Australian Adventure

FOND MEMORIES

So this time last year I had just gotten back from Melbourne, Australia. For the past two weeks Facebook has been telling me things I was doing last year and showing me photos I'd posted whilst on my adventures. (Thanks to the rad little "on this day" feature they have!) I have such fond memories of my Melbourne adventure and the photos I took there always bring a smile to my face when I see them.

And so I thought, why not create a blog post about my time there? So here we go! 

PHOTOS AND STORIES 

This is Degraves, or as we renamed it 'The Dark Alley'. It was the raddest alley lined with cafés, restaurants and a couple of shops. We went down there for breakfast nearly every day because all the cafés were so good. My personal favourite was either 'The Journal' or 'The Quarter'. 

I'm a huge fan of the Australian soap 'Neighbours' and we got to go on the set and even meet a star! This was James Mason who plays the character of Chris on the show. 

This is probably my favourite photo from the entire trip! Taken on The Great Ocean Road, where we had stopped at this little area that was basically just some trees and a tiny shop, but in the trees were hundreds of rosellas (that's the bird for anyone who doesn't know)! Our tour guide gave us bird seed and the rosellas would eat the food straight out of your hands. I even had birds on my shoulder and head! 

This is my and my sister at the aquarium. This was the best tank, filled with sharks and huge stingrays. It was amazing. 

I love this photo! My mum having a stare down with a shark! This guy was a proper mean looking shark, he looked like he'd definitely eaten some people before...

Penguins at the aquarium. 

This is the entrance to the Great Ocean Road! 

Our first stop on the Great Ocean Road was Lorne. Here we had coffee in stained cups (a bit gross but we laughed it off, it's cool), ate delicious biscuits and watched these people surfing! The cool thing about stopping in Lorne was that my mum realised that we'd stayed in the campsite just across the road when we'd been there about 20 years beforehand. I was one the first time round so I obviously didn't remember it, but it was still rad to know! 

Still in Lorne. There was a koala sitting in one of these trees and cockatoos flying overhead! Our first proper sighting of Australian wildlife. 

Incase you needed a reminder of why I love Melbourne so much. 

Me and rosellas. Seriously in love with this birds.

Look at this cutie.

I waded across a little bit of sea to a small sandy patch to take a photo of this beautiful starfish. 

These are the Twelve Apostles, the highlight of the Great Ocean Road tour. It was so beautiful here, like this photo doesn't even begin to cover it.

Another apostle!

#nofilter

We also went on a day trip to Philip Island for the Penguin Parade (penguins coming out from the sea at sunset, I have no photos of that because you're not allowed to take them there). We first stopped at the Moonlit Sanctuary where we got to feed kangaroos. This one held me hand. It was the best moment of my life.

I kinda wanted to take this little guy home. SO cute.

#nofilteragain. This was at The Nobbies, where we stopped just before going to the penguin parade. It was hella windy there but so gorgeous.

This was the first photo taken of me in Melbourne! We were waiting to meet one of my sisters friends for coffee. 

This was along the Great Ocean Road also, at a place called Cape Otway. We had lunch here and then had a little while to explore the area. I loved it there and I want to go back!

FIN

And that's it. I took over a thousand photos while I was there so obviously this is just a very small selection of them. I had the time of my life in Melbourne and I'm hella excited to be going back in December! 

If you ever get the chance to go to Australia, please do! I promise you'll love it. 

Thanks for reading, remember to follow me for posts at least once a week (and very often more). 

Love Chloe x

P.S. Sorry the photos are in a slightly odd order. I'm blogging on the go and I don't know how to move them around on the app...

25 Accomplishments of 2014

I don't remember who it was, but last year I saw someone talking about writing a list of 25 things they accomplished during the year, and I thought that was such a rad and positive idea, so I put together my own list. 

One year on, I still think it's a rad and positive idea and so I've made my list again. And since I have this blog now, I thought, why not share it? 

Here are my 25 accomplishments of 2014: 

1. I finished college with good A-Level results.

2. I got into bath spa university - somewhere I've been dreaming of going to for years now. 

3. Living by myself at uni. 

4. I finally visited Australia! (Bucket list stuff that is!) 

5. I read 50 books. 

6. I reached 160 subscribers. 

7. Met Jack and Dean. 

8. Met Bertie Gilbert. 

9. Met Ben Cook. 

10. I met Noel Fielding... Who I may or may not have a huge fangirl style crush on and have had for about 8 years now...

11. I made new friends, both in real life and through the Internet. 

12. I completed my first term at uni! 

13. I held a wild rosella whilst on the Great Ocean Road.

14. I fed a kangaroo and also held hands with him. We're best friends forever now. 

15. I held a starfish. 

16. I stroked a koala. 

17. The million hour long flight to and from Australia. 

18. Changing a lot of my beauty products to cruelty free ones.

19. I gained a tiny bit more confidence. 

20. I got good eyebrows! 

21. I kept up with a good skin care regime. 

22. Growing Riccardo, my beautiful avocado tree, from an avocado pit.

23. Wrote over 100 pages of my novel, Curious Winds.

24. Expanded my cacti collection.

25. Handed in my uni work on time. 

Some of these things are a big deal and some of them are just small things that probably only I would be proud of. 

I encourage you to make a list of your own! It's such a nice way to look back on your year and think about the good stuff that happened to you. 

I wish you all a fantastic 2015. And hopefully I'll be blogging more this year, after all it is one of my New Years resolutions! 

    Love Giddy x 

Photo: my top 14 photos of 2014. 

Six Selfie Sunday

There's this thing going round Tumblr called the 'Six Selfie Challenge' and I was tagged to do it by two lovely people (see below for links to them). I really liked this idea because selfies are wonderful and so is storytelling. Therefore I decided to bring the challenge onto my blog because why not! 

1) This photo was taken at the Greek cookery night in Topping and Company, a bookshop, in Bath. We had gone to Bath for a weekend away and my was shocked to find out that my camera had a front facing camera, hence the ridiculous selfie.

2) I took this after I had been filming a youtube video because I liked my hair and makeup that day. And yes, that is a teepee in my bedroom. 

3) I was trying to take a selfie here, but accidentally took a ton of photos because I didn’t realise I was holding down the button. The selfie didn’t work out but I like this collection of accidents regardless. 

4) This isn’t actually a selfie, but I’m including it because I can. This is my favourite photo ever. It was taken whilst on a trip down the Great Ocean Road. We pulled into this little stop that was just a couple of trees and a tiny shop. But in the trees were hundreds of these birds (and a few koalas). These rosella birds would land on your hands to eat the food we were given and one even landed on my shoulder. Amazing.

5) This photo was taken a little while after photo 4. We were on the bus that was taking us down the Great Ocean Road and we decided to snap a selfie because why not. I was also covered in chocolate crumbs from the Twirl I had just eaten - classy.

6) This was taken before going out for a few drinks. I really liked my hair, makeup and outfit so decided to take a selfie. But due to my stunning lack of ability to take a good selfie this is the first time this has ever graced the internet. Check out that shampoo in the background though, crazzzzy! 

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I hope you enjoyed this post, and if you decide to do this too I'd love to see your selfie stories! Tweet them to me if you, @thegiddyelf :) 

I was tagged to do this by @justh0lly and @city-of-spooks on tumblr so go follow them, they're amazing - http://justh0lly.tumblr.com and http://city-of-spooks.tumblr.com

Have a great day. 

Byeeee!