Back to Melbourne!

Arrived back in Melbourne in the morning on 4th Jan and moved into my new flat! So me and Ellie spent most of the day out buying bedding and did a big food shop etc! We also had a wonder down to Southbank where we had cocktails in the Crown Casino!

The next day we picked up our hire car for our road trip! We drove to the Mornington Peninsula where we stopped for a walk and a picnic, then drove over to Philip Island! We checked into the hostel which was really nice, probably one of the cleanest I've stayed in while I've been in Australia!
I knew there was a place called Rhyll on Philip Island so we decided we had to go there just to get a picture with the sign! (For those who don't know, back home in Wales I live really close to a place called Rhyl!)

Then we went back to the hostel for some food before heading out to the penguin parade! It was just as good second time! The penguins were so cute!

The next day we went to the chocolate factory on Philip Island which was really fun! There were random games where you could win chocolate, and you could make your own chocolate in whatever shape you wanted. After that we set off back to Melbourne! The drive was fun, we listened to Aussie radio which is actually better than at home, plays a bit more of a mixture of genres, though a lot of the same songs do get repeated!

When we got back to Melbourne we spent the next few days just chilling out. Ellie booked a skydive which kept getting put off because of the weather, but she eventually got to do it on the day before she left which was lucky! Think she enjoyed it!

We also had a bit of a mad night out on the Saturday night! Got quite drunk so spent Sunday relaxing and took advantage of the pool in my building! Went to chinatown in the evening for food to try and cure the hangovers!

Monday I was back at work, which is also the day Ellie did her skydive, so she had something to do while I was working! Then as it was a Monday evening, the only cool thing to do in Melbourne is obviously Neighbours Night!As usual it was a fun night, though less drunken than normal as I had to be up at 6am the following morning, and Ellie didn't want to be hungover for her long journey home! We met Chris Pappas and Sky Mangel, and as my good friend Dr Karl wasn't there, we got to hear Paul Robinson sing with The Waiting Room instead!

So the next day Ellie flew back to the UK, was such a fun couple of weeks! Haven't done a huge amount since then, went to watch some of the qualifying matches for the Australian Open which was surprising quite good! Everyone in Melbourne seems to get pretty into it so thought I should watch a couple of the games!

It was also Australia Day last week! It's the national day of Australia celebrating the arrival of the first fleet into Sydney Cove in 1788. It was a really fun day, went to a house party with some of my flat mates. It was robot and monster themed (very random!) but we didn't bother dressing up! 

Me and my flatmate Rosa on Australia Day!

So yeah, apart from that I've just been working! Need to try and save my money now! Can't believe I only have about 10 weeks left in Australia.... :(

Mission Beach

I was really excited about getting to Mission Beach as I was meeting my sister there! Hadn't seen her for over 6 months!
Got the ferry back to Townsville from Magnetic Island where I got the 12 o'clock bus to Mission Beach. I got there at about 3.40pm and Becca was waiting for me at the bus stop - complete with a pair of crutches as she'd fractured her ankle back at home!
We stayed at a really cool hostel called Scotty's, the dorms all surrounded a big outdoor area with hammocks, a pool and sun loungers etc! It was a really good place to chill out! 
We didn't do much the first evening as Becca was jetlagged and I was pretty tired from the Full Moon Party the night before, so we had an early night, as the next day was a big day - jumping out of a plane!!!

The hostel

Got up quite early the next morning ready for our skydives! To say I was nervous would be a bit of an understatement! We got picked up from the hostel and taken to the skydive office where we were given a form to sign stating all the risks involved - it was pretty scary and it took my a while to actually sign it after the warnings that many people have died from skydiving!!!
I decided to go for the most expensive option and had my own personal cameraman who would jump out of the plane at the same time, to film my skydive and take photos. The other option was for the guy I was attached to to have a handheld video camera, but I decided I wanted his only focus to be on opening the parachute!
So after filling in the form I did a quick interview for my skydive video, then met my instructor Mike, who was really cool. He kept making jokes about how he tried not to drop people as it's too much paperwork for him! But he was really nice and kept chatting to me to take my mind off what I was about to do!
Before leaving we had a quick lesson on the best position to be in for the free fall and how to land, then it was time to go! We had to get the bus again to the runway where the plane takes off. We had to wait a while because it was cloudy and they had to wait for a gap in the cloud so it was safe to jump.

Before getting on the plane!

Soon enough it was time to get on the plane! Mike chatted to me the whole way, pointing out the banana trees and telling me random facts about Mission Beach - none of which I can remember as my mind was slightly preoccupied!
Once the plane got to 14,000ft it was time to jump! I was second to go so had to watch the first guy leave the plane, it was pretty freaky as he literally just disappeared! Becca was 2nd to last so got to watch me - she said my face was a picture! I was hoping for a couple of minutes to prepare myself but as soon as the first guy was gone I was suddenly sat at the edge of the plane, and before I knew it I was falling through the air!!! It was crazy, but amazing! 

I don't look too happy here!

The freefall was so cool, seemed a lot quicker than 1 minute though. One thing I couldn't believe was how close my cameraman Pete was to me - he was literally right in front of me. It was cool though, he kept doing silly things to make me laugh, and trying to get me to do stupid things back to him - didn't really work though as at first I felt paralyzed with fear!! But eventually I managed to do a quick thumbs up and even blew him a kiss!

It was quite a shock when the parachute actually went up, there was a bit of a jolt, my ears popped, then all of a sudden we went from free falling really fast to slowly gliding through the sky. At this point we'd gone through the clouds so I could appreciate the amazing view of Mission Beach, and it really was amazing! Could see the Great Barrier Reef and everything!
The landing went much more smoothly than I thought, I didn't fall over which was good! Had a quick post skydive interview for my video then it was all over - seemed to go so fast! It was amazing though and definitely something I'll do again!

While waiting for my photos and DVD to be ready, me and Becca went for a well deserved drink! I introduced her to Aussie Strongbow - much better than the rubbish we have in the UK!

We didn't do much for the rest of the day - I was kind of in a blur, couldn't believe I'd actually jumped out of a plane!
We decided to go out for tea that night, we went to a place right next to the hostel and had kangaroo and a few glasses of wine. Sat with some other people from the hostel so had a nice evening chatting to them.

The next day was white water rafting day! Becca stayed at the hostel as it wasn't really a good idea for her with her bad ankle! But at least the weather was good and she could sunbathe by the pool - my tan is way better than hers so she needed to at least attempt to catch up!
White water rafting was really fun, and a bit scary at times! The rapids were crazy! I was lucky though and only fell out once! Everyone now and again we were allowed to jump out of the boat and swim along the river with the current from the rapids drifting us along. We also got to stop and jump off a massive rock into the water which was fun!
It was a full day trip so we had 2 hours in the morning, then lunch then another 2 hours so it was quite tiring! On one of the rapids our instructor told us to all sit at the back of the boat huddled up together - this meant that when we got to the bottom of the rapid the boat flipped and we all fell in the water! It was fun though!

Just cruising along...

Crazy rapids!!

Got back to the hostel at about 4pm, had a good chilled out evening before having to check out the next morning. We spent the next day chilling out by the hostel pool before getting our bus at 3.40pm to Cairns!