Anna

As some of you may have been following my world famous blog over the past 18 months, you will be aware that I and my boyfriend Andy have been travelling and working in Australia and other very mundane and ugly parts of the world. So, now I can’t write about travelling, I thought I would write one last blog about what happens after travelling… And what happens when you then move home? I’m not talking about ‘the UK’ I’m talking about Home Home Home. As in moving back in with your parents at 28 home. Oh and we spent all of our money and don’t have jobs, so this will be our home for a while. And my boyfriend is moving in too. SURPRISE, MUM AND DAD!

 Luckily I have two very nice parents who seem to be quite happy to have us (so far…) but two weeks in and 25 job applications shot out into the abyss we call ‘the internet’, I’m starting to become a little bit frustrated and remember that we are once again living in a country that has an iffy economy. And it is hard. Other travellers said this would happen.

 ‘Why would you EVER leave Australia?!’ a lot of people demanded, squinting at us when we said we were turning down Andy’s sponsorship offer and going home. Because we missed our families. And our friends. And the BBC.

 ‘You’ll regret it,’ some warned. ‘Once you leave you can NEVER come back. It’s almost impossible you know.’ I don’t know what they know about Australia that we don’t know, but I’m guessing there’s some sort of black-hole-cum-bermuda-triangle-esq situation that will stop us from going back for a holiday, but we somehow managed to visit three weeks later. No worries mate.

 We don’t regret leaving Australia, and we feel like we have well and truly gotten travelling out of our systems. What is more, we’ve been looking at England as though it is a new country and with that, a new adventure – ‘Ooh! Wow! A Squirrel!!!’ I actually said on our first day back, whilst a red double decker bus whizzed past and I gaped at it with an open mouth.

 When I used to live in London, I was always struck by how big it was. Driving to Euston a few weeks ago, I was amazed by how many cars could fit onto such small streets. Big Ben and Westminster seemed very petite and all of the buildings looked so old and quaint. Apparently this is a thing called ‘Reverse Culture Shock’ – we were warned about this too.

 So with all of these warnings about going home, is coming home after our exciting travels really as anticlimactic and unexciting as people said? My answer is, no. And here is why:

 We were a bit fed up of living out of a bag for 18 months and not really having any possessions. We are also both very ready, and have been for a while, for a new challenge and to find a lifestyle with consistency.

 There’s also an element of relief in being home. It’s really nice being able to stride through long grass without worrying about dying at the fangs of a snake. It’s nice being able to stroll home without walking into a 5x5ft 3D spider web, in the dark, and weeping into your hands because you can’t see if the poisonous arachnid is still on you. We do have interesting animals and birds here (yes, like squirrels) and subject to the rumours flying around Sydney, Britain does have a sun. It is a bit shier here than in Australia, but I personally quite like it’s lack of aggression.

 And finally, there are the relationships we have with our friends and family here that are quite simply irreplaceable. To be able to sit at a table with people who have known you for a minimum of 10, 15 or even 28 years and to still enjoy each others’ company, is a pretty special thing. And don’t get me wrong, I was worried that over this period of time that we might have changed or they might have changed and that when we saw each other, we would embrace and then sit there awkwardly for an hour because we had nothing in common anymore. But that didn’t happen either.

 And as our lives have been very focussed on travelling, we didn’t want our conversational skills to be only focussed on this, ie. Friend: ‘I have a problem. I’m sad.’ Andy and I: ‘Oh, yes we absolutely understand your problem. We felt the same way when we went to the Killing Fields and saw …’ etc. etc. This would not be appropriate conversational response.

We were back in Christchurch and finally had some time to look around! We wanted to learn a bit more about the earthquakes so we headed to Quake City, a museum set up amongst the rubble. On the way, we passed the half-destroyed cathedral which was obviously cordoned off, but there were quite a few sculptures and pieces of art scattered around cathedral square, making it look quite cool and modern (that sounds strange, I know.)

We got to the museum and watched some footage of the 2011 earthquake along with clips of locals' stories - none of them (thankfully) witnessing any fatalities, but all making us tear up a little bit, especially thinking about the Nepal earthquake which had happened the week before.

We finished off by making Lego earthquake-proof buildings, Andy literally had to drag me away, and went to sit in the shopping mall to eat our packed lunch. The shopping mall was not actually a building with shops in - nothing was as you would expect here - it was made from shipping containers, all painted in bright colours and again, looked very funky and modern. 

We were so impressed with all of the clever creativity that was slowly restarting the city and by the end of the day, we didn't really feel sorry for the people of Christchurch, but almost envious of their spirit and optimism. We finished the day by going to the museum on the outskirts of the city - a much older building that had survived, then having a lovely autumnal walk through the park.

The next morning, we headed to Wellington and thanks to a lovely lady at the ferry terminal, managed to get to our hotel four hours earlier than anticipated (love the Kiwis!) and treated ourselves to some boss fish and chips in the city. As we were staying in a hotel, we had an excuse to eat out (our budget hadn't really permitted this so far, so we were very excited about this!) and were not disappointed.

The next morning, after a smashing brunch, we headed down to a museum Andy had read about and was really keen on. I was in very low spirits as I was sporadically learning the general election results, so I think Andy was trying to keep me away from the news. We actually ended up going to a Naval museum (which we thought was said excellent Wellington museum) and learnt all about the many, many, many shipwrecks that had occurred in New Zealand. In particular, there was a video, meant for children, that repeatedly sang: 'What happened to the sailors? They died-diddly-died-diddly-died!' It was a very educational...

Towards late afternoon,  we realised we'd gone to the wrong museum so pegged it across the city to actual amazing museum with an hour and a half to spare! Near the entrance was the most stunning Anzac exhibition; there were six wax giants based on five real-life Anzacs, and their stories (diary entries, interviews, witness accounts) were exhibited around the sculptures. The final one was very sad and we were asked to put a poppy on the kneeling soldier.

The other brilliant exhibition we went to was the Air NZ 75th anniversary exhibit, where we got to sit on a fake plane and put some virtual-reality head-sets on - we saw a emu walk down the aisle which we could stroke, and we flew in a glass plane (none of this was real obviously) but it was very clever. 

We finished the day with some drinks and a meal in a Malaysian curry house before our long journey to Waitomo the next day.

After ten hours of travelling, we rocked up to our hostel (last one!) which was quite literally, in the middle of nowhere. It was very cozy with a wood burner, a dog AND a cat(!) - but the bloke that ran it was as mad as a hatter. You couldn't drink a cup of tea without his face appearing on your shoulder, making a joke you didn't understand and making a sequel to the joke you didn't understand with a further joke you didn't understand. There were also no shops, so we lived off beans and the frozen wild (he really emphasised that it was wild) venison curry made by the mad man, for two days straight.

We spent the next day going for walks in the very Hobbit-esqe surroundings and (when it was raining) playing board games, waiting just waiting for the next day to come so we could go on our booked tour. The mad owner tried to engage me in conversation about all of these reviews on trip advisor that had described him as 'eccentric', 'weird' and 'invasive' - did I agree? I'm a bad liar, so made my excuses and promptly hid in our room for the rest of the afternoon.

Finally, the day to go on our glow-worm tour arrived and we practically skipped down the hill to the office where the lovely staff and one of the population-of-41 Waitomos (who was just casually hanging around the office, not as staff or consumer, probably just for something to do) engaged us in conversation - they also acknowledged the madness of our hostel owner and both proved to be very normal people.

