Grande Buddah and the joys of Dim Sum

We arrived in Hong Kong late afternoon the following day, and were suprised to find ourselves feeling a little jet lagged after a mere 3 hour time shift. Once safely ensconsed in our hotel room we summoned the energy to go out for a little explore, and seek sustinence. As mum had been to Hong Kong a whopping 6 times before she was appointed tour guide, and we were off. Throughout my travels one of my favourite aspects of visiting a new place is trying the food, even when its horrible (think Argentina) it at least provides good anecdotal material. So I was disappointed when that first night we ended up in the spaghetti house chowing down on pasta.
However, my disappointment was tempered the next morning when we were up nice and early to go and play on the cable cars and visit Big Buddah. First we had to procure an Octopus card (like Oyster card) for the underground. Despite the fact that most people in Hong Kong speak English we decided to embellish our asking with much miming of Octopi. We had also learned how to sign 'toilet' in Chinese writing in case of emergency. See, we are such well prepared travelling fiends, adapatable to any situation.
The Buddah, and the 25 minute two way awesome skyride, were fabulicious. Plus off with even more awesomeness when we found a massive rooster statue to take photos with. We also walked the wisdom walk, and are now very wise. Mmm wise...
We topped it off with well yummy potato filled rolls, which sounds wrong but were super awesome. After that we hit the ladies market, where I had to be restrained from buying all kinds of over-priced rubbish.
And then, that night... the truth about Chinese food came out. Some friends of mum's had kindly asked if we would like to go out for dinner for traditional Chinese and I enthusiastically agreed. However, if seems that the tastiness of English Chinese was added on its crossing over the sea as Chinese in China largely resembles sea slugs. Lots of them. Actually the duck was good, but everything else definately had a hint of slug. The other problem with Asia is that manners dictate you politely partake in all you are offered, which is how we ended up having Dim Sum the following day. If anything this was worse, as the food was like giant spider eggsacks filled with fluid. One of which managed to prompt an allergic reaction in me and mum seeing us closely resembling Lesley Ash the following day. Mmm... delish. It has to be said though that the lovely Chinese couple who took it upon themselves to show us round were fabulously good hosts to us, and definately ensured we got a tste of the real Hong Kong.
ANYWAY... aside from the Dim Sum the following day was spent looking at a traditional Chinese village (very poor, very cramped), followed by a nice contrasting visit to a walled community in the New Territories which was absolutely beautiful and very spacious. The contrast between rich and poor was actually quite reminicent of the social divide I witnessed in Brazil. We also visited a wish tree, a chinese tradition which involves throwing plastic oranges into trees. Muchus fun. Mum is rubbish at throwing plastic oranges, fact.
That evening we were all traditional Chinesed out and so it was up the touristy but gorgeous peak, con ride on Star Ferry (octopusing again) for the best margarita's of our lives and a steak so rare it was mooing.... bliss. Oh and then a whole bottle of wine and a slightly tipsy journey back to the hotel.
The next day Mum was flying back to Blighty in the evening so we had something of a relaxed day. We ferried over to Hong Kong island to be once again defeated in our search for a cup of tea, and to look at the road that only sold bathrooms. Followed by a perambulate around the most confusing, alphabetically-ordered shopping centre of mystery in the World. Another trip to ladies market made the wares seem no better made, and then we were back to the hotel for a nap, sadly sin hammock this time. The evening saw us eating in the hotel before I bid goodbye to mum for the duration of our respective flights home, and then treated myself to a nice relaxing 2 hour gym session.
And the final morning of my nine month adventure dawned. Which is just crazy because it felt both as if I had been away for a lifetime, and yet also for about 2 weeks. Luckily I was distracted by eating enough buffet style breakfast for 8 and so wasn't too sad for my final airport transfer.
Before I knew it the 11 hour flight had (literally) flown by and I was back in Heathrow. Naturally queuing for longer than all other border crossing combined. Ah home. How I missed you.

Third time Sydney...

