Hello all, We have just been looking ta the blog and didn't realise how long it had been since an update. We are both loving life out here and the jobs are going great. Amy got an extension at work and the footy coaching is going mint and I know have a the women's Prem team to coach. Like we said before we plan on doing things at the weekend before it gets busy with games etc.


Blue mountains


After a few drinks on the town with some friends we went to the Blue Mountains which is a couple of hours west of Sydney.. We never heard of the place until we got here - Its a great place which covers the same area as the Rockies but not as high. ( In other words its 10 times better than Dolby forest!) We first went to sea the Went worth waterfall where at the start we could walk into it. We walked down the falls at the side of a Richard (cliff) where the heights made our legs go!! The weather started out good but then a storm came whilst we were up there. To be honest the storm made the water flow more and the thunder sounded amazing in the mountains etc!! however other than that the clouds covered up the rest of it and we couldn't see a thing, so we decided to hit a cafe and have tea and scones!!! Very English.... Now we have a car we'll probably go back there one day, do a spot of fishing and have a picnic on the mountains...


The Zoo


This is becoming our hobby ha lol. Every place we go to we end up at a zoo! Now we know the answer to the questions that the keepers ask - we give each other a little high five and a wink! lol. We got a ferry over to the zoo where we then got a cable car to the top and worked our way down. A great place and its probably our best favourite zoo so far lol. You could look over Sydney and see our apartment from the Giraffe's encloseure....... It was a hot day and on the way back we decided to have a glass of wine and a meal on the wharf next to our flat... what a lifestyle we are living out here - it was another pinch yourself moment and the fact that we are so lucky to be able to do this.










The Queen Mary Cruise ship came to Sydney ( the biggest in the world). It was that big it couldn't fit under the bridge so it had to be diverted to the wharf outside our flat.. Eveyone loves a ship over here.. Everytime one comes through hundreds come out to watch.

A funny story now. Amy was at work getting a coffee and two big managers were having a meeting in an office. They were talking about an employee but Amy heard them pronounce the name wrong... so as she walked past, took a detour to the office, stuck her head in and corrected them!! They both stopped and looked at her then carried on! that employee was later sacked!! ha ha nice one Amy


Anyway I hope you are all well at home. Summer is coming to an end here but its still in the mid 20's.


All our love


Team RA


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Still loving Sydney

Hello everyone. Sorry its been a while but we've been so busy. We both have jobs now!! Amy like we said is working for Nestle and I am now working for Sydney Soccer Academy and also the manager of the the res/ U18 for Lind field. They play in the league below the State league so its a good standard and I get paid for it!! I am currently having trials for the RES at the moment and I am just about there with it - I Just need to look at a few more players.

We have had to get ourselves a car...if you want to call it that! It goes to the top of the Rich Byrne's list of amazing cars.. One thing that is for certain its come to its last home lol.

Since we work during the week we are doing what we did in NZ and do things in the evening / weekend ( if there are no games on). It was Sydney festival throughout January and team RA have been taking it all in. There are stages around the parks with performances in Jazz through to Opera. Its great. We tend to make ourselves a picnic and settle down for the evening in the parks.

Australia day!

We never knew this existed but everyone goes to town over here! All the streets were closed and it was just a carnival atmosphere! We wandered around all day and took it all in followed by another firework display in the evening at Darling harbour.















Chinese New Year

Apparently this was the biggest celebration outside of China. Again all the roads were closed and the party began with Chinese stuff - drogan dancers etc. To finish the night we had a lovely Chinese meal around the harbour.

The weather has been great!! Its been around 39 degrees on average and it hit 44 the other day. We decided to have a picnic for tea overlooking the opera house / harbour bridge a great night and to top it off we got given 2 free tickets to watch a movie at an open air cinema ( again overlooking the harbour). It was another pinch yourself moment.