So normal, our tour guide was actually called 'Norm'. And he was, he really was. He'd been going to the caves since he was a little boy, before they were even a tourist attraction. He told us how he and his friends would take a tractor inner tube each, sit in it, then tube through the caves (now known as black water rafting) - which we saw, once we were down there and he turned off all of the lights, was a pretty audacious thing to have done!

First of all we came across these long pieces of thread hanging from the roof of the cave and, when Norm shone a light on them, we could see little maggots crawling at the top of them. I get very squeamish when I see maggots and kept imagining them going kamikaze all over us. We walked a bit further and got in a boat and Norm instructed us to turn our lights off and to not talk so we could hear the waterfalls around the caves. As our eyes started to adjust, we could see hundreds of thousands of little lights in the darkness. It was really beautiful (when you forgot they were maggots anyway!) and calming. 

After the boat ride, he took us through some more caves that he had rejuvenated himself and we saw all sorts of skeletons - none human, you'll be glad to hear. There was even a moa, which are now extinct!

After we got back to the 'village', we spent the rest of the day hanging around again in a cafe, then caught an evening bus to Auckland - our final stop!

I'm a little bit embarrassed to say, we didn't actually do much in Auckland. There was torrential rain for most of the day, all of the indoor activities were very expensive (we'd also almost run out of NZD$) and we were actually sort of glad to have an excuse to just stay still in the apartment we'd rented. So that's what we did. In hindsight, we probably should have listened to advice from people who'd been to New Zealand before: we went to a lot of places for too little time, the mileage we did was extortionate and we made the mistake of booking rooms with restricted facilities for the sake of saving small amounts of money, which slowly added quite a bit of stress to the trip. But, knowing this, it is somewhere we would like to go back to - perhaps with a driving license and a car too! And don't get me wrong, we had a great time and saw lots in a very short space of time; some sights (especially on the South Island) looked so perfect, I was suspicious they were manmade and we were really just driving through a huge theme park the whole time. The fact we were thoroughly exhausted by the last day is a good sign I think!

We arrived in Christchurch late on Wednesday night. We had about a mile to walk to our hotel and it was a very, very quiet walk. We were dropped off by the museum which was by a park and because of the architecture combined with the cold weather, we felt like we were at home in England. But as soon as we crossed the bridge into the ‘CBD’, we noticed there weren't any people around and that all of the buildings we passed had gaping holes in between each other. What's more, every single building was empty as if they'd quickly been abandoned - there were still curtains and blinds in a lot of the windows that were flapping in the wind. It was an actual ghost town.

Our hotel was a new build and was situated in the middle of a stretch of derelict land. After checking in, we hesitantly went out to find somewhere to go for dinner and found another newish looking duo of cafe bars amongst the silence, had a quick bite to eat and went back to the hotel because we weren't really sure what else to do really. Basically, as you will probably remember from the news, there were two earthquakes in Christchurch in 2010 and 2011, the second one killed over 180 people. Over 70% of the buildings in the CBD were destroyed or consequently were deemed unsafe so had to be pulled down, leaving a lot of people homeless and a lot of businesses with nowhere to work from. They reckon it will take 20 years to rebuild the city and cost around $40billion. I don't know if it was because after such a long time away from home we were feeling nostalgic, but it struck a chord with us and we felt very sad, as if we were visiting an old home town and realising there were no people there anymore.

We were returning the next week to have a look around Christchurch properly, so the next day we set off for Wanaka, another longish day of travelling - especially for Andy who was scared by our female bus driver (she was a bit scary.) The day after, we hired mountain bikes and set off for a bike ride around the lake. I, once again, was in struggle city. We didn't even go up any mountains and it wasn't hot, so I don't know what the problem was, but poor Andy had to keep waiting for me the whole way there and back. I'm just very unfit. The scenery (as always in New Zealand) was stunning. 

The crystal-clear water from the lake was some of the purest water in the world, so I filled up my water bottle with a bit (much to Andy's disgust) and tried some. 

We finally got back to the village after four hours of cycling and I decided to have a quiet night in with my book, whilst Andy went off to the cinema (it was some action-based thing I did not want to see) - where they had old cars you sat in, instead of seats!

We spent the next day, walking this time, round the other side of the lake which was much easier, and stomped through all the red and orange autumn leaves around the water, then sat for a while...

...where it was so quiet and peaceful before getting our bus onto Queenstown, just a short drive away (two hours at this point was our idea of short!) There was a barbecue going on in our hostel which was for all the guests there, our receptionist told us, so we went to join them, which is when we were both struck by how much older than everyone else we were - what was to become the pinnacle turning point in our travelling manifesto. After being pretty much rejected from the barbecue (for being too old? For being too ugly?!) and exiled to the supermarket, the final straw came when I was brushing my teeth in the shared bathroom, a girl walked in with a pot noodle and a drink, I smiled and said hello. Ignoring me, she walked straight past me to the mirror, fluffed her fringe, practised eating her food(?) in the mirror, pouted, fluffed her fringe again, then left to go and have her dinner(?) with a boy on a table outside.

We were getting fed up of hostels and carrying the backpacker rep around with us, when we actually wanted to go for nice walks and eat nice food and have normal conversations with normal people. But saying that, there was one backpacker-esque activity Andy wanted to get out of his system - a bungee jump. I've never seen him so quiet and composed as I did the morning of the jump. When we got to the agency to pay for it though, he saw a video of people jumping off on a swing instead of a bungee (the second highest swing in the world I might add!) and decided he'd probably get more enjoyment out of that one.

When we got there, the staff were playing around with people about to do the jump, pretending to push them, then holding onto them just before they fell. The screams were blood curdling. When we looked down at the river below, it didn't look too high up, but when a person jumped down we were given perspective as they became a tiny dot, swinging over what wasn't a small stream, but actually quite a big river. 

I stayed on a little platform so I could film Andy's jump and got talking to a nice German girl, when suddenly she gasped and said 'isn't that your boyfriend?!' Andy was being hovered over the drop and I quickly fumbled for the camera which I did not have ready. It looked like Andy had stopped to have a chat with the bloke, then suddenly he ran off the platform and gave the manliest scream, a bass style 'ahhhhhhhhh' then as he became a dot: 'AWAHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!'

By the time he met me afterwards, I was shaking like a leaf - I mean, in everyday terms, I'd just seen my boyfriend jumping off a cliff! We went back into the town and got a beer to calm our nerves, then Andy went to watch 'The Fight' (still don't really know what that was) because I couldn't get in without my ID (oh the irony!) so I went to a great little place called The Winery. Basically, you helped yourself to as many different wines as you wanted whilst sitting in a large armchair - it was my heaven. I was actually very sensible about it all though and had a lovely time reading, then Andy came to get me and we went out for something to eat before heading back to the YOUTH hostel to get ready for our long day out to Milford Sound the next day.

We got picked up the following morning at 6.45am and were informed over the speaker system on the coach that although Milford Sound was only 70km away, the journey there would take 4 hours as there wasn't a direct road there. We were all delighted to hear this of course. The bus driver then said he realised it was still quite early and that he suggested we had a little nap for the first two hours, and that he would tell us a boring story to help us get to sleep. Ha ha, he sounded funny.

