BLUEming beautiful MOUNTAINS

I have just returned from a 4 night trip to the Blue Mountains with Jen. Why is it called the 'Blue Mountains', I hear you ask? I wondered the same but luckily the hostel I stayed in had this sign explaining.

This place really is beautiful. Photos don't really do it justice. But they will do more justice than words. So here is a photo blog of my time in the Blue Mountains :)

Thursday 9th March

Today didn't start off well. I lost my phone and for about 20 minutes I was convinced I had been pickpocketed on the bus and was beside myself panicking. Luckily I waited for the bus to return and the driver said someone had handed it in and we were reunited :)

Today consisted of trekking from the Three Sisters to the neighbouring village of Leura.

The Three Sisters. From left to right they are called Meehni, Wimlah and Gunnedoo.

Connecting the cliff face to Meehni there is a small bridge called 'honeymoon bridge'. This is where I am stood.

Whilst stood on this bridge we were treated to a flypast. It was surprisingly quiet as the sound was lost into the valley below. It was weird looking down onto a flying plane.

In the distance you can see the blue haze effect of the Blue Mountains.

Wherever you are there is a view to be seen.

Leura Cascades

Smile :)

Friday 10th March

Today we visited Scenic world.

Scenic World Facts

Katoomba Falls

The vast expanse of trees looks like broccoli

The scenic skyway over the valley

A cool looking caterpillar

Stepping across the bottom of Katoomba Falls

A jungle setting

Jen photo bombed me but it turned out nice

A smiley face tree trunk

The scenic skyway and a flock of birds

In the train ready for the 52 degree incline. It took about 1.5 minutes from start to end.

This isn't even the steepest part

great views from the train

Saturday 11th March

Today we caught the train to Wentworth falls station, then followed the Charles Darwin Walk for about an hour before descending 200 steep steps but the view was worth it. We then had to do the same in reverse to catch the train back to the hostel.

Along the Charles Darwin Path

Am I genuinely staring into the distance or am I acting for the camera?!

Cute little waterfall

Posing somewhere between step 1 and step 200 on the descend.

Catching my breath after descending 200 steep steps.

Wentworth Falls in all its glory.

Even Percy was enjoying himself

Smile we made it

Time for the long climb and walk back to the train. This isn't even the steepest section.

The Blue Mountains is such a beautiful place. If you ever visit Sydney be sure to visit the Blue Mountains.

Amester x

Road trip via 'home'

When I was young, I always envisioned road tripping through Australia in an old school VW style campervan. However although I have a valid drivers license, I have absolutely zero knowledge on the maintenance of vehicles. Considering my dad (who I always run to when something goes wrong with my (it's actually mums but ssh) car) is 10,618 miles (according to google) away, the sparcness between civilisation within Australia (I don't want to be stranded in the middle of nowhere) and my reluctance/fear of driving abroad this will probably never happen. Nevertheless when myself and Jen were invited on a road trip by Sharon and Graham (the family we are currently staying with in Sydney) we were happy to accept.

27th December 2016

8am and it was time to embark on the road trip. Still half asleep I took my seat in the back of the car. Myself and Jen weren't entirely aware of the itinerary for this trip which led to elements of mystery. Off we set, heading away from the city of Sydney towards the blue mountains. Our first stop was the town of Katoomba for breakfast. Here I tried banana bread and raisin bread for the first time. Raisin bread was very yummy! We then drove a few minutes down the road to the three sisters. Unaware as to what this exactly was I was pleasantly surprised as to what I witnessed. The 3 sisters are a rock formation among a vast expanse of trees within the Jamison Valley. Basically it was a view of trees as far as the eye could see.

Three sisters

Trees as far as you can see

We hopped back in the car and set off on the two hour drive towards the city of Orange. Listening to podcasts, music, napping and enjoying taking in the New South Wales countryside, I felt very content. A quick lunch break in Orange and it was back in the car heading for Dubbo. This section was very isolated including a 170km driving stretch along one very straight road. Having travelled over 400km, we checked into our motel in Dubbo, went out for dinner then called it a night.