And once again I found myself back in the Australian not- capital. It has to be said, by this point I had grown incredibly fond of Sydney, and while my favourite state would have to be QLD without a shadow of a doubt I think I would rate Sydders as my favourite city. And my favourite activity, the botanical gardens, visiting and perambulating thereof. As the weather had been so shocking last time we were Sydneyside Mum and I hadn't made it to the gardens yet, so it was clearly a must-do for our second visit. But before that we had much else to do! That first day back saw a return visit to Darling Harbour to sample to culture (read beer), but not a return to the Opera House where we had been charged £4 for a cup of tea on our previous visit! That evening brought two firsts- Mum's first experience of a cyber cafe (mmm... futuristic and rip- offish), and the inability of two Wale women to find pizza. Yep, Sydney city centre is a pizza free zone! Hilariously however, as we searched, the skies once again opened and made the pavement into a skating rink as on of us hadn't changed out f our Hamilton Island shoes. Safely back at the hotal we bowed defeat and ordered room service. Yeah, we got our pizza in the end.
The next morning I finally got a sunny enough day to show off the much beloved Botanical Gardens and so we were off on a mammoth explore of Mrs Maquiries everything (bit of a Sydney in-joke there), including a trip on the DOTTO TRAIN!! Now some of you may know this isn't my first trip away with my mother, and several years ago we went on an awesome trip to Sorrento and the surrounds. Now in Sorrento there is a little train which shows off the cliffside to tourists, and obviously after several Limonchello shots we decided this was a good idea. As you may by now have guessed, Sydney has a similar attraction in the gardens. And so filled with bacon sandwiches this time, we were off flying fox spotting on the tourist train. I'm actually thinking of making it into a book... dotto trains the world over...
The other touristy thing in the Gardens I had yet to do was visit the Governor's House, a relic of when the Australians were ruled properly (ie.by the British). I was actually quite looking forward to seeing inside the house as I had only so far been chased through the gardens by an overweight security guard. The tour of the house didn't disappoint in terms of entertainment value, unfortunately however the source of the entertainment was more in mocking the tour experience than actual educational benifit. From the woman who insisted we leave our handbags in case we weild them like samurai swords during the course of the tour, to the guide (Ray, con ear hair, sin sense of humour) who has perfected the perfect murdering technique of boring his victims to death (at least 4 people died during the tour), to the EXACT SAME woman who we collected our bags from on the way out who genuinely tried to find me a Louis Vuitton when I was asked to describe the bag I had been foreced to leave. Frankly the day in the gardens was a success though, and we were pleased the weather had come out nice enough to do it.
And the final Sydney day was spent heading to the Blue moutains, where we were lucky enough to be able to spend some time with Ray's equally boring, more rotund brother in the form of our Bus driver. But only after we had driven around the city literally three times (the tip off comes when an HOUR after you were picked up you drive past your hotel again). The day trip included some time in an animal sanctuary so mum was finally able to see a kangaroo, and, more importantly a BILBY! It even offered an opportunity to get our animal passports stamped. Yeah, just as well I didn't have my real passport with me or I'd have definitely have stamped that too. And then once at the Mountains we had an excellent day at the national park- seeing the eventual hour and a half we had there as a challenge to see everything (yep... we ran around the 50 minute walk in under 30) and it was so worth it. Plus we also got to se some more places Queen Liz stood aaages ago, which we hadn't seen any of for almost 24 hours. Also that was the day we were introduced to the miracle that is a double shot of expresso blended with Vanilla Ice Cream. Try it now, thank me later.
The final day we were up at very early o'clock to shimmy on to the airport... Back into Asia, Hong Kong here we come!

