SYDNEY - everyone knows where that is. Contrary to the belief of stupid people, Sydney is not the capital city of Australia (no Mum, I didn't think it was!). However it does have the highest population of people - and hookers from what we saw!

Sydney, seemingly like many Oz cities, is made up of a central business district (which will henceforth be refered to as the CBD because I am lazy) and many millions (slight exageration) of little town-like suburbs. Each of these has a personality all of its own so if, like us, you are travelling to Sydney and planning to stay in one of these wonderful, and far cheaper, areas of the city you might like to know about the one we stayed in.

If all suburbs are unique characters, Kings Cross is the filthy slapper who's a bit too old to squeeze into a tight Topshop mini skirt and boobtube but does anyway as she just doesn't care anymore...possibly because she's high on the skag! It's fantastic!

Disembarking from the train ride from hell (I'll have to give that it's own entry another time...where we can hopefully find a way to upload video because we entertained ourselves on the overnight journey by surupticiously filming the violent drunk women sitting behind us and the resulting footage would make Bernard Manning blush) we got to Kings Cross Station at 7.30am and we promptly surrounded by prositutes, pimps and drug dealers and most were doing pretty good business despite the time!

We were very early for our check in at the hostel but we hadn't slept for about 36 hours so we decided to try and find it anyway in the hope we might be able to get in early and get a bit of rest! But first thing was first...Maccy Ds for a well deserved brekkie and to ask directions! Slight hurdle there was that no one seemed to speak English but that couldn't stop us..ever the girl scout I always come prepared with addresses and phone numbers of where ever we're staying so I decided to find a phone box that wasn't the residence of a homeless person and call the hostel.

This might have worked had the hostel picked up its phone but such is life and we were both far too tired and sweaty to be too annoyed! Luckily, Andy spotted a little internet cafe where we could look up the address and directions so we were not entirely ost just at this point! So, armed with a takeaway Maccas tea and a map scribbled on the back of a receipt we went in search of our hostel...The Pink House.

The clue may have been in the title but when we finally found the right road, there was a huge building painted a rather vular shade of what I can only assume was once a pink-like colour! We were home and having been in the same clothes without a shower for two days, we were both very very grateful!

The Pink House isn't the most modern hostel we have ever stayed in, nor is it the cleanest or have the biggest rooms but it was an absolute blast that I would eagarly recommend to anyone going to Sydney! The staff kindly let us kip in the TV room until our room was cleaned - which they saw to really promptly - a TV room that had sky TV too! Comedy Central 24/7! Woo! The room was small and looked as though it was decorated by 'Changing Rooms - The Poor People With Bad Taste Hosted By Trishia' edition but it was quaint! The combination of pink walls and leopard print bedspread, although marginally harsh on the eyes at first, grew on me surprizingly quickly...this may have been due to our first major discovery about Australian culture!

GOON - noun. Defined as a very cheap wine in a box which is consumed primarily poor travellers and the homeless. Interesting fact: hobos drink the wine and then take out the foil bag which the wine is stored in, blow it up and use it as a hobo-pillow. "The More You Know"!

Oh yes, Goon! The fabulous fall back of the poor backpacker! We didn't know the conotations of drinking this foul excuse for an alcoholic beverage while in Sydney...and knowing the traditional Aussie name for it came later as well (Thanks to Aussie James from Subway, if you'e reading this!) We needed an alcohol fix so we headed to one of the bizarre outlets known as "bottle shops".

I don't remember how much we have told you of Aussie culture (no jokes now...they do have some!) so stop me if you've heard this one! In Australia you cannot buy beer, or any other alcoholic drink, in a supermarket - I know...it's a travesty! You have to find a place called a bottle shop which is a specially licenced shop, staffed by specially licenced people to get your booze! This confused us! That said, we found one and were stoked to find that they sold Lindenmans in 4 litre boxes for $12 (about 5GBP)! Back home my mum and dad buy wine in boxes from France when we have parties and they have class so I figured that if it's good enough for them, it can't be all bad! We bought a box of Merlot, or some other generic red wine, and wandered back to our hostel for an evening of drinking and watching South Park reruns on Comedy Central!

The wine actually wasn't bad...everyone in the hostel seemed to have one so we felt like we fit in pretty well! Unlike the awful hostel in Brisbane, this one really felt like a home and we quickly made aquaintances with both people who lived there and those who were passing through like us. This atmosphere was definately fostered byt he hostel staff who hosted regular party nights, of which our first night was one! We sat around answering quiz questions, playing childrens party games with balloons and getting steadily more drunk as the evening progressed and had a wonderful time! (As an aside - why do we always say "got steadily more drunk" when, in fact, there is anything but steady about getting drunk?!)

So, our introduction to Sydney was a good one! A great hostel with fun people even if there area had more strip clubs on one street than the whole of Soho! The woman on the reception desk told us Kings Cross is technically the safest suburb in Sydney because there are so many hookers, pimps and junkies that the police presence is the highest in the area! Fantastic!

For those of you actually curious to know things about the city, or for my mum who is currently praying that I am doing cultural things and am not just drinking my year abroad away, I promise I am getting round to that stuff but art gallerys and museums just aren't as entertaining to reminise about or write about as the fun stuff!

Day Two (we slept the first day if you remember)...

Oh My God, Are We Really Only Up To Sydney? remains copyright of the author kandy, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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After leaving the airport we got on a suburban train to Roma Street where the good folk at our hostel were to pick us up. The journey was interesting in that everybody seemed to know everybody else. It was like Cheers on rails, minus the wisecracking psychiatrist. And the beer. With us and our backpacks no doubt stealing some local’s regular seat, we felt a little out of place and intimidated… a little different to the LA - I’m gonna get shot - subway intimidation we experienced some months before. But we still received some discerning looks from the locals who were probably sick to death of backpackers running amok in their city. But we weren’t backpackers. I consider myself to be a traveller who happens to carry his stuff in a backpack because a suitcase would be stupidly impractical. So there.

