Australia Diary

STOP COMPLAINING GORDY! YOU SAID YOU WANTED TO GO DOWN UNDER!

Flip to: Gordy's final days in Oz.

Date: 21^st April
Text by:Astro

Arrived in the tropical heat of Cairns on Friday afternoon, and after one night on the pop, almost immediately started having adventures .. More soon!

What a bizarre way to start Oz. The Jackal and I arose early in the morning, having gone home at about midnight, leaving Gordy "on the sniff" (his words) and to wander in legless at dawn. A relaxed brekkie, and the 2 of us ventured north on a local bus to check out a beach. Had a very pleasant few hours in Palm Cove, a small beach village 40 mins north of Cairns city, and then on the way back, Jackal suggested we hitch .. yeah, why not?

20 minutes later, we're still in Palm Cove, with cars going by smiling at us with your thumbs sticking out. Huh! Eventually a local youth driving his Dad's car picked us up - a hitcher himself, he returns the favour whenever he can. He took us about 15 minutes south, and dropped us off at a "good hitching point". Hmmm. 15 minutes later we're getting tired of cars zooming past with people waving at us; yes, very funny, "you're alright" eh? And then our adventure chariot arrived - a 70s cool car (look, don't ask me what it was. Its got 4 wheels, and looks cool, two-tone paint job, it just looks cool, alright?), and we get in, and the driver has a resin-encased Funnel-Web Spider in the centre of his steering wheel. See, cool, right? We had a good chat with him - a Kiwi just moved to Oz recently - a hitcher himself, which is why he picked us up.
When he found out that we'd just arrived in Oz and wanted to see more than the touristy stuff, he said "aw, mayts, I'm just going to see some of my mayts, why don't yuz come along?". So we did! We went to a gen-yoo-iiine house in the suburbs, and had a gen-yoo-ine "stubbie" (bottle of beer) with gen-yoo-ine Oz Surf Dudes. Marvellous! AND, we didn't get b*ggered, maimed or murdered ONCE! Even better!

When we got back into the centre of town, we went out for beers to a local backpacker club, and you wouldn't guess what happened there! Talk about a small world ...

Date: 02^nd May
Text by:Split Management Team

Had a few concerned emails about the SPLIT! Don't worry, nothing's wrong!

Carl has decided to stay in Oz for a year to work, and will be joined in a couple of months by his lovely girlfriend, Anna.
The other two boys are carrying on round the world: Graeme is zipping through Oz because its too darned expensive, and will be meeting Gordy in South Australia or SE Asia soon. Gordy has been undertaking a diving course, will be visiting some rellies and friends in Oz, and then carrying onto SE Asia. No Worries! Thanx for everyone who wrote in - everything's OK, we promise!

We've seen a Cassowary! In the wild! And you don't get no more adventures, uh uh, until someone writes in and tells us what it is! Ha! We're on strike until YOU CONTACT US! (this threat not applicable to GogsMam, who is a shining light in an otherwise empty message board, recent plea-driven messages notwithstanding). Ya ya! We're on stri-i-i-ke! Wanna know about the rainforest? The beach? The reef? The diving? The chance and arranged meetings? Ha! Tough! Write or its an empty diary from here on in ... heh heh ... we're so evil ...

Well congratulations to me. Oh yes!!! Gordy is now a qualified SCUBA diver.

I enrolled on a 5 day course which incorporated 2 days of theory and training in a swimming pool, followed by a small exam and then over three days I completed 6 dives on the Great Barrier Reef.

AND, the major bonus was that I wasnt seasickonce over that time, and the majority of the boat was. Wa-Heeeeey!!!!

Now this diving lark is something special. I felt like I had been transported into an Attenborough documentary. We got to see Giant turtles, loads of brightly coloured fishes, stingrays , beautiful coral and reef sharks. Gobsmacking stuff!!!

Its a hobby which you can get addicted too, and am now looking forward to doing some more, including wreck dives.

A BIG Hello to Miss Sally Calder, me mate from Peeerrrth Australia, who flew up to Cairns to spend a few days with us, and see the Barrier Reef and the surroundings of Cairns....oh and induldge in a few cheeky beverages. She pushed me to my limit that girl. Oh it was just like old times in Edwards, Hammersmith!!!

She managed to get home for her 5:15am taxi to the airport too......havnt heard from her yet though. Hope she is OK!! You out there Sal??

