East Coast: Week Four

Posted on by G Humphreys

Hey guys,

We are writing this from our very chilly cabin, just outside of a city called Ballarat. It’s actually a really beautiful part of Victoria- we have use of a (very old) car so have explored the area a bit now, going on a nice autumn walk and having lunch by the lake. Meanwhile, our time as farmers is going well! The work is easy, but just mind-numbingly boring- we stand at a “Grader ” (a giant conveyor belt thing) and pick out the misshapen, rotten or really big potatoes. Fun times!

Anyway, the East Coast trip is now a very distant, very warm, memory. But it’s nice to remember how far we have travelled- and hey, us on a potato farm just proves that anything can happen whilst travelling!

So, our last week travelling up to Cairns…it involved the Whitsundays, which we both agree has probably been the best place in Oz for us. It’s a group of 74 Islands that every backpacker out here talks about- and we were excited to be in buzzing Airlie Beach (where all the Whitsunday sailing trips leave from).

We were getting a bit worried about the boat we had chosen- SV Whitehaven- because no one else we met had really seemed to have heard of it. But it’s just because there are so many different boats to choose from- we only went with ours because it was one of the cheapest, recommended to us by the travel agent in Backpacker World Travel.

We had a few days to wait in Airlie before our trip, which we mostly spent at the beaut man-made lagoon (you can’t swim in the sea because of the “stingers”). We also had a fun night out, crashing our friend’s after party (all the sailing trips have after parties, but she was on the Clipper, a famous party boat, so we had a good dance!)

Because our trip was only one night, we left really early in the morning, so you still had a lot of time out on the water. The first day of the trip was spent snorkelling, and kayaking, and it was THE best day. The first spot we snorkelled at didn’t blow us away, but the second, Blue Pearl Bay, was magical; it was just so full of different fish and the water was crazy clear, we both kept coming out of the water saying how amazing it was. We couldn’t stop talking about it back on the boat after, and we definitely fell in love with snorkelling a bit. Of course, the trip was made even better by some great people we met on the boat. We also got the chance to sleep under the most amazing stars, which felt like a once-in-a-liftetime experience.

We learnt from the Whitsundays that a trip can never be completely perfect. It’s still an incredible beach, and we loved the view from the Hill Inlet lookout across the sand and the ocean, but the weather when we went to Whitehaven beach was cloudy and rainy the whole time we were there. As the beach on the East Coast we were probably most excited for (and for pictures at), this was a bit of a disappointment.

After a few more nights going out and sunbathing in Airlie, we had a five hour bus to Townsville, where the Magnetic Island ferry leaves from. We didn’t really know what to expect, but knew you could hire topless, bright pink Barbie cars to drive round in, so we were keen to go. We also knew the Hull girls, who we had spent time with up the coast, were going to be there, so the four of us hired the car together, and it was such a gorgeous day. It felt like “real” Australia; the island is like a tropical punch of paradise views and it was one of the most boiling hot days we’ve had! There were some beautifully quiet beaches perched in different corners of the island, the water was so warm to swim in, and we got close to rock wallabies and rainbow parakeets in the wild.

However, the day didn’t particularly go to plan: going up a really steep hill the clutch started to burn and we knew something was up. After having a sunset BBQ at beautiful Horseshoe Bay and dropping the girls off at their hostel, we were on our drive back to Base hostel at the other end of the island, when there was spluttering and stuttering, and the car came to a complete stop. On a corner, up a hill, with no street lights, and with our headlights not working either. It was a very scary moment for G-Squared, especially as neither of us had ever hired cars before…

As it happened, we were saved by a guardian angel in the form of a taxi driver called Grant. He barricaded us from danger, parking his car behind us so he could show buses whizzing round the bends we were stuck there. In the end, we managed to push Barbara the Barbie car into a ditch on the side of the road, and made it out alive. We even got a full refund the next day!

It’s fair to say we will never forget Magnetic Island. Even with the dramatic ending, we had lots of fun exploring, and we were excited to go with the Hull girls to Cairns.

Lots of love, the two Gs xx

East Coast: Week Three

Posted on by G Humphreys

Hey gang,

Sorry again that we’ve been a bit slow with the blog posts… But it’s been a pretty hectic few weeks (plus it’s super difficult to get wifi sometimes- #backpackerproblems!)