We had views like this the entire.road trip 

28th December 2016

Today was all about the zoo. But first it was to the local bakery for breakfast. It was here I realised that in my tired morning state I had put my underwear on inside out. I was still half asleep and really couldn't be bothered to correct it so they stayed inside out all day.

We arrived at the taronga western plains zoo ready for the 9am opening. The queue was already long and it was 30 degrees, at 9am! To go around taronga zoo you can either drive, cycle, walk or hire a cycle cart (like the chuckle brothers had). We decided to walk. Map and camera in hand we ventured round the zoo. I particularly enjoyed the giraffes, meercats and koalas. However my absolute favourite was the baby elephant! He was soo cute and in such a playful mood.

I want one!

Soo tall

Parents and cute baby

Its a hard life! 

After the zoo we grabbed a late lunch in Dubbo city centre where I had the yummiest chicken wrap! Then it was time to drive to Coonabarabran. I do wonder how some of the place names came about. Once we arrived we checked into the new motel then headed to the local Chinese. I was obviously having a clumsy day as mid dinner my glass of water slipped out my hand all over the table and the shared rice dish. Well done Ames! Slightly embarrassed at my clumsiness I also confessed to my earlier underwear incident, as well as the time I accidentally wore my bright orange PJ top to work. Well that set us all off into crying histerics! 

After dinner we were booked in to an observatory. On the way a kangaroo decided to play chicken in front of our car. Luckily Graham was alert which avoided a disaster. Despite a cloudy night at the observatory we still saw Venus, Uranus and Orion's Belt (I thought it was called Ryan's Belt until Jen corrected me) amoung other space stuff. Despite not having much knowledge of space I enjoyed this experience. 

30th December 2016

Today was the 3rd and last day of the road trip. After having breakfast delivered to our room (a first for me), today was all about getting two important photos! To get to the location of the first (and most important) photo a 5 hour drive was required. We did have a pitstop in Tamworth however for a coffee. The sparcity between individual houses, let alone civilised towns on this stretch of the trip really gets you questioning how the children get to school daily, or how the weekly shopping is done, or how long do they go without seeing another human outside of their family.

Yummy breakfast for two 

We were heading for Gloucester! The town of Gloucester. The New South Wales Gloucester. Me and Jen are Gloucester, UK born and bred so obviously we were eager to get a photo at the Australian Gloucester. Driving into Gloucester we spotted the Gloucester road sign, stopped, took the photo then headed to the local Woolworths for magnum ice lolly's and uploaded the photo to Facebook to show all my fellow gloucester friends. From what I witnesses this Gloucester was a lot more picturesque than the English equivalent but sooooo much smaller. Coincidentally there is a River Avon flowing to the edge of Gloucester NSW, just like back in England UK.

So close, yet so far from home

Another coincidence was our second location of the day, 40 minutes away from Gloucester is the neighbouring town of Stroud. Much like back at home. We jumped out of the lovely air conned car into 40 degree heat and posed for a photo next to the Stroud sign. That marked the last stop of this road trip then it was time for the home leg back to Sydney. In total we covered a distance of over 1300km (808 miles) over 3 days, that is the equivalent of traveling the distance between John O'Groats and Lands End.

Stroud

Massive thanks Sharon and Graham for taking us on the road trip, allowing us to see non-tourist parts of NSW. It was really enjoyable!

Amester x

2016 - The year my childhood dream became a reality!

At the end of each year I like to reflect on my year. To recap and remind myself of what I got up to. I read Louise Pentlands blog and liked the chatty monthly reflection so I have decided to adopt this approach for my 2016 roundup...

So grab a hot drink or alcoholic beverage or anything in between, because this was my 2016...

January
* 2016 was welcomed in slightly intoxicated with my best friends, at a house overlooking Gloucester which at the stroke of midnight allowed for viewing of lots of firework displays from the comfort of a warm house.
* My first achievement of the year was gaining my 1 stone weight loss through the Slimming World program.
* A mere few weeks into the year saw the return of the travelling bug resulting in the booking of a trip to Amsterdam for later in the year.