The Sundays of Whit; A Royal visit to Hamilton Island

We arrived into Hamilton Island with yet another experience of the airport- shuttle of death behind us and were delighted to find ourselves enjoying beautiful tropical sunshine. The airport was of similar size as the one on the Galapagos, but with the distinct advantage of English speaking staff to inform you that you would be able to collect your luggage from the back of a truck outside the terminal building.
Day one was primarily occupied with having a bit of a nosy around the resort and the 'town'. Not so much a town as an extension of the hotel seeing as the entire island is owned by one company and you can therefore charge anything you buy in the local shops to your room. Once we were all moved into our accommodation (Bungalow 17, doncha know), a scout of the pools and facilities was well in order before we decided to give in to the luxurious surroundings and booked ourselves a dinner cruise for our last night on the island. Well... when in Rome.
That night we decided to sample the best of the French cuisine on offer with a tipple and fabulous meal in one of the rather snazzy waterfront eateries. Here we had our one and only experience of good Australian customer service during the whole two week holiday. Obviously the waitress was American. We also experienced an absolutely fabulous thunderstorm, with dramatic Blakesque lightening illuminating the sky. We had actually been very disappointed when, after 3 days in a continuously rainy Sydney, the weather forecast for Hamilton was for rain. But this was some seriously awesome weather, and luckily the only precipitation we saw during our 3 day luxuriate.
The next day, clear sky a go go, we headed for the pool. After we'd had breakfast in the company of several koalas, of course. That's how you know food is good quality- its like the kite mark for breakfast. During my time in Oz I couldn't help but notice that the Australians are somewhat casual about the appearance of Sol; noone downunder really feels the need to remove all their clothes and lay in the weakest rays of light like the sun-starved Brits are wont to do. The pool was reflective of this. And also the fact that Hamilton Island resort hadn't provided sun umbrellas so lying by the pool for long isn't seriously an option. The plus side to this was that we immediately got sun loungers, the downside was that we couldn't keep our pasty selves out of the harmful rays long enough to hang on much past lunchtime. Plan 'A' defeated and we were off on the island loop bus tour. Hamilton island is actually quite small, and we made our way around the majority of the inhabited area within about 40 mins. The scenery was breathtaking, and we were torn between being excited by that and the news imparted by the woman behind us that HRH Wills was on the island. Naturally we were invited to dine with the future king that night, but we already had better plans- and it was off to the shops to purchase Doritos and beer, theoretically to be enjoyed on the porch con hammock (yes, I did manage to get mum in the hammock, and needless to say she now irrefutably agrees with me- life in a hammock is just better). However, we hadn't banked upon quite such an enthusiastic showing of the native Ozzy wildlife when at the first crackle of a crisp packet being opened a Hichcockian flock of cockatoos (locally referred to as 'galahs') descended upon us in a way that could only be descibed as predatory. Eventually we were forced to cede our territory and retreated back inside the bungalow to finish the beer and crisps.
A good amount of hammock based reading/ napping time later (I was SO in need of a break after all that stressful travelling and amazingness) and the black pit that is my stomach was ready to be fuelled again. Down to the docks for fish and chips, where we were given a pager that would tell us when our food was ready (I know this isn't really a phenomenon anymore, but I was entertained by it. A pager... for fish and chips! How posh are we?!). The great British classic was good, and always tastes better sea front adjacent as we were, but noone does it quite like Blighty.
Our final day I tested out my sailing bravado by taking out one of the resort's single man catamarans- having a ridiculously enjoyable time out on the ocean wave. The afternoon saw us have a bash at that Great Barrier Reef snorkeling lark, but close to the island there was little to be seen and the resort staff informed us that to see the really good fishes we really needed to dive. But as we were sin PADI Quals, and off on our very posh dinner cruise that night which would be visiting the Great Barrier Reef, we weren't hugely concerned.
And the Dennison Star Cruise didn't disappoint. In fact it turned out to be rather entertaining as had my annual abortive attempt to be ladylike and ended up covered in a mayonnaise, and the wind soon ensured we both closely resembled the much feted galahs! We were joined by a friendly Ozzy couple for dinner, for which mum and I both opted for kangaroo steak (highly recommended- we likes it raw and wriggling precious!), and the night was just perfected by the gorgeous sunset and the breathtaking stars that followed (you can see more stars with the naked eye in Oz than anywhere else in the world!).
And sadly, the next day it was bye bye Bungalow 17 and off on a jet plane to Sydders (Wills did offer us his Leer Jet, but we don't like to draw that kind of attention to ourselves), but not before a marathon breakfast at the hotel in order to properly ensure our moneys worth. Yes, 3 breakfasts in a row is achievable if you're wondering.

This is not just any island... this is Prince William approved, sun drenched beaches, Hamilton Island

Back to Sydney (aka. bring out the clowns)

