photos...

Mount Doom and Modor

The Kauri Tree (this one is 2000 years old)

New Zealand

What a picture

Auckland

Magnetic Island (Australia)

Bill the legend

Glassford Creek Farmstay. (Yes that is what you think on our gloves)

Poppy the Roo

Some farm gal

Doing my bit for Exist

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Fraser Island, Oz

just a quickie...

...running out of web time.

highlights of NZ so far have been:

drinking loads of NZ wine and visiting friendly wineries
swimming and singing with dolphins
cooking and eating juicy NZ lamb
visiting an active thermal volcano park
chilling out in a thermal spa
hunting for massive Kauri trees in the Kauri forest
driving through NZ's breathtaking scenery

p.s. our camera lead is on it's way. left it in Brisbane. Photos soon, we promise.

Sorry, no photos. We've lost our camera lead.

Gutted.

In NZ now and we're loving it although we're tired today. Auckland is a cool place and people seem very helpful. We've got some wheels now and it feels good to be cruising around. It's going to prove conveniant in NZ as theres so much to see. Yesterday we climbed a mountain (ok, a small hill) drank some NZ merlot and bezzed around some shops and generally found our bearings here in Auckland. It's such a pretty place surrounded by water. (even more today as its raining) We went to the museum today to learn all about Maori culture and history. It was cool and interesting but there were bus loads of schools kids everywhere running riot.

Tomorrow we begin our road trip (Easyrider style) travelling North (after the Liverpool game which is on breakfast time here) for a scenic drive and towards a load of vineyards. Can't wait.

We've also booked tickets for a great Kiwi dub/jazz/soul band called Fat Freddy's Drop in Auckland on June 1st so we've got to come back here for that. have a listen to them at www.myspace.com/fatfreddysdropnz

Rachel Brown - where are you?

Oz adventures

Only one night to go in Australia! Its been a busy few weeks till we last wrote and we've been struggling with our blog as it seems to be all in chinese. We are currently in Cairns. Since last writing we have been in the whitsunday islands on a boat trip. It was a fun trip in general, the highlights being, seeing a turtle while snorkeling and playing golf! but some people only saw it as a excuse to get drunk which provided entertainment for all. A guy on our trip got stung by a jellyfish and had to be rushed to hospital as he had symptoms of a potentially fatal sting, so that shook us all up a bit. We have also been to Fraser island on a camping trip, which was also very beautiful, with lots of freshwater lakes and dingos, and perhaps the highlight of Oz so far which was 2 nights on an outback farm. it was a beautiful experience, we rode horses, mustered cattle, milked cows, ate fanastic food cooked on an open fire and generally had a great time, we also tested cows for pregnancy! i wont go into details in case some of you are eating, but theres photos to prove it!!! (will post soon) We also visited Magentic Island which was extremely beautiful and we also took 2 scuba dives and did some snorkelling on The Great Barrier Reef which was awesome. We were a bit nervous at first as we were feeling rusty but it was fine. We saw loads of pretty fish, coral, sharks and another turtle. After that we went to Mission Beach which was a lovely quiet place where we celebrated Jareds birthday with a day chilling on the beach and a slap up meal in a fancy restaurant!

So now onto a new country, we are hiring a car in New Zealand so there will be no waiting for buses and we are very excited!

p.s. need to post some photos soon

Brisbane and Australia Zoo

An echidna

Two little cuties.

Flamin eck, that Shiela's stealing that yute!

Croikey!

A croc.

Dr Doolittle talks to the elephants.

A Wombat

The posing otters.

A kookabura.

Brissie.

We've had a lovely few days chilling at George & Elaine's (Rachel's uncle and aunty) home in Brisbane. We've really appreciated living in a home again and enjoyed comforts that backpackers rarely get all to themselves like a fridge, a sofa, a telly, internet, a private room, coffee, pool, bathroom. It's been great! Thank you George and Elaine.

Brisbane seems like a great city. We love the feel of the place and were particularly impressed with the city centre. Modern, stylish, clean, good shops, friendly and we love what they've done to their boring grey boxes. Every ugly electricity box has been decorated individually by local artists to make them look funky. A great idea. While being here, we' ve been to 'Wet & Wild' waterpark, Australia Zoo (the home of the late Steve Irwin and family) and a cool cafe that we were told was a must called 'The 3 Monkeys'.

The Zoo was awesome. All the animals were mostly native, looked happy and they had so much space. For a zoo, it looked like a great place to stay if you have to be kept in captivity. Apparently Steve's ethos on this was all about giving the animals the best they could and it seemed to be the case. I even saw a spooky Steve Irwin lookalike walking around clad in khaki shorts and shirt. (not the one in the photo) There were so many cute animals! Rachel was chuffed she touched a koala and a kangaroo. My favourite animals (apart from the koalas and kangaroos) were the otters. They seemed to love posing for photos!

Congrats to Liverpool on going further than Chelsea and Man U and reaching the final of the Champions League!