Anyway, we have now finished our East Coast trip, and are currently in extremely hot Cairns, getting a bit restless as we wait to go and work on a farm (Yes, G Squared are really becoming farmers!)

For now though, here’s the next installment on what we got up to along the East Coast…

After a tragic hungover bus journey from Brisbane, we arrived in beautiful Noosa where we stayed for three nights. Noosa is one of the places that exceeded our expectations the most. We just did lots of chilling, reading our books while sunbathing, and tried our hand at bodyboarding, apart from Georgia numbers one’s bikini top coming down, we had a lot of fun.

We ventured into the National Park, that starts just around from Main Beach; although we got caught in some rain, and didn’t spot any wild koalas, we found some incredible little beaches and felt like proper hikers. The one thing you cannot miss in Noosa though is watching a sunset over the river. The colours were so vivid they didn’t look real, more like a painting, and after our long day walking we just sat there (in our pyjamas), completely mesmerised.

As much as we liked Noosa, we were so excited to be heading on to do one of the big trips along the coast: Fraser Island. We had an amazing time, but it’s fair to say that it was a slight disappointment for us. It’s one of the largest sand islands In the world, so we imagined stretches and stretches of golden sand, whereas our Cool Dingos tour actually involved quite a lot of time sat on a 4WD bus driving over incredibly bumpy rainforest track (not the most comfortable thing). However, Lake Mackenzie is without a doubt one of the most beautiful sights we’ve seen along the coast. We met some really fun people on the tour and experienced some other amazing natural wonders: the jacuzzi-like Champagne Pools, Eli Creek and Indian Head, which had unmissable views over the whole island. We also spotted some dingos!

Maybe the problem for us with Fraser was we couldn’t get spaces on one of the tours where you self drive along the beach in 4x4s (Dingos and Rainbow on Fraser are apparently the best tour companies) because of booking quite late, and it was a bit of a shame because other backpackers we met raved about doing it. Also, our tour guide Tom wasn’t the best (we don’t have great luck with tour guides and have discovered the difference it can make.) But we definitely made the most of the trip, plus we didn’t have to camp like the other tours do!

It probably didn’t help that our Fraser tour left from Hervey Bay which by the way, we do not particularly recommend as a stop along the East Coast. We stayed in the YHA there, which was a nice enough hostel but it was so far away from anything and not very social. We had one whole day there when we walked along to a cute beach and had incredible chocolate brownies and ice cream at a cafe overlooking the sea, but in general there just isn’t much to do in Hervey Bay.

On the Saturday night we took the 12 hour overnight bus to Airlie Beach, which was a dream journey, with ice cold water from the taps on board, big leathers seats and, for once, wifi that actually worked! (A tip from us: Premier bus passes for up the coast are about a $100 cheaper than Greyhound; you don’t get wifi or USB chargers, but our wifi rarely worked and sometimes the chargers didn’t so if we were to do it again, we would just go for the Premier buses!)

We were absolutely buzzing to be in Airlie- we had heard it was great for a night out and it was super hot as soon as we arrived. We will leave you with that now though, and get back to sunbathing…

Our post on our final week travelling the coast will be coming soon!

Lots of love, the two Gs xx

East Coast: Week Two

Posted on by G Humphreys

Our second week on the East coast was made up of 2 nights in Surfers Paradise and 5 nights in Brisbane.

Surfers is a cool place if you have the money to spend on endless nights out. Other than the main beach, it seems that’s all there is to do. We had one night out on the Monday which was fun, but there are big bar crawls every Wednesday which is apparently the night to be there. The main beach is nice (and we got a picture with the sign!) but unfortunately we were unlucky with cloudy weather.

For once, in Brisbane, we managed to pick a good hostel! It was in a central location with clean and comfy beds, and fairly social. We definitely recommend Base Embassy on Elizabeth Street.

On the river you can get a free ferry, called the City Hopper, that takes you from South Bank around to Kangaroo Point. It’s a hop-on hop-off service, so we did that on our first day which was a great way to see the city. Unfortunately though there was not a lot at Kangaroo Point so we wouldn’t overly recommend going there!

