Waitomo Caves, Rotorua, Wellington and Picton

I  hope you enjoyed the last blog. It's somewhat of a different style, combining sentence and short form together, but hopefully it gives you a taste for what we have been up to! Again, my apologies for spelling and grammatical errors. It's tricky to self edit on the iPad so this'll have to do!

Our next stop was Waitomo Caves (more specifically a company called Blackwater Rafting) where we repelled 27 metres into a cave and we were able to float down the pitch black water on inner tubes! We had little head lamps on our helmets buT at this point turned them off so that we could see the millions of little glow worms...the coolest thing! The whole adventure was 5 hrs (including driving to the caves and suiting up in full on wet suit gear) so towards the end we were getting a little chilly. Our guide Amy handed out cups of hot juice (surprisingly delicious) and three pieces of chocolate to give us a bit of energy to get out of the cave. The only way out was to climb what we had just repelled down. Jordan of course was up in a jiffy while I took just a wee bit longer, but still made it up in under 5 minutes. The caves were well worth the money we spent and we would definitely recommended it to everyone! We were one of two other couples that did this little adventure. One of the couples, who was on their honeymoon from Ireland, were on a six week adventure stopping in  Fiji, Australia, NZ, LA, and Dallas...all in six weeks!! It was unbelievable...they had flown into NZ for only four days and were planning on seeing the North and the South Islands...not entirely sure how they were planning on doing that as Jordan and I are finding that one month is not nearly enough time to be ale to spend in NZ.  (I think if it weren't for family and friends back at home....I can see my mom tearing as I'm writing this...we would probably live here for a while since we love it so much! But don't worry Ma, we are coming home...eventually!). 

After Waitomo Caves, we drove two hours south to Rotorua (Roto meaning lake in the native Maori language and rua meaning two). Going a little off topic here, the majority of town names and lakes all have Maori names which is very similar, I found, to Hawaii and how their towns are all named in the Native Hawaiian language...too cool!  Anyways, Rotorua is the adventure spot on the North Island and has all sorts of activities including Zorbing (which was first invented in NZ) and luging. Rotorua also has a whack of thermal activity where you can actually see mud bubbling in the middle of the city!  They have thermal pools all over the town which absolutely wreak of sulphur...so much so that we kept on driving when we pulled into one of the places you could have a thermal bath! Isaac and Mia, who I will be referring to a lot in these blogs re NZ , recommended use to do the luge in Rotoruaa. Essentially you are on a little toboggan with bicycle handle bars and you zoom down a windy ski hill...let me tell you, we had an absolute blast!!! I've never had so much fun on a little toboggan than on this luge track....we were definitely going the fastest out of anyone on the track and we would race each other down the hill! Jordan won twice (because I let him..didn't want to damage his self esteem) I won once. Apparently there is another luge track on the South Island, so we are hoping to hit that up before we leave...so much fun!!

We also had Wendy's for the first time in a year!!!! NZ has so many things from home that Australia doesn't have so we are feeling a but closer to home (even though we are further than ever!). Here's a list of things that NZ has that Australia didn't for home:

Queen Anne's lace

Wendy's

Burger King

Fruit loops/Cheerios

Dodge and Ford trucks

Nature valley bars

Bagels 

Starbucks (had a gingerbread latte yesterday....yum!)

Trivial to everyone at home but having these things around us make us feel a little bit closer to home, which during the holiday season is nice! Haha

Anywho, after Rotorua we drove on to Taupo were we ended up finding this incredibly hot thermal river where we bathed in...well sort of. It was so hot that you could only stay in for a couple of minutes but nevertheless, it was really cool to be swimming in a hot river! We spent the night at a free campground called Reid's something rather and ended up driving straight to Wellington (the southern tip of the north island). While driving into the city we spotted a caravan park (of sorts) in the middle of the downtown...right on the water!! We ended up staying there that night and enjoyed a (much needed) hot shower. I ended up falling asleep at 7:45 for the night! I think it might by endless days of fresh air but I never have a problem falling asleep! The next day we wandered around Welli enjoying the free Te PaPa museum and their free Internet! We were able to catch up on all that we had missed and even write a few emails to back home! (It's crazy how so much happens in such a short amount of time...but at that same time, it's nice to be completely disconnected from the digital world!). 

