New Zealand - South Island

After a short 3 hour flight from Sydney to Christchurch we began searching for a hostel in the bitter cold. Christchurch had an average temperature of approx 2 degrees and compared to our usual Australian temperature of approx 20+ degrees, we were severely unprepared for this shock cold snap. After checking in to the city YHA, we soon slept ready for the new adventure to begin the following day.
The next day started with cold cold rain and we decided to collect our car for the trip and start our road trip early. The car was collected from the nearby depot and the 5 hour journey south to Dunedin commenced. After 90km, we realised that Baz had left his backpack in Christchurch so this meant adding an extra 180km to the trip to collect it - not such a good start!!
Arriving in Dunedin to meet Mike's cousin Robin, none of us were sure what to expect - as Mike hadnt seen him in almost 15years. Luckily for the wizards, a drum'n'bass party was in full flow in Rob's house which we all embraced to true wizard fashion - crazy night!! The following day was a fairly timid affair nursing ourselves back to full health with a McDonalds and Few pints that night - sure why not?!
After a 4 hour drive the next day we arrived at the picturesque Fiordlands, a scenic region used regularly in Jackson's LOTR trilogy. That night was spent in the hillside cabins of a backpackers set in a deer farm, with truly spectular views. The next day we drove to Milford Sound, the location for the river scenes in The Fellowship of the Ring. To pay for our accomodation that night back at the farm, we chopped and gathered fire-wood from the farm for the log fires in the hostel, followed by a evening meal of 'rubber-tasting' noodles and dry toast - funds were definately starting to reduce.
Queenstown was the next on the agenda with our main targets here the epic Nevis Highwire Bungy (third highest in the world), the legendary FergBurger and of course the great nightlife we'd been promised. The day finally dawned and after little sleep, we all found ourselves on the bus to the Nevis Gorge to throw ourselves from 440ft attached only to a piece of elastic thinner than my fist. Baz was the first up and despite taking the piss out of the others for their fear of heights, nerves started to creep into his expressions as he approached the ledge. A superb 'swan-dive' followed as he freefell for up to 8.5secs. Mike was immediately after and then Dach towards the end of the weight-ordered queue due to his spindly little legs, with even several females in front of him!! The sheer terror of the first few seconds of falling was soon outdone by the elation of being alive and being towed back up to the suspended pod. All of our faces were priceless upon arrival back up at the top - a great achievement! That night was a celebratory one with the wizards meeting up with and old face again - Dave the Scottish chap who's part in the goat murder was not to be forgotten as well as his appearances in Surfers on the Gold Coast. Large lash ensued at the infamous World Bar where the common drinking vessels were ceramic teapots full of cocktails - Nice!

Sydney!

After spending 3 nights in Byron Bay we caught our flight from Gold Coast airport down to Sydney...a place we were all really excited about spending time in.
On arrival the rain was falling and the thunder roaring as we were off to stay at Baz's cousins flat in Coogee (an area in Sydney) with Lorcan and his girlfreind Vienna. We spent three nights in Coogee with Lorcan which was good, saving money on accomodation and it was nice to be in a homly environment again as we have only stayed in hostels for the past 4 months!
After the 3 nights in Coogee we moved into central Sydney to live in a very popular hostel called Wake up voted the best hostel in the country! It was not long until we found out why...500 beds providing us with many new faces to meet and a very lively bar downstars was the perfect way to meet these faces...many a night was spent at this bar! On our first day in the new hostel we decided to enter into the weekly quiz...after learning that the quiz was on mainly Sydney, aussie TV soaps and a little on general Australian history we spent 30mins swatting up on the internet and reading the australia lonely planet guide. It turned out that this short period of swatting and a couple of tatical phone calls to aussie freinds from the Gold Coast the alcohol from the past few months had not effected our short term memory...victors we were, winning a pair of wake up boxers and t-shirt and most importantly a $100 bar tab!
We then proceeded to expend this bar tab later on that night!!!

Unfortunatly for us the 1st 13days out of a total of 21 days in Sydney were raining...the weather was poor and the mood was a little lower than it should have been as us wizards to like our beaches nice and dry! We were determined to see all of what we wanted to in Sydney and experience something called 'culture' which up until now we were not very familar with.
Taking a walk past Darling harbour and on to circular quay, you are welcomed by one of the most famous postcard pictures...the harbour bridge connecting central and north Sydney comes into sight first closely followed by the opera house as a perfect backdrop. Absolutley stunning the opera house lived upto all expections, however alot larger than was first thought.

Sydney is a really nice with fantastic buildings, a busling atmosphere and alot to do....we experienced all the classic sights along with the ANZAC memorial in Hyde park, even went to an Art Gallery before the weather perked up! We also took a stroll through the Royal Botanic Gardens which were actually amazing, set amoungst a busy city and full of a huge variety of plant life, big spiders hanging in trees along with hundreds of bats!