This weekend just gone the weather was great and we went to Summer Bay where they film Home and away!!! We didn't see Mr fisher or Big Alf but it was great fun. Since Me and Amy can no read the ocean... soz hard.. we decided the current was a little to strong to hit the waves but give it a few more months we'll be there!!





Well that about it at the moment, I hope everyone is well at home and that its not too cold!!!

PS
Amy is now a member of the Nestle NFL touch rugby team!!! She is been playing on the wing and nearly got sent off in her first game!! Apparently everyone was shouting instructions to her but she didn't understand, the other team then went crazy with the ref, which made the ref get annoyed with Amy, which nearly got her sent off!!! lol. Her team mates have decided she needs to toughen up so she is practicing getting me in headlocks and tackling me everywhere we go!!!lol

All our Love

Team RA

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I beg your pardon............I never promised you a rose garden

Hello and Happy New Year!!

Well yet again we've had one hell of a fortnight here in Sydney. With everything shut down we can't believe what we've been able to sort out, and aside from that its been a good time to party!

We arrived in Sydney on the 19th, as soon as we'd checked into the hostel we headed for the opera house. What an amazing place, just spectactular, right next door is the harbour bridge and the whole area around these two sights is gorgeous, lots of little cafes, bars and restaurants, the harbour is one of our favourite places. Sydney is a massive city so it took a few days to get our bearings and have a good look around.

Christmas was around the corner and we weren't feeling Christmassy at all .as its not celebrated as much over here as at home so we decided to go to a Christmas concert. We went into the opera house to take a look at what was on and it was a toss up between Rolf Harris and Christmas Opera, being the flashpackers we are we booked two seats to the opera! It was great, we even joined in when hark the herald came on and rich was belting out away in manger.....

Some of our friends had made it to sydney to so we met up with them and did the Bondi beach to Coogee Beach walk.

Christmas eve was fun, we met up with some friends had a few drinks and games of pool and ended the night at midnight mass to see in christmas with everyone!! Not exactly the stamford church where you can roll up after a few so we left half way through, it had been going for an hour....

Christmas day was awesome, we went to Bondi beach with our friends - all of which had christmas hats to get into the spirit. There were DJ's, lots of drinks, and we had a ball. Queues were huge for the bars so we were glad we'd nipped into the disabled toilets before we got to the beach and downed a bottle of wine!! Soz Wino's!!!!!

Inbetween Christmas and New Year was when we really started looking for jobs and flats. Everything was closed down over the holidays but we managed to view 5 places and settled on a great little flat in the city centre overlooking a park and the city itself.

Its a great little place, a one bedroom little studio, mint kitchen and bathroom all pretty new and a living room which is awesome, the bedroom is in the living room............the bed comes out of the wall!! we've got our own table and chairs and in the mornings we wake up to the city skyline and the harbour bridge, just fab!! Its somewhere to call home for a few months and it really does feel like home, we are so happy here, the building we live in has a mini gym downstairs so we've been going for runs on the treadmill, the rooftop looks right onto the opera house and at night as the sunsets its great to watch.

New Years Eve was the best one we've ever had, some friends and us went on a boat on the harbour to watch to the fireworks, have a few drinks and boogie the night away. The best money we have spent in 9 months away, it just blew us away, even the boat was great!! The fireworks were like nothing we have seen, it was a simulated thunderstorm so there was firework rain and sunshine and lightning, they lasted for 20mins.

So looks like we'll be settling down here for a few months and extending our trip!!!! As Cilla would say Suprise Suprise! I have landed a great job at Nestle, similar role to what I was doing in York, looking after brands like Aero etc. Rich has a few irons in the fire but everything is just reopening again after Christmas and New Year.

Happy New Year to you all and thanks for the lovely messages we recieved

Can you guess what it is yet?

Well the answer was Rich being a DJ on the WWOFFing farm we went to ( no houses but they had some decks!!!!)

All our Love

Team RA

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Merry Christmas everyone!