The hostel was pretty good, except for our room being almost directly above the bar and next to the beer garden….and so inevitably a whole bunch of considerate guys and gals who adhered strictly to the “no loud noise after 11pm” rule. An interesting decree, given that the bar and its absurdly loud MC would keep the party going well into the early hours. I know I sound like Victor Meldrew when I make comments like this, but there really is a time and a place for it. The place shouldn’t be right next to people’s rooms if the time is after their official no-noise hour!

Brisbane itself is a city of many food courts. There’s about 3 very large shopping centres, each with eateries and food vendors coming out of their bottoms. On top of that, there seemed to be other random food courts underneath office buildings, car parks, train stations, brothels and crack houses. Okay, so not in the crack houses, but the point is there are at lot! Still, as is always the case, we struggled to find something that we really wanted to eat. It’s the indecisive person’s nightmare…and we are some of the most indecisive people you’ll ever meet! But one evening we finally settled on some Portuguese chicken outlet that wasn’t Nandos. We had to eat quickly as our showing of Pirates of the Caribbean 2 was starting soon, and of course Kate would be devastated if she missed the trailers, or even worse, any Jack Davenport screen time. We should have taken our time. The food was good and the movie, well, wasn’t. Nor was Birch, Carol and Coyle’s presentation. If anyone ever gets the chance to be a projectionist, just bear in mind you’ll never be able to watch a movie at the cinema without critically analysing the work of your counterparts. In Australia their pre-feature programme is annoyingly different to the UK. They intersperse ads and trailers, making it really difficult for those of us who try to arrive at precisely the moment the former finishes and the latter begins. So, we had to sit through the dreadful ‘Fair Dinkum Sheds’, dreary ‘G’day Mate Sunbeds’ and the quite frankly shit Bonza Swimming Pool commercials to see any of the latest movie previews. Annoying! Anyway, I digress once more, the point was that our cinema experience wasn’t the best. We love UCI Norwich, and to a lesser extent, Odeon Leeds/Bradford (No offence guys, but UCI will always be my spiritual cinema home!)

Other points of interest in Brisbane included the Roma Street Park. Apparently the first, second or third (can’t quite remember which) largest parkland within a city in the Southern Hemisphere. I would hazard a guess that a trillion European and North American cities’ parks would be far bigger, but that’s not to say it wasn’t impressive. As we’ve since discovered to be common a fixture in Australian public places, there was a large barbeque area where mainly Koreans and Japanese people, (with a smattering a Caucasians) hung out and consumed vast quantities of greasy food. A great idea, but I wouldn’t be too trusting of the cleanliness of such appliances - I’d basically take a Fair Dinkum shedload of sanitizer and cleaning utensils, and spend a good few hours washing it down… if you’re a paranoid clean-freak such as myself. But besides the free cooking facilities, there’s a vast amount of open space for picnickers, frisby players and agoraphobics to mad. Also within the confines of the park are the Botanic Gardens which were actually quite interesting - there was also some claim to fame about being the Xth best/biggest/nicest-smelling/prettiest gardens in the Southern Hemisphere too (I really should do some research!). It was big, smelt nice and looked very pretty.
One other interesting feature of the Roma Street Park is the set of modern apartment buildings that overlook it and their corresponding network of car parks laying beneath. We managed to spent about 25 minutes taking a ‘shortcut’ to the street about 15 metres below and 10 metres dead ahead. Without doubt this was the Southern Hemisphere’s number one most annoying car park. We kept coming across locked exit doors, gated off areas, and lifts that wouldn’t go to the ground level. Eventually we managed to sneak down the ‘cars only’ ramp only to find the entrance to be blocked off with a heavy security gate. As we were about to scream for help, one of the residents (who eyeballed us like we were fugitives on the FBI’s Most Wanted list) pulled out of his parking bay and opened the gate. He drove through quickly (probably to inform the feds of our current whereabouts) and the gate started to close immediately; it was one of those that rolled down from the ceiling. So, seeing our only opportunity for escape, in true Indiana Jones style, we crept under the descending metal screen that threatened to entomb us in the unearthly and vast car park-labyrinth of death. Of course I had to wait an extra ten seconds so it was necessary to duck a little bit to get under it. Daring huh? Oh yeah!

Anyway, that was just about all we did in Brisbane. Actually its not, but the rest of it is relatively boring. The story gets interesting as we leave Queensland and head south to Sydney on the overnight train. Stay tuned for stories of drunken crazy ladies, stupid town names, and red light districts! Oh, and for the slagging off of Australian TV!

Andrew.

Brisbane. remains copyright of the author kandy, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Queenstown was full of young English guys and gals who just loved to prove my pessimistic hypothesis correct. In every shop, bar and restaurant there’d be an obnoxious group of lads in their Liverpool or Man-United shirts, or a drunken cluster of laddettes wearing their hula-hoop-sized hoop earrings and oh-so-trendy sportswear. It was a real shame because the town’s setting couldn’t be more picturesque - and for New Zealand that’s saying something! The Spectaculars are a - for want of a better and less predictable word - spectacular range of snow-capped mountains surrounding Queenstown. The composite image of mountain in front of lake, in front of more mountains is something very special that words cannot do adequate justice. Please see the attached photographs!