I had only three days alone in Sydney, post-NZ, before being joined by my mum for the final leg of my big trip. Those three days were mostly spent relaxing (ie. celebrating St Patricks Day), and trying to find the hotel we would be relocating to upon parental arrival (not an especially difficult task unless you have a green food-colouring related hangover). While normally quite the intrepid backpacker I was delighted by a) mum's imminent arrival and b) the relocation to a hotel. This was only in part the result of having become stony broke some 2 weeks previously and having been eating only baked beans and Weet Bix (no typo, in Oz it is Weet Bix. Seriously. Weet Bix) since then. Mainly it was because I had missed Lindy and was excited for our holiday!
After a traumatic airport transfer/ welcome to Sydney experience for the parental unit we were off on our first holiday day with several giant cups of coffee. Having opted for something of a relaxed day to get ourselves into the swing of things we spent day one mainly exploring the city centre. This included a visit to the Rocks (oldest part of Sydney) and its free museum, where mum found a free interactive game for children which she played on for several hours, depriving any poor kiddies in the locale. The evening proved irrefutably that food was a) expensive and b) hard to find in the city centre. A theme that was to become reccuring during our stay!
The next day we were off on a harbour tour, during which we got to experience the delights of Australian weather first hand with gorgeous sunshine, oh no wait, thats right POURING RAIN. It turned out to muchus fun none the less as mum spent the duration of the voyage harassing all the Germans onboard. Frankly I was ashamed of her, our Deutch friends were nothing but well- behaved and courteous as far as I was concerned. Not once stepping on our feet or disrupting everyones view. The tour in itself was very nice, we learned that everything is called after the Macquiries, and where Russell Crowe lives. That afternoon we returned to the Rocks for another taste of Oztastic customer service, who knew Australian was a foreign language? Well, it certainly seemed that way when looking for service with a smile. In order to wreak our revenge we relocated to the nearest market where muchus fun was had trying on masks and taking photographs of each other wearing them before the stall owner noticed...
The next day we decided to sample Australia's best, weather and wine wise, with a trip to the Hunter Valley. In a completely uncharacteristic move we were both very well behaved and actually had a very nice sophisticated wine tasting day, only coming away with one lovely bottle of Merlot to remember it by! Mmmm... wine tasting.
And a mere 72 hours after we first were reunited in Sydeny Lindy and I were off to Hamilton Island to hobnob it up with HRH Wills doncha know...

The South and Windy Wellington

My first stop down south was Queenstown as I was keen to visit Milford sound (the Eighth wonder of the world) andget myself a much feted 'Furgburger'!) plus also what with the recent situation in Christchurch I felt it was rather prudent to stay away from the East coast, so had decided upon a journey up the West. Day one was mainly occupied with having an explore of Queenstown, getting to know my roommate (German, obviously) who was a nice girl called Sophie and partaking in a Fergburger of my very own. For those of you not in the know Queenstown has a burger bar called 'Fergburger' which is fairly famous worldwide on the backpacker trail (I first heard about it in Argentina for example). It apparently does the best burgers in the world; I actually think this may be correct, frankly it was the most amazing burger I've ever had. There are photos of this joyous even but unfortunately on my other memory card.
The day after and I was off for my daytrip to Milford Sound, which is actually a fjord carved by a retreating glacier many moons ago, and one of the most beautiful places in the world. I had a brilliant day, making friends with a young American lad called Ryan on the bus journey down we were much bemused that the remainder of our tour assumed us to be a couple insisting on taking photos of the two of us together. Not sure what I'm going to do with those...
The national park itself was amazing, and even included an opportunity to see the New Zealand fur seals, which were super cute sleepy little rock dwelling critters! It was also interesting to learn about some Kiwi history and facts from my bus driver, I find New Zealand fascinating. Learning about what happened to their eco systems and wild bird life with the introduction of foreign predators was a particular highlight. They also farm Venison over there, so the fields are full of deer like they would be cows or sheep, which was bizarre.
The next day I decided to transfer to a little township called Franz Joseph, which is only two streets big, but is adjacent to one of only three climbable glaciers in the World, and, you guessed it, I was pretty keen to go glacier climbing! So the day after was spent hiking on ice, climbing through caves and playing with crampons. The MASSIVE highlight of the day was finding a wormhole (a tunnel through the ice) which the guide encouraged us to wriggle through, as one of only three prepared to risk a quick slide through the heart of the ice river I would highly recommend the experience. Although I wouldn't recommend doing it in shorts like I did, as my knees now closely resemble the inside of a blueberry pie. That night I decided to chill out with a visit to the local hot springs to ease my hiking related aches, followed by a quick 3 and a half hours watching LOTR- Return of the King... perfect material when in New Zealand and you're seeing a filming location everyday (my bus drivers always pointed them out, and I was always delighted... although do now have a lot of pictures of empty fields...).
After Franz Josef I was headed to Nelson, which for NZ is a fairly lengthy bus trip. The woman at the hostel did encourage me to break it up with a night at Greymouth, however I don't find 7 hours on a bus particularly daunting and had been warned Greymouth was little more than an industrial town. I was glad of my decision when we stopped there for lunch! NZ is strange in that 1/4 of the population lives in Auckland, and the remainder of the country seems uninhabited by comparison. Queenstown for example was like an English village with Starbucks.
Nelson was similarly small when I arrived. I wnet out for dinner that night with a friend called Paul I had met on the bus. An oddly intense young man who insisted on buying me dinner (minimal complaining) and then tried to talk me into doing a wine tour the next day. I was very torn as the idea of spending the day being driven between wineries sampling their wears certainly seemed inviting, but in the end I plumped for my original plan of spending the floowowing day hiking Able Tasman National Park. It turned out to be an excellent choice as I met the prerequisite German straight away (Saskia this time) and wer had a fabulous day hiking through the beautiful park. With my usual underestimation of my abilities I had assumed i could do the 12k hike set out on my programme in well under the 7 hours laid out by the park guidelines. I was right, but in retrospect adding another 10k hike on top of that to be completed in the same amount of time was probably overkill, and 22k later Saskia and I were ready to drop. The painful muscles and numerous Mozzie bites were worth it though to see the gorgeous park (apparently the beaches there constantly rank among the most beautiful in the world- and you can see why) . I'm definately planning a return trip to go back and see what I missed!
Still speeding along the next day saw me getting the ferry back to the north island and into Wellington for a day. The Cook Straight crossing had to be a highlight of the trip too, traveling along the beautiful sound out of Picton. Plus also have I mentioned I love Ships?
I also adored Wellington, although well deserving of its nickname 'windy Wellington', the city was beautiful. Clean, well developed, and very very friendly. I met back up with intense Paul to spend my final NZ morning with a trip to Weta, the production company behind Gollum, which didn't disappoint. Only realizing once-there that I had met the CEO waaay back in 2003 that day I stood outside the LOTR premier in London!
I also managed to smoosh in a trip to the Botanical Gardens, a ride on a cable car and a trip to the amazing te papa Museum, which frankly was fascinating. Need less to say Wellington has made the 'places I'm heading back to' list too!
That night it was back to Auckland for a final pizza and movie night with Lance, con my illuminating balloons for celebratory purposes (thanks you Walo!), then onto Sydney this morning. 3 cities in 24 hours! Phew!

