I am going to try my best at putting together a series of blogs dedicated to my trip to Australia back in 2017! I’ve wanted to write a blog since then, but never felt I had the time or courage to write until now so here we are and now I can finally have something to show for my biggest trip I’ve made so far in my life! I’ll start off by saying how I would have not ever been brave enough to go on this trip without my best friend Ujal. It must have been back in 2016 that we decided we should book a month long trip to Australia. We’d never been travelling for this long, so the thought made us excited but also nerve wrecking at the same time. We went to STA travel in Southampton to organise booking our trip which was a fantastic service! Although we thought about booking it all ourselves which people can do, but this was less stress and less hassle! Super easy and stress free someone sorting out everything for you! Sadly you can’t book through STA anymore as it no longer exists 😦 but I’m sure there is more travel companies like this around still. We decided with the travelling advisor that we were going to spend a week in Melbourne and then we would get a flight from there and join our Contiki group in Sydney and travel up the east coast! Thing is about Australia if you want to travel to different places you have to have in mind that it may take you hours to get somewhere else in Australia. I think we definitely take for granted here that actually to get anywhere in the UK it is much quicker and easier than in Australia!
We were off on the 25th May 2017 at Heathrow airport. Not without some dramas along the way! If it weren’t for the kindness of strangers I may not have been able to take some nice photos of this trip! I’d left my camera on the floor of Heathrow airport not my best moment, I had so much stuff to carry that I think I was trying to find my passport and in true Charlotte fashion (I am a forgetful person at times) left my camera in the middle of arrivals. Long story short Ujal reassured me that hopefully someone would find it and hand it in and luckily they did! Phew! Drama over! When we finally relaxed on the plane it was a long journey! We stopped off in Hong Kong and had to hang around for 3 hours in the airport for our connecting flight. Once we got on that flight they were plenty of spare seats so they let us lie down for a sleep which if you’re that tired 3 economy seats to sleep on is counted as luxury!
When we arrived in Melbourne it was early hours of the morning maybe 1/2 am I think! It was pitch black, me and Ujal had to somehow make our way to the hostel. Again there were dramas on the way! We got the tram at first and had asked a man on there if he knew where we had to get off at Flinders street (as that’s where our hostel was) and he said sure and would tell us when to get off. Nope this guy decided he wasn’t going to tell us and just got off at his stop! So we got off at the next stop and had no idea where we were. I forgot to mention we weren’t in the greatest attire for this trip as for some reason I think we both decided to wear sandals, bear in mind we knew it was Australia’s winter and it was pouring with rain in Melbourne. The weather in Melbourne was actually much like British weather unpredictable and actually pretty cold! We also had to lug our travel bags around which were super heavy as we had to pack for a month long trip! Anyways, by the time we got to our hostel ( which we didn’t get the warmest of welcomes either, we got told number one rule “Don’t be a dick” I mean do we look like dicks! Haha) we were ready for bed. I think this hostel we stayed at first had 3 bunk beds in one room so it was pretty crowded, but we made do I think for a couple of days. This was the main hostel people chose as I think it was just the most convenient and had a club downstairs. Me and Ujal had already got to the point where we were no longer interested in clubs and drinking all night and we just got a very weird vibe from this hostel. We decided to go to a different hostel nearby and it had a much more friendlier atmosphere and you shared a room with other women rather than mixed which we also found to be better.
We explored Melbourne that week, best part being the Melbourne Eureka Skydeck which you could see views of Melbourne for miles and miles. I felt like Melbourne was like New York (not that I’ve ever been!) with its tall buildings and they call it Australia’s most lively city! We took walks around Melbourne mainly ones near to the Yarra river which you can take a little boat ride across it and its surrounded by lovely bars and restaurants. We also took a few little trips here, we went to Phillip Island where we went to a zoo there and also saw the penguin parade where at sunset you get to watch little penguins come ashore in groups. However, I don’t have any photos of this as you’re not allowed to take photos of the penguins as they’ve had a few issues with tourists blinding the penguins with the flashes of cameras. I did however take some photos on Phillip Island of The Twelve Apostles and The Great Ocean Road. Got to feed the kangaroos at a zoo there too!
After we had finished our week in Melbourne it was time to set off on a plane again a shorter distance this time to Sydney! We would meet our Contiki group there and start our journey from Sydney up through different parts of the east coast and eventually finishing in Cairns!
I hope you enjoyed this part of my Aussie Adventure! Join me again in the next part of my journey! I hope you enjoyed this page of my scrapbook!
Have you ever visited Australia? What has been your biggest adventure? Where would be the number one place you want to travel to? Please leave me a comment down below I would appreciate feedback and leave me a comment if you enjoyed 🙂
L o t s o f L o v e
C h a r l o t t e
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Charlotte's Scrapbook 