Laura & Ryan's Australian Adventure

So we're going to travel around Australia for a year (or more) and document it here. Ok?

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From our final sunset in Australia, to almost 36 hours later our first British sunset in 14 months! With quite a drastic change in temperature! Haha. It's been quite an incredible ride, thank you to everyone who's followed our journey :)

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Watching our final sunset in Oz with a sneaky bevvy on the beach. One of the best moments of the entire trip :)

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Our last afternoon in Australia spent in the hostel pool :)

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Our last day spent in Australia, in Surfer's Paradise on the Gold Coast. We were all packed the night before and not flying until almost midnight that night, so we made the most of the sunny 34 degree day at the beach and wandering around the shops followed by a couple of hours in the hostel pool and then had a sneaky beer and cider on the beach at sunset before trekking with all our bags to the bus stop to start our journey to Brisbane airport. A perfect relaxing last day :)

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Our Favourite Places in Australia

5. Fraser Island - This is the only place on the list we wouldn't want to live, but it is so stunning and exceeded my expectations so much that it had to make the list. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world and most people who visit it, like us, do so on a 4 Wheel Drive tour. Since that's not really my thing and I was doing it more for Ryan's sake, I wasn't that excited about the trip, but I should have been! I didn't realise how gorgeous the island would be! The champagne pools which is like a natural jacuzzi, the tragic history but stunning views of Indian Head, the pretty but freezing cold Eli Creek and the miles and miles of gorgeous coast line (75 in fact since its called 75 mile beach!) are all breathtaking. But Lake McKenzie, a turquoise coloured fresh water lake, with no streams or rivers running in to it, filled only by rain water, surrounded by greenery and white silica sand, really did steal the show. 4. Noosa - If we won the Euro millions lottery, we'd be buying ourselves a water front home in Noosa, which sits at the northern end of the Sunshine Coast. I'd read before visiting it that Noosa was like a chic, glamorous town in Southern France and I really can't describe it any better myself. Everything looks new but not in an ugly, brash way. The town centre is full of gorgeous little shops and the buildings literally glisten in the sun. The beaches, rivers and parks are all beautiful and so many of the big, expensive homes are built right on the river front with boats outside. It is just a dream place to live. Noosa is great for water sports like paddle boarding and kite surfing as well as for shopping or just spending hours in a pretty little coffee shop. You'd need a lot of money to live here but if I had it, I'd love to. 3. St Kilda - the first place we ever called home in Australia, and we loved it so much we just had to return. We spent a part of two summers in St Kilda, and while one was glorious, the other was mostly cold, wet and windy - Melbourne weather at its best. But you don't go to St Kilda for the weather. Where Noosa is glam and beautiful, St Kilda is run down and ugly in the coolest, edgiest way. Chapel Street is still the best row of bars, cafes, shops and restaurants we have ever had the pleasure of wandering down, Acland Street cakes really are to die for, the fairy Penguins on St Kilda pier are beyond adorable, the cool graffiti, the fashion, the palm tree lined beach front, the festivals. That's why you go to St Kilda, the coolest Melbourne suburb. St Kilda was just made for people watching. 2. Byron Bay - the first thing I must say about this place, is no it's not overrated. It's everything we dreamt it would be. As soon as you get there you want to grow dreadlocks, buy a guitar and give up wearing shoes! Byron's laidback, hippie vibe is so infectious. We knew we'd feel at home there when we arrived to find a group of people had set up a BBQ on the side of the road with a sign saying "Free BBQ, All Welcome". It is a pretty part of the country though far from the most beautiful we saw, but Byron just has so much character and charm. We loved ask the hippie types sitting on the beach with their guitars and bongos. The fire jugglers and dancers on the beach front in the evenings. Where everyone in St Kilda is in to quirky, edgy fashion and its not unusual to see women walking around in high heels, jewellery and full make-up in the day time, in Byron its not unusual to see people walking around Byron in the evening bare foot in kaftans and elephant print hareem trousers. It's a place you can really relax and embrace your inner peace loving hippie. We could have stayed there forever. 1. And finally at number 1, Airlie Beach - this will always be our Australian home mostly because of the amazing people we met there. But the small town feel, glistening turquoise water, white sand beaches, tropical weather and proximity to the Whitsunday Islands did help a bit too. From the moment we drove around the corner and caught our first glimpse of Abel Point Marina, after hours of nothing but sugar cane fields, it really was love at first sight. It also has such a homely, community feel that reminded us of home and is just something people either love or hate. No there's not a great deal to do there besides water sports, fishing, sunbathing, swimming in the lagoon and island trips, but really what more do you want with almost year round glorious weather?! It's also so near to the incredibly beautiful and deserted Dingo Beach and Hideaway Bay if you just want a white sand beach to yourself for the day! Sunday Session in the bars of Airlie Beach with live music and hot, humid nights will always be one of my best memories of our trips. We've both left a piece of hearts in Airlie Beach and know we will return one day!