After the museum we wandered the Sunday markets and even checked out the Hobbit exhibition they had going on. As some of you know I'm sure, I loveee The Lord of the Rings trilogy (yes, a little bit of a geek in me) and the prequel to these movies, The Hobbit, was made in NZ recently. Anyways, they were  hosting the world premier of the movie only a couple of days after we left Wellington (sad face) but on this day, they were showing how they did the make up of the Orcs (scary creatures in the movie)...Dad, I'm sure you'll appreciate this! The whole make up process takes three hours for each person (sometimes they had over 300 to do in one day!) and at least an hour or two to take the make up off. We watched this process for a bit while one of actors answered questions about the movie and about Peter Jackson (the director) who he referred to as PJ. It was so interesting! (Jordan was a good sport about this as he is not nearly the fanatic that I am!). 

That night at 8 we caught the three hour ferry to the South Island that dropped us off in Picton. We slept in a parking lot that night...surprisingly there were no "no camping" signs, so we took full advantage...even cooked our breaky there in the am!). Random sidetracking here but this town had the craziestttt toilets! Everything was electronic to the sliding door, the lock and unlock, the toilet paper, the soap dispenser, the water (which when turned on would flush the toilet) and the hand dryer. Oh, and did I mention that jazz music was turned on once you entered and you were thanked by the toilet gods when you exited for using "Ezeeloo"?....like I said, crazy! Jordan was in love. 

We then carried on to the Marlborough Sounds, reached by a beautiful road with some fantastic views of the islands. We found a beautiful little private beach were we went for dip in the freezing ocean! After, we drove west to a town called Nelson where we enjoyed free internet from Makkas (McDonalds). We were able to FaceTime my family for a little bit but then I think the employees switched off the Internet bc we were using up their bandwidth...or it could have been because we didn't buy anything... But hey, it's expensive here! Like I was telling my family, a Big Mac meal here is $12.80!)

Thanks to Mia and Isaac, again, we had NZ's best fish and chips (they were delicious) and found a beautiful campsite by the river where they stayed on and off for three months! One spot in the river is even deep enough to dive I ( I'd say at least 8-10 ft deep), so we busted out the shampoo and had a much needed river bath! We loved this campsite so much we decided to stay two nights. The days were filled with jumping in the river and reading our books on the cushions from our van...hippies to the max, but it was by far the most relaxing day we've had yet!  Now that we are on the South Island and we've got three weeks, we are taking it a bit slower and soaking it all up!

Well, that's it for now..hope you enjoyed!

North Island, New Zealand

Ok, we are back! Now that we have started travelling again, I'd like to keep on top of the blog as much as possible. The following post is an accumulation of the past week. Since our Internet access is few and far between, they won't be regular and unfortunately until I can figure out how to upload photos, there won't be any photos either. However, this gives you a bit of a taste of what we are doing! Enjoy! (Ps. Please ignore and spelling/grammar mistakes as I am writing this on the iPad).

We got up at 5:40am after only 3 hours of sleep after my Gde ball...amazing!

We said goodbye to 41-43 Bourne st and took a quick last look around, it was somewhat sad to leave the gong....we loved it there!

We then headed to the train station for 6:18 but then realized that it didn't actually come until 6:45! Damn, could have got a few more minutes of sleep. Jordan slept on the train ride there (2 hrs) and then we dropped off our one jammed suitcase at the storage lockup where a friend of ours, Ashley, would pick it up on the Monday and bring it back to Canada with  her...we owe you ash!!

Waited at the airport for 3 hours..my need to be early had evidently rubbed off on Jordan who planned this leg. We then flew to Auckland with Air New Zealand...highly recommended! The safety video was all LOTR and we both actually watched the entire thing...so cool and very smart!

When we landed in Auckland it was freezing and raining. Since we landed after the campervan rental placed closed (such a pain) we had to pay $32 bucks to get into Auckland, $22/each to stay in a hostel and another $30+ bucks to get back to the airport area to pick up our home for the next 29 days. After picking up the van, we drove around getting breaks and groceries/supplies for the next week or so. We then drove up north to the town of Puhia, in the Bay of Islands district, where we spent the night at a campground for $20. When we first arrived in Puhia we immediately went to book an overnight boat trip on "The Rock"- which came highly recommended by our good friends from home Isaac and Mia who lived in NZ for a year or so. After looking our trip we went back to our campsite had some din (chewiest steak we've ever had) and headed over to the local pub called Shippey's-an actual ship...very cool! 

Turned in for an early night...still exhausted from the Gde ball I think...we partied hard!

