As our pre-season in New Zealand and Australia heads into the final stages, we sat down with Chelsea Academy graduate Lola Brown to discover how she has fared on her very first pre-season tour with the Blues.

It’s been absolutely amazing both in New Zealand and now in Sydney; they are just beautiful places.

I feel like it's been so fun to connect with the girls and enjoy every day. On the pitch in training, we've also been working really hard in pre-season, but I think also off the pitch we’ve really come together as a group and have been learning how each other play and just getting close as a team.

Before, during and after training, some of the senior players will come over and give me advice and tips on different things, and it's amazing to learn from them because they have so much experience to share.

Learning from them is not only through words, but just watching. Seeing what they do on the pitch and off the pitch, you can definitely learn a lot as a young person: things like good habits to get in to, how professional they are with their recovery.

I’ve never been over here to this side of the world. It's such an outdoor lifestyle. Even this morning, we went to watch the sunrise at Bondi Beach and then went in the sea. It seems like everybody's always outside doing things and I could get used to that. It’s definitely a bit of me. I always want to be outside.

Apart from the game in Auckland, the highlight of the tour so far for me was probably the sunrise, but the zoo trip was also amazing. The view that we got at the end of that was stunning, too.

I think being here has brought us together. We’ve had so much valuable time as a team and valuable sessions. We've worked really hard and built so much.