Whilst I love Australia, and the lifestyle is much more appealing, I'm missing home.

I could stick around for the rest of my 12 month visa, but I'm eager to get home for the 'UK Summer' if it exists, and get stuck in to a career and to see everyone back home. I feel as though my life is carrying on without me back in England, and I recently realised I needed to be around those I care about. And I simply can't settle half the world away.

I'm definitely sad to be leaving Australia, and the people I'm leaving behind. But I am looking forward to seeing my friends and family back home. Bittersweet.

I set off on my long journey home tomorrow, and whilst I know I am doing the right thing by coming home, I am having last minute doubts.

I have had the best 4 unforgettable months of my life...

Thanks again for reading! There might not be another installment for a while as I will be trying to get myself settled back in sunny Manchester.

Daniela and I decided that today was the day we were to do the coastal walk, with our Boosters (frozen smoothies) in hand.

We get to take in some beautiful views along the walk, which took us a few hours... The pictures speak for themselves....

Another must on the Sydney todo list, is a coastal walk from Bondi to Tamarama. But I have been continuosly attempting to do this walk and continue down to Coogee, which is just one beach up from Maroubra. Along the way you can see Bronte and Clovelly beach as well.

As much as it sounds appealing, for some reason I can't get past Bondi. I love Bondi beach, it's amazing. It's picture perfect, the home of Bondi Rescue, full of hotties, and cool bars and eateries. So you can imagine it's not hard to get distracted. 

Last week I did get further than before, and there was some gorgeous views. We were slightly hungover so we ended up curling into a hangover ball on the top of the hill. Dropping in to a shallow sleep and then waking up on Bondi.. mindblowing. 

I am now on a few week countdown to coming home... So I WILL do the walk within the next week.

Since arriving in Oz, I have been trying to organise a trip up to the Blue Mountains. I finally get around to going with Torie and Caitlin, two fellow Poms.

We get the train up to Katoomba. It's a 2 hour journey, and it seemed to be crazy slow and stop at every tree and lampost. Compared to everything else in Sydney it's super cheap 11 Bucks return... We find out later that NSW actually loose money on every trip, but they just need to keep the tourists going up... Crazy.

After eating our body weight in lasagne at a quaint little diner, we head up the high street to the National Park.

Katoomba is the hotspot to see the Blue Mountains. But weirdly, they look less blue from here. I visited Bilpin, a small town, a month or so ago, and from there the mountains look much bluer. No the grass is not blue, apparently they appear blue because of the haze from the Eucalyptus plants.

When packing my suitcase, I didn't really pack sensible clothes or shoes... I was walking through the boggy blue mountains with sandals on... woops. We walk along the various look out points and we have fantastic views of the landscape and the famous Three Sisters (see pic above). We picked a perfect day and the sky was clear and crystal blue. It's cooler up here than Sydney, about 15 degrees. We head back at 5pm, an hour before sunset, so it was pretty cold, we huddle around some hot drinks and wait for the long journey back to Sydney. 

The plan was to go up the Sydney Tower, but technology failed us getting cheap tickets, so we head to Scruffy Murphy's of all places.

Had an amazing day!

Another place in Sydney with a stolen London name, Paddington is a pretty cool place and just a short walk out of the city. Down Oxford Street, there are some quirky, super cool shops and some super expensive designer boutiques. 

The 30 minute stroll seemed longer than usual. After a late night, and lack of sleep, I made my way from the hostel, back home via Paddington. It's a Saturday so the Market is on.  

Every Saturday, the Churchyard becomes buzzing with market stalls and visitors. From food, to souveneirs, clothes and art, the market definitely fits in with the quirky area. This week there was a little old man playing the guitar too... which was quite sweet. 

Naturally, I saw a million things I wanted to buy, but one, I don't have much room in my suitcase and two, I'm running out of funds!

When the sun is shining, it's a perfect way to fill a Saturday morning. And the walk made me fell less guilty about the bad food from the night before. Although it was pretty hot, and I was too tired for life, I decided to carry on walking before giving in and getting the bus. 

I stumbled across an outdoor gallery, which was once a reservoir... I'm not usually big on this sort of stuff but it was really beautiful. And of course, the place was crawling with artsy-fartsy types.

I knew, if I went home at this point I would simply spend all day in bed feeling sorry for myself or watching Bondi Rescue on Foxtel. Last stop for me was Centennial Park. I've been a few times before and it's always full of Sydney's elite. Sydney is the home of the beautiful people, and Centennial Park is where they exercise. 

I decide life is too short for more exercise, rather than walking around the vast parklands, I decide to park myself next to the water and read my book. Eventually, my throbbing head decided to pipe down, luckily. After an hour, I decided that that was quite enough excitement for one Saturday and make my way back to Maroubra. 

I'm going to have such a shock returning to Manchester... there's nothing to walk around!!!

Whilst most may not have heard of Palm Beach, many of you will have heard of Summer Bay, the fictional place in Home and Away.

After not bothering with a bus tour to the Neighbours set when we were in Melbourne, it would be rude not to see the set of the cities rival Soap.

An hour or so drive from Sydney, we stop off at Newport at an amazing pub with a brilliant beer garden and equally brilliant view. 

I've not watched Home and Away in about 10 years... I stopped watching it when it was bumped from ITV to Channel 5. I remember watching it thinking, wow that is paradise.