Hello and Merry Christmas to everyone. We hope you all had a fab time. Well its been a while since we last updated the blog so we will start with Byron Bay. This was just a small town by the beach. A really nice place but not a lot happening. Here we met up with some friends that were taking the same route as us and took a walk to see the most easterly point in Australia. Its a beautiful lookout right by a lighthouse where dolphins and turtles swim beneath you in the sea. We spent some time here and on the beaches nearby, all in all a nice little stop.

From Byron Bay travelers often go to Nimbin, its known for being one of a kind and still stuck in the 1970s as a pot smoking hippy land!!! We'd never heard of this place before but it sounded like something we had to see so we booked a tour to see it. We'd heard that a lot of backpackers go WWOFing (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) What you do here is work on farms for accommodation and food - you don't earn money but we aren't spending money either. Its a great way to get a real Oz experience, often working with animals and general farm maintenance. So we thought we'd give it a go. Seeing as though we were heading down to Sydney we thought we'd go to a farm just outside of Byron. What we didn't realise when we arranged it is that is was right near Nimbin. We arranged with the tour company to drop us off in Nimbin then we can re-join after our 4 days on the farm.

As we walked through the town we met Tess (the owner of the farm) who didn't look like your average farmer. She was walking around in bare feet and was with her family and friends who were just typical hippy people!!! team RA look a little out of place to say the least.

It was an 80 arce farm but with a twist.......... It was a hippy commune with 5 dwellings. Everything on the farm was built themselves - it looked like a third world country and we were there to give aid! Just for a taste of what the people where like we met a couple called Andre and DeLac who were the same age as us. She had all her bits n bobs hanging out as she wore hardly any clothes, had a shaved head and was wearing a pan on her head, whilst Andre was slaughtering a goat and keeping the skull for his "collection" ha lol.

The work we did included road building (which blistered our hands) planting trees (looking out for snakes as we did this) oil timber and washed the outside of the house which was made out of tin. One thing we did get to do was shower outside!! Literally you took a shower and people were walking past. One time I was in it and two people were having and argument right next to me!!!!! lol. oh and the toilet was a hole in the ground! They did make us feel at home though, they were genuine people who included us in everything they did, we ate all of our meals as a big family, even down to going to watch the nativiety play at the school with everyone (although it did turn out to be about spaceships!!) It was so funny all of the parents were pure hippies and all the food was organic vegetarian. It was quite nice as everyone (including Tess) grows their own veges so everything was nice a fresh.

We slept in Tess's house which she was in the middle of building. Our room was soon to be her daughters new bedroom and didn't yet have windows just plastic sheets. To be fair this was fine in nice weather, the only problem was at 4am when the turkey's and geese and all the other animals started clucking and cock-a-doodle-doing. One night however was a different story.............A massive storm came blowing the plastic off the walls and the rain into our room, we had to get up at 2am in the rain and climb across wooden beams in our PJ's to get the sheeting and try and put it back on!! All while their rockveiler is barking thinking we were burglar's, and we're trying not to stand on any snakes that might be on the ground (she warned us she'd seen the most deadly snakes in Australia on her farm!!). Each of the dwellings was occupied by either family members or randoms that needed a place to stay. One of these randoms was called Wolf, he'd lived in a Tepee in the forest for a few years and needed a change so he turned up on Tess's doorstep and they set about making a house. For someone who has lived off the land and managed in a Teepee he had an awesome set of DJ decks, digital and everything!! He was a funny guy, always stoned and telling us how much energy we brought to the place, one night he even taught us how to DJ.

Anyway in turned out to be an experience we will never forget and one we glad we did. We rejoined the tour on our last day and everyone thought what we'd just done was hilarious, it was so nice to be back with people that actually washed!

The week after couldn't have been more different. We went on a 5 day surf camp that took us from Byron bay to Sydney. There was loads of us, we took a bus down to Spot X where we stayed for 2 nights and 2 days and this is where we had our first surfing lesson. Everyone in the camp were surfers so it was quite chilled out and they cooked gorgeous food. We were knackered after surfing, it really took it out of us but we managed to stand up and learnt how to read the ocean and tell if it is safe or not.