Well, woke up this am on a boat called The Rock. Surprisingly I slept like a baby and was not motion sick at all..yay! The night prior we jetted off on this overnight tour boat and got to fish off the back and ended up having a late dinner with the crew and fellow passengers. We also went night kayaking and saw the phosphorescence in the water (algae that glow when you touch the water...think Disney water! Very cool!) However, I was freezing this entire time and despite the on board fired, I couldn't shake the cold feeling. The next am we woke up and had NZ traditional porridge (same as home) and went snorkelling for some sea urchins. I, however, already feeling a bit under the weather, decided not to venture into the freezing water. The air temperature was probably only 17 degrees as well and pouring rain. Jordan did go in but was back in a jiffy after collecting eight spikey sea urchins that we later ate (their eggs which tasted like slimy salt and looked like an over saturated crouton). After that , we ventured up a mountain in the pouring rain...very cool but again, freezing.

 We then were back on land by 3pm and driving north to the Coromandel Peninsula. That night we stayed at a beautiful campsite that was at the bottom of a huge mountain. Going off track a bit, NZ is such a beautiful country. I can't even begin to describe what it lookalike by it encompasses so many features from, other countries into one. First of all, if you hAve seen LOTR, those little (and massive) green rolling hills with little "stairs" going up them actually do exist...duh, the film was shot here! On top of the rolling arm hills/mountains, there are rivers and beautiful ocean drives everywhere. I have never been in such a green country. Completely and utterly green everywhere you look.

Anyways, after spending the night in Thames, we drove to the Peninsula and man was it beautiful! Our main goal however was to go t the Cathedral Cove, apparently stunning. But since we had been driving forever and we so caught up in the scenery, we drove way, wayyyy passed it. Unfortunately we drove too far to turn around and ended up continuing on to Raglan for the night. Raglan, well, it's a pretty town ill give ya that but not a whole lot to do. However, since the whole boat trip the day prior, I was getting pretty sick and having (and still) the worst allergies ever. Not sure how I got the short end of the stick and Jordan went swimming n the freezing cold and is fine but that's the way the cookie crumbles haha. 

We ended up spending the night at the local, and only campsite. In NZ there are very few places where you can damp for free. They have no camping signs everywhere and if you do and get caught, which you will, it's a $200 fine. So, each night we've had to pay for 'accommodation' even though we sleep and cook from our van. This, in turn, has added on a whole other cost that we were not accounting for. Not entirely pleased about this but what can ya do?

Anyways, the next am we went to Kawhia (pronounced kaf-ee-a) to check out the hot water beach!  There is a very popular and famous beach called Hot Water Beach, however, we heard through Our friends Isaac and Mia that this one in Kawhia was much better and we might find ourselves the only ones there...which we were! In short, there are old volcanic remnants that lay under the sand and heat up the water like a hot tub. When the tide goes out, you can literally see the water boiling up through the sand! We just dug a little tub for us to sit in and voila, our own personal hot tub with a view of the ocean and mountains. The water was so hot that we actually got a little bit burnt! The beach also has black sand so walking on it was somewhat painful. We had to wear flip flops and even then it was incredibly hot. Jordan decided to try and test his limits and ran..literally sprinted...down the dune in bare feet and burnt his feet so badly that he had blisters! 

Later on the afternoon we drove to Waitomo Caves to book our black water rafting trip. More about that tomorrow! We carried on to Te Kuiti where we found a beautiful spot to park the van for the night...alongside a river on a reserve. Best part- it is free and there are no signs saying we can't camp here! If we had more time, we definitely would have stayed longer....beauty spot!

Well, that caught you up to the last few days...more to come about Waitomo Caves and Rotorua soon! 

Day Trips to Sydney & Nan Tien Temple

               Well, since our last blog we have managed to go on a couple of outings! We decided to finally venture back to Sydney and check out the sites since we had only spent one night in Sydney when we first flew in. After a fairly quick hour and thirty-five minute train ride from Wollongong into Sydney, we hopped off and marched right into Chinatown. This particular weekend was when the Chinese New Year celebrations were going on and so we had anticipated lots of hussle and bussle but to our surprise, we found neither hussle nor bussle! :P It was fairly quiet and the only real proof we saw that it was in fact the Chinese NY was the flags waving on the street lamps. Regardless, we decided to take a little tour through Chinatown and ended up finding a Chinese flee market (very reminiscent of the 400 Flee market). As a little girl, I can remember countless trips to the 400 Flee Market with my Oma and Opa, heading there to buy German salami…my favourite! After looking around at all the little trinkets, and trying to draw Jordan away from checking out all the didgeridoos (an Australian wind instrument), we kept on trekking.