The story he did tell us however, went on for well over an hour and was, effectively, the jolly story of his life, a very difficult story to fall asleep to, more awakening us with concern for his well being. We found out everything, details as fine as how he came to be named Carlin, that he had been abandoned as a child; THREE times, by TWO mothers! As we learnt about how he turned to the drink and lost everything he had, an older woman edged her way down the coach to the front seat, and a very odd pseudo-mother-son relationship blossomed between them: 'Carlin! CARLIN!'... 'What.'... 'Would you like a liquorice all sort Carlin, love?'... 'No.' During the rare silences of his story, you would catch her gazing at him sympathetically. The story ended with a 110kg sized Carlin (he clearly no longer weighed that), cycling around the WHOLE of New Zealand with a trailer attached to his 'pushy', raising money for charity (just to clarify, not because he wanted to raise money, just so people didn't think he was mad for cycling without a cause), raised nothing, did it all again a few years later, then realised he was destined to be a bus driver. Just to cover myself for plagiarism when Hollywood come a-knocking, Carlin The Bus Driver owns the rights to this story.

After a pit-stop, where Carlin told us all where about the shop that sold the best pies ever, he handed over to Mike. Mike was the voice on an audio-guidebook who Carlin referred to almost as an old friend. This now played over the speaker, whilst Carlin, who forgot(?) to turn his microphone off, muttered a commentary in the background, occasionally singing, thus making most of the info on the surrounding scenery inaudible. The national park scenery grew more and more spectacular as we entered Milford Sound, until finally we arrived to make our connection with our cruise boat. The lady handing us our tickets, looked at Carlin and sympathetically asked me how our journey had been. All I had to do was give her a dark look and she burst out laughing - Carlin was obviously known around these parts.

Once we were on the boat (we'd opted for a smaller one) we took in the huge pointing mountains around us, with all the waterfalls flowing into the sea (half freshwater, half saltwater technically) and the boat even steered into a couple of them, catching the water in a bucket and then serving it up for us to drink! On the way back when we sailed into another waterfall, I got suitably drenched and almost wrecked my camera trying to take photos. 

It was my idea of heaven and felt like we were in a dream. Apparently James Cameron based his islands in Avatar on Milford Sound, which kind of gives you an idea of how other-worldly it is. We met Carlin back at the port and set off back to Queenstown, where he simply put a film on for us to watch and barely spoke the whole way back, behaving very normally. We felt like we'd gone through so much with him that day, it was almost a bit sad saying goodbye once we got back to Queenstown.

So off we are on our travels again, our last bit before we finally head home to Blighty after eighteen months away!

Unfortunately when we left last Wednesday though, our trip started off on completely the wrong foot. We'd been participating in 'leaving' festivities every day for our last ten days in Sydney and we worked right up until the day before we left, so this probably didn't help our energy levels. I was a blubbering mess anyway by the Tuesday, saying goodbye to colleagues and regulars, many of whom I'll realistically never see again, when the news started reported 'cyclone type winds' and 'deaths' and 'worst storms in ten years: DON'T LEAVE YOUR HOUSES SYDNEY, YOU WILL PROBABLY DIE.' Ok, it was worded a bit differently, but anyone living in Australia will know that the media love to be melodramatic about, well, anything really. My nerves were on edge all afternoon, terrified that all of our carefully planned and quite costly bookings were all going to be void. Not to mention our visas were expiring the next day.

Anyway, the rain continued to batter down well into the next morning as we drove to the airport, but then suddenly, bolts of lightening were everywhere in the sky and the rain was literally bucketing down. I got my usual Sydney-airport-rollicking at customs, but instead of being accused of being an Asian trying-to-be-illegal-immigrant like last time (don't ask, just don't...) I was instead huffed at and told off for putting my passport in a protective-cover. Anyway, she let me through after scolding me like a child, so finally, finally we were officially OUT. In the terminal. In limbo. Next step was getting on a plane and not crashing in apparent cyclone type storm.

No such luck as it got announced, right before we were supposed to board that the plane taking us to Auckland had in fact just been hit by lightening when landing and 'needed fixing' before we could board it (!!!!!!!!!) I will say one thing, as a perpetually terrified flier, I'm so glad the airline delayed us and made sure we were all safe... but it really was a very exhausting day. We got to Auckland eventually: five hours late, two extra tickets re-purchased to the city, an extra litre of rainwater seeping out of luggage ('ooh! What's that puddle around your bag?!' said every Kiwi we came into contact with) and almost being locked out of our booked apartment because we'd missed check in. Anyway, thanks to about three exceptionally hospitable and generous Kiwis, we managed to get through the day without crying. Once in the apartment, we had the most non-fun game of Cards Against Humanity and spent the evening laying some 500 cards out to dry round the whole flat, along with shoes, ALL of my underwear and our happiness. I'm joking, we were just quite tired and were ready for bed by the time we'd sorted everything out. But tomorrow was a new day.

We awoke early to walk down the hill with our heavy, tortoise-shell-esque backpacks and to get our first 'naked bus' journey to Rotorua, confident we'd gotten all of our bad luck out of the way. The bus, however, was two hours late; during which time we convinced ourselves the company was a fake business, posing as reasonable and possibly nudist colony who travelled via bus around New Zealand. Luckily it was none of the above and the driver (once he turned up) was very nice and apologetic and finally, we were on our way! We got to Rotorua towards late afternoon and, as we got off the bus, started whispering in disgust to each other 'eughhh, has someone trumped?!' Apparently it was sulphur that was escaping from deep underground and the smell didn't leave the whole time we were there. Desperate not to let two out of two days become a failure, we dumped our stuff in our hostel and headed straight out.

We went to the local park, where there were pools of bubbling mud everywhere. And, actually, as we walked further, there was steam coming from everywhere - the grids in the roads, random rock formations and even around the lake. We'd never seen anything like it and the locals were quite amused at how unusual we thought it all was.

The next morning, we set off to find a Maori village near to the lake. We were both quite pleased to see how integrated Maori and Kiwi cultures were, especially having become quite harrowed by the Aussie/Aboriginal inequality in Australia towards the end of our stay there. We had a look at some Maori carvings and crafts and I found an Anglican Church that was one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen. A woman who was in there explained all of the Maori designs and constellations that had been woven into the walls - the detail was amazing!

Afterwards we went for a walk around the lake, got nibbled at by a load of midges and made our way to the bus stop. We were becoming quite aware that a lot of our time was very focused on travelling (which is essentially what we are here to do) and that we weren't stopping enough, but the journey from Rotorua to Ohakune soon reminded us that part of our adventure, as with all of our other trips, was in the journey. Firstly, a huge lake came into view, then a volcano (!!!!), and then a snow covered mountain. It was all very spectacular. We felt like we we driving through a painting.

Our reason for going to Ohakune was to do the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, defined as the 'most scenic walk in New Zealand' (the volcano and surrounding volcanic scenery was used in Lord of the Rings as Mount Doom) a 19.4km walk that we may or may not be able to do depending on weather. Luck was finally with us though and we managed to purchase tickets into the park, with excellent weather forecasts (rumours of being blown away by strong winds frequented in the reviews we read...eeek.)