Ooh, get him, Mr. Diver! And what's all this with calling himself "Gordenia" all the time? Sounds like a kebab shop in Cambridge that I know ... Sounds like he had a wicked time out on the reef whilst I was stuck on buses covering the 2000+km from Cairns to Sydney. How you lot doing out there coping with everything in metres and kilometres? There's a whole metric world out there ... funny the view you get of 'home' when you leave it.

So, left you with a cliff-hanger earlier. Who did we see? Well ... when we went out on the pop in Cairns, we were in a typical Backpacker club called The Woolshed, and we'd been there a few hours, with a chap from our dorm who's here to sculpt wood in the Outback, using chainsaws (sounds cool!), and me and Jackal went for a walk round the club cos we were bored of dancing on tables (hey, being Kings of Podium Dancing can only hold the interest of our large egos for so long you know!), and we walked past a young lady, and both of us stopped and went "dhh, aourara .. CGraaermle! Its .. her! From Bolivia!" (both of us speaking at once, both a little tongue-tied at first, and both having completely forgotten 'her' name).
Turned out that we'd bumped into a girl called Jackie, who had been on the Mountain Biking escapade (remember Death Road? I'll NEVER forget it!), and then, with her ozzy mate, took the 2nd jeep up to Rurrenabaque for Jungle and Pampas type adventures. When we went to the Pampas, they went to the jungle, then we met up again on the cross-over evening, and so on. We never kept in touch with Jackie - you meet a lot of people travelling, and you just can't take everyone's email address and keep in touch (which is why the website's so great as a touchstone in these cases), so we thought we'd never meet these people again.

As it turned out though, Jackie, an ozzy, had never actually been to the far north of Oz. She had stopped in Oz on her way back to the UK where she lives, jetting into Melbourne to see her "rellies" (relatives), and then taken a stop-over in Cairns (on her way to Japan) to see a cousin who'd moved there recently. It was all so bizarre, and coincidental, and "what on earth are YOU doing HERE?" and whatnot, we couldn't measure the what of it, as they used to say in olden days.

So, next day, me and Jackal went for a lovely bbq with her and her cousin (and her cousin's boyfriend, and her cousin's little brother, and her cousin's baby), and had a simply delightful afternoon donchaknow. And here's a very civilised idea - free bbq hotplates on the sea front, with a gas supply underneath, provided by the City Council. How's that? You'd NEVER see that in the UK - if they put those in, next morning the hotplate would be full of wee-wee, and somebody would be running a hose off the gas-supply to their house.

Meanwhile, Gordy slept off his hangover, having stayed late at the nightclub, and then - oops, getting too drunk, and, having left the nightclub, just one corner turn from our hostel, had got lost, and ended up 5 miles outside Cairns, dazed and confused. He came in when the sun was already heating the tarmac, having flagged down an early morning taxi. Heh heh. Daft boy!

So, we've arrived on the jet-setter scene, methinks, if we can accidentally bump into people halfway round the globe! What'd'ya reckon, folks?

Having spent the weekend drinking, and noticing the difference within the backpacker culture - its all kids here, in their 'gap year' between school and university, all terribly interested in themselves, and fine talkers when you ask them about themselves, and then diffident and uncommunicative when the spotlight falls off them (Ha ha! Yes Mother, I'm getting old!); and the "travelling" - everything you try to do is already tied up by a tour company or, usually, your hostel. Your hostel is great. It will:
Pick you up from the airport / bus terminal / train station
Give you a free breakfast or free evening meal
Book your trips for you
Book your next hostel for you
Tell you, over loudspeaker, that its almost check-out time, so time to wake up!
Wipe your arse for you

All this came as quite a shock for us - if only someone would have wiped my arse in Central America, and saved me innumerable incidents of GoldFinger .. oh well.

So, after drinking and coincidences, we decided to do something. Avoiding the tours, we managed to get a bus ticket north to the Daintree Rainforest Area / Cape Tribulation (pretty much where the paved road ends on the north-east coast, and the outback begins). Didn't know where we were getting off really, the bus driver suggested a place called 'Crocodylus Village' .. so we went there. What a splendid place!
This little village, comprised of lodge-style dorm rooms in the middle of the rainforest, with a communcal area under tarpaulin, kitchen, laundry, is a chilled little oasis that brought us back to the teeming complicity of the rainforest - one of my favourite places.