Walking along South Bank itself is really nice as there’s some pretty parklands and you can go to Streets Beach, otherwise known as the Lagoon. It’s a man made beach that sits just by the river and is really beautiful and great for a swim!

Although we’d done a few nice free things, we decided it was worth spending a bit of money going to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary (Australia’s largest). It turned out to be one of our best days in Australia as we saw a range of animals including Tasmanian Devils, Dingoes, Wombats and talking Parrots. Best of all, however, was getting the opportunity to cuddle a koala called Mr P Body and feeding some kangaroos, including a couple of joeys!! We’d definitely recommend making a visit to Lone Pine – we suspect you can get closer to the animals than in Australia Zoo, even without holding them.

Another day took us to the Mt Coot-Tha botanic gardens which were very pretty, despite us probably not making the most of them due to slight hangovers! We did however make it it the Mt Coot-Tha lookout which has an incredible birds-eye view of the city.

Overall, Brisbane has nothing on Melbourne or Sydney in our eyes, although it is a lot prettier at night. But we had a fantastic time as we found plenty of fun things to do to fill our time and we met some great people as well as reuniting with a couple of friends.

Lookout for our next post on Fraser Island!!

Love the two Gs xx

East Coast: Week One

Posted on by G Street

So, it’s over a week since we left Sydney now, and we’re already at our fourth stop on the way to Cairns- crazy stuff, but we’ve had some pretty awesome adventures already.

Our first experience on a Greyhound bus was a 7 hour overnight trip from Sydney to Coffs Harbour. A lot of people seem to do the 11 hour journey from Sydney to Byron Bay in one hit, but we thought we would break it up a bit; even though Coffs Harbour isn’t the most exciting place in the world, we’re glad we did. If anything, we used it to have some chill time after a busy week in Melbourne (and an eventful last night in Sydney, which may or may not have seen us kicked out of Scary Canary bar for dancing on tables…)

We did do a couple of nice walks during our two days in Coffs Harbour- one across from the harbour to uninhabited Muttonbird Island, which is apparently a really good spot for whale watching from May to November. Sadly the weather wasn’t too good for it, but the views of the coast and the mountains in the distance were pretty. The next day was gorgeous sunshine and we walked the opposite direction from our hostel to Diggers beach, a peaceful and secluded sunbathing spot where we had a lush swim in the waves.

We definitely felt one night in Coffs Harbour was enough and were so excited to arrive in Byron Bay. We’re (so far) finding getting the Greyhound buses pretty straightforward and it’s so exciting going to new places so often!

We feel like we got into a bit of a Byron bay bubble. After spending five nights there, we were super sad to leave (apart from we were ready to leave our last hostel Arts Factory because we stayed in a room that was like some creepy cabin in the woods from a horror film). Byron is as full of hippies as everyone tells you, but we didn’t feel out of place, because it’s just such a friendly town and so full of backpackers. We had a really good night out to some backpacker bars, went to a party on the beach, a silent disco where we danced in the waves and a hilarious tour with a great group of people to Nimbin, possibly the weirdest place we will ever go…Oh and not forgetting we went sea kayaking (and got to snorkel too). We saw dolphins and sea turtles in the wild, an absolute dream come true for both of us.

Although it’s full of young people, Byron is definitely worth a visit for anyone as it’s just such a beautiful, untouched area with clean beaches and a fantastic, natural marine ecology.

So that’s an update so far, we’ve got so much more to come, we will keep trying to do weekly posts!

Love the two Gs xx

Melbourne, St Kilda, Phillip Island and The Great Ocean Road

Posted on by G Street

There’s a lot of debate around which Aussie city is better: Melbourne or Sydney? We had been warned off Melbourne by several people whilst being in Sydney but we decided to go anyway to form our own opinions and we’re so glad we did.

We had a fun-packed 10 days in the artsy city filled with cocktails in hidden alleyway bars, rooftop adventures and a few tours. Here’s a brief summary of what we got up to.

On day 1, we booked a trip with Freddy’s Bike Tours which our friend found online but we later discovered is featured in the lonely planet guide. Freddy was the dream and not only led us on a fairly gentle tour round the city but recommended us some great places to go and things to do during our stay in Melbourne. For only $39 we would definitely recommend joining one of Freddy’s tours when you first get to melbourne as it’s a great way to see the city and gather your bearings.

