We travelled to Australia early in December 08. Flew with Qantas from Heathrow to Perth, stopping very briefly in Singapore to change planes. We found Qantas to be very good, despite some of the reports we had heard. Flight passed very uneventfully. Landed at Singapore and had about 20 minutes to have a quick cigarette in the roof top bar! The heat hit us like a brick wall when we got outside there, especially having left London early morning! Then changed to a smaller plane for the 4 hour hop to Perth.
We stayed with friends in Fremantle, which I honestly think is one of the nicest places on earth. Along with getting married there, we went into the city, cruised up the swan river, went to Kings Park, went to a koala sanctuary (where we got to hold them!) and to the aquarium of western australia. We loved western australia so much, the people and the place is amazing.

After two weeks there we flew to Brisbane and travelled up to the Sunshine Coast. We stayed in a very small resort (Mooloolaba) which was like a holiday resort for Australians. Our hotel was great and we found some very good places to eat and drink. We didn't do a lot here, mostly as it was over Christmas and we just needed to chill out, but also because it was a very quiet place. We did take a trip to Australia Zoo one day, which was well worth the trip. Very interesting and unique place. We also visited Underwater World in Mooloolaba.

From there we flew down to Sydney for New Year. I don't think we saw Sydney at its best at this busy time of year - there were just so many people everywhere! The fireworks were amazing though. I was surprised as I had expected Sydney to be more expensive than it was, but we stayed in the Kings Cross area and there were very reasonable places to eat and drink nearby.

We then flew to Auckland, where we spent one night. I like Auckland a lot, we had a lovely Mexican meal and a few drinks before retiring to our hotel. The next morning we picked up our campervan and travelled off for a fortnight. In hindsight we would have preferred longer than a fortnight to travel round, but we managed to stay in a few places in the north island, although we preferred the south island. The ferry journey was beautiful and we loved Queenstown where we stayed three days and also Wanaka and Franz Josef - where we did the glacier climb.

We had an amazing trip and I can highly recommend both Australia and NZ. In fact we enjoyed it all so much, we have applied for visas to move to Australia at the end of the year, and plan to take a holiday in NZ on the way there!