Black Sand, Hobbits, Zorbing and almost Mount Dooooooom.

My flights were into Auckland in the North of New Zealand, the largest city in the country playing host to a whopping 1/4 of the entire poplulation.... luckily including my friend Lance (who I met whilst doing the Inca Trail) who had very kindly agreed to put me up!! My first evening in New Zealand I was invited to join Lance's family for dinner, which was very enjoable as not only are thay lovely people, but its always nice to meet the locals, even if they are almost identical to English people!

Sin any kind of plan before arrival my first full day was mainly occupied with sorting out what I actually wanted to see and do in NZ. I decided to split my two weeks equally between the North and South Islands to enable me to see as much as possible. Luckily Lance had already done a lot of planning for our North Island activities so there wasn't much to do but book some plane tickets! The one thing I had SET MY HEART on doing in the North was a visit to Hobbiton, which I set up for the Friday of that week. I also managed to have a good explore of Auckland city centre, which was much like any other large city. Did have some lovely parks though. I'm becoming quite a massive fan of parks!

The next day Lance had the morning off work so we were away visiting some of the gorgeous black sand beaches along the coast of the north island. It was a tiny bit cold to swim (the climate here is much close to that of England than Oz is) , but we had plently of fun mucking about taking photos on the beach. We also visited the mount(ain) overlooking Auckland so I could see the good views of the city. the summit was complatetly inundated with Korean tourists, which also led to some entertaining 'spot the odd one out' phots.

The next day was the day of HOBBITON! So, for those of you not in the know, the set of Lord of the Rings is split over the South and North Islands of New Zealand. Hobbiton (the home of the Hobbits) is in a place called Matamata about a 2 hour drive South of Auck. For this purpose Lance had kindly lent me his car. Originally they had planned to demolish the sets at the end of the filming of the trilogy back in 2002, however someone figured tours would be a better plan, and then the location got picked up again for the filming of the Hobbit- which is currently underway. To cut a long story slighly less long, Hobbiton is actually an active film location at the moment, with fruit growing on the trees, flowers blooming and all the 40 Hobbit holes fully constructed as filming was due to start 2 weeks ago, but got pushed back (yay!!! So glad!). Its basically AMAZING to be there and I would LOVE to write all about what I saw and post all BILLION of the photos I took but I had to sign a privacy agreement stating I wouldn't show anyone the photos or discuss what I was told or saw till after the release of the final film in 4 years time. Check back then chaps for the hot scoop!