That night we tried out a couple of bars that Freddy recommended including Madame Brussel’s rooftop bar (a retired brothel) and The Croft Institute (an ex science lab). On our way to both places we questioned whether we were going in the right direction as they’re both hidden away, but we soon discovered that it was all part of what makes these places so unique and interesting. We’d definitely recommend both bars to anyone travelling to Melbourne who likes a good cocktail!

A friend told us about Space Hotel, a fancy hostel which we found out does cheaper nights on Mondays and Tuesdays and will now make every other hostel we stay in seem below standard. It’s really central and had a hot tub on the roof, a cinema and shelves by our beds which honestly makes a massive difference. We paid $33 a night each and recommend it highly.

For our last three nights, we went to stay by the beach in St Kilda. It’s a nice place with cute cafés and an amazing spot to see wild penguins after sunset on the pier. However, as much as we would recommend going, we much preferred staying in the city centre as there’s more to see and do and just more of an atmosphere.

The best way to see penguins though is a trip to Phillip Island for the Penguin Parade. It was an incredible experience seeing them coming home from sea to feed their chicks. They were adorable, waddling, tripping little Pingus and it was wonderful to see so many. Not to mention, we caught sight of a Mummy and baby wallaby. It was definitely worth braving a chilly Melbourne night on the beach.

We thought about driving the Great Ocean Road but decided a tour was worth the money because we would be guaranteed to see all the big sights in one day and not have to focus on driving. We were so lucky with the weather and definitely recommend going on a warm day because it can get very windy! On the way we saw wild koalas and had parakeets landing on our heads. Memorial Arch, the Twelve Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge and London Bridge (more like London Rock) were highlights. The only downside was our less than enthusiastic tour guide but it didn’t stop us having a great, if tiring, day together.

So now we are back where it all began in Base hostel in Sydney waiting to catch our overnight Greyhound bus to Coffs Harbour, our first stop on our trip up the East coast.

Updates to come soon!

Love the two Gs xx

Melbourne Tomorrow!!

Posted on by G Humphreys

Can you believe the time has come around so quickly!?

Where to begin… We’ve had one hectic weekend and now we’re completely exhausted.

We both finished work on Thursday which was exciting and scary at the same time. Exciting because we’ve achieved our goal of working in Sydney for 3-4 months and have hopefully saved enough to set off on further adventures. But scary because without an income we will have to be tight on our budgeting, as we watch our finances rapidly decrease with all the money we’ll be spending on travel and activities.

We’ve both had a good time at our jobs so it was quite sad to leave them and the people we met there. But we both agreed that we’re ready to move on and say goodbye to Sydney.

On Friday we did our Harbour Bridge Climb, which was a lot of money but so so worth the view. It was a little harder/scarier than we expected as the ladders getting onto the bridge are quite tricky. However, our tour guide, Richard, was great and took plenty of photos and a pretty sweet video of us to help us remember the day. We both got a bit emotional at the top of the bridge as we could even just about see Bondi from there and felt it was a great farewell moment to this beautiful city.

Saturday was a more relaxed day as we went for tea and coffee at the Opera Bar in the morning and then found a cafe to have a late brunch in. It’s probably worth mentioning here that we were very lucky with the weather this weekend as Friday through to Monday it was warm and sunny with clear blue skies. We then took the chance to head to Double Bay, a beach we hadn’t been to yet, which is a small but pretty beach close to the harbour. That evening we met up with some of the others to watch the Mardi Gras parade which was a great atmosphere but it was so busy we struggled to get a good view. So we only stayed for a short while before deciding to move the party back home for a glass of wine on the sofa!

