lost blog

we just wrote out a really long post and put lots of pictures on and it crashed, we were sat here for over 70 minutes. we're too mad to do it again, haha.

so you'll have to wait til we get somewhere else okay.

x x x

waitomo to taupo

hello everyone,

we've done quite a lot since we last posted.

before leaving waitomo we stopped off nearby to go black water rafting in the waitomo caves. amy was a bit scared at first as the way into the caves was through this tiny little gap in the rock. there was also quite a tight squeeze in one place. but after that it was amazing. we saw eels and glow worms and jumped backwards off waterfalls. it was really fun but very cold!

from waitomo we headed down to taupo.... where amy jumped out of a plane at 15,000 feet! it was absolutely amazing, just like flying! i wasn't nervous at all, the scary bit was once we'd jumped out and i looked down and for a split second thought i was going to go shooting down like a canon and hit the floor... once i didn't it was amazing. i can't begin to explain what it was like. but i've got a video and some pictures for you all to see.

after the skydive we made our way to the hostel and had an early night in preparation for the long walk the next day.

so on tuesday morning at about 5am we were picked up and taken to the tongariro national park. the walk is just over 18km long and very hard work! about an hour in we had to climb up the devil's staircase... and we can assure you it's not called that for nothing. it took about 45mins but once we had made it to the top, the views of mount ngauruhoe (mount doom) and the surroundings were incredible so it was well worth the climb. it was amazing to see a volcano so big from so close. you could see where the lava had flowed down the mountain, and devils staircase itself is where the lava came down. it's hard to explain how amazing it was up there.

anyway, we walked through a 1km crater and up another huge climb before skidding down the other side. you can see how high up we were on this picture.

as we made our way back down we got to see the emerald lakes, which are an emerald colour due to the sulphur and other chemicals in them. once we had passed them and the blue lake we had another few hours walk back down to the end.

in all it took us about 6 hours and by the end we were both knackered. both of us are feeling it in our legs today! because of the big walk yesterday we have spent today, enjoying a lie in and relaxing in the sun by the side of lake taupo, the biggest lake in new zealand.

tomorrow we make our way to river valley for one night then onto the capital, wellington for another three nights.

just before we go, here's a few pictures from the first few days in new zealand.

this is the gold mining tunnels on the walk we did a few days ago.

this is the village where hobbiton from lord of the rings was filmed. the actual hobbiton was built in a local farm and left there for a year so that when they started filming it looked lived in. amy really wanted to go to the farm but we couldn't stop as we had to get back on the bus :(

this is the maori village we visited when we were in rotorua.

this is a geyser in the geothermal park we visited in rotorua.

we have loads and loads of amazing pictures but it's just way too hard and time consuming to upload even a small amount of them so you'll have to wait til we get back to see the rest!

see you in 4 weeks! x x x

ps. hi dave, thanks for the big emails, we can't really reply at the moment, because as you guessed we are pushed for time in internet cafe's.

mercury bay to waitomo

hello everyone,

all is going well in new zealand, no photo's again though, sorry. once we get to a place where we can upload some we will do, though it takes up a lot of time so even then it may only be a few... you'll have to wait till we get back for most of them.


anyway, from mercury bay we set off to rotorua, which smells of eggs. it's a geothermal area, with a large amount of sulphur, boiling mud pools and geysers. quite cool but also very smelly. we also got to see a kiwi bird while we were there.

on the way to rotorua we stopped off to go on a walk in an old gold mining area. we got to walk through the old gold mining tunnels and saw some amazing scenery.

we spent our evening in rotorua at a maori cultural evening. we visited a typical maori village where we saw and learnt all about how the maori's originally lived, and got to see lots of dancing, singing, chanting and even the infamous haka. we had a meal cooked traditionally in a 'hangi'. an earthed maori oven, the food is cooked under the ground over hot volcanic rocks. the meal was really nice.

today we drove up to waitomo and have just been chilling out in the sun at the hostel... suprisingly it's really hot here. pretty much the same as australia! and it's meant to be like this for the next five days. we were talking to our driver and she said that even in the south island it's still hot during the summer.

tomorrow before we head to taupo we are going black water rafting, which is basically walking through caves and then jumping in the water into a ring and paddling through the caves. there are glow worms and things to see too. should be good.

after that we head down to taupo where we are staying for three nights. while we are there we plan to do the tongariro crossing, a 17km walk where you get to see the emerald lakes and mt. doom from 'the lord of the rings'!

we'll be in touch again soon.

hope everyones well. x x x

auckland to mercury bay

hello everyone, just a quick one as we don't have much time on here.

we made it safely to auckland, stayed there last night in a nice hostel and went out for a meal.

early this morning we got on the kiwi bus and set off for mercury bay.

on the way we made a few stops, first was mt. eden a dormant volcano that gave 360 degree views of auckland, the best stop being a beach just near cathedral cove... we were meant to be going there but that cove was closed for the filming of the 2nd narnia film! we saw a couple of helicoptors moving big boxes.

unfortunately we couldn't get close enough to see anything to do with the filming.

we're now in mercury bay at the hostel, which is nice and clean and has a good atmosphere.