So off we set at 7am, a very cold but sunny day. Our driver was a character and kept cackling during his brief (at things like 'devils walkway' and 'you might be hanging off the side of a crater at points') and, unfortunately, he wasn't being dramatic. Other people we came across kept wishing us luck in the days leading up to the walk too, so we began to suspect it might be a bit more difficult than we initially thought. The first hour was fine, there was quite a lot of scrub land and the steps we were climbing were spread out. We were also walking towards the volcano so had a great distraction too! Then we came to a sign issuing a warning to turn back if you felt your health wasn't up to scratch and you weren't capable of the terrain to come. It was a walk, what was the worst that could happen, you'd STOP to catch your breath?!? Oooh, difficult.

I'm not exaggerating when I say the next two hours of walking were continually uphill. Andy found it ok, but I struggled a bit as am nowhere near as fit as he is. The views were getting more and more spectacular and we were eventually climbing up the bottom half of the volcano. Some people chose to climb all the way to the top of it, a two hour vertical 'rock-climbing-esque' crawl (according to a girl we met the next day who was brave enough to do it.) We opted out of that and decided to carry on to the crater. This for me was the hardest bit. It was uphill, except there weren't any steps, and there was a metal chain on the right you could hold onto to stop from falling down the sheer drop to your left. Then the chain finished and, as the bus driver had warned: 'you're on your own, muhahahhahhaha!' It was cardio plus balance - one foot wrong and you would have a nasty accident. It was half rocks, half black sand and so a lot of the rocks kept coming loose beneath our feet. I stopped every five metres or so, trying not to cry. Going down would be worse and the only other way would be a rescue helicopter which I did NOT fancy. A really nice man stopped to sympathise with me and pretended he found it difficult too but it would all be over in a few more steps. Andy went behind me promising to catch me if I fell, which just made me more worried I'd take him down the side of the crater with me. I have never uttered so many profanities in such a small space of time.  Anyway, we eventually got to the top where I sat on a big flat rock and sulked for a bit with a wobbly lip. We ate our packed lunch which was the best tasting sandwich I've ever eaten and instantly felt 100000% better.

We carried on over the little mound at the top and as the panoramic scenery came into view, we felt like Sam Wise and Frodo (literally.) Mt Doom was to our right and to our left (amongst backdrops of lakes and mountains) there was the crater we'd just climbed up, then three small crater lakes below us of the brightest azure, turquoise and emerald. To set it all off, there was volcanic steam gushing out of random gaps in the grounds making a hissing noise. Neither of us had ever seen anything like this. We felt like we were in Star Wars and Lord of the Rings all at once. The best way I can describe it was that it felt like we were on another planet.

The next step(s) was getting down... It was like a child had made a black sandcastle, and we had to walk along it without ruining it. This is what we walked down.

For the first part, there was a rocky ledge to hold onto, albeit it was piping hot and there was hot steam pouring out of it. There were quite a few people struggling more than me this time so I tried to disguise myself amongst them. Some people went down on their bums, one man ran down, zigzagging to control his speed (he was my fave), I chose a snowboarding type tactic, filling my trainers with volcanic sand, whilst Andy confidently strode down, stopping to take pictures of my terrified face. One American woman who went past, saw me looking a bit scared and told me to 'think solid thoughts.' I had no idea what she was talking about. It was a little bit fun too though. After we reached the first lake, the walk was lovely (aka. downhill) and we could both enjoy the whole thing a bit more and it wound round mountains, past hissing volcanic vents and eventually into bush land and over and around fast flowing streams. We ended up completing it about half an hour early too which we were pretty proud of! I was also able to admit that it was one of the best things we've done since we've been away - sometimes it's the things that scare you the most that bring you the most happiness. We ended the day having dinner in our cozy little cabin room where I promptly fell asleep at 8pm (6pm Sydney time. Oh dear.)

The next day we went for a little walk through the woods which was very pretty and as we came back to the town, we heard an air-raid type siren sounding throughout the town. A bit concerned that a town located a few miles from a live volcano was blaring an alarm, we looked around to see what everyone else was doing. People were calmly walking around. Oh. We went to pick our bags up from our motel and asked the lady who worked there what it was. Apparently a lot of Kiwi towns have it, and it's just to tell them it's midday. WHY, in a country that is prone to severe earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, they play an air-raid alarm to tell their villagers the time of day, baffles me. Whatever happened to the calm watch-wearing man?

Anyway, we set off for two days worth of travelling; very scenic, but very time consuming! We had a 'lay over' in Wellington where we were essentially staying in a converted office block, then the next morning got the ferry across Cook's Strait to make our connection to Nelson. The weather was drizzly and foggy all day so it was a bit of a grim journey with the winding roads towards the end making me feel quite car sick! But finally, we were there, walking through Nelson in the rain trying to find our accommodation. We asked a man if he knew where the Prince Albert (where we were staying) was, he didn't, but proceeded to get his phone out to find a map. Meanwhile a woman passed by, saw we were a bit lost and started to get her phone out too to try and help us, all while the rain cried down on us. I've mentioned it earlier in the blog, but I really can't stress how lovely Kiwis are, literally always going out of their way to help. Anyway, we found it eventually and spoke to the owner about going to Abel Tasman the next day. He advised us it probably wouldn't be worth it (it was going to cost $150 minimum and it would be bad weather again).

The next day, the sun was shining brightly and so began our Abel Tasman regret. We promised ourselves we would enjoy the day in Nelson, which we did; going on a few more uphill walks - one to the Centre of New Zealand, which had very scenic views and then smothering our sorrows with 'New Zealand's best pizza.' 

We spent the evening booking the rest of our trip onwards and went to bed, ready for another rather long day the next day to Christchurch.

We awoke in the old, trying-their-hardest-to-make us-feel-haunted hotel on the Wednesday morning, absolutely freezing. 

I went into mum and dad's room to see they had had a toasty evening with their electric blankets and were happily drinking coffee and making breakfast. I on the other hand, half their age, had a very fuzzy head after the complimentary port the hotel had provided and swore off drinking with mum and dad forever.*

*This promise lasted all of twelve hours.

Anyway, off we drove on our way to Robe. The man in the hotel recommended some places to go: some caves and a lake called the Blue Lake, which was actually only blue for two months of every year and actually, come to think of it, was blue at this time of year, so we HAD to go and see it. So off we went, but first to Mount Gambier to see the caves...

I've got to point out here, that we had now left the Great Ocean Road and the scenery, although still very interesting, was not as pretty as the first few days, with Sheils the sat-nav casually giving directions like, 'turn left at the roundabout and drive straight for 145 kilometres', so pinpointed landmarks to break the journey up were welcomed with lots of enthusiasm eg. In manner of Mum suddenly screaming because she'd seen a kangaroo. There were also a lot less people around, and the few people we did see and speak to, without fail, all had a warning. The first one of this day was to make sure we had a full tank of petrol (which we did, happy to report no break downs!)

We came across a little beach along the way too so decided to go to the lookout there. We were definitely out of any urbanised areas because the strangers we came across all said 'g'day!' and one couple warned dad about marsh flies. We soon found out what marsh flies were and and what they did. They looked just like house flies except they didn't fly away when you swatted at them, and they bit you too, THROUGH your clothes. They were proper solid. So although it was very pretty at the beach we left as soon as we could, worried about death-by-flies.  

We then found a derelict looking building that said 'open' and 'tea and coffee'. Yay. I'm not joking, this was exciting. The man behind the counter seemed very surprised by our arrival and struck up conversation which was nice. He even apologised for the fact it was just machine coffee which indicated he knew there was more out there - in fact he was quite well travelled and very down to earth. It was a bit weird when his colleague came out to tell us the power was going to go off for 'a few minutes' so we carried on our conversation in the dark (there were no windows, but there WAS a skylight so we could still each other a bit.)