The next day the two of us had booked a tour with Aussie Adventures to go and see the Blue Mountains. So we got up early and headed to the city to catch our bus transfer that took us to the top of the mountains where we began our walk down some very steep steps to the bottom of the Queen Victoria Falls. They were really breathtaking and definitely worth the physically strenuous task of climbing all the way back up the 1,000 or so steps back to the bus. After lunch, the tour took us to another part of the mountains where we walked down a path that had several viewing spots to see the Three Sisters. The view over the mountains was incredibly breathtaking, although we would like to go again so we could walk the path that takes you closer to the Three Sisters as we imagine they would be much more impressive up close. We may do this when we come back to Sydney as it is easy to get there by train if you didn’t want to do a tour. The tour ended with a quick ride back to the top of the mountains on the World’s Steepest Railway which our tour guide probably got a bit too excited about…

Monday’s activities, that were only yesterday, involved us getting up at 4.30 a.m. to catch a train from Bondi to Sutherland where we got picked up by the Eagle Rock Adventures tour bus for our Rainforest Canyoning and Abseiling adventure on the South Coast of Sydney. It was a great day, but extremely physically and mentally tiring for which we are suffering for today. It was much harder than we expected as they keep moving on quite quickly so you have to keep up and there’s not much time to be scared when you’re abseiling down the waterfalls or jumping from the cliffs! The hardest part was boulder hopping to get through the canyon to the next section and we had many slips and trips because knowing where to put your feet and the best way to climb is not easy! It was a fun tour that was recommended to us by a friend, but we’re glad we didn’t pay full price for it as we got 55% off on Groupon (definitely worth downloading the Groupon app when you’re in Australia as they have so many meal, travel, accommodation and activity deals).

So today we’re feeling a bit worse for wear after a fun-packed weekend. It was so worth it though as we had so much fun and it was a great way to say goodbye to Sydney. Today we have a fair bit to be getting on with, packing and cleaning the apartment included, so we’ll sign off now but we’ll post again soon with our Sydney Bucket List.

Goodbye for now…
Love the two Gs xx

Quick Update!

Posted on by G Street

Hi gang,

Just a quick update since we’re trying to keep the flow going with our blog. Plus it’s a good chance for us to make the most of one of our, very rare, mornings off together.

Since everything we had done in our last post it has been Australia Day! Australia Day is celebrated each year on the 26th of January to mark the arrival of the first British Fleet of ships into New South Wales and is now also a day to appreciate the diverse society, cultures and landscapes that make up Australia.

Since it’s traditional for families to have a barbecue on Australia Day, we attempted to have a BBQ at our apartment with the girls and some friends but ended up grilling the burgers as we couldn’t get the BBQ started. Whoopsie! But it was really fun to have some food and drinks all together and then we went to the city to go to Margaritaville in Darling Harbour (one of our favourite haunts) to watch the fireworks.

Unfortunately Sydney seems to be having one of its worst summers yet in terms of weather and the heavens opened on Australia Day and it rained for about 48 hours straight. So the next day when we were supposed to be going to Taronga Zoo with Beth from uni, who was in Sydney for the day, we ended up going bowling and treating ourselves to a piggy brunch. It was a shame about the zoo but it turned out to be a great day as Maddie and Tom, also friends from home, were able to join us and we had a laugh and also did some karaoke! We definitely recommend the Strike Bowling Alley in Darling Harbour 🙂

Lucky for us, the day before Australia Day was hot and sunny and we had the day off together so we went off to explore Watsons Bay! We had heard that you could walk there from Bondi and it was a beautiful walk so we attempted to do that but the walk turned out to be much longer than expected and most of it was just walking through suburban streets! So we looked at a map and decided to hop on a bus and walk from Diamond Bay instead. The walk from Diamond Bay to Watsons Bay was truly beautiful and only takes about 40 minutes. There’s a proper walkway called the Coastal Clifftop Walkway and you can just see the sea for miles and beautiful cliffs as well as passing a lighthouse! Not to mention for most of the walk you can see the harbour bridge in the distance.

On the walk we went through a place known as “The Gap” which is a beautiful cliff edge. But it’s a sad place really as the bottom of the cliff has a lot of rocks and so is known as a place that is common for suicides. But they have a lot of help available there which is nice to see, such as a nice quote by a man who helped several people there and a phone with a number to call if you or anyone else needs help.

Once we got to Watsons Bay it was absolutely buzzing. It’s a small beach with lots of boats moored up, people paddle boarding and a lovely view of the harbour bridge in the background. We suspect that it was so busy because it was a Sunday (Aussies love their Sunday sessions) and Australia Day Weekend. But it was a great atmosphere. We took a picnic and had a swim, it was a really nice day 🙂

Anyway, that’s it for now. We hope you’re well wherever you’re reading this from. The weather is starting to look up for us today.