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Our Aussie theme tune! Vance Joy - Riptide of course. Makes me feel like I'm at the beach again watching those waves.

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I love how the music you listen to during different times of your life ends up defining that era and then anytime you hear it, you're instantly transported back to that time. The following songs make up our "Oz Playlist" - the songs we listened to driving around Australia in our campervan, that Jonno sang while Matt played on guitar in Airlie, or that came on in Paddy's bar, or on the rooftop bar in Barkly Hotel St Kilda. They will forever take us back to Australia! 1. Ariana Grande ft Iggy Azalea - Problem 2. Benjamin Booker - Violent Shiver 3. Beyoncé - XO 4. Calvin Harris - Summer 5. Charli XCX - Boom Clap 6. Clean Bandit ft Jess Glynne - Rather Be 7. Coldplay - A Sky Full of Stars 8. Deadmau5 ft Colleen D'Agostino - Seeya 9. Disclosure ft Sam Smith - Latch 10. Ed Sheeran - Thinking Out Loud 11. Ella Henderson - Ghost 12. Foster the People - Best Friend 13. G.R.L - Ugly Heart 14. George Ezra - Budapest 15. Hilary Duff - All About You 16. Hilltop Hoods - Cosby Sweater 17. Hozier - Take Me To Church 18. Iggy Azalea ft Charli XCX - Fancy 19. Illy - Tightrope 20. Imagine Dragons - I Bet My Life 21. Itch ft Megan Joy - Another Man 22. Jake Bugg - There's a Beast and We All Feed it 23. James Bay - Hold Back the River 24. Jennifer Lopez ft French Montana - I Luh Ya Papi 25. John Legend - All of Me 26. Kasabian - Eez-eh 27. Katy Perry - Birthday 28. Kongos - Come With Me Now 29. The Kooks - Around Town 30. Little Dragon - Paris 31. MAGIC! - Rude 32. Mark Ronson ft Bruno Mars - Uptown Funk 33. Maroon 5 - Sugar 34. Meghan Trainor - All About That Bass 35. Milky Chance - Stolen Dance 36. MKTO - Classic 37. Mr. Probz - Waves (Robin Schulz Remix) 38. OneRepublic - I Lived 39. Paramore - Ain't it Fun 40. Peking Duk ft Nicole Millar - High 41. Porter Robinson ft Urban Cone - Lionhearted 42. Rise Against - I Don't Wanna be Here Anymore 43. Royal Blood - Come on Over 44. Sam Smith - Stay With Me 45. Sia - Chandelier 46. Taylor Swift - Shake it Off 47. Thundamentals - Quit Your Job 48. Vance Joy - Riptide (definitely our Aussie theme tune!) 49. Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag 50. 360 ft PEZ - Live it Up This isn't all of them but I wanted to keep it to a nice even 50 ;) and to quote OneRepublic " I, I did it all, I owned every second that this world could give, I saw so many places, the things that I did, With every broken bone, I swear I lived."