tomorrow we head to rotorua where we spend the night.

we've taken quite a few photo's already but can't upload them from this computer. so we'll do that when we can.

we'll be in touch again as soon as we can.

x x x

ps. hayley, do you mean the estate agents that was sykes waterhouse. sykes waterhouse was SHIT. infact if i was going to work for any estate agents it'd be andrews and co or an independant one. the one in marple bridge is part of countrywide which are shit. it's up to you but i'm warning you estate agency work is not as glamorous as it seems. you get a lot of shit off people and boss' and the targets are awful. give it a try if you want, you may like it, maybe it just wasn't for me, plus the guy running it when i was there was crap.

new zealand tomorrow

this is our last post before we leave for new zealand early tomorrow morning.

we thought we'd give you an idea of our plans...


this is a map of the route we will be taking, starting in auckland for one night, then mercury bay for the second night and rotorua for the third. we then move on to waitomo, then stay in taupo for a few nights where we plan to walk to mt doom (out of lord of the rings for those who don't know).

from there we move onto river valley for the night, then down to wellington for a couple of days before crossing over to the south island. we then head anti-clockwise round the south island, starting at nelson and moving down to wanaka and queenstown, before making our way back up towards wellington and back up to auckland.

we'll try and keep in touch as much as we can, though obviously it'll be a little harder as we're not in one place for more than four nights.

we're really excited about the last leg of our adventure and can't wait to see everyone when we're back in five weeks!

hope your all well, x x x

ps. mrs marsland has asked us to tell dave and percy to stop cheating on the comments.

hard rock cafe

tonight we went to the hard rock cafe in surfers paradise, for a "goodbye australia" meal.

we both had nice new clothes to wear... greg bought some new nudie jeans and i have a new dress.


hard rock lived up to it's reputation, as usual the walls were covered with rock memorabilia and there was a cool atmosphere.

greg tackled the 'legendary 10oz hard rock burger'.

whilst amy tried to take on a 'hickory bbq burger'.

both were delicious.

after the main course, we couldn't eat any more, so we decided to wait and have a drink before thinking about dessert.
greg had a pint for the first time in a while and amy had a cosmopolitan cocktail (and didn't realise at the time, but got to keep the glass... they even boxed it up for us... though we're not sure how we'll get it home in one piece).

for dessert, we went for a chocolate fudge brownie sundae, which was gone within seconds, mmm.

we'd also been looking at this hard rock hoody for a while, and as the sleeves were a bit too short for greg, amy bought it instead.


tonight was definitely a great end to what has been an amazing trip round australia!

tomorrow night is our last night, so we're cooking a meal for john and jo to say thanks. then we have a very early start on thursday when we set off for auckland.

we probably wont have as much chance to post blogs while in new zealand, but we'll try our best to get online at least once or twice a week.

see you all in 5 weeks!!! x x x

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMES "PERCY" HIRST

we'd like to wish james a happy birthday. hope you are having a good day and don't go out and get too pissed. we'll have some belated birthday celebrations with you when we get home but in the meantime have a good one!

not much to report down under. we went to the cinema today and saw will smith's new film 'the pursuit of happyness'. it was pretty good, well worth a watch.

in other news there was apparently a mistake in the last blog. my mum reckons i (greg) have seen a polar bear before, at chester zoo, but i am struggling to remember.

that's all for now.

sea world

hi everyone, today we went to sea world. it was a really good day out.

we started by having a look at the indoor aquarium, which was full of all sorts of fish, many that we have already seen on our travels up to cairns and the whitsundays.

after that we had a look at a couple of dugong's. sea world has made a large exhibit for the dugong's and one in particular who they rescued from the wild. it had been found without it's mum at a very young age, sea world looked after it for a while but decided to release it back into the wild. however it was then discovered stranded and was brought back to live at sea world.

for those who don't know, a dugong is from the same family as manatees, and are known commonly as sea cows because of the way they "graze" on the sea's vegetation. this particular dugong is called pig.

after spending lots of time reading up on dugongs we stumbled across some HUGE australian pelican's. we were shocked at the size of them and didn't want to get too close.

there was a few looking a bit worse for wear, one with half a wing missing that probably wouldn't survive in the wild as it can no longer fly.

luckily we caught up with a walrus who was taking some time out on a bench nearby. despite being a man of very few words, he agreed to have a photo taken with greg. meanwhile, amy commandeered a pirate ship.

in the waters near the pirate ship we spotted a few dolphins.

then we went to watch a show called 'quest for the golden seal'. the seals were really good and made us laugh. it's amazing how intelligent they are and it really looked like they were enjoying themselves.

our favourite part of sea world was polar bear shores. they have created a near arctic summer evironment for the bears with a big pool that has underwater viewing. we thought the bear was gorgeous.

we then made our way to shark bay. there was a number of rock pool areas surrounding it where we got to touch some starfish and sea cucumbers. we had felt a sea cucumber before, when we went scuba diving on the great barrier reef and it was good to get another look at such a strange creature.

we got to see the sharks from an underwater viewing area.