After picking up a map of central Sydney at the train station, we decided to make our way to the harbour to check out the bridge and the opera house. It was actually a blistering hot day and so after walking for a few hours and checking out the waterfront, we decided to have a pint and ended up scoring fantastic seats on the patio right on the water!

 Our view was a massive cruise ship and the Sydney bridge…if I stuck my head out a little bit over the side I could see the famous Sydney opera house too! On our way to the bridge and opera house we walked on the waterfront boardwalk which had all sorts of restaurants and little souvenir shops. There was one section of the boardwalk that had beautiful apartments and right in front of these apartments were slips for the owner’s million dollar yachts. Despite the fact that neither of us have been to Italy we both thought that the old part of Sydney (where the bridge and opera house are- called The Rocks) had a large Italian feel to it. The city itself was nothing like I expected…very European-like. The part of Sydney that we saw was absolutely beautiful and of course seeing the famous bridge and opera house up close was an experience in itself! We ate the lunch we brought with us sitting across the harbour looking at the opera house and just took in the magnificent views around us! 

A little smooch for my love

At the end of the day- you can tell by our glazed-over look!

 After checking out the opera house, it started to rain and so we made our way to Castlereigh Street which is the Fifth Ave of New York. Since we weren’t dressed overly fancy and had a backpack equipped with two soaking umbrellas, we (I) didn’t think it would be appropriate to go into the stores (Chanel, Tiffany’s, Miu Miu, etc). However, we found a “Bay-like” store called David Jones that had 6 floors and wasted some time in there.

Jordan’s Insert:

 Allow me to set the scene haha. It’s a beautiful sunny day (one of our few as it has been super rainy here) so of course Kirsten and I waste no time getting to the beach. As we round the corner and get our first glimpse of the surf our jaws drop. To our astonishment we see some of the biggest waves we have seen yet. No joke pushing 10-12 feet and people are getting crushed! So we set up our beach tent and lay around for all of 5 minutes when we say let’s try our luck in these waves. As we walk into the water I instantly feel the power of the rip that day as it is pulling my out to deep water. I look at Kirsten and say “there is no way you are going to get me past my waist in this rip” she agrees. As we start to catch a few of the smaller waves and bodysurf around we both begin to get a little more confident and go out into the deeper water. I catch a real beauty and end up almost on shore, as I turn around I see Kirsten eyeing up a massive wave which I later nicknamed “The Widow maker”...an example is seen below haha.

She looks at me with a huge grin on her face like “watch this”, I am shaking my head and yelling No go under! Knowing Kirsten she goes for it. As the wave begins to break Kirsten is riding it perfectly, then she disappears. I see her legs come flying out of the top of the wave and then she disappears a second time. I get smashed by the white wash of the wave and end up about 15 feet away. As I gather myself I instantly begin to run back towards her thinking she must be seriously hurt. Thankfully she finally surfaces and catches her breath and instantly bursts into a fit of laughter saying “did you see how big that wave was!” I laugh and call her crazy. A little later on we are in closer to shore and are both seriously fighting the rip to stay standing. We turn around and see a small girl being swept away and without skipping a beat Kirsten runs over and grabs the girl. The little girl tells Kirsten that she needs to find her friend. We look over and here is a small girl also being pulled out by the rip. Kirsten runs over and grabs her too. Kirsten is seriously struggling at this point to stand with both of these little girls under her arms. She digs her feet into the sand and holds her ground. They get smashed by multiple massive waves. I look at her and ask if she needs a hand which seemed obvious. I grab one of the little girls and help her to shore and like kids they thank us and run back into the waves. I look at Kirsten and say “that’s enough; we are getting out of the water it is getting way to unsafe”. Not 30 minutes goes by and I look out into the waves and spot a guy way outside of the safe swimming area. I point him out to Kirsten and we both agree he is in serious trouble. Seconds later the lifeguards go running into the water to save him and they are struggling against the waves. Eventually both lifeguards get out to him with the surfboard and begin to bring him in. Twenty minutes goes by and they are still battling the waves to get to shore. Eventually they safely get in and minutes later the flags are taken down and the beach is shut down and no longer safe to swim. For the next two days the beach was closed due to unsafe rips and MASSIVE waves.