Not wanting to waste our time snow-ploughing down the slopes - a term I learned when I had a party at the dry ski-slope in Halifax, aged 10 - we weren’t doing any skiing in the skiing capital of New Zealand. Mainly because we’d knew we’d be crap and probably pick up all sorts of injuries that our insurance wouldn’t cover. But also because we’d have to spend time with more annoying English guys who‘d want to make us renounce our citizenship. No, our plans for Queenstown were to saddle up and head through the trees of Lothlorien on horseback! In another activity we’d probably be crap at, that our insurance also didn’t cover, we booked a half-day riding tour through some of the filming locations from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The stables were about a 40 minute ride out of the town, in a place the name of which eludes at this moment, and they smelt thoroughly of horse crap and posh people. The weather was terribly cold. They had suggested on the phone earlier that we wear six or seven layers! So, attired in our 5 T-shirts topped off with our ultra-80’s style primary-coloured jumpers we picked up in Rotorua, we would have blended nicely into the video shoot for Hey Micky. Alas, that video had already been shot some 20 years ago, so we just looked plain stupid. However, our horses didn’t seem to mind being ridden by a couple of 80’s throwbacks, and besides, they gave us Countryside Alliance-style overcoats as an extra layer (yes it really was that cold!). I felt more inclined to drive a Landrover and shoot foxes than ever before, but I had to stay focused on the task at hand: attempting to mount my horse, Randal.

Describing our ride without it turning into one of those long boring narratives I mentioned earlier is tough. So, I’ll simply say it was awesome fun and we thoroughly enjoyed it! Both our horses walked pretty much where they wanted, regardless of how we pulled on their reins. Neither of us fell off, so that was a plus point. Also we saw where Sean Bean got shot in the Lothlorien forest, as well as the setting for Isengard (correct spelling anyone?!).

That was about it for Queenstown, apart from our little trip to the Casino, where, being the high rollers we are, we spent of grand total of about $10 on the slot machines. It did take us about 3 hours to finally lose our last $2, but by that time our eyes were hurting far too much to consider playing any longer. We left Queenstown the next morning to head back west to the flatlands of Canterbury and the South Island’s only half-big city, Christchurch. After another beautiful, but quite uneventful Intercity/Newmans coach journey, we arrived around 5pm and checked into the same hostel we had stayed in the previous week. Our flight to Brisbane was mid-morning, so we didn’t have to get up too early. We decided to get some beer to complete our ‘drink beer every day in New Zealand’ thing we seemed to fall into about half way through - we worked out while we were in Rotorua that a night hadn’t passed without us ingesting some kind of alcoholic beverage, so we continued… and a month later on our final night we weren‘t going to be beat! With Bad Boys 2 being the only thing on TV, you can’t really blame us for taking comfort in beer: Martin Lawrance really isn’t very funny, even after several bottles of Tui - a nice NZ ale if you can get your hands on it! So that was that. With the inspiring dialogue of a Michael Bay movie sending us to sleep, I wondered if I’d be glad to leave New Zealand in the morning. “Oh Hell No!” shouted Will Smith as five thousand cars and two million lorries exploded in unison. My thoughts exactly.

Anyways, apologies for taking so long to write this one up… at this rate we’ll be back home before I get to Cairns! Just so you know, its all good here at the moment, but the hot weather is about to start and we’ll probably be roasted alive. Check your forecasts for the insane northern Queensland temperatures! Wooo!

Andrew.

Queenstown: PARTY TIME!!!!! Or Something. remains copyright of the author kandy, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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There you go. A month’s worth of updates done in 30 words.

Okay, so that wasn’t the best summary. It’s just really hard to know where to start when there is SOOOOOO much to write about! Instead of turning this update into a long, boring narrative charting our exact movements over the last month, I’ll try to stick to the interesting stuff, taking each of the above places as individual chapters. I stress the word ‘try‘.

Our last update was before we headed west across the South Island of New Zealand to brave the glacier at Franz Josef. We spent around 5 hours on the TranzAlpine train service from Christchurch to Greymouth. The scenery was utterly stunning for the duration of the journey, except when we went through a very long tunnel. The camera was cemented to my face the entire time! As the name of the service suggests, we wound through the southern alps, between snow-capped mountains and sleepy towns that had less people living there than the average four-piece band. As soon as I was readying myself to put the camera away and leave the freezing confines of the observation deck, we’d turn to the left or right and another breathtaking view would convince me that frostbite wasn’t all that bad. A small price to pay. To put into perspective exactly how gorgeous and photogenic New Zealand is, over the almost four weeks we have spent in Australia we have taken about 250 photos . Over the four weeks spent in New Zealand we too just over 2500. I must add that about 50 of the 250 were of Ramsey Street!

It should be noted that New Zealand is fantastic for syncing-up their transport services even between separate companies. The coach down to Franz Josef was due to set off 45 minutes after we arrived, but we were told if we were delayed for any reason, it would wait for us! I can’t imagine that ever happening in England - National Express wouldn’t care if your GNER train was running late by 15 minutes even if it meant you’d miss the only bus that day to wherever it is you’re going. But we didn’t have to test this as the train arrived exactly on time, as with every other bus and train we’d been on in the rest of the country. This gave us ample time to get a Subway sandwich!

On the coach down to the town of Franz Josef we were bombarded with all sorts of exciting facts by our driver. One of the most interesting was that in some parts of the Southern Alps, rainfall is measured in metres each year, not centimetres. One town whose name eludes me, apparently receives up to 9 metres of rain per year! I thought the weather in Bradford was cruddy, but 9 metres! That’s deeper than an Olympic diving pool. The odd thing was though, that just twenty or thirty miles down the road, they have severe droughts each year. The driver was also keen to point out anything that was even slightly related to the Lord of the Rings movie - we saw the pool where Gollum struggles to catch the fish before he is ambushed in The Two Towers. The time passed very quickly and we arrived in Franz just before dusk.

We had booked a full day hike figuring there was no point in wimping out half way through. We agreed we’d both feel like losers, quitters and every other related synonym in the book (the thesaurus that is). We were so glad we did - it was absolutely mind-blowing! It was also absolutely terrifying in places too! As we reached the foot of the glacier it was time to attach our crampons and start worrying as we caught a glimpse of the fully exposed ice-staircase that ascended for about 20 feet around the front wall. Of course there were no safety rails or ropes until we got to the top and the entrance tunnel that lead inside the ice. Kate was quite alarmed at this point, looking first at the staircase then at me, then back at the staircase with anxiety. Once we started our climb things didn’t get much better when Kate lost her footing and slid back down a few steps. After assuring us all she was fine - breathing very heavily the whole time - she continued up to the safety of the entrance cave. We were thinking that if the rest of the day was to be like that, we’d never make it out of Franz Josef alive!