It's a beautiful beach. We visited on a Sunday afternoon, it's so much quieter than the beaches in the Eastern Suburbs. The houses surrounding this place are beautiful, but I wouldn't want to be so close to Sydney, but an hours drive away, if that makes sense... You might as well live in Bondi.

A fan of the show or not, if you like gorgeous, peaceful beaches its worth checking it out if you are in this neck of the woods.

If you read the posts below, I'm sure you will take from this blog that I adore Melbourne, and by the end of the trip I'm still not exactly sure why. It's much cooler than in Sydney and St. Kilda's beach has nothing on any of the many Sydney beaches. It's quirky and relaxed. If I was to make the big move to Oz in the future, if it were during my twenties I'd head to Melbourne, but any older and I'd have to say Sydney. On paper, Sydney hands down beats Melbourne, the sites, lifestyle beaches, culture etc. 

A fantastic, and in my opinion underrated place. Add it to your holiday wishlist... Mine for that matter is getting longer by the day. I need to get a job as cabin crew or something.

During our visit to Melbourne, we knew we had to visit the super special Phillip Island. We jumped on a day tour bus that took us to a winery, a chocolate factory and a koala sanctuary on the way to the penguin parade.

This was all superfluos, but we couldn't get to the island on public transport so an organised bus tour it was... But it was brilliant. 

The Koala reserve was fantastic, finally getting to see these special little animals in their natural habitat is brilliant, without them being poked and prodded and woken up for photographs for snap happy tourists. 

At the end of this fun filled day we headed for the penguins. We wrapped up warm and sat on a cornered off section on the beach, eagerly anticipating the so called penguin parade. The little penguins, once known as fairy penguins wait for the sun to set before they dash up the beach to their little burrow homes. We saw around 1500 penguins waddle up the beach, it’s fake mating season so some of them were getting a bit busy along the way… Will never be able to watch Pingu the same way again… We walked up the beach with groups of these little penguins that were quieter than expected and not as smelly as I had imagined they would be. Whilst I have seen penguins before, again it was brilliant to see them in their natural habitat. Visitors are asked to be quiet and photography isn’t allowed (image above stolen from Google).

AMAZING.

Where do I start... I arrived in Melbourne Friday lunch time, after checking in to the hostel I headed down to Federation Square to meet Jenny and Bruce, who had arrived a few hours earlier. The sun was shining contrary to the forecast, and within five minutes of the ten minute stroll, I fell in love, with Melbourne. 

I can't put my finger on exactly what it is that makes me a bit weak at the knees. It's much more relaxed, less crowded and quirky. Imagine Northern Quarter but bigger, better and with a bit of sunshine.

The city is much less visual, without the numerous landmarks Sydney boasts, but this allows you to sit back and embrace the cool vibe that sweeps through the streets, filled with graffiti murals and street acts.

On previous city breaks, I have found myself frantically ticking off a comprehensive list of 'must sees' to recreate the lonely planet city break book.

That's not to say there's sweet F.A to do

In danger of repeating what has been said before Sydney is London, and Melbourne is Manchester. Sydney has the hustle and bustle and Melbourne is full of early to mid twenty year olds not conforming to a specific dress code and body shape, where as Sydney is home to the beautiful, perfectly presented with kick ass bodies and a suave dress sense.

On Friday evening we gave in to a $5 pizza in the hostel bar which was suprsisingly nice. Later, we headed to a bar that had been recommended by a few different people. As we head up the stairs and peer in to the numerous rooms I'm not overly sold, until we reach the rooftop bar. The music is funky and the atmosphere is perfect. 

We then head to a bar called New Guernika, or something to that effect. By far the best bar I've been to down under, we throw out some shapes and smooth moves until the early hours of the morning.

After 2 hrs sleep, various morning alarms disturb the peace, it's stuffy and too hot and I am Hanging with a capital H. I try and piece back together the memories of the night before, I decide I'm not going to get any more shut eye so head to a 7/11 for a life saver that is a slurpee, you can see the store from the hostel but some how I manage to get myself lost on the way back and end up on a bench wondering did I at some point last night put my head through a brick wall... 

This weekend we went on a family holiday up to Bilpin, near the Blue Mountains. We stayed with family friends in an amazing house literally in the middle of nowhere, confirmed by the sat nav which gave up half way down the road. The house is in a great spot and is fuelled by solar power and has a rain water tank. We knew we were in the countryside as we approached the house, there were sheer drops either side of the road and we were greeted by a herd of cows that were chilling on the ‘road’, Unfortunately one had just died from trying to give birth on the side of the road- not a great sight for the kids.

We roasted marshmallows on the fire and on the second day we went on a great walk and I had an amazing view of the blue mountains, of course I had forgotten my camera. The pic above is the view from a bit further down the mountain. It's such a great location, the middle of nowhere, beautiful scenery and there were no snakes, boom.. But loads of leaches! 

Bilpin is a small town  but there are plenty of orchards, so we did do some apple picking and we visited the community hall where they try and break some sort of knitting world record… I know a few people that would love this place.

Next weekend I’m off to Melbourne, so maybe in a week or two I will do a visit to the Blue Mountains and see the Three Sisters etc. Oh and for those of you were wondering, those that don’t watch the Discovery Channel, the Blue Mountains do actually look blue. And no not because of blue grass, apparently they appear blue because of the haze from the vast amount of eucalyptus trees #factoftheday

Oh and the weather is getting colder, its meant to be about 16 degrees but there is fo sho a freezing breeze coming from that ocean, and I’m starting to regret not packing any warm clothes and only bringing sandals.