Bye bye Oz, hello Bali

We've only bee in Bali a few days, but I feel that I have to write a blog as I already have so much left to say from Australia.

Our last week in Australia was a mad one - it was the last week as we decided to bring our flights forward two weeks as we just seemed to be hanging about having seen everything and had pretty much spent up.

After leaving our friend Matt we headed down the Great Ocean Road to see the Limestone formations of the 12 Apostles, London Bridge etc, stopping on the way to see Bells Beach - the one from the end of Point Break. We had a good time there and enjoyed getting back into camping - we'd really got to enjoy the outdoor life. The Great Ocean Road was billed as one of the best coastal routes in the world - well it must have been only number 2 at best, as the Pacific Highway in California knocked spots off of it - it was still very good to see and the weather was fine during the day but got cold at night - about 16 degrees! While on the Great Ocean Road we decided that we would change our flight as we had done everything we wanted to, and could afford to in Australia. We made the call and brought our flight forward two weeks. - The excitement started again in anticipation of our new adventures - Asia!

There was one small hitch - we must first sell the car. We headed back to St Kilda to reduce the price to a more realistic one - we'd try to sell it for more than we paid for it - cheeky but just typifies us. Anyway, the reductions worked well because in the first 3 hours we had 2 calls. We had driven up to see Matt to say bye so arranged to meet the prospective buyers the following day. We had another massive night at Matt's meeting Benny again - yes he was working and Heath - another crazy Aussie - he really liked our company and we spent the night playing drinking games with Whiskey and Vodka! Heath was a legend on the guitar and could play most of the songs we were asking him to play - we had a drunken sing song and dance about while Ben went to bed at about 3am as he had to be up at 4am! Needless to say when we went upto the house at 4:45am to get some more beer, Ben's alarm was going off waking the whole house - You had to be there but it was so funny. We called it a night soon after as we realised that we had a big day the following day to sell the car.

We cleaned the car and headed down to St Kilda to meet the guys who'd called. As it turned out someone else called and it ended up with there been 2 groups of people looking at the car at the same time and wanting it - in Oz you need to have a safety certificate to sell a car but the Irish guys wanted the car at the published price without one - done deal. We spent the night in a hostel in the city where we met some interesting characters.... We headed into St Kilda for one last time and while in St Kilda we called into to sell our cricket tickets to Fletch - so we'd miss the MCG - I'll be back soon to have my date with the MCG. We said bye to Hayley and Carly and headed to do the exchange. Job done and we were $1500 better off. We'd lost on the car but it was going to cost us $5500 to hire and most cars from Cairns end up at the side of the road so we were pretty pleased with ourselves as $1500 goes a long way in Bali. That was it then - back packs on (18kg), we headed upto meet Matt again - Roscoe was having a party and we just had to go to see the guys off one last time - and in style. As well as seeing the guys off the rest of the Hervey Bay crew Chewing Gum and Celina were there too which was great.

The party was again off the scale - we drank our last slab of Aussie beer - Hahn was the discovery for us and partied hard into the night. You need to see the photo's and video's - but we've been to some awesome parties in Australia.

The next day we said goodbye to everyone and especially the Hervey Bay gang. It was a little sad to say bye to Rosco, Matt & Ryan - I cannot believe how such good guys they are and how much fun they have added to Australia - I really do hope they stay in touch and take up our offer for them to come stay with us in England so we can show them a good time in England. We had one last photo together in front of the Troopie and that was it - we headed off for our next adventure.

The 6 hour flight felt quite long and nothing to report really except that I had a a good chat to the girl checking us in and we seemed to get good treatment on the plane - good leg room and all the trimmings that our ticket told us we would have to upgrade for! You learn to be a cheeky twat when backpacking and we pretty much managed to do Australia for half of what people have told us we would need. We don't feel that we have missed out on anything from our plans so we really got into it.

For me, when we got to Bali it felt from the familiar smells and sounds that I'd returned to a second home. As you maybe aware, Bali is where I came to get married in 2005, so emotions were running a bit high - but this time it would be different and I'd leave Bali with a whole set of memories - if they are anything as good as Australia, then we will have had the most unbelievable time.