The rest of the day was however quite fantastic - we walked across stupidly deep crevasses, alongside bottomless icy pools - two of which Kate managed to fall almost waist-deep into!), squeezed through very thin cracks (which we were told by our guide as we were half-way through were liable to close up suddenly as the glacier advanced!) and even slid down a wormhole that had been converted into a crude slide, which while massively fun, left us very bruised! We ate our lunch of crisp sandwiches and budget-range cookies about half way up - our aim was to get up near the bottom of the icefalls at the upper section of the glacier. An icefall, if you’re wondering, is where the fresh ice at the top of the glacier spills over the edge and joins the main body of the glacier. Our guide informed us that these particular falls move at approximately 11 metres per day, which is quite fast for ice, as the Franz Josef glacier as a whole only advances 1 metre per day.

Because the ice shifts so much on a day to day basis, the paths the guides create frequently change. This meant our route had to be improvised somewhat: our crazy Canadian guide often told us to wait while he bashed out a new and more dangerous trail for us to follow. We all loved it! Although we didn’t make it as high as we’d intended, it was the highest our guide had taken any group for the past few months, which made us feel at least a little bit special. The views were amazing - I really am running out of synonyms for that word now - I must have taken at least fifty pictures of the view back toward the base of the glacier, and the mountain range in the distance.

Our descent took around an hour and a half. It passed without incident, although I did get told off for not hanging onto the rope while I was taking a photo standing on the edge of a fifty-foot crevasse… I sheepishly apologised and held on. It was a damn good picture though!
We had a fantastic time and it made us love New Zealand EVEN MORE than we loved it before. We headed to the pub for celebratory beer…which coincidentally is cheap over there! It was $3 per pint in a nice bar - that’s £1! Cheap beer, remarkable scenery and fabulous activities. What more could you possibly want?! GO TO NEW ZEALAND NOW!

The Rest of New Zealand Plus Australia So Far… in a Nutshell remains copyright of the author kandy, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Rotorua was INCREDIBLE! Our hostel was dirt cheap and still had 2 thermal spas and an outdoor heated pool (it is winter for some of us, remember)! Had a nice little kitchen and actually cooked a meal for the first time since we left England which was lovely! Only problem was that the kitchen light didn't work so we had to make sure we cooked while it was still light outside!

First day we went to Kuari Park which is filled with bubbling mud pools and steaming lakes! It was really cool but it did smell like rotten eggs! Then that evening we did a Maori cultural evening which involved going to a village, watching them do traditional singing and dancing and then a traditional hangi meal (that's food cooked on hot stones underground for 4 hours)! Very nice!

For the next two days we just hung out and went for long walks round the lakes and enjoyed the sulphurous air! We spent Saturaday shopping for costumes for the hostels 80s night! Was great fun and we made our costumes for about $10 and we got 4 free pints which was nice!

Sunday went out for Sunday dinner at an English pub which was a bit disappointing cos it turns out kiwis can't make Yorkshire puds! I miss my mum's roast dinners! They actually put sugar on the carrots and didn't serve brocolli! I wanted to go and teach the chef how to do it properly but Andrew wouldn't let me!

Monday was EXTREME day and we went whitewater rafting on the Kaituna river which had the highest waterfall that it is legal to go over on a raft! It was only an 18ft drop but it's enough to submerge the entire 5ft raft vertically! Slight problem was tho, that our raft capsized under the water and some of us (me) got trapped under the boat while some other (Andrew) got thrown clear! It was a very very scary few seconds...I couldn't breathe and my feet were still in the raft and I had to unhook myself and swim up to the raft (still under it) and hold my head in the small bit of air under the seats while the lovely men righted the boat to get me out! It was such a rush!!! We got some pics from them as well! which if you're lucky I might send with this if my time doesn't run out!

I can't wait to do it again! But we won't be again here...just whale watching, glacier hiking and horse riding to go now I love this country! I can't wait to come back again!

We got to Wellington yesterday after an 8hour coach ride and we hung out and played free pool in the hostel bar went to the Te Papa museum where there's a Lord of the Rings exhibit! Woo! We saw the original costumes from the films, the actual scale model of Minas Tirth they used to film the scenes from afar and loads of props and stuff...we spent 5 hours in the museum! We totally lost track of time there, it was so facinating!

We were only in Wellington for 2 days after a day spent travelling but to be honest, there's not that much to do so we were pretty glad we'd decided to cut it short. On our second day we visited the houses of parliament and did the tour which was fun but even better was the fantastic Indian restaurant we found for lunch! $10 for curry, rice and naan plus Andrew's introduced me to this drink called Mango Lassi which is mago juice, yoghurt and buttermilk....now I'm a total addict! Yum!

Travelling from Wellingotn to Kaikoura was fun! All transport in New Zealand is brilliantly intergrated so it completely takes the hassle out of making connections. We got on the ferry at 8am and they asked us if we would be transfering to the train (which we were) so they said they'd put our luggage on to it for us. We didn't have to think about it at all which was fantastic! The ferry took 3 hours but we occupied ourselves with sleeping and listening to our ipods, taking time out occasionally to poke fun at the huge group of American "ambassador" kids on there with us! Geeks and freaks, the whole lot of them - one from each state apparently!

The train was very nice, much better than Connex! It took us along the coastline, past the mountains which was gorgeous! Andrew spent much of the journey outside on the observation car taking photos (some of which are on our weblog now) but I opted for warmth and just watched from my window!

Kaikoura (which means Kai - food & Koura - Crayfish in Maori) is a cute little town...only one proper pub and that didn't seem to open until 4pm Not that we're alcoholics but we have had beer either in a pub or in our rooms every day since we've got to New Zealand (and thinking about it, everyday in Fiji too!) We're going for a record but I think I'm getting podgy from it so I've started on the low fat Subway sandwiches!