On a night we would all get together, play drinking games and chill out by the bonfire, a really good way to met some new people. We left Spot X after 2 days and headed to Crescent head. The waves here were a bit bigger and good for putting out new found talent to the test. We had around 2 surf lessons a day which at 2 hours long was enough! We were taught by a 8x world champion surfer, We stayed here for another 2 days before making the final journey to Sydney.

Can you guess what it is yet?

Unfortunately due our camera being nicked we couldn't do one last time. however here's another one

All our love

Team RA

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Brisbane - Surfers Paradise

Hello Again!!!

Well for starters we have some bad news (although we can see the funny side of it now) There won't be many pictures on this blog because at Surfers Paradise beach our bag got stolen, so guess what.................we're on camera number 4 now!!! Luckily the lifeguard told us to go and look for our bag as the thieves usually dump them after they've taken what they want, so we went searching and like a sniffer dog I found it in the bush. They'd left our credit cards etc just taken some money, my watch that Rich bought me for my 18th and our camera. We'd already burnt some pictures to disc so we've only lost Brisbane and some of Surfers, still, we'd like to hunt the little beggars down!!!

Anyway we'll start in Brisbane.....

Our first big city for while and a refreshing change from little towns. Some of our friends from Fraser Island, Whitsundays boat trip and people we've met along the way were there so on our first night we went out to sample a Saturday night in Brisbane. We had a few drinks and good laugh, all in all a good night.

The next day we set off walking through the city to see the sights. They have gorgeous botanic gardens right in the middle of the city so we had a stroll around those and checked out the river and Kangaroo Point. That night we just wandered around getting our bearings around our hostel and had an early night. On Sunday we hired a tandem bike and went all over the city. We followed a route down the river towards south Brisbane, through Toowong and the Queensland university and took a shortcut on the way back. This 'shortcut' took us across some major roads, dual carriageways and bridges before we ended up back on a cycle track.....whoops!!

We met up with our friends again that night and went to see 'Australia', a great film about Australia (obviously) in WW2. On Monday we went to the Lagoon (Streets Beach) in Southbank which is a man made beach along the river with a swimming pool. Its a great place, Southbank, with lots of little cafes and ice cream shops all within a walkway covered in purple flowers.

On our last day we went to Mt Coo-tha, a gorgeous lookout point over all of Brisbane. There we also did a walk though some bushland and to some waterfalls, well actually they were dry so we climbed up them! That night we met up with an old friend from school (Ben Brooks) who lives in Brisbane now and we had some tea at a Chinese in Southbank, a lovely end to our stay in Brisbane.

Our next stop was Surfers Paradise. We didn't expect such a lively place!! It was a real holiday town where all the Ozzie's go for a summer break, great beaches, nightlife and awesome theme parks just outside, the place was really buzzing!!

On our first afternoon it poured down so in true Brit style we went for a few beers, in fact all afternoon we did a pub crawl around the town and even got shouted some drinks by a bar manager (everyone loves team RA!). That evening at our hostel they put a film on the outside screen and we all sat around the pool with 'all you can eat' Domino's for $5, a box of wine and watched the film. We met up with some friends who had made their way to Surfers and ended up hitting the town again!! A cracking day and an even better night!!

The next day we headed straight to the water park. We have never seen anything like this place, it was huge, it took us the whole day to get around, awesome slides with almost vertical drops, loads of tube rides and even a tornado one where we both sat in a tube and it whizzed you round, such a good day out!!! The hostel we stayed at also had a converted van where you can hire films and go and watch them in the van so after a big night the night before we decided to rent out 'A night at the museum' (with Ricky Gervais) and had a quiet night in.

On our last day we headed to the beach, the sun was shining and it was a great day to jump into the waves, we were having a great time until we realised our bag had gone!! So the rest of the day was at the police station sorting it out and ringing the insurance company.