I love it so much that I put up with over 150 mosquito bites on my arms, back face and ankles. Itchy and scratchy!

On our first afternoon there, we decided to take a roped-walk through the thick of the forest - basically you just go behind the lodges, and follow an orange rope that wraps around trees and fence posts to form a roughly circular route through the rainforest. So, on our way from reception to our lodge (which was right next to the start of the walk) we met our first friend of the rainforest - a bloody great big spider, in a whoppingly huge net. I mean, if you think this web-slinger is cool, then you should have seen the web that our golden orb-web spider had put up - you could have caught small humans in it! (so we kept a sharp watch on Carlos, obviously).

This first walk through the forest took us through dense re-grown forest. The site had been cleared some 6 or 7 decades previously for use as a mango-farm, but unfortunately the poor farmer who ploughed his savings into setting the farm up bought the wrong sort of mango trees - they never fruited ... whoops.
From our descriptions of rainforest in central america, hopefully you've got a picture of trees of all sizes and shapes, palm trees trailing fringed leaves everywhere, liana vines snaking through leaves, round trunks, curling up saplings, strangling giants of the forest, ferns concealing the floor, and the leaf litter that plays host to ants and millipededs and beetles and a million other types of insect, arthropod and arachnoid. And as we were following the slightly cleared path along the rope's wake, I saw something ahead, just around a bend in the path, and figured it was someone else taking a walk.

Until this thing walked around the corner. I turned round to the guys, wide eyed, and saw their gazes flick past me, focus on the middle-distance, and turn wide-eyed too. A Cassowary had wandered across our path. And we had NO IDEA how we were supposed to react, so we all instinctively made like trees - stood dead still, breathed quietly and shallowly, and made no sudden movements. Carl, gentle as a mouse, slowly lifted his camera, focused and took some quiet photos. Meanwhile, this dinosaur of a bird (check out its feet in the link - Velociraptor anyone?!) walked calmly up to us, and stood about 50cm away, checking us out. When it had figured that we weren't food, weren't an apparent threat, weren't doing anything interesting, it skirted around us, never closer than 50cm, never further than 1m, and carried on walking up the path, only stopping when some loud wild-pigs started making a racket deeper in the rainforest. It was all terribly exciting. And then the next day, when me and Gordy visited an Environmental Centre, we discovered the Cassowary Procedure - if you come across one in the wild, back up slowly, always keep your eye on it, do not turn and run, and get out of its visual range, as they can turn nasty and attack. Oops! Heh heh! We stared down dinosaur death and came out alive! Woo hoo!

The next few days at the Village were very pleasant indeed. Played darts a fair bit, went for walks down to the almost-perfect beach (perfection: rainforest goes right to the beach, the beach has pure golden sands, its pretty empty, the sea is a beautiful azure blue with no dangerous currents; imperfection: the sea is full of deadly jellyfish, so you can't go swimming), took our hammocks with us, slung them up between the branches of trees, and chilled out for the day. Gordy took a bike and cycled up to Cape Tribulation and back, in the baking heat; me and Gordy took a trip to a local creek (that's Australian for river) and had a refreshing swim with the fishies, and we went for some more walks in the rainforest, during the day and at night, where we saw the following wildlife:

• Monitor Lizard (not sure this is the same one - ours was black with yellow spots, but its the closest I could find)
  
• Centipede eating a fat, juicy cricket
  
• Sleeping birds
  
• Turtles
  
• Australian Tarantula (this one hides in a burrow with its front legs dangling out, attracting rats and marsupial-mice type things to their death!)
  
• A salmon-pink python, just a small one, clinging to a tree - almost as if our tour-guide had glued it there, ready to find 'accidentally'
  
• Orange-fotted scrub fowl
  
• A lizard whose name I've forgotten - its something ending in -Dragon (boys can you help!), and like a chameleon it can change its colourings and markings to blend into its background
  
• A black snake (didn't see the head, but a video at the Environmental Centre seemed to indicate it was a Death Adder .. wooohh!)
  
• Male and Female Huntsman Spiders - ugly things! As ever - the female of the species is more deadly than the male, and looks like its wreathed in body armour. Fortunately the ladies occupy the higher branches of the trees, way above human head height. Phew!
  
• A bandicoot (for you Playstation freaks, they're not orange, don't run on two legs, don't collect crystals and don't have brightly coloured friends and extra weapons. They are in fact quite a dull brown and hang around the bins of the Village!)
  
