Nov 2008

Apparently the cost of our package tour, which consisted of four separate activities, went solely towards the Whitsundays sailing cruise; all the other bits were free except for taxes, stinger suit hire etc. I can safely say that the Whitsundays were worth the money alone - we had an absolute blast, the new highlight of the trip so far.

The people you're with make a big difference when you're on a package like this, and we got really lucky - 23 people all getting along and partying for 2 days. The crew were laid back and let everything go, the weather was fantastic and the reef was incredible - see some of the photos that I've stolen from Jamie as evidence to that.

Our boat was called the Habibi, one of the cheaper options for the Whitsundays but it only holds about 23 passengers - a good comfortable number - and you tend to get the more down-to-earth and fun people as a result. And as an added bonus you can help out at time to time as it's a somewhat old boat with sails if the wind's up.

Pictured above is Whitehaven Beach, the only part of the islands that we actually stepped foot on. Coincidentally it's allegedly the most photographed beach in the world - 10km of beautiful white sand that's so fine it's ridiculous; you can clean silver ust by rubbing it with the sand, and when you brush some off your skin it feels baby soft.

The annoyance about the sea her is having to wear stinger suits, which cost 15 dollars to hire and are a pain to put on. It's worth it though - Box jellyfish and tiny Irikandji roam the water and even the little sea lice you swim past leave a little sting on your face. One thing I didn't realise is that the stinger suits don't just protect your body - jellyfish are attracted to humans by the electric pulses our bodies give out, and the stinger suits stop those being transmitted through the water. You've still got to watch for trailing tentacles though!

Believe it or not, all the pictures below bar the last one were taken by Jamie on his normal digital camera using an underwater camera case, which cost above £25. Good, huh?

Lots of good times, memories and photographic evidence; superb stuff. But don't stop reading yet - more adventures to come after eventually leaving Airlie Beach...

Roadtrip Begins

A quick update on our roadtrip. There'll be four of us for a good part of the journey, if not all of it, as we're taking a Welsh girl called Sam with us. We've pre-booked a package for about 200 pounds each that gives us three days sailing round the beautiful Whitsunday islands, three days and two nights canoeing in Noosa, three days and two nights on Fraser Island, two nights in Rainbow Beach and a day at an aboriginal workshop where we get a didgeridoo lesson and a free boomerang to paint, which is a great deal. We have to do the Whitsundays on Monday 27th but the rest is an open booking (most of the other activities are much further south), and we can't wait.

Most of our food consists of pasta and tins so we'll need to make the most of the bigger towns and cities when we come across them. We have 2 tents and are hoping to camp for free as much as possible - not sure how that'll work out but we'll see.

Some sightseeing from the Friday on our initial slightly inland route: the Barron Falls, Lake Barrine and Lake Eacham, where we decided to camp up alongside some of the most annoying animals known to man. Ducks, dogs, cockerels, cows and singing birds galore to keep us awake; one of the ducks took a great big messy poo outside our tents, the cockerels woke us up at dawn and then an enormous trail of caterpillars took a walk straight towards our tents in the morning.

On Saturday we took in yet more waterfalls; Malanda Falls followed by Millaa Millaa Falls, and then we stopped by a creek for some mosquito-assisted camping. The next day would be the beginning of our coastal adventure after our inland start...

Come on, where's the good weather?

Our first stop was Mission Beach, quite a popular stopping point for travellers and holiday-makers alike. After a quick stroll through the local carboot sale we took a look at the beach but the weather sucked; after entertaining ourselves by trying to crack a coconut with a swiss army knife (and succeeding) we went to the tourist information centre where David Bellamy's twin Australian brother confirmed there was nothing (interesting) to do in the area, particularly if the weather was bad. So, lacking in ideas we decided to abandon Mission Beach and carry on down to our next port of call - the Murray Falls.

The Murray Falls are just south of the Tully River, where we did our white water rafting the previous week. Unfortunately on of the two lookout points was closed and there are only so many waterfalls you can find interesting after a while. We decided that we making good progress towards the Whitsundays and took a group vote to set up camp for free, had a long game poker and then pretty much exhausted our supply of games to playing the dark; any suggestions are welcome.

So, what could we possibly do the next day to better the last one? More waterfalls of course! Our Lonely Planet book insisted that we visited the Paluma Range National Park where we found several swimming holes and big boulders to jump in from. We also found a free campsite there, which was nice; it wasn't free of course but once again we got away without paying. What rebels.

Next stop - civilisation.

Townsville

Townsville is the capital of North Queensland, if such a place actually exists, and is also the gateway to the attractive looking and sounding Magnetic Island which we all wanted to go to. After a quick look around Townsville we decided to stay there for the night - and after a look at the island ferry prices we decided not to go to Magnetic Island at all and stayed in Townsville for a few days.

