my intention is to go on here as often as possible.

I hope you enjoy reading this and for those of you who know how, you’ll be able to leave comments for me to read as well, and i’ll want to know what you’ve all been up to and how you all are!

Right so it’s 13 days today so I am busy packing and organising everything! Ahhh how exciting!!! Depending on when you’re reading this though it may be sooner!

Ok so I guess the next time I write something I will be on the other side of the world, so speak to you all then.

Holly xxx