Something that we were all very excited about was the arrival of a freind from university, Matt Payne aka 'Badger'. He arrived for just 2weeks of "culture" and generally a good time! A good time was definetley had from arrival through to departure but that is a story for another time.

So the weather improved and all 4 of us were off to the beach...bondi beach of course! The world famous beach was an impressive sight, not overly busy, great surf and set in a cove facing out onto the Pacific! Chilled out for a few hours on the beach, badger went for a surf, Dach and Baz went for a walk and Mike wallowed on the beach listening to his Ipod and no doubt spectating passers by.
Barry McAttack also had another cousin in Sydny, Lorcans older brother Owen. He went on a 2week holiday to Fiji with his wife so was very kind and gave us the keys to his very nice apartment near Bondi while he was gone! A risky move one may say as backpackers are not known for there imaculate behaviour and cleanliness! We did behave ourselves which had nothing to do with Owen being twice the size of us!

In our last couple of days in Sydney we took a wonder upto North Sydney which is renowned for its fantastic beaches and good surf! It did not dissapoint when arrived at Palm Beach...the beach where Home and Away is filmed, spent a day here chilling out before heading back to the hostel and no doubt going out again!

Sydney was really good as a whole for our 3week duration, did pretty much everything we wanted, saw family members, old freinds (Brendan and Danni), met new friends (mainly Keith), and grew quite fond of a city towards the end when the weather picked up and showed us Sydneys true colours...but dont worry parents we will come home before moving back out here! We all left on 2nd May, the wizards to Christchurch (New Zealand) and Badger back home to England. Was really good having Badger with us and he provided us with alot of entertainment over the 2weeks he was here! We were all ready to leave Australia after spending 4months here, but not for any negative reason watsoever! We have had a fantastic time here since January, and we will miss many of the places we have visited and lived along with the lifestyle we have been living here and defintly many of the people along the way!

To New Zealand we travel and the adrenaline fueled events that will no doubt ruin our sleeping patterns!!!

Byron Bay - The REAL paradise of surf...

The wizards are approaching mid-April and the latter stages of the aussie leg of the trip. Therefore as time is presssing on it calls for a new destination; Byron Bay.

Departing Queensland and entering New South Wales it is only 1hr south of Surfers - a popular little beach town that will undoubtedly serve as a nice refresher bfore flying to the metropolitan Sydney in 3 days. Dach and Aladdin have fond memories of their one-nighter road trip here a while back and so naturally Baz is eagerly anticipating it too. However, it has been torrentially pouring all day and upon arrival the roads of Byron are flooding. Not ideal but the impressive thunder storms keep our dismay at bay as we settle into yet another hostel. The goon is quick into action as our standard precursor to going out. Cheeky Monkeys is the only place worthy to go; a venue for general debauchery with the likes of wet t-shirt contests, painted topless backpacker girls and table top dancing all regular part of the nights antics. Brilliant! The banter and game of life were rife with Aladdin notably getting done over after answering to 'What is Hitlers book called?' Why M.E.I.N. Kampf of course. Down you go...
Byron Bay is renowned for being a very chilled out town, good for its surf to which we definately took full advantage of when the sun came back to greet us with all it's intensity. The news of a fatal shark attack in the same spot just 48hrs before us somehow did not sway our enthusiasm! Neither did the ridiculously close sea-lion who bobbed its head up by us. Byron's also a good access point to Nimbin - a village sized town known very much for one thing only. We thought it would be a laugh to see all those strange and hippie like humans with all their associated paraphanalia shops/cafes/museums too.
All in all a cracking time shared with our good buddies SAFFA and Brendan+Danni. Big nights out, big surf and big views. The most easterly point of Oz lies here marked by a white lighthouse to which is a popular spot for paragliders and whale watchers too so we've heard. We agree that this is our favourite place on the east coast! Impressive...

Couran Point Island Resort

After a week on the Gold Coast, we realized we had found a cool spot to settle for a few months and more importantly to get a job that would help finance the rest of the world tour. Dach and Baz managed to find a job advert online and after contacting them, arranged a trial for the weekend. Boarding the ferry to South Stradbroke Island, they were soon greeted by the idyllic Couran Point Island Resort, beautifully set amongst palm trees, wild wallabies and other scenic wildlife and forestry.

To our surprise, we were left in sole charge of the restaurant bar after Dach suggested that he had more ‘bar experience’ than in the restaurant. The horrified look on his face when he was shown the cocktail and coffee menu was priceless. So with no RSA (compulsory qualification needed to serve alcohol in Australia), we set to work, blagging our way through cocktails and searching endlessly through the fridges of the many, unheard-of Aussie beers. The trial passed quite quickly and before we knew it, we were heading back home with a few dollars in the pockets and a pretty ‘cushty’ job secured. Very soon, Mike and Hubbs were new addition to the resort staff list, and they joined us on regular visits to the island to work.
Whilst working on the island we met some cool people that really welcomed us into the job. The resort manager was an old but interesting guy who stories and experiences always entertained us. His passions lay with most sports including surfing and bodyboarding (despite being 60+) and he was also recognized as the island’s snake catcher. The groundsmen and chef’s all took to us really well, giving us rides back to mainland and cooking us up some great meals. We really settled in well, getting to know everyone and at one point before Hubbs left, making up 4 out of the 6 restaurant staff including the chefs.

