look out world .... ..here we come!!

The World Famous Sydney Opera House in the gleaming sunshine!!!!

So come January we had run out of money. Holiday over and work must begin!! Amanda's very generous Aunt and Uncle (Jo and Martin) let us crash at theirs until we found a flat to rent and found some work....

Terry started work first.... 3 days knocking on doors doing door-to-door sales was enough from him!! not sure if it was the long hours, the rubbish money, the walking the streets in the rain, the doors being slammed in his face or the Wake he interrupted - but 3 days was all he could sustain..... 3 more days than i would have done!!
So back for the drawing board for Terry.

I had registered with a few Temp Agencies for Admin type work and also a 'wards person' causal work. However days / maybe weeks went by and i hadn't heard a sausage! Amanda's Aunt suggested i look up Gymnastics Coaching, so I did and before I knew it I had landed myself work in 4 different schools equaling 27 hours a week. As most of the teaching was in schools my hours were a little strange... like 3-6 most evenings and Saturday afternoons. The other gym was run as a business and I found myself teaching 2-5 year olds - eeeek!!

The schools are girls private schools and some around the Bondi Area over looked the harbour.

Ravenswood School, Gordon

East Gymnastics - Bondi Junction

Ascham School, Edgecliff

Kambala School, Rose Bay

Kambala is so lovely - on a Thursdays if the weather is good I catch the ferry to work!!

Terry soon after found a part time job selling advertising space for JAYRIDE.com - a travel search engine. Having only his door to door sales and sales experience he managed to blag his way to land this job. whilst its only 3 days there is a fridge full of beer in the office as well as a ping pong table and football at lunch!

Flat number 1. Willoughby 3 months (Feb-May)
So we found this 2 bedroom flat occupied usually by 2 Italian couples. One couple were going to the outback for 3 months and so we were lucky enough to move in for that time.
The flat was light and airy with a balcony and outside swimming pool.

Daniel and Serena our house mates are lovely and made us feel very welcome.

As we were all trying to save money the flat is not a party house. Very quite and calm. We cook each other dinner, have a few beers together on weekends, hit the beach on our days off and have had one or two nights out in the city.....

Serena's 23rd Birthday....

Balmoral Beach..
only a bus ride away..

I think Balmoral is my favourite beach around Sydney. Its so beautiful with an island in the middle, little rock pools and sparkling clear waters..

A sport of Frisbee Terry??

Palm Beech (where Home and Away is filmed - we rein-acted our own version of Angel and Shane)

Terry playing in the see before the life guards announced there was a large shark in the water!!

Spit to Many Walk - 10km walk took us 3 hours.
Map

The Spit Starting Point

The Manly Scenic Walkway took us past some amazing coastlines and views of the harbour......
Onto different beeches and even included some bush walking through Sydney habrour National Parks.... Ending Up at Manly Beech...

Darling Harbour...

Beautiful in the sun to sit and have a beer around the harbour..

Watsons Bay and Camp Cove Beach

Walks over the Harbour Bridge

Manly Ferry

The habour is actually really big - so many different ports, bays and beaches..

The green you can see behind the opera house is Mrs Macquaries Chair - where we were NYE to watch the fireworks!!

So here we are still in Syndey working and saving up for the next part of our journey. Syndey is a beautiful city and the summer weather was wonderful. As Autumn sets in the nights are darker early but we still have some some and beech days

Finding work was not so easy, but hopefully after our 6 months of work we will have enough money to continue our travels.

2 more weeks and then we have to look for somewhere else to live.... another different experience will begin!!!

So as it was Lisa Frost's last night in Austailia we decided to go out Syndey Style!!

We chose the YHA Sydney Habour Hostel as the view from the terrace was amazing - right over the habour you could see the bridge and opera house...
Unfortunately by the time we were ready for drinks on the balcony it was dark and raining....
So Terry - ever the gentleman - took us one by one to the edge under the umbrella to see the view...

So we headed out... but it was pouring.. we managed to borrow a guy from receptions umbrella and some black bags to keep us dry... not sure what people thought of our dress code..

We started at Aryle Rocks, but as it was sunday it closed at midnight... so we headed by recommendation to Kings Cross - Hugos bar... a good night was had by all!!!

Lisa F had to fly home, but not before breakfast on the terrace with the amazing views...

and so 5 became 4 (Terry now included)....
we decided to head to Bondi....

The coastal Walk from Bondi to Cogee...

Most of the beachs - like bondi and bronte has swimming pools cornered off from the sea - what a great idea... not sure about the grave yard tho - a little spooky!!

Despite Bondo being very touristy - its beach was clean, lovely sand and massive waves... beautiful beach...

That evening we met up with Amanda's Aunt and Cousin for a spot of dinner and drinks in Surry Hills... our bad luck with cars continued and Amanda managed to lock the keys in the boot - meaning a call to roadside assistance!! However, all was good and Cousin to the rescue sorted it out in no time!!

For the girls last day Amanda borrowd her Uncles car and we planned a route to the Blue Mountains and Caves.... Things were not to be and our 3rd spot of bad luck hit us.... a puncture.... 40K from the blue mountians - we couldnt believe our luck!! So Amanda, Terry, Lisa and I somehow managed to jack up the car and change the tyre - however the tyre was a very small, very flat temporary tyre. We went to the nearest garage but they didnt stock the right tyres (they did pump up the tyres)..... what to do... we decided to take a chance and just get to the Three Sisters point of the Bue Mountians so we hadnt had a completely wasted journey.. so with our fingers crossed the tyre would hold out..

And here are our token Blue Mountain shots...

So then we headed to Parammatta to the garage- where we got a new tyre!!!