1 stone at Slimming World

February
* I decided to challenge myself to undertaking the #FMSPAD challenge for the entire month on instagram. Although I didnt manage the entire month it was nice to get creative. You can read the blog post about it here.
* The main highlight of this month was gaining promotion at work. I was excited to be given the opportunity to push myself further whilst leaving the comfort zone. It was a massive learning curve which put me into situations I wish never to be in again. I grew immensely as a person, on the whole I enjoyed it and felt I accomplished lots in the new role.

#FMSPAD Challenge

March
* This month I gained another achievement on my Slimming World journey by getting my club10 award.

April
* My sister jetted off to Bali for 3 weeks which meant I was the only child for a while. Time to get spoilt you'd think, quite the opposite infact. The parents ganged up on me as I had no-one to back me up. Maybe it is good having a sibling after all haha.
* I managed to escape the annoying rents and flew out to Amsterdam where I met up with my sis on her return from Bali. We spent a few days chiling in our cool little pod at our cityhub accommodation as well as experiencing kings day for a second year running. It was nice to get away for a short break.

Short trip to Amsterdam

May
* May was a good month! I got my inner 90s child out by seeing Busted in concert with my besties and sis. It was a really enjoyable weekend away.
* Me, my mum and our Slimming friends went against the ethos of Slimming world and went on a pub crawl. We randomly decided to wear custom t-shirts that said 'juicy fruits' and just had a good time.
* I went on a bowling social with my work friends
* I fancied a change so died my hair purple. I loved it and will definitely be dieing it this colour again in the future.
* The main highlight of my month was that I applied for my visa to Australia. I was astonished to see 40 minutes after submission that it had been approved. I remember jumping around the house hyper shouting 'i am going to Australia', my childhood dream was able to happen!

Busrted

June
* June was a month of mixed emotion. I spontaneously handed my notice in because I was fed up of how I was being treated.
* I went on a family holiday to Brean. Despite my dad being really ill it was nice to chill with the family.
* Upon return from holiday I was excited to go back to work for my final week before I left. That was until I got informed the company was going into administration, and I actually got made redundant. It was a bittersweet moment; I loved the job, the customers, and 90% of my colleagues and was there the day the shop opened. I never actually wanted to leave when I handed my notice in but for my own welbeing I knew it was the right choice. To then actually being made redundant which was out of my control really brought home how much that job meant to me. It was a weird feeling.
* I faced my fear and drove on the motorway properly for the first time since I passed my test 5 years previous. It wasn't as scary as I had anticipated it to be.

Sunset through the rain covered window on holiday

July
* I started my new job working at events and festivals around the UK. Which saw me working at TruckFest SouthWest and The New Forest Show this month
* I got swept into the Pokémon Go hype and became addicted. It's not a bad thing, it got me out walking instead of driving everywhere
* I took a trip to London with the sis
* I had the responsibility of house and cat sitting for one night.
* There was a big family meet up with extended family I hadn't seen since I was little. It was so nice to all get together
* I booked my one-way flight to Australia!!
* To celebrate booking the flights, me, mum and Jen spent 4 hours in Bristol primark, clothes shopping for Australia. For someone who doesn't normally like shopping, this was enjoyable

At Pancreas Lock in London

August
* August saw me achieve something I had been waiting to do for about a year. I finally found time to edit my European travel footage into a mini series which I posted onto my YouTube channel
* I spent my birthday going out for breakfast, lunch and dinner because I just love food
* I worked away for 3 weeks at Bristol Balloon Festival, V Festival and Reading Festival
* While at V Festival I saw Marcus Butler and Oli White. I proper fan-girled!
* An enjoyable day trip to London with my sister, Auntie and cousins. It was such a fun day!

Bristol Balloon Festival

September
* In September I had a bonfire where I burnt all my old school and uni paperwork. It felt soo good!
* As me and Jen would be in Australia for Christmas we decided to have our family Christmas on 25th September. We exchanged presents, went for a dog walk in our Christmas jumpers, and ate our Christmas curry.