Next stop is Byron Bay and working on a cattle farm for a few days (should be interesting!!)

All our love

Team RA

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Fraser Island

We had 3 days on Fraser Island and had a blast! Fraser Island is the worlds largest sand island - an amazing place. What people do is hire a 4x4, drive around and camp on the island. We booked a 4x4 and were put with a group of 10 - 2 French, 3 Irish ( sisters and cousin), 2 Norwegian a German ( A very big German!) and Team RA. Like I said we didn't know anyone but as always on our travels we have made some great friends and will probably meet up again.

Day1

After our briefing we all headed to the supermarket, put $20 in the kitty and bought our food for 3 days. Ha ha the Irish family took 0ver here and bought loads and loads of potatoes ( no joke!!!) I was nominated to drive first as the girls didn't fancy it whilst Amy made everyone in the back sing a song from where they are from. Surprising everyone got well into it and were really going for it! ha ha lol ( when the Irish started it was like being at a family do!! counting each other in etc brilliant!) We took the Brian over to Fraser which took 50 mins or so and got to know other groups that where doing the same thing. Each group decided to do their own thing in the day but camp together at night.

Soon as we got on the Island it was straight into 4 wheel drive! Class absolutely class!! I have never had so much fun driving ( well maybe the fiat uno up viking road lol). We pulled up at lake wabby ( still singing - in french this time!) We were greeted by a large sand dune with a fresh water lake at the bottom - WOW!!!! We all ran over the sand and jumped in the water were turtles and cat fish swam around us! We also bumped into some people who we were in Fiji with! After we headed off and set up camp -whilst the potatoes were boiling ha we put up 3 tents (we shared one with the french couple). whilst doing this the our German friends drove past that we met on the whitsundays boat trip so they set up camp next to us!. After , the sun came down and it was just and mint sunset! I thought Fiji was good but this took the biscuit! Everyone sat on the beach and the party started! and we eventually had our burgers.......... with potatoes ha ha lol.

Day2

We had to drive with conjunction with the tide so we were up early - around 5:30am, had breakfast, packed away and set off to the champagne pools with Amy driving down the beach. Its really strange its like a normal road with cars driving to the left and planes flying over us trying to land in spare sand!. (oh we were also told only swim in the sea if you want to be eaten!) We arrived at Indian Head lookout where you could see fantastic views of Fraser, sharks, dolphins and turtles swimming in the sea)

After this we swam in the Champagne pools which are created when waves crash over rocks and leave water behind!

That night we set up camp again and had lovely french style tea!

Day3

Our last day!! booo but to be fair any longer and maybe it would have spoiled our stay. We drove up to Lake McKenzie. This took all our breaths away!. Pure white sand and and clear turquoise fresh water lake....... just paradise!! We stayed here for around 3 hours just chilling out and learning french lol with our new French friends.

After the trip everybody met again that evening exchanged emails etc and got ready to move on.. Hopefully we will all meet again for New Years.....

Noosa

Its a hard life I know but after the past few weeks we needed a little rest! So Noosa was the perfect place for it. Nothing really to do in the city apart from relax - everything closes at 23:00 so it was good to recharge. We did however get a bus to Steve Irwin's Zoo - Crikey! It was a great day and bumped into a couple who we met in Airlebeach. - A great day its a shame hes dead really its probably the best zoo ( for entertainment) we have been too! The size of the Crocs were huge! - just clad we were on the other side of the fence!

The rest of our stay in Noosa was just laying on a beach, walking and going the picture house.

The next stop is Brisbane - our first big city!!!!

Can you guess what it is yet?

Well within 6 hours of posting the blog brother Byrne and Miss Hole were keen to get their answer in. However Team RA have had a discussion and you two are only allowed to have One answer ha lol.....( I bet you are like the tennis couple from Confetti!! win win win!)