 When the beach finally did open up, although it was raining we decided to go for a body board. When we get to the beach we are literally the only people there other than two lifeguards and a few surfers down the coast at the reef. As eerie as it was it the waves were awesome and we were able to ride a ton without the interruption of other swimmers.  

Our second outing was suggested to us by Sarah (Kirsten’s sister) to visit the Buddhist temple in Unanderra. We really had no idea what to expect but it was a beautiful day and we were in the mood for a little adventure. So we hoped on the train and were on our way to Unanderra. When we arrived we started walking to the temple which is oddly located on the outskirts of the industrial sector, about 20 minutes by foot from the train station. As we rounded the hill the temple and pagoda were finally in sight.

 We were both expecting the temple to be a very quiet peaceful place. It was indeed peaceful but nowhere near quiet. It was packed. There were hundreds of worshipers going in and out of the temple paying their respects. We were both shocked and intrigued to say the least. Not speaking the language of the majority of the people at the temple we really didn’t know what the procedure was upon entering the temple. We climbed the never ending stairs into the pagoda and removed our shoes to enter the first room of worship. It is strictly forbidden to talk in this room, and as neither of us are Buddhist we sat back and observed respectfully as many people came and went.

We then hiked up a massive hill to a gazebo like structure where there was a huge bell. When you ring the bell you are said to be sending good wishes to your family. We both rang the bell and made a wish as instructed. The view from the top of the hill was beautiful, looking over the entire grounds of the temple.

 We then hiked down the hill and wandered through the forest of blue trees and checked out all of the Buddha shrines scattered throughout the grounds. Majority of these shrines where not your typical fat guy sitting cross legged that comes to mind when you think of the Buddha, they were everything but. From an old man with ankle length eyebrows to a guy riding a lion.

 We finally make our way into the temple which houses the two main shrines and a beautiful courtyard. We go into the first shrine and remove our shoes as usual and have a look around and observe the worshipers. When we enter the second shrine we decide to break the rules a little and snap a few photos secretly of the shrines. Not being able to look through the view finder we had no clue if the pictures worked out or not but when we left we had managed to get one good picture.

At this point we had been exploring the temple for about 3 hours now and we are both super tired. We decide to call it a day and hike back to the train and head home.

Another blog should be up shortly about our trip to Manly Beach to see the Australian Open Surfing and Skating Competition in Sydney.

Lot's of love,
Jordan & Kirsten

All Settled In!

Well, on January 29^th we will have been gone from home for a month! Time has flown by and so far we have been loving every minute of it. We have settled really nicely into our cozy “little flat” and I have completed my first week of school.

Yesterday was Australia day (the 26^th of January) and so I had the day off from school along with my usual Monday’s off- seems easy right? I’m taking every advantage of having a light schedule right now and heading to the beach almost every day after school. This first four weeks of classes is an ‘intensive focus on literacy and numeracy’. I have 2 classes 4 days a week for four weeks and then they add in 7 more classes, all in 4 days a week. I have a 2500 word essay on the Australian Curriculum and Literacy due in 4 weeks and in 2.5 weeks I have a math exam…yippee! Teacher’s college, or DipEd as they call it here, is much different than I expected. I suppose my expectations were based on what I’ve heard from the Ontario Teacher’s Colleges but I almost feel as though I am back in my undergrad. I never anticipated having to write an essay (only one for now) in my graduate program hence me celebrating like an idiot when I finished my degree almost a year ago thinking I would never have to write an essay ever again! Well, was I ever wrong- not only am I writing an essay but I am writing an essay on the Australian curriculum…something which I know nothing about. It should be interesting to say the least- I suppose I’ll have to fit it in between beach visits! Other than the few projects I have going on, school is good. My numeracy teacher actually reminds me a lot of a teacher at home that I had in grade four, Deb Halbot. Mrs. Halbot was the reason I decided to become a teacher because she had a way of ensuring that lessons were interesting, applicable and…fun! Who would’ve thought school could be fun! Anyways, having Katie Waters (my numeracy teacher) teaching this class has been a wonderful experience so far and I am thoroughly enjoying math (shocker!)…for the moment!