Burning my old school/uni work

October
* London is one of my favourite places so I decided to visit again for the 3rd time this year. This time I went on my own. I enjoyed just wondering around, taking pictures and people watching
* The month my childhood dream became a reality! I boarded a plane to Australia!!
* Landed in Perth where we were staying until mid December.

Childhood dream of going to Australia became a reality

November
* Cycled 22km around Rottnest Island and saw lots of cute Quokkas aswel as Whales in the ocean
* Stayed in a prison cell on Halloween night
* Had an enjoyable time working for accommodation through HelpX

My prison mugshot

December
* Left Perth and traveled to Sydney
* Climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge for my sisters 25th birthday
* Went in the pool wearing my Christmas hat on Christmas day
* Went on a road trip. (Blog post coming soon)
* Saw in 2017 watching the Sydney Fireworks

At the top of Sydney Harbour Bridge

What was your favourite thing you did in 2016?!

Amester x

Perthect sunsets

My final blog from the Perth chapter of my travels is dedicated to one of my favourite things - sunsets. No one sunset is the same, they make the sky look beautiful and I really enjoy photographing them. During my time in Perth I was fortunate enough to witness several sunsets. Here are some photos I took, enjoy :)

My first Austalian sunset

3 stages of a sunset

Pretty sky

Sun behind the clouds 

Pretty cloud

Plane amongst the sunset clouds

Sunset behind the trees

Sunset fun

Amester x

HELP eXperience

Growing up it was always drilled into me; don't message strangers on the internet, don't plan to meet up with a stranger, don't get in a car with strangers and whatever you do DO NOT enter a strangers house. So obviously I took this advice very seriously and went ahead and did all the above. Naughty Ames!

Help-X is a free website which hosts can advertise for needed help in exchange for providing free accommodation (and sometimes food) for their helpers, and helpers can search for vacancy's. Hosts can contact helpers but if helpers want to contact hosts they need to upgrade to a paid subscription.

Without any luck on the job front and wanting to fill up some of our time before we fly to Sydney me and Jen decided to sign up. We received two messages; one from a family basically wanting a full time au pair (you don't earn a wage through Help X, it's voluntary) for only free accommodation. We declined this offer as we didn't feel it was our cup of tea or fair expectations for the reward.

A few days passed and we received another offer. This time 2.5 hours work daily in exchange for free accommodation. We felt this was a very reasonable offer. The wage for 2.5 hours work is roughly the equivalent cost of a private room in a hostel. We checked the hosts profile and saw they had a dog. A dog and a reasonable offer we decided to except.

A few days later we caught the train about 10 minutes from Perth CBD and waited for Celine to turn up for a lift to their house in Kalamunda, a suburb in the Perth Hills. At this point you would expect us to start thinking wtf are we doing waiting for a stranger in the dark evening light, but I was actually excited to see what was in store for us away from hostel life and to get some needed doggy fuss!

View of Perth CBD from Mount Lawley train station

A pleasant car journey of easy chit chatter before we arrived at the house and shown to our accommodation. Expecting a small shared room for the two of us we were a bit taken aback when we were shown to our own maisonette/flat which is accessed from inside Celine and Geoffs home. After weeks of hostel dorm life, our own space of a bedroom, bathroom and kitchen/lounge was heaven. There was also a private balcony which looked out over Perth with the best view of the evening sunsets.

Our accommodation

After a good night's sleep without ear plugs and people snoring we got to work. For the next 2 weeks we did sooooo much weeding. In 37 degree heat you are a sweaty mess at the end of it. But each day we could see improvements. We actually quite enjoyed the weeding and felt accomplished at the end of our stay on what a difference the garden looked from when we first arrived.

Before (left) & after (right)

Before (left) & after (right)

Aswel as weeding, we also helped shift heavy buckets of soil, manure and sand into flower beds. Well I'll tell you what, we had very toned arms at the end of that shift. I actually had a visible bicep muscle for the first time in my life!

Completed flower bed

Nearer the end of our stay we decided to have a few shifts indoors away from the extreme heat. I always laugh at my grandma when she cleans her windows. But there we were cleaning the entirety of the windows inside and out, washing and hoovering the floor and cleaning skirting boards. Maybe I will make a good wife after all (I'll probably just hire a cleaner lets be honest).