Morning after the girls left to get their flights home - leaving Terry and I as we were before - just 2 again!!!
Lucky for us we were able to stay a few nights more at Amanda's Aunt and Uncles - time to find work and somewhere to settle for a while!!!

HOLIDAY OVER for a while to save up some pennies for our next adventure!!!

So after a lovely night in Brisbane - dinner at the riverside we took a flight to Melbourne. We chose to stay in Stay in St Kilder as this was recommended to us by a few local Aussies. Not sure what to make of St Kilder really - some cool and treny bars and nice places to eat - but on the flip side - lots of prostitutes, the beach pretty much like Gt Yarmouth and english beach resort!!!

Still first night we met up with Danny and Zac as was their last night in Austrialia. We met them, Terry and Andrew (Amanda's cousins' fella) in the casino where we put on a few small bets but mainly had a few drinks.

Nect day, Terry missing his boy gang, took us girls on a tour of Melbourne...

Apart from the Southbank and shopswe went to a few cool bars... one roof top terrace bar was really cool..

And then on the way home a bar under a bridge on the river - 'pony fish bar' as it was friday everyone seemed to be here after work...

That night we headed to ST Kilder for dinner and a few drinks... dinner was lovely at a place called Vineyards, then a few drinks in a hotel bar with live 'austrailian rapping' (not so cool) and then we headed to a place called Apartment 29... where we ended up playing giang jenga....

The next day Amanda's 'friend' Ben - took us on a tour of Phillip Island. Unfortunately the weather was took cold for surf lessons as promised by Ben but we still got a good tour and visited a koala conservation area (The Lisa'a had not seen Koala's yet). ...

and some wild wallabies..

some awsome coastlines and beaches...

The next morning before our flight we headed back to the city and had a look around the shops.... people say you either love sydney or Melbourne - i think its pretty to like both...... Melbourne reminds me more of being back home, but i guess its more chilled than sydney and the southbank area is really pretty - but when the weather is good i think syndey has more to offer - so many beaches to visit and also a beautiful habour - i guess you have to make up your own mind!!!

As for Terry and I, we are thinking Sydney - maybe more chance of work and definately days off on the beach!!!

Anyway I still had a few days left with the girls before they flew back - so back to Sydney for us!!!

So i am not going to go into details and for those of you who know me and the girls i am sure you will hear our story more than once - but lets just say our journey from Broadbeach to Rainbow beach dd not go to plan. In fact the 3 hour journey turned into a 7 hour journey, where we thought our time was up and could see no way out...... we never dreamed we would still make our Fraser Island Tour... but thanks to some amazing people we made it out alive and made it to Fraser Island. If you are going to Rainbow beach - the manager at Pippies is guite amazing... she literally saved our bacon big time!!

Anyhow, so early morning on the 7th Jan we set off on our Fraser Island Adventure (stiill in shick that we actaully made it) ....

The first day was mainly the beautiful Lake Mckenzie and some rainforest walks and central station with Dingos....

Lake MacKenzie - filled with only rainwater - honestly the most stunning lake i have ever seen...

Rainforest walk

Central STation

That night after making some friends with the people on our tour bus Lisa M became the games queen and Amanda did what Amanda does best and bought drinks from the bar at every opportunity...

We started off with Volley Ball, then Pool, then Killer Pool, Then FIVES, then the hand game, then Yee Haa then... oh my i cant rememeber....

needless to say the next morning i was dying..... literally still drunk, and on a bumping bus going over bumpying sand dunes and tracks this was not good!!!

Anyhow the day went on...
day 2 was so much better than day 1....

We drove along the beach in the bus...

Took a plane ride over fraser...

Saw lots of jelly fish including this huge one...

Visited champagne pools

Walked up to Indian head for a fantastic views

And swam in a fresh water creek leading into the sea.

What a day....

We were dropped off at our hostel at 10pm in Hervey Bay, where we spent the night before getting an early Greyhound bus back to rainbow beach the following morning... after spending a few hours at rainbow beach, we headed to brisbane....

So we fly into Brisbane and pick up our hire car for the next week...

and off we set to mermaid waters to stay at Amanda's Nan and Grandad's. They are honestly the cutest grandparents i have met and we have our own rooms in their lovely bungalow
Amanda, Nan and Pa...

First night we are a little tired from the flight and Amanda wants to spend some time with her family - so the grandparents teach us how to drink Vodka and play cards!! Grandpa's excuse for pouring half a glass of vodka with a splash of coke is that he has poor eye sight!! lol

Our first day at the gold coast i decide that the girls really need to experience byron bay.... so we took a road trip down the coast...

and a walk to the lighthouse

That night we went into surfers paradise for my first girly night out in ages... and what a night.... (slightly different to the bar crawl Terry and i experienced)

First Aveune Q
Our first 2 bottles were civilised...

And then some 'millionaire' treated us to a few more bottles - the night became a little more messy!!

From the bar we went on to a night club called SinCity where we seemed to be quite popular with the men - i cant give away too much but i think at the end of the night the score was amanda (3), Lisa M (2) and Lisa F (1)!!! if you know what i mean!!!

The next day.... afternoon, we didnt arise early enough for the 2pm surf lessons so we headed to the beach nursing our hang overs!! but hair of the dog we went for dinner and back out that night to a few bars with live music and then Melba's Club...

Lisa F found what me and Amanda would look like in 20 years time.... desturbing..

The next day before leaving for rainbow beach we went for lunch with Amanda's Nan. Pa, uncle and Auntie... the surf club at broadbeach...

Then we jumped in the car and headed up to the sunshine coast for our trip to fraser island