In mid-March, we decided to move from our hostel-home in Southport to the staff accommodation on the island. We stayed in the accommodation for just over 3 weeks, hangiong out on the island on our time off. This allowed us to save much more money and we even had our own pet on the island, Monty the wallaby who loved coming over for breakfast every morning. In the last few weeks we were eagerly anticipating the move south to Byron and Sydney – more fun times!!!

Surfers Paradise

Arrived in Surfers on the 12th February, unfortunatley the weather wasnt great however when the weather perked up Surfers, the centre of the Gold Coast looked amazing! 27km of beach stretching all the way down to Coolangata. Standing on the beach you can see all the high rise from surfers and then each individual place 30km south with continuous surf breaking on the beach!
We were all really excited about getting a job in this very young and happening place with a good repuatation for a top night.
Cavill Avenue the main street in Surfers paradise is littered with bars, surf shops and if your lucky you will see the iconic metre maids...stunning broads in gold bikinis and cowboy hats patrolling the streets promoting varoius events!
We however were staying at a small backpackers hostel in a place called Southport just 5mins from Surfers. We were quickly iniated into the gold coast nightlife after signing upto the 'the backpackers big night out', which is were a bus stops at 7 hostels picking people up and taking them to various bars and clubs around Surfers Paradise. a big night was had and we met some cool people aswell as bumping into familiar faces.
We got proactive and got job hunting, Mike and Hubbs landed them selves a labouring job for a day, so whilst they went off, myself and Baz went to the beach then continued to job hunt.
We found two jobs with immediate trials, the 1st being a job selling tickets for nights out, and the 2nd being food/beverage attendants at a holiday beach resort on stradbroke island just off the Gold Coast called Couran point.
The boys had a hard days labouring so when me and Baz turned up to start work at the resort with palm trees and wallabies and serving hen parties alcohol we knew we had lucked in!!!

Every sunday night we used to head to a venue called Fishermans tavern (Fishos). next to a 5star hotel and overlooking a marina full of expensive boats and an ocean and beach just 5minutes the other side, Fishos provided us with many backpackers and Gold coast locals celebrating the end of the weekend...superb night out!!!

Baz celebrated his birthday on the 18th, so in fine wizard fashion the bow tie was on, and we were off for a steak meal then drinks...another good night!

We began work in the evenings for the party cruise company selling tickets as Couran point wasnt full time. We quickly realised that selling tickets to people on a night out is harder than origonally thought, however a good was good way to meet the fellow backpacker.

Whenever the weather was fine and we were not working we would head to the beach to soak up the sun and mess around in the waves.

One day after work Deytrikh came back and asked Hubbs an Mike if they fancied hiring a van of the chap who owned the hostel to go on a 1 night road trip down to the infamous Byron Bay! The reason behind the trip was because we knew that Hubbsy was leaving due to his buisness back in the UK. Unfortunatley Baz was working so couldnt make the spontaneous trip.
The road trip was on the pacific highway was clear and Mike was the driver. We arrived in Byron at 2030 after stopping on the hard shoulder to do a 0-100km/hr, and taking a wrong turn even though it is a straight road to Byron??? We met up with one of Deytrikh"s university freinds called Laura who was on fine form...another great night was had!
Even though we were feeling slightly worse for wear the next day the sun was out and we had a good drive back to the Gold Coast!

The time had come and Hubbs reluctantly left us on the 3rd March. Was really sad to see him leave as he is one of the boys and is a general hoot to be around. We all hope to see him again on our travels when his buisness is more stable and on the go!

The day after Deytrikh went to the final day of the Quicksliver pros surfing competition at Snapper rocks next to Coolangata with all the big names there including Kelly Slater! He had a top day but was sorry the boys couldnt make it.
St Paddys day was the next big event on the wizard's Gold Coast calander on the 17th March. We all went out in the heart of Surfers on a pub crawl with a very good freind of ours from South African who we call SAFA and two irish, Brendan and Danni..also very good freinds!
Had a really good night which is expected from such a world renowned day of drinking...typical Irish!

A good freind of ours from University, Adam Bullock aka Bully or the Bull arrived in Surfers as he was travelling the East coast, so we showed him how the wizards roll while he was here. It's nice to see familar faces and its a nice change every now and then especially with Bully and his quick wit!

Our last night on the Gold Coast was on the 8th April. A good send off was had and a found farewell to our good freind SAFA and the place that seemed like home.

NEW SOUTH WALES HERE WE COME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!