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The last of Ryan's phone pics. The first two are from Airlie Beach, the next 3 are from St Kilda (bumping in to Izzy from Airlie in St Kilda, me at the beach & Ant from our hostel getting drunk in the dorms!) and the last 5 are from Sydney. Me outside of what I believe is the oldest building in Sydney Harbour, now surrounded by sky rises and concrete but preserved in its original state, it used to have a beach out front so you could walk straight down to the water and it housed the sailors coming in to the harbour, but now there's concrete paths out the front! Then the adorable herb garden in the front garden of a terraced house in Glebe, Monty and his biscuit, ha, Monty, Tiger and Wolfgang playing catch at Mal's property in Sydney and finally the other dogs' cousin Edgar :)

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Here are some more of Ryan's pictures from when they took Mal's boat to Mackay to work on. Not a bad job eh?

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I've had to take the photos off Ryan's phone and post them myself otherwise you'll never see them! So here are some of where Mal lived and Ryan worked on the Gold Coast. It's called Paradise Point (you can see why) in a very affluent area of the Gold Coast called Sovereign Islands. A very rich crazy Australian politician/businessman called Clive Palmer there and he's used his riches to commission a build of a real life replica Titanic, and a real life "Jurassic Park" theme park! But anyway, not a bad view eh? He has so much money he just has an old mattress and other rubbish stored on top of a very expensive car! The last few pictures are from the evening Mal took Ryan to his bus stop by boat!

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It's official now and everyone knows that we left Australia on Tuesday night and decided to fly home 3 weeks early so I could see my Gramps before his operation. It was all very crazy and rushed so we still have some pictures to post! Here are some from our trip to the Surfer's Paradise beach front markets last week :)

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A couple of weeks ago when we were at Aquarius Backpackers in Southport on the Gold Coast, clever Ryan won the hostels pool tournament and won us a free bottle of wine! There wasn't even any competition, he won by a long shot! We had a lovely evening with our free wine and an Irish guy Sean who's living here, crazy Aussie Steve and a nice English guy and girl Jaek (I'm not spelling that wrong!) and Charlotte :) good times! I love free stuff :)

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Here are just a few random pictures from out and about in Surfer's including a car flying the Welsh flag :) Also me in my fetching new Backpackers in Paradise staff t-shirt and the crazy thunderstorm we had on the weekend that flooded the hostel courtyard!

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It's so windy in Surfer's Paradise today!! I've been to the beach twice today and had to abandon it both times. This morning it started raining (which you wouldn't believe from these photos taken this afternoon!) and this afternoon it was windier than Porthcawl as you can see from the state of my towel! Still beautiful though :) But now I have sand in my ear :(

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I've had a knot in my stomach for 2 days now and everything's very stressful because my Grampy was rushed in to hospital on Friday morning. He had fluid on his lungs due to a "leaky" heart valve or something, and now that's been drained he's waiting to be moved to the Heath for a heart bypass which originally his doctor had "strongly recommended" he didn't have as there's a fair chance he won't survive it. As you can imagine my heart is permanently in my throat right now and I don't know what to do. Our flights are booked for April 16th, landing on the 17th but that's still 4 & a half weeks away and his op is scheduled for this month. After flights we're down to only just over $500 right now which would be less than £250 once it was exchanged and that's before a bus to the airport etc. Not to mention we've looked in to the cost of changing our flight, and though there's no fee for doing it, you have to pay the difference between both flights and the cheapest flight we can find for next 2 weeks is $250 more each - there's every penny we have wiped out. Obviously money is not my main concern at all right now but it had to be A concern because getting home with no money at all is going to put is in a very bad situation for a long time since we won't be able to afford a flat and if we borrow money to do that we're going to be in debt for ages after. Not what we wanted for our "new start" at home. But I just want to be home right now and to see my Grampy. It's really all I care about. So I have no idea what to do. It's frustrating being half way around the world when something like this happens.

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Happy Mother's Day mum & Maz!! :)

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Just moved in to our prison cell style dorm room in Surfer's Paradise...hope this is going to be worth a ridiculous 21 hours a week work for accommodation. Including "repping" (selling night out packages to backpackers) which is basically my worst nightmare, aaargghhh!