We told him about our route to Adelaide, he nodded in approval to Robe, but pulled a very worried face when we told him we were stopping in Tailem Bend. Mum asked him why... Why was he pulling that expression? He asked us how tied into our hotel reservation we were and we told him we'd paid already and why? He said 'oh, no, no reason.' So we left it at that, carried on talking a bit more in the dark and then left.

We found the caves at Mount Gambier and were the only visitors there bar a young couple from Yorkshire, and paid for a (pretty expensive) tour, given by the most enthusiastic human being I've ever met. She told us how some Aussie brothers had found a hole one day and decided to lower one of them seventeen feet down into it (!) with only a box of matches and some string. He found these caves and despite there being 'heaps of bats and tiger snakes, which kept eating each other or something something..!' casually stayed down there for two hours, came back up, told his brother, spent a few years having loads of parties down there, amongst the said snakes and bats, then thought other people might be interested in them for geological reasons, which they were, but they'd unfortunately destroyed loads of the stalagmites/tites because they liked playing the spoons on them at their parties, so whilst still impressive, they were not as impressive. We thought they were impressive though.

After a nice little picnic outside, we then found the Blue Lake, which was quite blue, (but so is a lot of the water on a sunny day) but again, we were happy to find things to see so that entertained us for an extra 15 minutes... plus the hours on each side of driving to get there.

By the time the sun was setting, we got to Robe, which was very lovely and we went down to the coast to take some nice pictures, went to Foodland (I always thought this was a fictional supermarket, invented only for the purpose of the mega-chain that kills Gilbert Grape's supermarket career in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? It's not, it's a real chain. And a lot of these towns we were stopping in were reminiscent of the same town Gilbert Grape lives in so as you can imagine I felt very guilty every time we were in there. If you haven't seen the film, this whole story will have completely been lost on you!)) Our room overlooked a nice lake and we had a barbecue for dinner and stood under the stars which were so bright and one of the most beautiful things I think we saw that week,

The next day we were all set to go to Tailem Bend, kind of trying not to bring up the barman in the dark pub and what he'd said, but waving away any idea he might have given us that it would be a terrible, terrible place to stay.

There was less and less to stop and see along the way by this point, but we found a pier with a few dead fish flapping about on it (but no fishermen nearby, weird) so we walked to the end of that, then back.

We did find a little town further on that was reminiscent of Andy's home town, Worksop, and he is still in disbelief at how safe and happy I felt when we came across it (Worksop, to many Brits, is thought of as one of the grimmest towns in Britain - I beg to differ), mainly just to see a bit of traffic, civilisation and to actually clarify that South Australia DO live half an hour behind NSW and Victoria. It's true. I... I don't know...

I'm making it sound like this part of the trip was pretty dire, I do realise that, but it really wasn't. We were just a little bit shocked at how... Different... Australia was once you were away from the cities. There was just not much for people to do in the towns we were in and there was a bit of a depressing air about that. Most towns were completely shut - as in the shops were there, fully stocked, but they just decided to close them all. Except for the liquor store. Which I suppose is how the problems begin... I personally felt like they were the towns that time forgot, furthermore, that everyone else forgot in the process. I've even forgotten the names of most of the places already. Except Tailem Bend.

The nature was still stunning us though, we saw salt flats on the whole stretch of road we were on, we even saw some emus (which are fairly rare to come by according to my sources!) we saw some more kangaroos (alive and dead)...

...and we saw some amazing birds. I was very worried about seeing snakes - not a fan - and was personally quite shocked by dad's audacity when we stopped for a picnic, striding into long grass in a deserted stretch of scrub land to find a picnic table! I found myself trying to assess how far the nearest hospital was and helpless at how far away anything was, let alone a hospital.

Anyway, we finally arrived at Tailem Bend and wow. Were we proved wrong in our denial of how poor this place would be. There was a Foodland (at this point in the trip, Foodland had become a symbol of hope) there was a pizza takeaway, there was a fried chicken takeaway with an obligatory human-sized stuffed chicken (pre-carcass), a butchers with an obligatory human-sized stuffed cow (pre-carcass), and a park with a derelict train in it. That. Was. It. Oh, wait, wait, I'm sorry, there was a motel - our motel - and a highway too. And loads of these white birds which were very pretty but kind of screamed in unison, which was weird.

We went back to our room to check the internet for things to do in Tailem Bend and mum read them out loud to us. 'Theres a hotel... Oh wait, no the hotel is actually just a liquor store...' Silence, then, 'Ooh! Tailem Bend is the most haunted town in South Australia!' Oh God. 'There's even a ghost tour every night from 8.00...' No no no no no no. 'It costs $47! Ok...' So back to square one. Phew.

We started to panic a bit, it was the one place we'd booked without a kitchen and there appeared to be nowhere to go for food. I checked out the takeout places and left within seconds of seeing the hygiene of the staff working there. And by staff, I mean just one lady, she was the only person who worked there and she was just... No.

We'd just started to contemplate the petrol station's sausage rolls for dinner when mum saw a glimmering sign across the highway, in neon lights saying 'menu', half hidden behind a tree, almost like they didn't want anyone to know they were there. We were so, so happy. We ran across the highway and into the pub, with mum warning me and dad to not get too excited before we'd seen what was in there. It was dark and gloomy in the entrance, but down the hall we could see a queue, an actual queue of about 20 people!!! They were queuing to place their order at the bar and we soon learned it was schnitzel night!!! Women were wearing lipstick and pearls and printed dresses and clunky heels and we felt like we were in Back to the Future and it was 1955 again (?): we'd stumbled upon Tailem Bend's 'night out on the tiles'. Honestly, we were so happy.

At the moment I'm reading about Australia's early explorers who went through the outback for days without any food or water, physically and mentally exhausted, they stumbled upon a baby wallaby and ate the whole thing alive and still, to this day (or, well, the day they wrote it) it was the best meal they ever had. Well let's just say, we knew EXACTLY how those explorers felt. And EVEN though I had a poorly tummy afterwards, I will forever be grateful to the 'meal' sign place for giving us something to do, and will remember it fondly.

'Let's move on,' we said first thing in the morning, and to record was mum and dad's only on-time check out (I have no idea how they've never been charged for their lateness, I'm in awe!) we were off to wine land! Mum had done some thorough research after our 7.30pm return to the motel the night before and took us to Hahndorf, a very nice, if not a bit weird, German town in the Adelaide Hills. We went wine tasting, dad and I had cheese with ours and mum had chocolate. The sommelier made us believe we were in heaven with phrases like: 'cleanse you palate with the wine so you can enhance the flavours of the chocolate I have brought you,' and 'here is some of the purest water on earth to rehydrate yourself, it is made from the teardrops of angels and pixies,’ (I may have exaggerated this) then quite darkly 'to place an ice cube into it would CONTAMINATE it.' We bought some wine to take with us and went for some ice cream in the village, mum went shopping, dragging dad along and I lay in the park with a book. It was a very good day. To top it off, we were staying in a real hotel in Adelaide and Andy was re-joining us! (We also had an amazing steak for dinner, happiness, happiness, angels' tears and happiness.)

