Australia

We arrived in Australia on 13/11/12 after our flight from Singapore to Darwin and ten another flight from Darwin to Gove and then to Cairns. We state over in Cairns for 3 nights at the YHA in the city centre. The location was perfect and made wondering around the city really easy. Cairns ivory centre isn't huge, so it didn't overwhelm us which was great, and there was a heap of things to do in and around the city centre, from the ACA gallery to parks and the huge Lagoon, which made up for the distinct lack of beach.
On leaving the airport our driver told us that the following morning there was to be a full eclipse. We met loads of people who had travelled to Cairns just for this, so it was a lucky coincidence for us to just happen upon it! The ill owing morning along with the rest of our dorm we woke at 4am and made our way down to the esplanade. 100s of people had gathered here so we found a spot to sit and waited for the main event. Unfortunately it was really cloudy where we were, so our visibility wasn't the best, although it was still pretty cool to see it get 'dark' at 7am and hearing the birds call change was eerie.
From Cairns we made our way north to Port Douglas. A small costal town, about an hour away from Cairns. The town was beautiful to walk around, passing from the Harbour to a small white church on the beach (st Mary's on the sea) then down to the famous 4 mile beach all in under an hour. There are also a few lookouts around the town, situated on hills which give an amazing view.
One thing that has really struck me here in Australia is how different the way of living is compared to back home in the UK. Come 5pm locals flock to the beach and esplanade to make best use of the sea, free fitness classes and council operated BBQs. Everyone is so laid back, it's really nice to see- I guess it's amazing what a bit of sunshine can do!

Singapore Zoo.

Before we reached Singapore we had written a list of all the attraction we wanted to visited and sights we wanted to see. Unfortunately our ability to over spend (or inability to budget) meant that before we had even arrived, a few of this plans remained little more pipe dreams. The zoo however held its position as our number one must see attraction. We decided to head to the zoo first thing Thursday morning in an attempt to miss the weekend rush. We caught the MRT to Ang Mo Kio and from there hopped on the number 138 bus. We were right to head out mid week as the zoo was quiet and relaxed- made for our leisurely walk around. The zoo itself holds no cages which is something we personally hadn't encountered at UK zoos we have visited. The no cage environment made for perfect photo taking opportunities, you really felt you were getting up close to the animals- in some cases that became a reality with a number of public feeding times available throughout the day. We thoroughly enjoyed our time here- spending well over 5 hours without once back-tracking on ourselves. A great day out and a nice retreat out of the city.

Singapore, & the story so far.

Ok, it's been an absolute age since I even looked at this thing, let alone blogged. Looking at my last post it is surreal to think 1 year on I'm actually here living and loving it!

So 10th September 2012 me and my sister, Katie left walsall in search of new adventures. We have an 8 month round the world ticket, hard earned savings and not a care in the world.

Our trip has already taken us to Thailand and Malaysia, we are currently in Singapore, and we still have: Austrailia, Fiji, New Zealand, Chile Peru and Brazil to come!

We've actually been travelling for
nearly two months now, but I'll be honest I got travel blogger envy, and it finally spurred me into starting a travel blog of my own, and well, here it is.

I have been keeping a written journal whilst I've been away- so all isn't lost, my aim is to start from now but every so often upload an entry from earlier on in our trip. I know I'll lose out in terms of the chronological order of things, but honestly I just want to have everything in one place, whatever the order.

Right well that's the story so far, (kinda) here it's is from now.

We arrived in Singapore yesterday 06/11 after taking a 5 hour coach journey (yeh right, it was more like 7.5, we've come to learn that time here in South East Asia is forever underestimated) from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We arrived early evening and made our way to the Beary Nice Hostel in Chinatown. This is our first time in dorm accommodation. Not sure what we expected but its really nice here, clean!! & very chilled which is exactly what we like!
Today, being our first full day we decided to get our bearings (no pun intended). The public transport system in Malaysia, I'm not gonna lie was amazing- I am aware that such statements don't light me up to be the all out definition of fun, but hang in there. But wow, the MRT system here in Singapore is just as good if not better! Everything is SO clean and actually runs on time, it's incredible! Right transport geek out over, back to what else we did today. First off (obviously) we caught the MRT to Bras Basah station and then made our way to Fort Canning Park, a small green retreat located on a hill within the city. The streets of Singapore a very busy so it was nice to take a break here for an hour or two and learn about the parks history throughout the ages, dating back to 1822. It started raining just as we got the the end of our loop of the park so we decided to seek shelter and head over the road to Raffles hotel and Long Bar for a Singapore sling, it was yummy!
We made our way back to Chinatown for an early dinner. We'd read about Hawker stalls but as yet we are yet to find any- or should I say find any that are as cheap as the ones we have read they were. But there's always tomorrow....