Blog post Number One - THE BEGINNING

It is a cold, dark evening on Saturday 13th January. Armed with too many toiletries, not enough underwear, 200 plasters (never underestimating the blister) and the rest of her poorly packed luggage, Chania and her boyfriend Nat head to Heathrow to go to THE LAND DOWN UNDER...

(Ok, that's enough of the third person)

DISCLAIMER: I'm actually writing this a few weeks later, so these early blog posts will be a bit swifter so that I can hopefully catch up to SPEED. (Just practising with the underline button - all of the normal functions of Microsoft Word seem extra exciting now that i'm BLOGGING).

Sporting some nice gold eyeshadow - one of the many, many duty-free testers I applied to my face

After a very long plane journey from Heathrow stopping in Guangzhou (nĭ hăo!), we arrive in Adelaide, Australia on the 15th of January.

Guangzhou has the right idea. That's my kind of lounge...

Amusing ourselves during the 5 hour layover in China

First thoughts: "WOW, it is HOT"

"Stretch those legs, Deep Vein Thrombosis does nobody any favours"

"I'm in AUSTRALIA!!!!"

We hop on a bus into Adelaide and arrive at our hostel. I've realised that whilst you're at home living normal life you forget about the hazards of hostel living, and I was once again reminded of the perils of #hostellife on our first night in. There were the standard 'let's repack our bags at 3AM'-ers. On the bunk below me was a girl who loved lighting scented candles and leaving them on the windowsill dangerously close to the bottom of the moth-eaten curtains. There was a token snorer (of course) and 'the guy with the really smelly feet' (oh, whoops, sorry Nat!) (just joking - that problem began only after the mountain walking in New Zealand).

We really enjoyed exploring the city. One of the main things we couldn't get over was just how few people there were everywhere. We went into Adelaide Central Station at 'rush-hour' and there was no comparison to how busy some of the UK's central city stations get. Adelaide is a relaxed city, with a really good museum cafe (the museum is good too) and beautiful botanic gardens. We didn't have too long in Adelaide, but we had a good go at visiting a few of the nearby beaches (having just arrived from English winter, we wanted to remind ourselves of sand and hot sun). We visited Glenelg, Brighton and Henley. Nat thinks I'm being stingy by describing them all as mediocre, so I'll be a bit more generous - Glenelg is a pretty seaside town with lots of palm trees. Brighton is a step up from our UK version if you like sand and sun and warm sea. Henley beach is pretty similar to the other two in that it consists of sea and beach.

Unfortunately whilst in Adelaide I caught a bug/got heat stroke/felt very sorry for myself, contracting eleven symptoms of illness over the following few days. ELEVEN! I'll write a bit more on our second week in Australia on the next blog post. If you don't already know, read the next post to find out exactly which eleven symptoms struck me down... #clickbait

Adelaide Botanical Gardens

Glenelg Beach

Henley Beach

Smiles on Brighton Beach