We only stopped in Kaikoura for 2 nights so we could go Whale watching! It was SO COOL! They told us we'd be lucky to see 2 whales but we saw 5 sperm whales and a whole pod of about 50-60 dolphins too! It was totally brilliant! And neither of us puked from sea sickness either which I class as a result!!

Our room was pretty cold there so we were glad to be moving on to Christchurch (which is where we are now) and there first thing was to have crazy hot showers to get rid of the lingering cold! We moved on at the right time too because according to the telly yesterday, Kaikoura have a warning of 30cm of snow! Wouldn't wanna be in that!

Yesterday was gorgeous and warm so we went to the botanic gardens and just walked around the city. It is really English and it's nice to feel at home! Had a nice curry out again (but only because I wanted that mango drink!) and walked around the Catherdral too like the good Catholic girl I am!

We're glad we did that yesterday because today is grey and overcast and peeing it down with rain! That's why we're sheltering in an internat cafe and running out of time too! So, I must dash once again! I gather by Wimbledon on the tv that the weather is gorgeous so for once we are slightly jealous of you guys while we're in our jumpers, hats and gloves but I hope you're all enjoying it!

Auckland to Christchurch remains copyright of the author kandy, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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From there we had to get a little domestic flight out to the island we were staying on - Malolo Island - at 9.30. Thankfully the airport had very comfy sofas where I managed to catch a couple of hours sleep while we waited to check in for our flight. Had I known quite how small our flight was going to be, I might have caught the boat instead but having survived it I'm very glad we did it! The plane was barely bigger than my Nissan Micra and only fit 6 people plus the pilot but the views from the plane were unbeatable...Andrew even managed to take pictures! It only took 15mins to fly from Nadi airport on the mainland but the airline kept us waiting for an hour before they actually took us (word to the wise, if you ever find yourself in Fiji, avoid Sun Air like the plague!) This was our first introduction to the concept of 'Fiji Time'. Things basically get done when people can be bothered to do them! While annoying when you're waiting on others, the principle was highly enjoyable when applied very long lie-ins!

When we got to the island (which wasn't Malolo but Malolo Leilei which means small Malolo and is, unsurprisingly, a smaller island just next door) we were met by Rick from the Funky Fish Resort where we were staying and he took us by speedboat to the next island over! It was an amazing ride...we could see right to the bottom of the crystal clear water and even see the fish is the shallows! It totally made me forget I was exhausted!

The whole of the week was just a jumble of incredible experiences...we kayaked out into the sea along two coral reefs, stopping to spot fish along the way. We saw sun fish, angel fish and these cute ones that looked like little black nemo fish! We went snorkelling along the inner coral reef too and got up close to the little guys. Despite being convinced I was about to be eaten by Jaws the entire time, I'm so glad I did it...it was just breath-taking to be doing it, I'm only disappointed we didn't have an underwater camera to capture just how beautiful it was! To fill time between sunbathing and eating, we walked to the nearby resort that actually had a shop (ours didn't) and bought some gorgeous Fijian art plus we hiked up a hill to get pictures of the island and the sunset. The only bad thing about the week was the bugs! I ended the week with between 55 and 65 bites all over my legs and arms which itched like crazy! But my tan makes up for it I guess!! We also learnt loads about Fijian culture from Rick, the events organizer, and Joe the barman...it was a fantastic experience! It was sad to leave. The resort was so friendly as there was only about 20 other guests and the people who worked there were so fun! At the airport we stocked up on reminders before we headed off to a new city in another new country!

New Zealand is brilliant! It's winter here so it's raining a lot but that can't stop me loving Auckland! We're staying in a hostel in the middle of the city and everything is dirt cheap! As we're back to real life, we're back to living on Subway sandwiches and here they're even cheaper than America! Our first one cost $17 NZ for 2 foot longs...that's about £2.70 per sandwich! THEN we found a little food mart that has a Subway in that gives you vouchers for a free 6inch upgrade...so now our two 12inches cost $9.70 which is £3.30 FOR 2!!!! It's the greatest place in the world! We shopped at a supermarket and got some ready meals, bread, beers, chocolate and crisps for about £15! I want to move here!!

We went to the travel agent this morning and we've booked some great things for round the country... horse riding round the Lord of the Rings locations, white water rafting and whale watching to name a few...

But we'll have to tell you more later as my noodle ready meal has arrived courtesy of Andrew and I'm starving!

A View of Fiji From Auckland remains copyright of the author kandy, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We took at tour out the Grand Canyon which rocked and we drove through the desert to get there and it was so huge and dry (obvious I know but I’d never really seen anything like it)! It is a rather spectacular hole in the ground and we took a stupid amount of pictures (about 200 I think - thank god for digital cameras)! It was a really long day though...took about 17 hours round trip and we had to be up a 5.30am and I am really NOT a morning person...AND my ipod went crazy half way there so I had nothing to listen to either! (Thankfully my ipod is now fixed and I'm happy again)!

We got the nerve up to play a table game on the second or third night...I can't remember which. We got $30 in chips and played Craps (the one with the dice) - Thank god for A-Level statistics as I was actually able to understand the odds and with Andrew as the "hot shooter" (he got to throw the dice - and he actually threw them at the casino employee and on the floor before he got them on the table but the boy did good)! We came away from the table with $68 which was a rather healthy profit! It was such a total rush and I can see how these guys were spending all night at the table! I can't wait to go back again when we actually have a disposable income to waste!!

We found a brilliant way of getting free food from one of the casino chains by signing up to their players cards so we didn't pay for any food the entire time we were out there and by some crazy stroke of luck, we also won $150 from free draws in the free food casinos too! (I won $125 of that I'd like to point out)! All in all we walked away from Vegas about $20 in profit (not including accommodation unfortunately) so we felt it was well worth the visit! We are so desperate to go back and I think that's the first thing I'll be saving up for when we get home!