The next day we set off to explore Adelaide. The Fringe Festival was on so the city was buzzing with people. We bought some tickets to a comedy show that night for mum and dad's birthday presents, then went to the museum for a really excellent tour of the aboriginal exhibition which ended in a giant squid (not related, it just kind of happened...) I went to the gym (had to get my annual visit mentioned somewhere!) and we got all dressed up, went out for dinner and the show. Another lovely evening!

The next day was our final day, very sadly. It was also mum's birthday, so we set off to the wine museum to learn all about how wine is made. To be quite honest, it's a lot to do with chemical reactions and science is not my thing so, to conclude, I much prefer drinking it to the production side of it. And my pride is still damaged from getting a 'fantastically bad' virtual wine score (what ponce says 'fantastically bad' anyway?!)

Andy and I lay about in the botanical gardens, whilst mum and dad went to a national trust place (they have that here!) then we finished the afternoon in a Belgian pub selling off their festival beers before heading to the airport and seeing the Australian cricket team (coincidental, not on purpose, am not sad.)

It's been a good six months or so since my last gripping blog series, so I'll give you a quick brief on what you have missed in between: we both got new jobs meaning we have similar working hours for the first time in our four year relationship (at last! Hurray!); the heat arrived in Sydney and we had a nice Christmas on the beach; we took a trip to the Blue Mountains; we took another trip to Byron Bay with some friends; my family came to stay, then left, then came back (all on purpose not because of family argument/other) and as an extension to that, myself, Mother Mary, Elton John and Andy (on a part-time basis, due to high strung career decisions) are partaking on a road trip from Melbourne to Adelaide, which is from where I am writing this blog whilst swerving kangaroo corpses - mother is driving, not me. 

So Saturday morning arrived, and Andy and I were still recovering from a huge meal we'd consumed the night before. Mum and dad were (unusually) on time in picking us up. It was all very strange. So we didn't get off to the usual slightly-flustered and unsure-if-we-were-all-there feeling that Corbett family holidays repute.

We landed in Melbourne not much longer after. After resisting the urge to emotionally embrace the flight attendants on the way out and thank them for not letting the aeroplane crash and kill us all (still quite scared of flying), we stepped into sunn- er, whoah, whoah, WHOAH. Sorry. Cold Melbourne. How dare it be cold, this is supposed to be Australia. The clouds were looking far too comfortable and low in the sky, reminding me of England with a 'ha ha ha!!! we're not going ANYWHERE!!' attitude. Oh. (Although secretly, it was quite nice to be able to breathe easily again in the fresh air that has been absent in humid Sydney for so long).

We taxied our way to the apartment where I promptly fell asleep, Andy caught up on his sports (how had there been any overnight on a Friday? How?!) and ma and da read up on things to do that day. By the time we got out it was early afternoon and we hadn't really eaten anything since our stale Danish pastries at 7am, so a few of us got progressively grumpy as we ummed and ahhhed our way through the botanical gardens and past the sports stadiums (worst places to look for sources of food unless one fancies killing and/or cooking exotic bird from local pond.) By 4pm we stopped for lunch (!) at a very delicious pizzeria and it was decided that Andy and Dad would go to watch the football ('soccer', they call it. These people are supposed to be children of the Motherland) at the stadium that evening, whilst mum and I would have a girly night - a.k.a. Drink some nice wine and watch old Jimmy Stewart interviews on YouTube. There was a spontaneous fireworks display, ending the evening beautifully and we all went to bed that night, thoroughly exhausted and looking forward to a much needed lie-in (I myself had been up no later than 6am every morning bar one for the previous fortnight, sob, moan, sob.) 

We decided the next day, that we wouldn't behave like tired teenagers as we had the previous day and all walked into town from South Yarra at our own paces. There was a festival going on down by the river and a hilarious 'Birdman' competition where candidates rocked up with their homemade wings and attempted to fly. Thankfully it was over the river so they didn't go splat - my favourite was the chicken suited lady who just plopped straight down and tried to flap her arms in an audacious attempt. Only in 'Straya.

On that note, up until 'Birdman' anyway, we had been observing how Melbourners behaved and looked in comparison to Sydneysiders. Much of Sydney is filled with very, very buff people, many steroid pumping meatheads in wife beaters who could fe-fi-fo themselves to the bar ahead of a crowd of a hundred, then guzzle 20 beers and drive home; the women - even the new mothers - not an ounce of fat on their bods, wearing Lycra at all times in case of a sudden desire to work out. Melbourne was different: it had some signs banning jogging in certain areas (?!), people looked like us; not fat, but kind of.... Normal? People sipped wine and guzzled coffee (guzzled, because Melbourne coffee is apparently always, always luke-warm) and they would be seen walking, walking because there is so much art and culture dotted about the city to see, if you ran you'd miss it (maybe that's why they had a jogging ban?) I'm not saying I prefer one city to the other, but Andy and I especially, were sad to only be there for two days and I definitely didn't worry about the way I looked once whilst I was there, or feel paranoid about not wearing Lycra on a day-to-day basis (big thumbs up!)

Mum and dad stayed around the ever-growing-claustrophobic festival whilst Andy and I went to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, where we discovered old 1980s computer games such as Lemmings, Tetris and Soccer Something-Something (guess who played that one?) played them, looked at our watches, realised we only had 20 minutes left before meeting mum and dad, panicked, then ran round the museum - Andy, my hero, scanning the building to find the Muriel's Wedding and Neighbours exhibitions for me. We then went for brunch down one of the crowded Victorian laneways as it looked like 'the thing to do in Melbourne' but after seeing unspeakable things in their bathrooms, I ushered my parents out of there ASAP, not wanting them to develop psychological issues only a year into their retirements.

We followed a city walking route in my lonely planet book as we'd experienced the trams the day before, and wound up at Captain Cook's parents’ house - a building that had been shipped from Great Ayton in Yaaaarkshre. where my grandparents and auntie and uncle had always lived close to, and where many years have been spent by our family paddling, eating ice creams and staring longingly at the missing gap where Captain Cook's parents' house once stood, a place that historians doubt James Cook ever actually visited himself. But still, anything older than 100 years in Australia is really, really, really old.... Though this was re-erected in the 1930s, it still sort of counts. Dad and I HAD to go in, Andy made his excuses and left for the airport - three hours early - and mum wrote some postcards with a cup of earl grey in a nearby cafe.

There were only two or three rooms, but it was the dressing up box that drew dad in. One of the volunteers, who was also dressed in 18th century clothing, ran over as dad excitedly flung a wig on his not-so-hairy head - it was just like the 70s again! She said in all her years working there, she had never seen someone with so much enthusiasm to explore the dressing up box. Anyway one thing led to another and we both ended up wearing ridiculous clothes with the odd Japanese tourist curiously taking photos as they passed by.

We then meandered our way down to a pub to meet mum and dad's old college friends, who also happened to be in Melbourne at the same time as us. The pub was British themed, and it was actually one of the most exciting places I've been in a while. I've always been a bit sniffy about that sort of thing, going to Irish pubs in Thailand, British pubs in Australia, Italian restaurants in Korea etc. - but this really, really made me yearn for home. There were things like shepherds pie and 'ploughmans' with Branston Pickle! I mean, at home, I could take or leave Branston pickle!,* and I've not eaten a pork pie in over 15 years, but I found myself ordering it all, in an over-excited-squeaky voice. There was even the smell of stale or cigarettes and alcohol, with an obligatory soggy just-used fag floating about in the bog (even though their were plentiful designated smoking areas around the pub, I appreciated the effort.) People even said 'sorry, sorry!' and avoided eye contact when you NEARLY brushed past them on the stairs. Ahhh, home! After a lovely evening, listening to Ged's hilarious stories of him and dad travelling round Europe as teenagers and all of us watching MORE fireworks, we walked back to our apartment, only once falling over (me, down random hole in the lawn) and mum became convinced my grazed toe would become instantly infected and I would die a horrible death. You'll be surprised to hear that I was ok and I'm still alive and well. Sometimes these professional worriers are wrong, always seek a second opinion.