• A frog
  
• A Cane Toad
  
• A massive Praying Mantis, which must have been about 10-15cm long, and looked about ready to eat or kick-off our heads with its massive fore-arms!

Sorry, we didn't see any crocs (freshies or salties), still haven't seen a Kangaroo (sorry Elin!), or a Koala or a wombat, anyone from Ramsey Street, Home & Away or Flying Doctors. We did walk down Shortland Street in Auckland, NZ, if that helps?

Zipping back from the rainforest, where we also saw loads of butterflies and birds which I haven't a clue what they're called (sorry to the bird enthusiasts out there), we returned to Cairns to sort out our futures ...

And here stories diverge: Gordy undertook a registered Dive Course, and as you can see has become PADI-certified, and can trundle around underwater on his own; I took a snorkelling trip on the reef (written up below), and Jackal - Jackal stayed to get a job and rest after 7 months hard travelling, and to ingratiate himself into a new culture. In honour of Jackal, I present here my visual memories of him - maybe you' recognise him too:

Happy Adventuring Dude - see you in a couple of years!

The Great Barrier Reef

So, I've been to one of the largest living organisms on earth. An organism that's bigger than Britain, that's been alive and growing for squillions of years, and which .. not again! .. is at extreme risk from global Climate Change and Ozone Destruction. Bugger, we did it again! Doh!

Taking the cheapest trip I could find I started out early to my boat - a 0730 start. Because its getting toward the off-season, the boat only had 9 passengers in total (inc. me), so it wasn't too crowded, which meant that the deck-hands had more time to talk to you if you wanted. Not that 3 of the passengers could do much talking - they were over the back of the boat all the way out to the reef (2.5hrs) and on the way back, spewing their guts up. Oh, you better believe the sea was rough, and the boat was going up and down and side to side and rolling side and forward and back and to the other side and crashing up this wave and sideways into the next one and dipping up slightly and crashing down and the left on the next one and and and so on and so on.

Having been on a few rough water-journeys now (Lake Nicaragua and Lake Titicaca in Peru spring to mind) I immediately went to sit at the back of the boat and watched the horizon and the sea - the combined effect of this is that you are: a) in the most stable point of the boat, b) have a fixed point to focus on, and c) can predict which way the ship is going to move, so there's no balance or stomach surprises when the ship moves. Et voila! No sea-sickness. On the way back I'd gotten used to the rolling motion, and was able to sit on the top-deck and talk to the other passengers. As we say, "I was alright".

We arrived at our first port of call, only to decide later, in favour of those suffering from sea-sickness to make it our only port of call, at a "cay" - a sand island created by debris building up on top of the reef, and then gaining a foothold when birdies drop plant seeds, which grow and provide a root system to bind everything together. Cool huh?

So, arrived at this sand island, and basically just put a face mask, snorkel, flippers and sun-cream on (where I could reach), and went into another world.

Paddling around face-down puts you in a strange position: your back and bum are exposed to the sun, the world of air, and your front is exposed to a watery planet of colour, muted sounds, flickering sunlight, shoals of fish, waving fronds.
With your head underwater, and just the slow gentle sound of your snorkel-breath in your inner-ear, you can hear a motor boat approaching (high pitched whine), divers approaching (hiss of air in the regulator) or a parrot fish munching away on the reef, making a 'rasprasp' sound. As you drift over the reef, trying to avoid touching it so that you don't damage, you have to pull your belly in to avoid the inside-out lung-structures of the soft corals waving in the currents, the scissor-sharp edges of the hard corals, you can non-threateningly follow reef-cod, large brown ugly things that stick to the shadows and caves of the reef, you can float in a shoal of silver angel-fish, get nibbled by the cleaner fish, get swam at by fish defending their little hidey hole in the reef, watch the giant clams pump water through their bi-valve muscle, marvel at the similarity of brain coral to .. well, brains obviously!, and admire the intense yellows of wavy-pattern-type hard coral when the sun catches it in the right way. And you can feel utterly at peace down there. And then get sodding sunburn on your back cos you've lost all track of time, couldn't reach your whole back, and anyway all your suncream got washed off after 20 minutes even though its waterproof. Its so nice to wake up each morning in half a bedful of skin-bits. Mmmmmm.