The answer was Amy driving a Greyhound Australia Bus ( she jumped in the drivers seat when he went to the toilet ha lol)

Next one ( remember brother Byrne/Hole... one answer...I don't want Hargreaves emailing me complaining!)

All Our Love

Team RA

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Where the ocean meets the sky i'll be sailing....

Now then all.. Hope things are good at home - cos things are just mint over here!!! (not to rub it it or anything). The weather is hot, meeting great people and when you think the trip can't get any better it just does.

We have just come back from a sailing trip which sailed around the Whitsunday islands for 3 days. Eventually we got down to Airlie beach ( seriously you can't imagine the distance we only went about an inch on the map!) after a 6 hour coach journey. Airlie beach is a lively little backpacker town where all you do really is drink and sail. After a nice couple of nights there we headed to our boat where we were greeted by the fattest skipper we have ever seen!!

It was an old racing boat that had just been given a face lift. There were 15 of us in total. A few Germans, Canadians, a South Korean that didn't speak English but just smiled, Irish and Team RA. We were really lucky we had a good group all of whom we have kept in touch with.

Day1

We set sail with a nor easterly wind (Soz skipper Byrne) and arrived at Hook Island Bay where we stayed the night. We snorkeled and watched the sunset go down over OZ having a few wines... another pinch yourself moment. The snorkeling was OK but a little cloudy however we did have to wear stinger suits which was interesting. We looked like ninjas! The night was amazing, we just sat on deck with everyone looking at shooting stars fly above us. The skipper had to sleep on deck as he was to big for his bed!! lol.

Day2

We set sail early - around 5:30 am to turtle bay where we saw massive turtles. We got dropped off by our motor dingy to Whitehaven Beach - We have never seen a beach like it..It was sooooo white and the sea was a clear turquoise! We stayed here for 3 hours then headed back when our dingy broke down!! - we had to get rescued by 2 other boats near by.. very funny at the time.

That night we arrived at another bay where Amy did a scuba dive.. She swam with a turtle for about 10 mins.. pretty good for a first dive! That evening it was the same again - had tea on deck and watched the sun set go down.

Day3

We woke up around 5 and jumped in for a morning snorkel then had breakfast when we got back on board, then we headed back to Airlie beach.

The weather was as hot as you can imagine so to cool ourselves down we let our legs dangle off the side of the boat... class!!! That night we met up with everyone from the boat and had a good night.

Rockhampton

We weren't sure whether to stop here or not but we're glad we did. Its a remote little town on the edge of the outback - the most really OZ town we have been to so far. Part of the hostel was a stone grill pub where you cook your own steak on hot stone! very nice indeed!

The next day we met up with Capricorn Dave who's a bit like Steve Irwin but a little crazier!! We didn't know but the Canadians on our boat where there as well. We spent the day with him walking around the outback looking for snakes and spiders! We couldn't find any poisonous snakes so we could hold the ones we caught. Apparently the Jack Ass guys filmed with him so he took us to an ants nest where he made us jump on it and let the ants bite our feet - We had a game to see who could stay on it the longest! (don't know whats going on with my body in the picture!!) To cool off we swam in the river and had a good laugh on a Tarzan swing.

That night after trying some Kangaroo and Crocodile we went out again to try and find snakes and toasted marshmallows around a camp fire. The night was cut short by a huge storm though we didn't mind as it was spectacular to look at!

Town of 1770/Agnes Water

This was a pretty little boating town where we just chilled out on the beach. It was the first time we could swim in the sea since we got to OZ. We were told that sharks were about but we would be fine so we jumped in with everyone. That night we bumped into the Germans from Whitsundays - took a ride in their camper van and watched the sunset go down with them.

Can you Guess what it is yet?

There were a few interesting suggestions but Lauren was correct in saying it was Amy eating a Kiwi - Brother Byrne got a little excited about the thought I tan my testicles!! - I don't know how they train the teachers nowadays!!!

Here's the next one.

All our love

Team RA

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