Love the two Gs xx

Living in Sydney…

Posted on by G Humphreys

Hello again…first official post from our apartment in Bondi!

Twelve weeks on since getting to Sydney, and we have both had a bit of a mare with jobs. But we are both sorted now, earning some decent dollar and attempting to save. Georgia number one is waitressing on a boat, after doing about thirteen hours worth of trial shifts here, there and everywhere, and Georgia number two has gone from a job in the city to a job with more hours, in a shoe shop in Bondi.

We are having our down moments where we get caught up in the fact we are trying to save for East Coast/Melbourne/New Zealand, because we also want to make the most of our time being Sydneysiders. We have to remind ourselves of the fun things we have done and what we have to look forward to still rather than get down about the fact that we work, eat, sleep, repeat.

There are a few awesome experiences G Squared have had that we want to tell you about. They are:
1) Just after our last post, we went away to a weekend Surf Camp, which was THE MOST TIRING THING EVER. We found the surfing really hard, but we both stood up, and we had really good post-surf feasts. Plus, Georgia number one fell in love with Rico the instructor.

2) Manly. We love Manly. Everyone raves about it and we had a really cute ferry trip over there, plus we got to swim (swimming at Bondi is seriously hard because the waves are so big!) We want to go back and explore more of Manly another time because there are so many different beaches there.

3) Christmas Day on Tamarama beach. Yes, a hot Xmas was a little weird but we defo embraced Aussie traditions- we had a BBQ and swam in the sea (when it was raining- YOLO) And we didn’t drink goon, which was a nice change!

4) NYE was awesome, we decided to take people’s advice and buy a ticket for somewhere rather than get up at 6am for a spot, and we are really glad we chose Luna Park. We loved going on the Ferris wheel, from which you could see the opera house and was generally just an amazing view; we had a go on the dodgems, plus our view for the fireworks was a perfect spot. Although we will say that it was a little overwhelming; we did have a moment after the fireworks where we were a bit like, “oh, that’s the best fireworks in the world done!” But, what a way to see in 2015.

5) Field day was how we spent New Years Day; really cool festival held on the domain near Botanical Gardens. It was boiling hot though which made attempting to whack out our best moves a bit too sweaty. Friend Within, Kaytranada and Bastille were our highlights!

6) We have done a bit of exploring around Bondi towards Coogee on the coastal walk, and one day we discovered this amazing bit of Bronte beach where you can swim in the rock pools; we just lay there, floating and staring out to sea- so much warmer than in the waves! However this discovery had nothing on when we went to Rose Bay two weeks ago- by FAR our fave beach yet. It’s a quiet beach with white sand and palm trees and a sand bar which makes the water so shallow and warm to swim in. Not to mention there’s a gorgeous view overlooking the harbour bridge too.

We’ve done a few more things and been to a few more new places since we started writing this post which we will update you on soon. We also promise to start blogging more regularly now that we finally have wifi!! We’re starting to throw together a Sydney Bucket List of things we think everyone should do when they visit Sydney. We’ll perfect it as we leave Sydney and maybe post it from Melbourne – where our next stop is if we stick to our current plan!!

Love from the two G’s xx

Day 12 of Aussie Adventures

Posted on by G Street

Sorry we haven’t posted yet – it’s been hectic!

We’ve been staying in the same hostel (Base Backpackers, Kent Street) the whole time we’ve been here. We love it, we’ve gotten so used to it – even the whole showering in flip-flops situation!

We’ve slept in 3 different rooms – unfortunately going down in quality each time. But we’ve met a bunch of fun & crazy people. We’ve had a BBQ at Bronte beach & been to Bondi twice, chilled on Coogee for a day & seen lots of the city. Not to mention we’ve had a few incredible nights out with incredible people to match who dance as crazy as us. We’ve had a few issues with goon, particularly Georgia number 1…

We’ve done a LOT of walkIng, seen all the sights and love it at Circular Quay, Darling Harbour & the pool by the Royal Botanic Gardens (Andrew Boy Charlton pool).

We did worry before we came about how we would find hostels, but we’ve been surprised how easily we’ve settled in and almost feel sad about having to move into an apartment for the Xmas period. Although our packing skills are still underwhelming.