The next day, we were setting off for the Great Ocean Road and after picking up our car hire, we got to know our Sat-Nav who we named 'Sheila'. She was not a welcome presence really, interrupting us mid-conversation to say irrelevant things, causing huge disputes between mum and dad on directions and trying to take us on ugly roads instead of pretty ones. Often, dad would just turn her off to the stealthy silence of a near-broken family. We popped by to see mum and dad's goddaughter who lives just outside Melbourne for 'a few minutes' (this is Corbett lingo for 'an hour and a half') and eventually, defying Sheila the whole way, found ourselves driving round the beautiful bends of the Great Ocean Road. Wow. Just wow.

We stopped for some fish and chips and more 'Melbourne style' (cold) coffee and carried on round the bends. A friend had recommended going to Kennett River to see koala bears and we weren't disappointed! There were some lovely parrots and other beautifully coloured birds which we shoed out of the way of our view of the gorgeous cuddled up koala bears that were snuggling in the trees - bar one that was obviously the secret love child of a koala and a monkey, swinging about from branch to branch. Think he'd eaten too many smarties.

We drove on a bit further to our final stop for the night, Apollo Bay, where we had an apartment and balcony overlooking the ocean, ahhhh. The air was fresh, the heating was on and they had electric blankets - it really has been a long time since I felt that cozy!

The next morning was dad's birthday and we had breakfast on the balcony before setting off for the day. We went and did a little rainforest walk (just 20 minutes long) which was really beautiful and not scary at all!

Another recommendation from a friend took us to the Otway Lighthouse and we saw more koalas on our way back from the viewpoint. We did make a point that any car could just stop in the middle of the bush, the people could get out, point and get their cameras out and other cars would do the same, not knowing what they were stopping and looking for. But anyway, there were things to see and we got a few more photos whilst we were there. On we travelled to the twelve apostles....

I might just point out here that there were hours of driving in between each place. Luckily for us, the changing landscapes and wildlife were enough of a novelty to make the time pass, but you can imagine how boring and long and arduous it would be if you didn't care for such things - and if you were travelling alone. Soon enough we were at the big landmark that was the foundation of our road trip. Everywhere, there were signs warning us about snakes. I know that wherever you are in Australia, especially when the sun is out, there is something that probably will have a nibble of you if you get in its way, but I suppose because this was a major tourist attraction, they felt the need to warn people on a ridiculous level. Nevertheless, we chose a bench surrounded by scrub land for our picnic, before making our way down the the twelve apostles. Of which there were actually four. Or five maybe. I don't know, the ones that were there were very striking and we didn't really care about the number of them.

As we walked down towards the headland, we saw about two dozen black fins sticking out of the water. I thought they were sharks to be honest, but a man looked through his camera lens and informed us they were dolphins! Such great timing and all on dad's birthday too! Yay.

On the last stretch of our drive to Portland mum kept saying, 'we HAVE to see a kangaroo now! We HAVE to!' And finally, we did. And it was huge. And not dead. Bonus.

We finished the day having a nice meal down by the water and going back to our very, very unique hotel which was 150 years old. Positively ancient. More to follow in part 2... Next week.

As mentioned towards the end of my last blog, we (or, I) were taken by surprise at what the activities we would be doing would actually be. Croot asked if I wanted to go for 'a quick pedal in the morning.' This, to me (and I'm sure many of you) inspires an image similar to the von-Trapp children cycling around with Julie Andrews, wearing cut up curtains and singing do-re-mi. In reality, it left me looking like this...

We met at 10am the next morning outside the bike hire shop, which is where I started to get suspicious. There was a lot of focus on tires and safety helmets and cycling gloves (did not even know they were an actual accessory) and a concerned awareness that I should be in 'the easier group'. Then Croot started to get a bit anxious that I wouldn't be able to work gears and freewheel (pardon-what-wheel-now?) but I assured her I knew what both of the latter were and why was she getting so worried? No reason. So then I got worried. But I have half a bachelors degree in drama so I think I hid my fear and lies quite well. Until the briefing about the bears anyway...

What do you do when ('when'? Not, 'if'? WHEN?!) you see a bear? Croot said you make yourself as tall as possible and wave your arms about ferociously and say 'raaarrrrr! I'm a bear!' Croot's fiancé, Sam, said 'I'll go in front, just let the bear cross the path, don't cycle towards it, and it will walk off.' I was definitely going in Sam's group, no way was I humiliating myself in front of potential bear. So off we went, cycling uphill, then uphill some more. Then some more. And some more after that. We did a few minutes uphill without stopping and when we finally did, had the biggest adrenaline rush. It felt great. We went uphill a bit more, then some more and I started to flag and maybe some of the others in our group did, but they are boys and much better at getting on with it/pretending they're fit and ready. By the third run uphill, I couldn't do it so had to get off my bike halfway through and do the walk of shame past a group of 7-11 year olds, one of whom whispered to her friend as I dragged myself past 'see, at least we're not like her.' I thought my legs and lungs were in great pain, but those words really, really hurt. Sam started to talk about getting an ice cold beer towards the end and that most of the rest would be downhill so I perked up a bit then and really enjoyed the freewheeling (all this means is not pedalling and taking your bum off the seat), much much more than the uphill bit!

We stopped finally for the beer and the world's biggest trays of nachos and then a few of us cycled to the lake to meet some of the wedding party.

After the intense workout that morning, topped off with the beer and greasy food, plus the heat, the last cycle was a struggle, but I soon perked up/screamed in horror when we saw a snake - which to me looked like it was chasing Croot and trying to bite her, but in reality was probably so scared it was trying to get away! I died a small death when we finally got to the lake and decided to spend the evening in our apartment waiting for our friend Aman to arrive. After a lovely evening of catching up with the little one (Aman), we all met to go for a walk at Top of the World, a ski slope in winter which also doubles up as an extreme biking track in summer (this would be Wednesday's activity and after being slightly tempted to join this following my Wiggo -esque performance on Monday, decided against it after seeing the steep cliff edges.) We got the ski lifts up to the top and then walked down to the Peak-to-Peak gondolas, posing for photos in the snowy patches/against beautiful glacial backdrops along the way.