Sydney was cold when I left; it's nearly winter there now and although it's not the same as a UK winter it's still not great at all. Cairns is always hot, but as it's a tropical rainforest area it's often cloudy, humid and wet. Townsville, however, is just the answer to my recent weather woes and fast fading tan. It's hot and sunny most days and there's a nice little artificial swimming pool by the coast looking out on Magnetic Island. The pool is salt water and extremely dirty but the area is nice enough, and given that the sea is full of jellyfish it'll do very nicely indeed.

It's nice to stay at a proper campsite for once; hot water in the showers, lights, power points to charge things, stoves and barbeques, soft grass underneath your tent; all the little thing s you completely take for granted back at home. The downside of decent campsites is of course that you have to pay for them - just over 4 pounds a night each to be precise. That might not sound like much but Dave and Sam are both on a pretty tight budn the Spanishget so we're living as cheap as possible, something Jamie and I don't have a problem with either. As we've already paid for a lot of stuff further down the coast we're not expecting to spend a lot in the near future.

I'm still debating what to do when we get to Sydney, which will probably be towards the end of May. If I work then I'll need to find a 3 month contract - since I'll need a bit of time to find one that'll probably take me through to the end of August, and I can then do stuff like New Zealand, Fiji, New Guinea, Singapore and Thailand. The alternative is to spend more time in those places; like I said, I'm still thinking.

A quick update on the Spanish front - I've ditched the cheap book I bought and have downloaded an 83 track CD by a guy called Michael Thomas onto my iPod. I've only listened to the first 5 tracks but I can already say some basic sentences without trying hard to remember, and I have a pretty good understanding of how to pronounce all the combinations of letters and accents. Apparently at the end of it I'll know almost 2,000 words; in a single edition of the New York Times only 600 or so different words are used throughout it. Maybe a trip to South America next?

Rendezvous Point

This is my last new Oz adventure as I'll be finishing in Sydney, but I've saved the best 'til last. The East Coast of Australia is a long and seemingly never-ending trail of sights, activities and glorious weather and isn't something to be done in a hurry; myself, Jamie and Dave are going to take about 6 to 8 weeks to travel down it.

So, goodbye Sydney - again - and hello to my sixth and final Australian state, Queensland. For once I haven't started in the capital city (Brisbane) and have instead flown straight to the far north of Queensland to the city of Cairns.

Queensland is the home of Australia's rainforests, the Great Barrier Reef, beautiful island beaches such as Fraser Island and the Whitsundays and also rivers suitable for all sorts of extreme activities. No pleasure without pain of course - it's also home to Australia's most dangerous animals; crocodiles, cassowaries, some of the most deadly snakes in the world (including several varieties of Taipan, the most dangerous), and of course an abundance of spiders of all shapes and sizes. There's even some nasty flying things too - wasps, mosquitos that carry Dengue fever and even the flies in Queensland pack a nasty punch (e.g. the Mayfly). And if that's not enough, jump in the water and you might bump into the odd shark or two; take a swim in the sea between the months of November and May and you're almost certain to encounter some unfriendly jellyfish, including the lethal Box jellyfish.

No wonder it's such a popular place. It's also unsurprising that Australia Zoo (formerly of Steve Irwin fame) is based here.

Some good news - we have an old banger to take us down the coast to Sydney. We need to spend about 400 bucks to fix a few problems but in all it's only costing us about £700 between the three of us and it's a V6 estate that's pretty quick. And the cruise control works too - very handy on Australia's long and dull roads. Let's see how far it gets us, and how much we get back for it in Sydney.

Right, time to get moving...

White Water Rafting

No rest for the wicked. On Friday, two days after arriving in Cairns, we took a two hour bus ride south to the Tully River for some white water rafting. The rapids for our booking were grade 4 which is smack in the middle between 1 (a swimming pool) and 7 (certain death). It was awesome, the best thing I've done since arriving in Oz and I can't wait to do it again sometime, hopefully on grade 5 rapids and with a smaller group of people so that there's less waiting around. Amazingly I survived this water adventure intact and didn't even fall out of the boat once, which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. It's actually pretty easy - the instructor does all the work at the back of the boat - but it's still amazing how many people fall into the water and have to be saved with a rope. That's where the slowness comes in - every time you finish a rapid you stop, park up on a rock or a bank and set up safety ropes in case anyone slips through the nets. Safety first I guess.

So, an excellent but tiring day. Next update should be good...