So, after Cairns, took the bus down the East Coast, stopping overnight in various resort towns - Gordy is doing them properly, so I'll leave it to him to write about them. I only saw rain, bus terminals and dorm rooms - nothing interesting to write about. Until I got to Brisbane that is, stayed on the edge of Chinatown (couldn't resist some Chinese food, even though the budget doesn't really stretch to it), and met up with Patrick and Corinne - you may remember them from the Inca Trail, Lake Titicaca or Bolivia (there's a beautiful picture of Gordy licking Patrick's ear in the photo albums).

It was great to see them again - especially as I whupped their asses at HeadF*ck, and drank Corinne under the table (me! the world's worst drinker .. ha!).

And now here I am Sydney. Had another bizarre meeting yesterday - bumped into Caroline and Dave, who we met way back in Bolivia on the Pampas trip, who we then stayed travelling with until the Salt Flats at Uyuni in southern Bolivia. We both happened to be in the Qantas office changing flights. I declare myself a fully paid-up member of the jet-setter club after a 2nd chance meeting half a world away!

There'll be no more diary from me for a while folks - this weekend I'm going to visit James and Moikey (from Peru, if you remember) in Canberra, then when I get back to Sydney, I'll be flying out to Thailand - on my own! Woo! Exciting times! Once I've settled in Bangkok and figured out where to find snake's blood and maps to perfect beaches, I'll let you know how I am, and I'll also let you know about meeting up with an old school pal I haven't seen in 10 years, and what its like to visit a city that you were due to emigrate to when you were 9 years old. And can someone tell me what's going on with Dutch politics? Seems like all hell's broken loose ?! ...

Until then, sayonara! x

Hi there again everyone.

Astro once again has done a resounding job in keeping you up to speed on our adventures, but now as I have gone my separate way I have to get my head down and do my part too...

I finally left Cairns last Monday and was pleased to be on the road again. I decided to head straight down to Airlie Beach, a 10 hour bus trip south. It has felt so long since I took a long bus trip, but I didnt really mind so much cos I knew adventures were waiting for me.

Airlie beach is home to the beautiful WhitSunday Islands, so called cos Captain Cook sailed through them on what he thought was WhitSunday....however he actually forgot to change his records to account for crossing the International dateline, so it wasnt really WhitSunday after all. Silly man!!!!

Airlie Beach is also home to my rellies - Auntie Sheena and cousin Zoe and her partner Paul, plus also their beautiful new child Jade, who turned 1 year old whilst I was there. I just had to visit them and see the new addition to the family, who I have to say is the happiest child I have ever seen.

I enrolled on a 3 day 2 night cruise through the Islands along with 15 other people, on the boat "Summertime" and had a great few days. We had glorious sunshine, lashing rain, big waves....the lot. Was excellent.....and I still didnt get seasick.

We visited WhitSunday Island, Hamen Island and Black Island.

We got kitted out in stinger suits, similar to wet suits, but adapted for protection against nasty jellyfish, and went snorkelling and swimming in the clear waters. The visibility here was better than I had at the reef, and we were also completely surrounded by a huge variety of fishes whop would come right up to your face at speed and then dart away at the last second. Very cool.

In the evening we had a few drinks, jovial banter, sing songs, Barry White and drinking games involving a Super Squirter filled with cheap plonk.....blame the Irish contingent for that one!!!!.

We did have some bad news from the boat docked next to us. A 27 year old Swiss guy had a few too many drinks and slipped overboard banging his head on the way. Unfortunately it took 45 minutes to recover him from the water, after which time it was too late and he had drowned. Really sad.

You really notice the difference in Australia from South America, New Zealand and other places we have travelled. The drinking culture is really a big part of the travellers itenary. There are no weekends in the places we have been too. The entire east coast is a weekend every day, and the partying never stops. Never seen anything like it.

Anyway, I will sign off for the time being. I have arrived in Hervey Bay about to do a 3 day trip around Frasder Island, the worlds largest sand Island. Am taking a 4x4 wheel drive with 10 or so others. Will let you know how I get on when I return. See you later.

G'Day again folks. Well, I escaped the mayhem of Airlie Beach and the WhitSundays and travelled accompanied with a mild hangover on the overnight bus south to Hervey Bay where I would be doing a 3 day 2 night tour of Fraser Island, the worlds largest sand island.

I arrived having been fully rested on the bus, and was meeted by the hostel transfer bus and checked in, and was told to meet in the hostel bar at 2pm for a briefing session.