I'm glad I wasn't told the gondolas went at such height over the valley, but it was beautiful and Croot's family even saw a bear on the way back (finally! Yeahhhhh!) A few of us went out for dinner that evening to finish off another great day of beauty and weight loss. Thoroughly relieved not to be joining the boys in the bike park, Aman and I went for a gentle stroll (normal 'gentle stroll', not a Croot-in-Whistler version) around Lost Lake... Where we actually got lost. We didn't see any bears, but loads of bear droppings (yum) and some scratches on trees so were quite aware they were about. We went for lunch with one of Sam's brothers and spent the afternoon reading by the pool. That evening we had a barbecue in our apartment where everyone came round (including Sam's broken-armed brother David after a nasty fall in the bike park) and Sam was surprised by one of his school friends turning up in Canada for his wedding! Thursday was white water rafting day and I'm not going to lie, I (and a few others) were scared. More so by the dodgy bus that picked us up, but also a fear of the unexpected. It was actually the best thing I've done one the whole trip so far (including Asia!) and everyone who was initially scared loved it even more by the end. I didn't jump off the cliff ledge into the river (which was actually a thawed glacier, brrrr) but we did all get in the water and float through the rapids at one point which was hilarious, especially when being man-handled like a doll when being pulled back into the boat! The scenery was stunning too, we were out in the wilderness so there was nothing around but untouched mountains, glaciers, waterfalls and silence. We had a boss lunch at the end of it, all of us wanting to go on for longer.

There was a casual explosion on the bus on the way back (tire bursting and blowing a hole in the floor) but nobody died so it was all ok. The last of the university friends, Conrad, arrived on the Thursday night so we had a quick drink with him before heading back to the flat and tipsily helping the best man make the playlist for the wedding reception (I can admit this now, being on the other side of the world and one month later). Friday was spent having a wedding rehearsal brunch (I think we really should introduce these to the UK...) and helping set up the venue, with one more barbecue by the lake before the ceremony the next day.

Number of trains ridden: 3, Number of miles walked: 2567 (accurate and good), Number of calories consumed per day: 47282 (bad), Number of calories burned by real miles walked + imaginary miles walked: 3 (poor), Number of minutes Andy was not part of conversation due to distraction of friends' cats: 53627193782618304726 (v.v.poor), Number of Americans with a 'bad-ass' 'tude: 2 (boss) We last left you on our train ride to Santa Barbara - although it was a very short journey, the scenery was spectacular and we arrived at SB around midday.

We grabbed some lunch from a nice little restaurant by the sea and set off with our huge backpacks to find our hotel. We'd been spontaneously taking taxis a little bit too much on the trip already, which was really starting to drain our funds, so we had agreed (reluctantly) that we would start to use public transport - we had travelled thousands of miles in Asia doing so, we really had no excuse here. The lady at the information centre was horrified that we didn't have a car and that we were happy to walk the two miles uphill to the bus station, so fearfully pointed us in the right direction in the manner of a mother sending her only two children to war. Apart from one gent who loudly laughed at us and shouted across the street 'huh-huh! You guys look like you're dressin' up for halloweeeeeen or sumthin', huh-huh!' it was fine and we got to see a bit of the town centre, which seemed pretty proud of its Hispanic architecture and little restaurants and bars. After finally checking in, we set off to explore, wishing we had more than just one evening and half a morning here. It was very pretty and apparently had some lovely walks but (as it was starting to get dark) we decided to spend our time in a lovely little restaurant, and then having a few drinks - besides it would be the only chance to take it easy, in between busy LA and an impending San Francisco sight-seeing frenzy! The next day - after a diner-themed breakfast put on by the hotel, bit weird - we made our way back to the Amtrak station. It was, of course, late again and we started to worry a bit about it making the connection with our bus that would take us to the place we were meeting our friends in San Fran that evening. Our phones don't work in the US, so we're back to 20th century tactics of meeting up with people. You name a time and a place to meet your friend; if that person does not turn up, you really have no way of contacting them. The end. We managed to enjoy the beautiful scenery, which was now mountains and vineyards and was getting greener and greener the further North we travelled, as a setting Californian sun augmented all of the loveliness of the landscape...

...whilst trying to ignore the hilarious cafe cart lady, repeatedly whispering 'ice cold beer' into the intercom as some sort of seduction/indoctrination tactic, and the train spontaneously stopping for 'cigarette breaks' every other hour - making our ETA ever later than expected. Due to the latter, we got to Oakland (near San Fran) about 40 minutes late, to discover our bus had gone without us. Obviously there were a lot of other people in the same situation, so headed by a brilliant woman with a backside the size of her attitude (and who, if you closed your eyes, had exactly the same voice as the rapper Jay-Z) she bartered us onto a different bus. Unfortunately, once on the bus, she continued to loudly speak out about her hatred of Amtrak. Consequently, a big row broke out between her and a man who loved Amtrak, and busses, and this bus in particular, and actually this bus driver in particular, who was, by the way, the best bus driver he had EVER encountered in all his 50 years of bus riding and bus driving analysis and critique. To make things worse (for us anyway), because it was dark and we were sitting near to where she was, I think he thought it was me who was the big-bottomed-loud-Amtrak-hating woman as all of his comebacks were shouted at me ('Young Lady!', the true culprit was at least 70 years old and sitting three foot away from direction in which he was looking. That direction being at me.) Andy and I just sat there in silence and prayed for us to get to the stop we needed without World War III breaking out, which we thankfully did. We were staying with my friend Caitlin and her boyfriend Dan, so they met us (I prefer the term 'rescued') and we got a taxi back to their flat, safe and sound! The next day, Caitlin (who I have hailed as San Franciso's Best Tour Guide 2014) took us to Golden Gate Park and to some Japanese Tea Gardens, which made us feel like we were back in Asia again!

In the evening we managed to get tickets to a late night museum evening, where no children are allowed and they serve cocktails in every exhibition. It was brilliant. We went to an indoor rainforest, a huge aquarium and the biggest digital planetarium in the world! We finished the evening off with dinner in a Sushi restaurant.

The next day we went down to the Golden Gate Bridge and looked at the little outdoor exhibit nearby, which showed you how it was built to withstand all the earthquakes San Fran got/get. (There were also some Jehovah's Witnesses standing nearby, with a campaign to the public to see what a lovely life we had and to not jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, as probably planned. Apparently it's quite a problem here...) We then got a ferry to a town called Tiberon, and although we hadn't managed to get tickets to the infamous Alcatraz (trying to book four weeks in advance is not enough in the summer, sadly), we got a very good view of it on our journey.

We stopped for lunch by the sea for some Mexican food and cocktails and suitably stuffed ourselves into a waddling state (again), pottered about the little shops and headed back to the other side of the pier where we walked all along the North-East corner of the bay, to Pier 39 where there were loads of sea lions suitably ponging the place out.

I got a 'Blue Bottle' coffee which is apparently very famous in San Fran and we picked up some bits from the market for our dinner that evening. We then headed back for a night in of food, wine and a hilarious card game where I think we burned off a load of calories just by laughing paralytically. Saturday was spent with more lovely walking (it's definitely my favourite thing to do!) and we went to the Mission and took loads of pictures of the graffiti art and the gorgeous quirky houses.

We then went to Haight Street and had a beer and a little look around a few of the hippy shops, then made our way to Dan's work for some dinner and drinks. Our final day was spent meeting another old friend from uni for brunch and then heading to the beach with Caitlin for a little walk around to the mouth of the bay to look at the Golden Gate Bridge from a different perspective.

We then nipped back to the flat to grab our bags and had a gorgeous dinner in Little Italy whilst finally getting to try some wine from Napa Valley. Very sad to leave San Francisco, Caitlin then dropped us off at our bus stop (all on time and all low key, small bummed passengers) to take us to our Amtrak night train. There was so much leg room and the seat reclined with foot rests, that we both slept straight through the night. We're still on the train with two hours left of our 17 hour journey and again, the scenery is stunning. We're now travelling though lots of mountainous, pine sprawled landscapes and just had breakfast in the carriage with a glass roof.