The Great Barrier Reef

After the white water rafting on Friday we went out big time in the evening and took a day's well earned rest before jumping on our boat to the number one attraction in Queensland - the Great Barrier Reef. No introduction needed I think.

Dave and Jamie had been staying in a cosy little hostel called Rosie's and one of the useful snippets of info the manager gave them was to book a day tour on a little boat called the Falla. Most Reef tours are big cruiser boats rammed with tourists and little if any outside seatingg; ours, however, contained seven passengers and three crew - the guy who owns (and partly built) the boat, the dive instructor (a guy from Derby) and a girl who volunteers to help on the boat in order to get free diving experience. The boat itself was old school - mostly sails all the way - but it was very personal and everyone chipped in with the sails and you could even steer the boat if you fancied it. Unfortunately it was a bit too old school for Jamie who found it a bit 'sickening' and spent most of the 4 hour round journey to the Reef lying by the side of the boat.

You get two Reef areas on any boat trip; our first was an innocuous looking coral area and the second was called Upolu Cay, an amazing little sand island in the middle of the coral sea. Really spectacular. After donning the dive gear and going under I quickly realised that I wasn't ready for a dive and surfaced to swap into some snorkelling gear - for some reason I couldn't sort out the breathing and decided to give it a miss.

The snorkelling was great, as you'd expect - I saw loads of different types of fish, some very strange looking creatures on the seabed, a few stingrays and a couple of turtles. A nice lunch was put on by the cap'n along with cheese and wine on the way back, and then he sat down and told us about the history of the boat and how he rebuilt it after it sank 5 years ago. And a good job he did too.

So, another water experience survived - next up a trip to the tropical rainforests in the north of Queensland to see if we can encounter any crocodiles and cassowaries.

Cape Tribulation & The Daintree Rainforest

A brief summary of our two night trip to the tropical north of Queensland:

See crocodiles - no.
See cassowaries - yes.
Put the tent up correctly - yes.
Get the gas dual burner to work - yes but only one night out of two.
Get savaged by mosquitoes - yes.
Stay alive - just about.

It's quite surprising to find a big rainforest in Australia but, sure enough, the Daintree exists and is a popular tourist attraction all year round. We decided to spend two nights up there to test out our camping equipment and suicidally try to spot a few crocs in their natural habitat.

After filling up the car in the morning with camping equipment (and spending quite a lot of cash) we set off towards the Daintree via Port Douglas. No spectacular sights on the way - the weather wasn't exactly great either - and we decided to set up our tent at 6pm before it got dark. We asked a couple in a cottage where a good spot might be and they pointed us towards a small enclosure nearby, marked as 'No Camping' but apparently safe to use. After ignoring their warnings about mosquitos we drove over to it and stepped outside to be greeted by literally hundreds and thousands of blood-sucking insects. On with the repellant - but to no avail. I have about 10 bites to show for it but Dave is sporting at least a hundred - ouchy.

We couldn't get our gas stove to work so we had to eat cheese sandwiches, the tent was on an annoying slope and was too small for three people, and the cows in the nearby field mooed all night. And some mozzies managed to get into the tent too. All in all, not a great start to our camping experience.

The next day we took the ferry across to Cape Kimberley and then took the road up to Cape Tribulation. Despite trying our hardest to get eaten by wandering around some particularly dangerous looking places we failed to see a crocodile in the wild, although we did see a cassowary which casually strolled straight past us while we were putting our tent up. Slightly more success with the camping - we got the stove to work after buying a pair of pliers, had a flat pitch for the tent and didn't have too many mozzies to contend with (although I seem to have picked up just as many bites as the night before).

Some bad news on the way back from Cape Trib - I got caught speeding, doing 58mph in a 50 zone, a mistake that cost me 150 bucks (about 70 quid). Ouch. Next time I'll be sure to use the cruise control.

Hartley's Crocodile Farm

Having failed to get eaten by a crocodile in the Daintree Rainforest we decided to pay to see some at Hartley's Crocodile Farm, about 45 minutes north of Cairns, before heading off south on our road trip. It costs less than 15 pounds and lasts all day, very good value for money and I'd recommend it if you're ever in the area.

Lots of crocodiles and feeding sessions, a boat trip around the swamp, lizards, big spiders, cassowarys, a snake show, koala feeding and a crocodile attack show where a guy steps into a shallow pool with a croc and gets it to chase him around and do death rolls. Good work if you can get it I guess.

There's some big crocs there, some of them almost 4 metres long. One of the reasons they've survived so long (60 million years) is that they're perfect at what they do - their ears, nose and eyes are all at the same level and so by having their heads just above water they can see, hear and smell everything without being seen. They're not too dangerous on land as they can only move at a human's jogging pace but encounter one in the water and you're dead meat.