I was put in a group along with Craig, Andy, Hayley, Carol, Erin, Dan (more of him later), Charles aka Shaggy, Matt, Phil and Extreme Harry. We were briefed on how to be "Dingo smart", and avoid being eaten by the delightful creatures, how to drive a 4X4 jeep and how not to drive a 4X4 jeep, entertained with amusing anecdotes on how previous backpackers have managed to injure, paralyse and kill themselves on previous excursions and informed of our route and provisions we should take with us......oh and beer....surprise surprise....!!!

We stocked up, had a couple of pre excursion beers, hit the sack ready for an early start the next morning

Up bright and early, we loaded up the jeep and headed off to the ferry connection.

We had beautiful sunshine on day one, so first stop was always going to be Lake McKenzie, a beautiful idyllic fresh water lake in the heart of Fraser Island. Golden sands, crystal clear waters and topless sunbathers. What more could we have wanted?.

A bit of team bonding involved throwing the group frisbee around for an hour or so, with a few of the group deciding to swim to the other side of the island, We had lunch then headed off to Eurong (....no I'm right!!!), through rainforest, and then directly north up the beach to Indian Head.

We stopped off at the Mahemo ship wreck which has been there for oh 70 years or so, and is now a rusting corpse, but very impressive nevertheless.

We arrived at Indian Head, one of the few rocks on Fraser Island, and pitched up camp.

Beers were cracked open and we headed up the rocky crag to watch the sunset and the stars come out. A very romantic group. Matt threatened to resite poetry, but never got round to being inspired enough. Extreme Harry tried the first of his many attempts to kill himself by climbing over the furthest jutting out point of Indian Head, probably where no foot has gone before. He returned intact.

We heade dback to camp where we got a roaring fire going and prepared a feast of Corn on the Cob, Baked Potatoes with Sour Cream and Cheese, Meatballs, Steaks and sausages.......oh and beer and wine. An excellent feast

Many of the group bailed out early and hit the sack, but Matt, Phil and I joined group 2 for a sing song around their campfire, led by Abbas. Naturally Bohemian Rhapsody, the backpackers number one choice of song, was sung and people trying to sleep in nearby tents actually complimented us on our rendition.

Next morning we awoke, broke camp and headed of for a walk up to The Champagne Pools. Was a nice 2km walk up the beach to cure a few hangovers in order to get there, but the chemical toilets awiting at the other end soon made us feel nauseous again pretty darn quickly.....

Champagne Pools is so called.....well cos its full of Champagne.......eeer unfortunately not. It is so called cos when the see rushed in to this natural pool it froths and bubbles...just like....shandy....er no....champagne...that's right!!!

We spent a couple of hours negotiating the jaggedy rocks and barnacles and swam about in the clear sea waters. Very refreshing.

It was then back to the campsite, and time to muck about diving into sand dunes, before heading south to Eli Creek via a series of bizarre sand dunes coloured in various shades to give a really bizarre effect...butterscoth with a sprinkling of chocolate....type colours. Very strange.

Eli Creek is a fresh water stream starting at a pool 200m up from the beach, and with a rather strong current which pulls you back down to the beach, it makes a really cool and refreshing "float" back to the beach.....

The lads in the bus then took on another group at beach footy, and despite me being compared to an attacking Colin Hendry, we pulled through and defeated them 5-1, with I must say two sublime goals from yours truly.

Back in the van and time to put the foot down as darkness and tide was approaching, so we motored down the beach to the next campsite and arrived with about 10minutes of daylight remaining

We got the campfire going and tents pitched. The highlight of this evening was Dan's "most embarrasing story" which to be fair took a lot of beating (no pun intended). During one of his regular Saturday liasons with his girlfriend, he managed to "tear his todger" causing huge amounts of blood to be sprayed everywhere....."We've got a bleeder". A bit shocked he spent some time running around the house to the amusement of his small niece.An eloquent and agonising story it was, but if you ever have the fortune to meet this gentlemen he will tell you this story in all the gory details sufficient to make you cringe and never want to induldge in sexual relatrions ever again.....6 stiches wasnt it?...ooowww!!!!

Our last day was spent hiking and swimming at the delightful Lake Wabby, before heading back to catch the ferry back to the mainland.