In yet another jammy turn of luck one of Lances friends had scooped free VIP tickets to Auckland races for the next day, and I was invited (by proxy, but who cares!)! we were to be seated in the Mercedes Fashion Tent (room, as it turned out to be raining), so got a catwalk show to go with our gambling. Despite having to borrow my whole outfit off Lances sisters we had an absolutely wonderful day, with free champagne, HEAPS of gorgeous food (yes, I did have two puddings... well two plates of pudding, multiple pudding on each plate. Backpacker heaven) and I even won $15 having a lady like flutter on a race or two! Higlight of the day would have to be listening to the stadium of Kiwis sing thier national anthem. Well that and being branded the 'soul stealer' by Lance's friends for having red hair (apparently Ginger people steal souls, who knew). We then decided to follow up a spectacular day with a night out in Auckland, where I got to wow everyone with my ability to drink very very fast.

In a sensible planning move we decided to get up super early the next day to go to Roturua, a town south of Auck; in order to enjoy the world famous sport of Zorbing, have my first go at Luging, and to see Mount Dooom (and possibly coincidentally some Kiwi scenery). Luckily we were largely sin hangover due to the sobering powers of a 3am kebab and lots of water!

NZ is the home of adventurous and extreme sports, and as the birthplace of Zorbing I was able to count spinning down a hill in an inlatable ball a 'cultural experience' (if you dont know, Zorbing is willingly getting in a large inflatable ball filled with water and having someone shove you down a hill. Sounds idiotic. Massively fun). Next we were off to try Luging (also invented in NZ) which is basically Go Karting, but on a downhill track instead of a circle, allowing gravity to power the cart, and meaning you go very fast, on two wheels and occassionally airborn. Also massively fun.

Next we (read I) had decided the day was incomplete without a visit to Mount Ngauruhoe, better known outside NZ as Mount Doom. Unfortunately after driving the 3 hours to get there it was too cloudy to see properly (so annoying it was funny), you could almost say the venture was doomed. Ha ha. But luckily the spectacular sunset over Lake Taupo was ample compensation. And I actually got to see a lot of the North Island I otherwise would have missed out on! the downside was that we arrived back at half past midnight, and had to be up again at 5am for my flights to the South Island.

But it was all good, I got there in time and was ready to enjoy a week dahn souf!

Sydney take one...

After Brizzy I was off to Sydney for a paltry three days, luckily I'm set to return there so no worries as they say!

I was pretty struck with Sydeny from the start: I had picked a really good hostel full of very welcoming people ('Come join us! We're drunk! Have some wine! Whats your name?'- the kind of welcome I welcome.), and on the journey from the airport I had met two ladies who informed me that the Sydney Art Gallery was currently playing host to the Terracotta Soldiers, which I was excited to go and visit.

The next morning I was off to scope out the area with a big run around the botanical gardens, to see the *scream* Sydeny Opera House! Whenever I see something on my travels thats iconic (Jesus in Rio is an example that's stuck) I get covered in gossebumps, and it was no different with the Opera House. And it didn't dissapiont. Although I've put off a visit inside the iconic building for a later trip. I also stretched my run to encompassed a quick look along the docks and at the Naval base in Sydney which is visible from the dock road, and quite impressive!

The remainder of the day was spent catching up with my friend Zoe who I was working with in Bolivia, whi currently lives in Sydney. Needless to say much Goon was consumed. Dissapointingly we couldn't find a washing line with which to play 'Goon of Fortune' (peg the bag wine to the washing line, spin it, whoever it lands on drinks. You get the idea... This actually IS Australian culture!!), but conisdering the state of my head the next day anyway it was probably for the best!

The next day I had decided to go and see the Warriors and they didn't dissapoint! Absolutely breathtaking. Naturally I now have to add going to China to see them in thier 'natural habitat' to my list of things to do! I'm also adding a further visit to explore the Sydeny Art Gallery to my return activities as it was a gorgeous collection I didn't fully get round! Shockingly that night everyone was very subdued in the hostel and we settled down to watch a film before my early flight to New Zealand the next morining. Yay!!