We did the Greyhound thang overnight (17hours on a coach) to San Francisco via LA bus station (not recommended - smelled like pee and was full of homeless people). We got to San Fran at about 9am completely exhausted and dying for a shower and had to walk through the gauntlet of bums to get to our hotel. At the time we assumed that it was just that street that may have been a place that the homeless hung out but as it turned out, the whole of San Francisco is infected.

It was probably my least favourite city as everywhere we went were accosted by homeless people which was a bit scary but mainly really sad. A lot were pretty truthful - they asked if we could spare money to by drugs and booze - so I sort of respected that but mainly they were just really pitiful. One of the crazier ones followed us down the street shouting that he hated us "white mother f****rs" - Nice huh?

Chinatown was good - it's the largest Chinese settlement outside of Asia according to the tour brochures - and we made it there on our first night and had an incredible meal! Two huge plates of noodles and beef in black bean sauce and two beers for $20 (about £12)! It was amazing - I haven't been that stuffed in a long time!

We stopped in an Irish bar on the way back to the hotel and didn't realise it was getting dark and then we accidentally walked back a slightly dodgy way- I get the feeling we were sort of lucky not to have been mugged or stabbed! After that we decided to be in before dark!

For the next few days we bought a City Pass which gives you access to loads of things for $50 - over two days we went to 2 art galleries, an aquarium, a science museum and took a cruise under the Golden Gate bridge and around Alcatraz. Plus we walked the whole of the bridge and back again - something like 1.2 miles each way (I can't remember but I needed to wee the whole way over so it seemed longer)! I'm really glad we did that before seeing xmen3 or I probably wouldn't have set foot on it!

It was a really lovely city in the daytime if you could avoid the bums - it's the hilliest city I've ever been to! Having lived in Norwich for so long, hills were a bit of a shock to the system! We got so much exercise walking up and down the hills all the time, it was brilliant!

We meant to leave on the Tuesday but we found out that the Arctic Monkeys supported by We Are Scientists were playing Wednesday night and decided that if we could buy cheap tickets on eBay we would stay another night. As luck would have it we managed to pick up 2 tickets at the last second for 99 cents (that's about 52p!) so we stayed!!
The gig was amazing! We Are Scientists rocked and the Monkeys were brilliant (it was slightly like being back in HMV again listening to those same albums on repeat but I survived it)!

We left for LA the next morning and we're still here now for another 6 hours or so! We've been staying in a wicked little retro hostel which is stupid cheap! It's $50 a night for both of us and we have a private room, a private bathroom and our own kitchen! Its got a good atmosphere too - there was a courtyard party on Saturday night and we got a tad wasted and chatted to a couple of really cool people - one of whom we may meet up with in Melbourne in a month or so!

We've done quite a bit here in Hollywood (that's where we are - not in LA cos it's too scary) We saw Xmen 3 in Graumanns Chinese theatre where they have all the film premieres and has the hand and footprints outside it, we took a tour of the stars homes and saw the outside of Tom Cruises pad and Nic Cages cars and stuff - it wasn't brilliant cos we couldn't take any descent photos through the tinted windows The consolation was seeing a real life star though! We were on a walking tour of Hollywood Blvd and checking out film locations and learning the history when our tour guide says - "and there's a star now. Hello sir" - and who turns round and says hello to us but Alfred Molina!!! Doc Oc said hello to us!! I almost swooned! It was so cool!!

We also took a tour of the Kodak theatre where they hold the Oscars and got to ride in the lift the winners take when they have their Oscars and hang out in the VIP room which was cool too! I wanna work there!

To top it all off, last night we were invited to a test screening at Sony Studios! We watched a film called All The King's Men starring Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, James Gandolphni, Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Hopkins! It SUCKED! and we had to fill out comment cards afterwards (they didn't want to interview us as we weren't American so apparently our opinion doesn't count)! We all know how harsh I am so I wrote all over the paper all the things that were wrong with the film! It was so much fun! In the "would you recommend this film" box I wrote only if I hated the person and in the "was there anything you didn't understand" box I asked why so many good actors could make such a crummy film! I even filled up every available space where there were no questions with my own comments! I think it's safe to say I probably wont be welcomed back to Sony Studios again! But it was SO MUCH FUN!!! It would have been perfect if we could have found Adam Sandler’s car (we walked past Happy Madison’s production HQ) and we would have keyed it!! That would have been a perfect night!

Anyway, that brings us up to now and we're just waiting to get the bus to the airport to jet off to Fiji for a week...how tough, huh?!

Las Vegas to Hollywood remains copyright of the author kandy, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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I apologise that the beginning of this entry is all about one journey but we think you will all sympathise (or possible die laughing) at all the craziness we had to endure on this one!

It all began innocently enough at 6.15 am on the morning of the 1st of May (yes, I am capable of getting up that early mum!)... We braved the Toronto streetcar fully loaded with our backpacks to the point where it was hit and miss whether we'd actually make it through the streets car door. Thanking God for the American/Canadian grid system, we counted the blocks, which unfortunately acted like sheep and made me sleepy again, until we arrived at the bus station. Like all bus stations we have endured all over the North American continent, the whole building had a distinctive musk that smelled like the bathroom of Andrew's early student house (ah, Lubbock Close - interesting side note, every theme park attraction that was trying to smell faux-damp like ET at Universal, also smelled like Lubbock. Go figure!).

Boarding the Greyhound was simple enough, it was on time and actually surprizingly comfortable so we were able to catch a little shut eye before getting off back in Niagara Falls again. I know it seems a little odd to backtrack on ourselves but with all their resources and money the US only has ONE train route which connects the East coast to Chicago and there was no direct route from Canada so it sort of made sense at the time. Plus as it was overnight we saved ourselves a nights accomodation and Chicago is very expensive!