In the evening I almost won the paper airoplane competition at the "end of tour bash",I showed the youngsters how to breakdance.....well how to lie on your back in the middle of a dance floor anyway......and got suitably geeshed as Craig won the pool comp and bought loads of beers with the winnings. Good lad

Next day it was time to head down to "trendy beach town" Byron Bay. This town was billed as being very laid back, and to be fair it was, but I must confess that despite the beach football and the topless bathers I was dissapointed

I warn you guys out there that if you travel the east coast you will find hostels not to your liking. The one I checked into looked promising, but the problem is that people who come here and work on one year visas often stay in hostels as opposed to renting appartments, so you find yourself moving into a place that has been habited for 3 months to a year by groups of people who have set up there joyous little "friendly" cliques..... Whenever you go backpacking it is always essential to have a good hostel, cos you spoend a lot of time here and naturally you want to sit down, meet people and exchange anecdotes or what not. VERY difficult to penetrate an established clique though. Choose hostels carefully is my advise cos it can make or break a good backpacking experience. Anyway Byron Bay itself is gorgeous, with a lovely walk to the most easterly point of the Australian continent via delightful rainforest, coves and bays and a lovely lighthouse. The nightlife was a bift iffy, but had a good evening with Tim from Putney....

Onto Sydney next where I spent a couple of days with the superb Brie and Dylan in their gorgeous home in Paddington, I took a ferry out to Manly and did the harbour trip again.........a journey you can never get bored of doing.....checked out Star Wars Episode 2..EXCELLENT......managed to meet up with me old mate Vanessa and my even longer mate Joanna Barker for a few cheeky ales.Also spent a good deal of time rescheduling flights and so on with Qatas and am now flying direct to Bangkok to meet up with the Maughnster himself in budget backpacker heaven....

I write this diary from an internet cafe in Alice SPrings where I flew to next.....nice to get into the heart of Australia, the Northern Territory. THis is where you start to feel you are really in Oz....away from the partying Ibiza lifestyle on the east coast.

(I booked myself onto a tour that left the next day, got 100 bucks knboced off after some impressive bartering, and took off with a good group to ULURU (Ayers Rock), the Olgas, Kings Canyon, Ormiston Gorge plus a few other places.

I climbed up Ayers Rock first thing in the morning, a steep steep climb, but well worth it for the stunning sunrise with Mount Conner in the distance and the remarkable Kata Juta (bad spelling) nearby.

The highlight though was the camping at night in Swag Bags around the fire. No tents required, we all had our own Swag bags which you had to give a name to......mine was Kylie...(remember a jolly swag man who called his Matilda?)...Basically its a big canvas bag with a thin padded mattress inside which you climb into with your sleeping bag, zip up and hey presto you have yourself your home for the night. The clear skies meant cold nights, but it was well worth it for the stunning stars, and as it was full moon we never needed torches cos it just lit up the whole area. Amazing and I would recommend it to anyone......

Just got back yesterday from that. Tomorrow I head to Perth to catch up with me old mate Sally Archer and stay with her for a few days before heading onto Thailand to meet up with Astro.

Australia is coming to an end, but am desperate to come back and do the west coast from Perth up to Darwin. A lot of people I have met say it is the highlight of their trip, and is a bit off the beaten track. Most backpackers head and do the east coast and give the west a miss......definitely coming back to do that.....anyone up for it?

Speak to yous soon

Digressed again ... cheers to James - I owe you one! Back in Sydley, I went for a "quick drink" with Mark, and got drunk; we met a guy from Hungary who was a billionaire - but the Devil in the sky had taken all his money (errr, don't ask). Then, moving quickly on from 5th meeting in a foreign part (james n moikey - kerching! - Gold Status), I met up with Zoe, who was on the Inca trail with us, and who we also bumped into in Rurrenabaque, between Pampas and Jungle. So, no. 6 then, so I claim my Platinum Status Jet Setter title, ahthangyoo!
A final night spent at Mark's flat (cheers Bedworth Lad! I owe you one too ...), and it was up, up in the skyyyyy, sitting in a big metal tube 11km in the air, on my way to Bangkok. For those interested in the in-flight entertainments, there was no computer game option, but I did get to see Black Hawk Down (which I liked), The Majestic (which was OK - it does prove once again that Jim Carrey can act well), and The Mothman Prophecies (wherein Richard Gere cements his slide into risibility in a load of drivel about supernatural warnings of disasters).
In Bangkok ... oh, the adventures started almost immediately ... but you'll have to wait for those!

T'ra for now, DiVenture fans ...