Next stop

A few random pics from the start of our trip.

Fresh from the flight

Poisonous spider!!!!!

At the beach ...

30th

So unfortunately Lel had been held back at work on his 60th birthday! But as they say, the show must go on, and so we drove to Buchan to go and take a look around the caves. We also had a lovely picnic in the park there once we escaped the caves.

We then drove down to Lake centrum for the rest of the afternoon.

Jess put one of her new dresses from me   On as soon as she opened it! Fashionista! Also opening grans Christmas card.

Ready for our secret Santa all together.

On New Year's Eve after a late night myself, Sarah Luke and Debbie took off to the mountains and headed for a two hour horse trek up the mountains by noble steed! And I literally mean up the mountains! It was actually really scary to start off! When we first arrived we got geared up in our attire, helmet chaps and boots. After struggling to find the large helmet for my big head, we were ready to hop on our four legged companions. My horse was called Jet (great start I hear you say!) and I was told, "jet likes water," a fact I later learned was not quite emphasised enough, and I think jet was determined to share his love for water with me! 

There were 8 horses in the procession, sarah in front, followed by Debbie, Luke and myself, with two youg girls behind me, a leaders at the front and one at the back. After just about settling into the ride thirty minutes in and I don't know how high up the bushland mountain terrain, we came to a creek which was about 3.5foot deep. One by one the horses started to follow each other through the stream and across to the thee side of the grassy hill. One by one, until Luke's horse decided to try and go a bit deeper and strt to swim through the stream! Luckily he managed to control the horse and make it out. Jet saw this as his time to shine too, and demonstrated his love of the water as he stood still in the deep water, and kicked his front feet alternately splashing eter all let the two of us!!! And no matter how hard I kicked and yanked at the rains and shouted his name jet would not budge! Thanks to the young girl behind who was an experienced rider, she gave jet a smack on the bum and rescued me as he soon trotted out of the water very happy with himself, me absolutely saturated from head to toe! Luckily the sun was shining and we continued and enjoyed the remaining hour and a half of our trek! 

Sarah hopping on her horse! 

About the only pic I managed to take since I was clinging on for dear life most of the way! 

New Year's Eve itself was very quiet and we watched the fireworks sat in on the TV! 

............................................................

2015

The next day we headed off to the snowy mountains which turned out to be one of the best days of the trip! It was amazing and the scenery was fantastic! 

We stopped off for a break during our long drive and happened to see a couple of wild koalas perched in the trees! 

Pictures from the peak point of our drive up the snowy mountains! 

We then drove across a famous old rickety bridge called mckillops bridge which crossed over the snowy river. We took some photos there for a while until we were all so scorching hot and hungry that we found a shady spot and had a picnic. This day was so hot and was just before the big busy fires that occurred across Victoria and Adelaide so understandably we were all more than keen to take a dip in the snowy river to cool off! 

The snowy river ^ v

Can't miss a good photo opportunity!

Christmas Day Down under

It was definitely very strange being away from home for Christmas! We had a lovely dinner and I was so happy to receive some gorgeous presents from home too, but I definitely missed the usual crazy antics back in Huyton! Here are some pics from the sunshiney day! 

Playing my favourite game, ladderball

^ This was definitely my highlight seeing this! 

Adelaide-Bendigo

Monday 22nd

I flew early on Monday morning. Sophie came to the airport with me and waited for her parents to arrive around the same time as I set off.

I landed in Adelaide at around 8.30am and spent the day with Gina preparing to set off on our drive the next day. I also got to see my little friend jess again!!!

Tuesday 23rd

We hit the road early at 6.30am as we drove from Adelaide to bendigo in Victoria, about an hour from Melbourne, where we were heading to spend Christmas with Sarah and her boyfriend Luke's family.

Wednesday 24th

Me holding a stick insect! The face says it all!

Christmas Eve selfie stick snap

New Christmas Eve pyjamas sent from home! 

The tale of the Sad Selfie Stick

Once upon a time there was a girl called nicola who was living in coogee. She worked in Sydney and saved all of her money so that she could go and travel. The time had come for her to take a trip to visit her family in Australia for Christmas! 

So after packing her suitcase for hours (a terrible task) everything she owned was safely packed in her bedroom ready for her trip the next day. 

Until... Suddenly, an almighty huge gust of wind came and somehow blew her bedroom door shut AND MIRACULOUSLY managed to slam the bolt shut on the door! Don't ask how!!!!!! Nicola didn't know either! 

So there she was, stuck on the other side of the door, practically stranded in Australia on the other side of the world without a single thing to her name, her suitcase is locked deep inside the bolted bedroom!!!! 

Meanwhile, over the past seven weeks her housemate Jonny had a selfie stick, which was far too big to actually use as a selfie stick. None of the housemates knew what to do with such a thing and so they banished it to the corner of the living room without any sense of purpose!

Poor nicola didn't know what to do! She was all forlorn! 

When out of the blue, her housemates Sean and Jonny soon realised, IT WAS FATE THAT HE HAD THE WRONG SELFIE STICK THE WHOLE TIME! 

The selfie stick finally found it's purpose, I got back into my room with all my belongings and travelled happily on to Gina's.

THE END.

The selfie stick

Sean and Jonny in action 

Success!!! 

Sunday 21 December 2014

Last weekend of 2014 in coogee

Coogee Christmas weekend 

Saturday 20th- Sunday 21st

Such a great final weekend of the year in coogee before my Christmas trip! 

Saturday was spent celebrating our neighbour Sophie's birthday (left) consisting of a night out with all our other housemates at bondi junction! Great fun! 

On the Sunday we opened our secret Santa presents for each other before going down the road to the beach to watch the coogee carol concert which we sang along to for two hours before a phenomenal firework display off the cliff top by the beach! Amazing! 

Randwick races

Saturday 13th December

So as this was possibly our last free weekend all together before Christmas as  our little apartment group, we decided to make the most of it and test out a day at randwick races! 

It was a great day, and we seemed to encourage the good weather to come back after almost two weeks of rain and storms! We headed there at around 12.30pm, spent a few hours enjoying being there. It was not overly busy and it was fun having a flutter on a few horses- unfortunately no huge wins that day but fun nonetheless and no real damage was done! 

We then headed into the city to darling harbour where we had a lovely meal in one of the restaurants before spending the rest of our evening walking around a few different bars- all very busy running up Christmas time of course! At 9pm they also had a fantastic firework display which went for about ten minutes, set off from a docking station in the middle of the water and it was a lovely atmosphere! 

Such a lovely day out together as our Christmas treat! 

Soph & me

Tioga takes Sydney

Saturday 6th December 

1 scouse girl + 1/2 a scouse guy + 1 Aussie girl + two kiwis X Sydney and a visit to my house = one very fun reunion!!!!!