Getting off the Greyhound we consulted the map of Niagara I had rather intelligently kept out and saw there was a bridge to cross into America only a few mins walk away so we set of. It was a cool day but anyone with experience of heavy backpacks knows you get sweaty quickly so by the time we reached the bridge we were exhausted. We were slightly confused to see a huge gate across the road and as we tried to walk towards it we were curtly informed that this bridge was for goverment workers only and we would have to go another couple of miles up the road to use another one. Feeling a tad dejected and even more soggy, we treked back towards the centre on Niagara to find the "Rainbow Bridge". Now, just so you aren't mislead in any way, the Rainbow Bridge is not actually a rainbow, it's not even painted like a rainbow, it's a huge, grey, concrete bridge - I only mention this so if you ever come here you aren't disappointed the way I was.

Phase 3 begins - we walk across the border, geting the customary grunts from the guards and little else and start to look for public transport to the train station. Perhaps we expected too much having lived in places were cars are not an essential part of daily life but the fact that no one in the tourist office, the Hard Rock Cafe or any hotels even knew that their town HAD a train station was disconcerting to say the least. In the end we asked a hotel receptionist to get us a cab and spent 20mins with an odd Indian man asking us what it's like to have a King in England(!)

Arriving at the station which is basically just a track with a shack next to it, we were glad to be rid of our heavy packs temporarily but our glee was short lived (this is getting tragic, isn't it). A freight train had derailed between Niagara and the next train station and while it was ok to drive over, US law says the train isn't allowed to drive over it with passengers. We weren't too worried really, they had put on quite nice buses which we got on and waited for the train to drop of the passengers who had been on the train from an earlier stop. W waited...and waited...and waited. The train had come in to the stop but because it had come from Canada, US customs had to inspect everyone and there must have been some non-Causicans on there because it took them an hour and a half!

Eventually we were underway and this bus dropped us at Buffalo where we had to wait yet another hour for our train to catch up with us, by this time 3hours delayed. We weren't too fussed as we had a 7hour gap between trains at the next stop so we enjoyed the sunshine on the platform and listened to our ipods!

Once we got on this train we were ushered to 1st class which was rather nice while all the people who had been searched at Niagara had to stay in their original coach seats - the Americans (rather mouthy as a nation) did not seem to like this and I did feel sorry for the poor conductors! We exited the train at Rochester and left our bags there in seach of food (it had been a long time since breakfast!)

If you ever come to Rochester in up state New York you might want to bring a packed lunch...there were no restaurants or even fast food anywhere! We had to search for half an hour and eventually discovered a slightly skanky Burger King inside a bus terminal. We settled in for the long haul (we had 5 hours to kill and they do unlimited drink refills) when a giant of a man who could only have been called Bubba, tells us they're about to close and we have to leave! So we dejectedly traipsed back to the station and played poker for many, many hours once we ran out our ipod batteries watching 24 (season 3)!

Finally (you're all thinking - I know I ramble), we made it to the train which would take us non-stop-over-night-sleep-in-your-seat straight to Chicago! It was delayed by an hour when it arrived and was almost full but we were lucky enough to get the last two seats together. I think I would have freaked if I'd have had to sleep next to a stranger (Andrew is bad enough!). The seats where quite big and I started to think this would be an ok way to spend the night...until we started moving! Oh dear God, it was the bumpiest journey ever! The route is mainly used for freight and I guess the tracks must take a pounding so we practically bounced half way across America! Add to that a soundtrack of babies crying, conductors shouting stops and two old ladies taking about Jesus and it was possibly the most awful way to spend a night ever! We managed about 2 hours of broken sleep all night! But we made it to the Windy City and now all we needed to do was locate our hotel!

Once again I feel the need to word-up the grid system. This is the only place in the world where even I can't seem to get hopelessly lost! It only took us about 30mins to located the Howard Johnson we were staying in and the receptionist took pity on the two tierd, dishevelled and lets face it, slightly pongy kids in front of her and let us check in early (it was 10.30am local time and we'd been up for 29hours at that point)! At that point we both gave in! We showered (after it took me about ten mins to peel my sweaty socks off!) and crashed until mid afternoon!

For anyone thinking of visiting Chicago we must share a little secret with you...one word...PORTILLOS! Is it fast food? Is it a restaurant? Who knows! It's a big building which is decorated like a Hard Rock Cafe but lower budget and it does cheap but oh-so-good food! You can go with fresh sandwiches, burgers or what we had...fresh pasta! About $8 gets you a massive bowl plus garlic bread and a drink - just what you need after such a long trip. I couldn't even finish mine it was that huge! It's a chain but seemingly only in Illinois which we were so gutted by! If you come here you have to try it!

We decided just to wander round and explore for the day as we were still a bit train lagged... we went to a park which had some nice fountains and some strange sculptures and then visited a bar on the way back to the hotel meeting a lovely man called Rick who worked for Fedex and seemed slightly intoxicated but was a very nice man all the same. Unlike most Americans, he had actually travelled around to some of the places we were going to so we swapped stories and got some great tips from him! The bar also had Sam Adams seasonal on tap so we had a pint and then went back to the hojo and crashed once again!

Day 2 and now we get more cultural! Due to crazy time spent travelling and being wiped out on our first day we had to pack as much into this one day as humanly possible but we actually found there wasn't that much we wanted to do.

We started at the Nave Pier with hot chocolate and cookies in McDonalds - we braved eating it outside and, believe it or not, it was a tad breezy! The pier gives you some beautiful views back onto the city and out on to lake Michigan and we decided (or rather Andrew decided and I got dragged along) to see it all from a huge ferris wheel (yes, I am scared of heights). Despite my hanging on to the seat the entire time, the views were very pretty and it was quite a unique experience!

We spent some of the day posting things home to England as we were becoming bogged down with ticket stubs and leaflets and fridge magnets (we appear to have started a collection) and then we gave in to our instincts and went off to find a cinema!