One thing we’re finding hard staying in the same hostel is that people come & go, some very quickly & we’ve been getting very attached to people. But there’s a good group of us girls (the G Hexagonals) sticking around in Sydney for a while.

Another downer is the job hunt & apartment search. But we’re getting closer! Saw a dream apartment today – hopefully it won’t fall through! & Georgia number 1 has trial shift next week & Georgia number 2 has 3 interviews in the next 2 days!

We will keep you updated, love the two G’s xx

Stop-Over in Singapore

Posted on by G Humphreys

How to start…

Well we’re still slightly jet lagged after landing Tuesday morning. As Georgia number 2 said after a quick nap on Tuesday afternoon “I feel like I’ve been punched in the face.”

We’ve definitely made the most of what is an incredible city in the short time we’ve had.

Day 1: After a 12 hour flight, during which neither of us slept much and instead just watched cheesy films, we had a bit of an issue finding our transfer for the hotel. TOP TIP: if you’re doing a stop-over in Singapore, go straight to the stop-over desk, the information desk is useless! Eventually it was all sorted and we were on our way again. In fact, our bus driver was a babe (not like that!) He recommended Bugis Junction as a great place to go for cheap local food and told us our hotel was a great location as there was an MRT (local metro/tube) station right underneath and Bugis was only one stop away! TOP TIP: for cheaper hotels go away from Orchard Road, the metro is a really good, cheap and fast way to get around (just over $1 a trip) and Orchard Road is only good if you want to spend a lot of money shopping for expensive clothes!

Anyway, the hotel (V Lavender) was much better than expected considering how little we paid. Staff were friendly and helpful, the room was clean and the pool is much nicer than the website photos! After a quick nap once we checked in, we went down to the Gardens by the Bay and actually went to a station too far away but it turned out to be a good thing because we had an incredible walk in the sunset – proof that when you’re travelling you just have to go with it because you never know what you might come across. We were lucky because with our Trailfinders flights and Singapore hotel package, we got quite a lot of attractions free. So we went into the two domes (cloud forest and flower garden) which were both quite nice although perhaps would have been better during the day so there would have been more light. But we caught a fairly nice (but a bit cheesy) light show on the skywalk there which only happens in the evenings.

Day 2: Our favourite bit of Singapore was when we went for breakfast with the orang-utans at Singapore Zoo. Some of the food was a bit strange… beef bacon anyone? But the monkeys (sorry – APES!) were the CUTEST THINGS EVER EVER EVER!!! And they get free range of the whole zoo so they seemed quite happy, but unfortunately we weren’t allowed to touch them.

After brekkie, we carried on round the zoo and saw elephants, a beautiful white tiger called Omar (although he didn’t seem quite as happy as the orang-utans) and some baboons whose bums Georgia number 2 got a bit too obsessed with. Then we went to the river safari and saw some giant pandas and super cute red pandas.

Not to mention, we shared our bus ride to the zoo and back with an Australian family from Brisbane who gave us some great tips for travelling OZ, and a number to contact once we are in Australia.

That afternoon, after our trip to the zoo, we went to the Botanic Gardens which has a beautiful Orchid Garden and exotic rainforest walk! (Yeah we like plants – be proud Chris and Sally). Although, we may have got caught in some light rain…or a tropical storm. The thunder was actually quite scary, but we went inside for a drink and some kind soul saw what pathetic tourists we were and gave us some emergency ponchos.

Day 3: We had heard Sentosa Island was a bit overrated but we decided to give it a go for ourselves. Despite getting caught in another monsoon, we actually had a great last day on a ride or two – we highly recommend the luge! And then we went to Siloso beach, where we had some really good food and cocktails and met two lovely English girls who we may run into in Australia!

Overall, Singapore has been fantastic, we would definitely recommend it. We’re glad we did a two night stay somewhere to break up our flight, and even though it’s ridiculously humid here and monsoon season, the lack of tourists and how cheap things have been has been fantastic. Although it’s a city with huge skyscrapers and lots of modern buildings (espescially notable is the incredibly huge Marina Bay Sands hotel), it has also been fairly quiet and peaceful and there are plenty of elegant parks and beautiful trees and flowers on every street. We also found our way around pretty easily.

So that’s it for Singapore, just one little flight left…

Love the two Gs xx

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