The University of Wollongong itself is actually beautiful. It is located right at the bottom of a huge mountain and is located essentially right in the middle of a jungle. The campus is surrounded by beautiful trees and has numerous streams running through it. The above pictures were all taken at the university- I wasn't exaggerating when I said it was in the middle of a jungle right? All of the wildlife pictures were taken on campus as well- the Owl was spotted by Jordan-sharp eyes on his part, this little guy was very camouflaged!
I think that if I did my undergrad here, I would have spent a lot more time actually on the campus than at home. There is a free “Gong” bus that stops just across the street and takes me up to the campus in 20 minutes. The one thing I noticed though is that the campus is very spread out. The joke about Brock University is that you can go from one end of campus to the other without ever having to step outside- this is not the case at UOW. This morning it was POURING rain out and despite the fact that I had my umbrella with me, I got soaked as it took me a good 5 minutes to get from the bus to my classroom. 

For the past few days it has been rainy quite a bit which has caused a lot of floods in the northern part of New South Wales and in Queensland. We have just normal rain (so nothing to worry about) but it really has limited us to what we can do when I'm not in school. Speaking of rain, apparently anything other than sun means that you have little to no internet. Internet here is unbearably slow and extremely pricy. You pay per gigabyte you use which ends up being quite pricy- especially watching shows or using Skype. In between waiting for shows to download (I can’t miss out on Grey’s Anatomy or the Bachelor!) Jordan and I have been playing hours and hours of cards. More specifically, we have been playing Crazy 8 Countdown and Shanghai (a favourite card came that we learned from Sarah and Roberto)!

Last night, after flicking through the 4 channels on TV that we have, attempting to use the internet (fail) and playing hours of card games, I decided that it was time to go for a walk in the rain. Jordan wasn't all to pleased with this but after sitting around for hours and hours, we needed a change of scenery! We put on the closest thing we had to rain coats (my fall/winter coat and Jordan's red "Salvos" jacket), grabbed two flimsy umbrella's and headed to the beach to check out the waves. Although we were completely soaked by the time we got back, it was a fun little adventure and I'm sure we'll end up doing it again!

In other news, I have taken out my Monroe piercing! I have had it in for 2.5 years and I really loved it but I have grown out of it. I am entering a new (more mature) stage of my life and having a facial piercing is probably not the best way to start that stage- I’m sure my family (Grampy, Dad, Mom…etc) will be thrilled! I have had it out for 4 days and already it has closed up greatly and really just looks like a small freckle. I am sure with time, it will be gone (however if it stays as is, I would be fine with that).

Jordan and I have always been thrifty shoppers. However, this has become even more evident throughout that past couple of weeks. As I said before, prices in Australia are really expensive and since Jordan and I want to travel as much as we can while we are here, we want to try and save every penny we can. We have really scouted out the bargain spots including getting our veggies and meat at the local market and going to Aldi’s (the Food Basics equivalent) to buy dairy and miscellaneous products. It takes longer to go to two (sometimes 3 different spots) but it helps us to pinch our pennies! Speaking of pinching our pennies, I left my straightener at home because I was told it wouldn’t work here with the power differences. So, I have been checking out prices at local hair places and have held off until now. The other day I got the brilliant idea to see if the local Salvation Army (Salvos, as they call it here) had any hairdryers and hair straighteners. Luckily, I got both from Salvos for the bargin price of $6!! Oh, did I mention that this price also includes a 21-day warranty on both electronic products? BONUS! Never thought I would buy a hair straightener from Salvation Army but hey, ya gotta do what ya gotta do! Even more of a surprise is that they both actually work really well- a $6 well spent I would say. Mommabear and Ger are probably grinning ear to ear knowing that their ‘thriftiness’ has rubbed off on me!

While we are thrifty and are saving our money, we do splurge on the occasional $10 box of wine (equivalent of 6 bottles- lushes, I know) or $4 bottle of wine (cheaper than juice!). Surprisingly, it’s actually not bad! Apparently we need to only be shopping at Salvos and the Bottlemart and we will save all sorts of money!
As I mentioned earlier, yesterday was Australia Day! The Wollongong Harbour (a few km from our flat) was were the festivities were being held. Tonnes of vendors, rides, concession stands and bands filled the streets and parks. It was just a huge celebration and we had a great day. By the end of the day we were absolutely pooped having walked over 10km in the sticky, humid heat. We finished off the day watching the fireworks from 'our beach' right across the road from our flat. All in all, it was a great day!

               A wee free 'train' ride that Jordan & I took- hey, we need to pinch our pennies! :)

 We had to join in on the Australia festivities- that includes having a pint you know! :)

 On our walk around town we saw this- never actually seen it in person before- beyond hilarious!

That’s all for now folks (as Bugs Bunny would say). Hope everyone back at home is enjoying the snow (or rain as I am hearing)!

All our love,

Kirsten & Jordan