Some days we opted to work for 5 hours so we could have some days off to explore. Jen or I may do a blog on our days off, so watch this space.

Our hosts Celine and Geoff were lovely. For two people to open up their house and trust you to have access to it while they are away at work is brave! We got on very well and were made to feel very welcome. Peppy the dog had such a gentle nature, gave us the love we needed and had great fun dropping his toy off the balcony to us working below to throw back up to him.

Peppy decided to lick me as i took our photo

Overall our first Help-X experience was a positive enjoyable one, and we will be open to more in the future.

Amester x

I had a whale of a time

19km off the coast of Perth is an island called Rottnest. Today a popular tourist attraction, its past saw it the home of an aboriginal prison.

On Tuesday 1st November, me and Jen jumped on the typical tourist bandwagon and boarded the 30 minute ferry to Rottnest Island. We were both excited for the day ahead having heard good reviews.

Other than a bus service and maintenance vehicles, Rottnest is vehicle free. The best way to explore the island is by bike. We hired bikes which we picked up on departure from the ferry. And off we cycled, deciding to follow the brown cycle route on our map (a nice 22km ride, estimated completion time of 3-5 hours, the longest route on the island). Not a problem we thought.

In general our travel ways is just wing it and go with the flow. We do some research but don't overdo it so that there is still things to discover as you explore. Naively we assumed Rottnest would be flat. Ohh how wrong could we have been. The next 22km consisted of cycling up a hill and down a hill and up another hill and down the hill and up and down and you get the picture. I am only little with small legs so when jenny long legs kept overtaking me up a hill I was wishing I had been gifted with some of the tall gene from my Dad. Despite this I managed to cycle the entire 22km and didn't get off my bike to walk once. Not even when my legs literally gave up half way up a hill (this happened more than once) and came to a halt. I just took a minutes breather and somehow found the strength to overcome the lactic acid build up and keep on cycling. Despite us both having very painful legs (and bums) at the end and unable to walk properly for the next couple days we are both super proud to have accomplished this and it was worth every pain.

Treated myself to an ice lolly after the cycle

So what did this 22km cycle allow me to witness?! Lots of cute quokkas!! Rottnest is home to the quokkas. We really hoped we would be able to find some on our trip but a while into our cycle we both started to think that it wasn't our lucky day. That is until I saw some randomers looking at something. So being my nosey self had a look as I passed. Well I slammed on my brakes when I realised they were fusing a quokka! The cutest friendliest thing. Letting us stroke, cuddle and have selfies with it. It did give me a fright though when a bus was coming and the quokka decided to walk towards the road. Stupid thing! That was the first of many we saw and fused. I really wanted to kidnap one but it wouldn't have been fair (or legal) so I resisted the urge.

The furthest point on the island from the ferry jetty (11km, 3 hours cycle) is a whale watching location. This was one of the reasons we decided to follow the brown cycle route. Knowing our chances of witnessing a wild whale would have been slim we thought it was worth the risk. After about 30 minutes of no whale sightings we decided to head off on the rest of our cycle to ensure we could get back for the return ferry. I got back on my bike and out of pure luck I had one final look out to sea and over Jens shoulder I spotted a whales tail going back into the water in the distance. We then stood in awe for the next 5 minutes watching at least 2 (possibly more) whales playing in the ocean. I'm not one to be easily overcome with emotion but I had several tears in my eyes. It was completely unexpected and one of them moments I will forever remember.

We made it back to the Thompson Bay area of the island with a couple hours spare so laid on one of the 63 beaches Rottnest has to offer, letting our very sore bodies relax and recuperate slightly. We then got the very choppy ferry back to mainland Australia. On our disembarkment at Fremantle port we witnessed an amazing sunset. We then treated ourselves to a pizza at a restaurant to top of the perfect day.

On a completely different note, about a week ago I had a grim experience which makes me feel like a proper backpacker now. I have resisted the temptation to write a blog on it because it may make people feel sick but it may also make you laugh. If you want me to do a blog post please let me know and it could happen hahahaa

Amester x