Laughing was in order so we saw Silent Hill (for mum and dad's benefit, that's a trashy horror film). The film was quite rubbish but what made it the American man in front of us who kept yelling things at the screen! His favourite phrase whenever things were getting tough for the leading lady was "Hell NO!" (Just like Will Smith in every one of his movies!) It was hilarious! Anyone who worked with me in UCI knows I usually throw people out for so much as sneezing but this guy really made the whole film enjoyable! To top of a wonderful film experience, our large combo was unlimited refills! Take that Odeon! We love AMCs!

We had intended to eat at the Rainforest Cafe but due to stuffing ourselves silly on popcorn we decided not to. So when the munchies called at about 10pm we trundled over to Portillos again where Andrew got a burger but I needed ice cream so I made him come to Maccy Ds too. You know when you really want something particular...I had that...I was craving a whippy icecream in a cone, but when I asked for one the Mexican woman behind the till couldn't understand what I wanted. So she called over her Mexican supervisor who was equally unschooled in English and despite the fact that we could SEE the cones and we were POINTING to the cones I did not get a cone that night Instead I had to settle for chicken nuggets and they didn't even give me any ketchup - Damn McDonalds!

So that was Chicago...any questions?

Update No. One - Chicago! remains copyright of the author kandy, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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New York is a big place. The city is, of course, one of the largest in the US, but New York State is also rather big. Not that we knew this when we got on the train. I'd seen a map or two of the area and guessed it couldn't take that long to travel across to Niagara... three or four hours maybe... so when the conductor informed us we'd be pulling into our destination some 10 hours later, we were shocked to say the least! However, we had our Ipods, and we had Kiefer Sutherland in 24 to keep us occupied, so we were okay.

(Kate takes over typing duties here....apologies for the spellings - it's the dodgy keyboard, I swear!)

It didn't really help matters that we hadn't thought to check where the Canadian border actually was before we got there so when the train pulled in to a desolate building site with the sun going down we were slightly panicked! Thankfully, there was a handily placed cabbie touting for business - ordinarily we would be annoyed at such shameless self-promotion but this time we thanked other people's gods and got in!

A quick $13.10 cab ride and we were at the Whirlpool Bridge, which connects America and Canada. The first Canadians we saw were the two drunken guys staggering ahead of us, singing anti-American songs (from what we could gather they may or may not have been thrown out of an American bar and were returning home)! They thought we were also American so we came in for a small amount of light-hearted abuse before they let us leave! The border guard seemed unphased by our drunken friends telling him we were smuggling drugs and he let us pass without a smile or any words of welcome!

Ok, on to Niagara: yet again I have wasted time rambling (me?! write too much...) I'll let Andrew do the talking for a while...

So, after managing not to get strip searched by the Canadian authorities, we crossed the border and went in search of our hotel. Again, our preparation was suprisingly lax, having only the address in hand and the vague idea that Kate thought it was two roads back from the front or something...maybe.. This added to our lack of desire to ask for help from the locals ensured a fun hike around the town at nightfall. Finally, after twenty or so minutes of walking with our increasingly heavy rucksacks, we caved and asked for help at the Hilton, which we thought had to be close to our Days Inn. As it turns out, there are 6 Days Inn in Niagara and none of them were near the Hilton. They were, however, near the bridge we crossed some thirty minutes previously... how we laughed... then promptly stopped laughing as our straps dug into our shoulders further and made us want to cry. Anyway, after about another thirty minutes of treking around the town, we made it through the haze of neon that makes up most of Niagara, and were greeted by a very friendly receptionist at our hotel. Despite it being nearly 10pm, she was genial and very helpful. We were doubly relieved when we entered our room to find it immaculate and very spacious. For less than 35 quid a night, it far exceeded our expectations!

So as not to bore, and so we still save something for our memoirs, I'll hand back over to Kate who will summerise what we did!

As you'd expect, and we ourselves expected, we did the Maid of the Mist and got very, very, very wet! It was fun and we kept the ponchos for Disneyland!! Then we headed underground and did the Journey Behind the Falls which basically involved standing in a cold cave looking out into some rushing water! Cool but no great photo opportunities!

Apart from those gems, we also did the neon bits! The Skylon Tower which over looks the falls was very pretty at night...we went to a 4D film with Leslie Nielsen in (Canada's best export!) and we had to do the casino since we got the bug in Atlantic City! All of which was exciting and enjoyable!

Thanks to the helpful Robert on the front desk, we booked a Greyhound to take us to Toronto after three days and we were loath to leave the happy little ball of tackiness that is Niagara - especially in a coach but it was cheaper than the train!

In Toronto we didn't really know what to do...we had 3 days to fill and only the CN tower in mind but we've done quite a lot! We went to the harbour and saw out onto Lake Ontario which was gorgeous! Went to the Steam Whistle brewery for free beer samples! We went round little harbour-front art galleries and went up the CN tower which was scary

Today we went to the Distillery District which is a whole yuppy area salvaged from old buildings ad filled with expensive shops and hundreds of little art studios (most of which were filled with stuff that my sister could do better but was priced in the tens of thousands of dollars!) It was briliant and made us want a yuppie flat to fill with yuppie things! There was also another brewery with more free samples so now we like Mill Street beer too!! (It's becoming a habit) But this beer is only avaiable in Toronto so we'll have to have it imported when we get back!!

Then we went on to the Royal Ontario Art Gallery, which was nothing special! And finally on to an English pub lunch!! Yummy!

And that is Toronto in a nutshell!!

We have to get going soon...the cafe is getting sweatier by the second and I am dying for a glass of water! Plus Family Guy series 4 is on the telly at 9pm and we want to get back for it!!!

Whole day of travelling tomorrow and then we get to Chicago the next day so hopefully we'll update again soon...the next stop after that is almost 3 weeks in Florida!! YAY

Hope you're all jealous & you're having fun where ever you are!

K & A

Canada remains copyright of the author kandy, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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