there was loads of other fish to see, including this big fella... a queensland groper. grandad (ces) you'd have a job reeling this one in!


not only does sea world have all of these amazing animals, it also has a few rides. so we thought we'd give a few a go.

they have a big wheel called the sea world eye so we gave that a try. we got to see some good views of the park, surfers paradise and the surrounding areas.

we also had a go on the log flume and the bermuda triangle ride which needs a whole blog of it's own to describe... dave it was like one of my dreams it was that crazy. but basically it involved us being sent to investigate a volcano that had appeared in the bermuda triangle. inside the volcano we found aliens and robots and all the missing planes, boats, missiles and people that have gone missing there since time began. how odd.

after our mission we went to get some well earned lunch, then headed to the water park for a swim and to try out some of the slides.

there was also a massive slide where we both sat in a giant rubber ring, but we had no one to take a photo of us on that.

we got to see some more dolphins, in a show at dolphin cove. they were amazing to watch and seemed to love the attention. it was interesting to see how the trainers communicated with them and the dolphins were very sociable when we walked round the cove after the show. they were eager to show off when we got close by.

by this time it was almost time to leave. but we just couldn't resist going to see the polar bear a second time. however this time there were two young male bears. we saw them play fighting, which was incredible to see. greg had never seen a polar bear before today. all he kept saying was "wow".

we felt very lucky to be only inches away from one of them while we were down in the underwater viewing area, he was huge!

if you've read this far then well done. it was so long because we had a really fun day and wanted to show you as much of it as we could.

can't wait to see you all, only 6 weeks now!

no doubt we'll post again over the weekend.

take care x x x

minus 5

hello everyone.

we've finally got our minus 5 photo!

this is the ice bar that we visited in sydney with erin and steve. we had 30 minutes in there, it was -15 degrees and by the time we left our hands we're frozen!

we got a vodka cocktail in a glass made of ice, and even the drink was half frozen.

in other news, we are thinking of going to seaworld in a few days. amy has been to the one in florida which was amazing, so we're going to see what this one is like too.

then a few days after that we head up to brisbane for our flight to new zealand!

we'll be in touch again soon. hope everyone's well. love us x x x

you can't tie me up i'm just having my lunch

we'd just like to say a big thank you to dave and percy and everyone who starred in our dvd.

we went to john's daughters house today and they had a dvd player so we were able to watch it!

it really made us laugh and it was great to see everyone.

our favourite moments include...

• dave and percy dressed up as the von trapps, dancing to sound of music.
• the reconstruction of the robbery
• the venice card game
• keith / dad at lockside
• everyone clapping in turn
• jack's impression of amy
• the cc footage
• percy in gregs bed
• mmm bop... roland

... so everything really, haha.

but, one thing... where was ray ward?

thank you so much everyone, especially dave and percy who deserve a big pat on the back. it was really nice of you and we really appreciate it.

there's not much news down under. john's daughter martha and her husband and kids were all really nice. they live back down towards byron bay in an area called lismore, which was way out in the countryside. their house was really nice and we had a good day. we're off to the beach tomorrow and are pretty much going to be relaxing until we head off to new zealand, as when we're over there we wont be in one place more than a few days. it should be quite exciting and we're both expecting it to go really quickly.

well, we'll update again soon. and finally thank you again. x x x

australia zoo

on friday we got up at 6am to catch our coach to australia zoo. we were both very excited and couldn't wait.

half way into the 3 hour journey to the zoo... the heavens opened and it didn't stop all day!

despite the rain we still had an amazing time and had a laugh at our own expense!

the zoo was really good and you can tell that steve irwin still has a major influence over it. there was a tribute wall for him, full of flowers and his famous khaki shirts and there were loads of pictures detailing his life.

onto the animals, finally we saw some of the australian icons that we have been looking out for since we arrived 10 weeks ago.

although we caught a glimpse of a koala whilst on the great ocean road, we hadn't seen one close up. we got chance to stroke one and get really close.

our favourite experience was getting up close to the kangaroo's. again this was an animal that we have been looking out for and really wanted to see!

they didn't disappoint! we even saw one with a joey in it's pouch. the most exciting part was getting really close and being able to stroke and feed them.

we also went to watch a few shows at the crocoseum, a 5,000 seat arena.

we saw a snake show, this particular snake is one of their biggest and in parts was thicker than amy's waist.

in another show we saw some spectacular birds flying round the audience.

and the final show was the legendary salt water crocodile, which was really good. with steve irwin being known as the crocodile hunter a large proportion of the zoo was focussed on crocodiles.

amy got to feed an elephant.

we also saw some tigers, dingoes, camels, wombats and tasmanian devils.

australia zoo was home to the oldest giant tortoise in the world. she was called harriet and lived to be 175, however she died last summer. we did see some of harriets friends, who were also massive.

we had an amazing day at the zoo, and even with the drenching we got, we're glad we went.

can't wait to see you all in 7 weeks! x x x


ps. more news on the dvd. we're going to john's daughters house tomorrow and she has two little kids, so we've asked john and jo and are hoping that they have a dvd player / playstation2 that we can watch it on! fingers crossed!