The main part of the farm is, as the name might suggest, a farm where they rear crocs for leather. Not something I knew existed but apparently crocodile leather is the best in the world and is VERY expensive. There's loads of little crocs in a big area, all being grown for slaughtering. Not particularly nice but the guide seemed very proud of it all.

They also have cassowary feeding sessions, previously mentioned in my diary as being the most dangerous bird in the world. There are only 1,500 left alive (estimated) but that's not the only reason they're so protected as a species - believe it or not their poo is vital to the continuation of the rainforests. They eat fruit whole and poo out the seeds, spreading the fruit all over the forest along with some manure to help it grow.

Having seen the world's most deadly lizards, birds and snakes (a taipan in the snake show) we drove down to Ellis Beach, just north of Cairns, and camped up for the night before stocking up on food in Cairns and heading off on our journey.

Back In Sydney

Welcome back to Sydney. I've had a good week staying in the city centre, it's been better than I thought it would be. The hostel is really nice and I can't hear the main road (George Street) from my 5th storey room, which is a real bonus. I've had a few nights in, a few nights out and it was nice to meet up with both Derek and Bev on different occasions. Dez - I hope the weather in Cairns improves mate!! Ouch.

There's an autumn heat wave going around the south of Australia at the moment (not the east and west coasts though!). Perth is nice and hot and sunny as always, Adelaide is as dry as ever (it hasn't rained for 2 months!) and Sydney is enjoying some great weather right now, high 20s and sunny. Lovely!! What a change it makes to have great weather, as I'd expected from Australia in the summer. To celebrate I did two of the things I never got round to last time - the Sydney Lookout Tower and the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk.

I'm off to Canberra tomorrow to stay with Barbs for 4 nights. Current plans are to see the Brumbies play rugby union on Friday night, go water skiing on Saturday, go to Batemans Bay on Sunday (the weather is great there too!) and then check out what's left of Canberra on Monday while Barbs is at work. Oh, and get drunk regularly and celebrate my birthday of course!! Enjoy St Patrick's Day if you're going out, and I'll be back after Canberra is done. Bye!

Canberra - Visiting Barbs

Not many backpackers visit Canberra, and I'll explain why in the next entry. My visit was a bit different as I was staying with Lynn's friend Barbs who made sure I had plenty to do in the scant amount of time available (three days/four nights).

On Friday night we went straight to Canberra stadium, aka Bruce Stadium (how Australian), and watched the CA Brumbies play a Super 14 rugby union match against the Hurricanes, a team from New Zealand. In time-honoured tradition the home team got well and truly turned over just for me, losing 15 - 33, so the crowd was a bit dead. In fairness the Brumbies were missing a lot of players, including Stirling Mortlock who I've actually heard of. Barbs got the tickets from a friend who used to work for the Brumbies; not only were they free, but they also got us free beers in Captains Lounge. Nice touch, and a good start to the visit.

On Saturday we went down near the coast, about an hour and a half south east of Canberra, to the Nelligen River with Barbs' brother Michael and his girlfriend Sarah. Michael part owns a boat called Legless with another guy who wasn't around that weekend, so I gladly accepted the offer of a shot at waterskiing, which I knew full well I was going to suck at. The only downside to the trip was leaving at 7:30 in the morning to get there...

First of all I tried waterskiing, and failed to master the start four times before hurting my knee (I fell over drunk the week before in Sydney and twisted it a little bit), so my next attempt later in the day was on a wakeboard, basically very similar to a snowboard. I failed at that too, although I did get very close to getting right up on it. Six or seven attempts later I was exhausted and had to take a breather before one final push on the 'biscuit', basically just a little dinghy that gets tied to the boat and then the driver does his best to throw you off it by flooring the boat and driving in a continuous circle until you lose grip and take a flying lesson at over 50km/h. After the early start and the physical pounding I'd taken I well and truly zonked out on the drive back. It was a good experience, I'd love to do it again although preferably with a bit more success.

We went out on Saturday night to see what Canberra had to offer - not a huge amount but it was a fun (and late) night out - and then Sunday was spent recovering and getting ready for the barbie that Barbs was having for my birthday on Monday, which was a great touch. Michael and Sarah came over with the gas barbie and four of Barbs' friends also popped round. Not too late a night - no not because I'm old, but everyone else gets up early to go to work. How easy it is to forget about all that...by the way, thanks for the birthday wishes everyone.

Speaking of work, I hear that HBOS has blocked this site now. How rude. They've probably been monitoring Ballard's web access - he's still far and away the lead logger-on-er. Never mind, I'll plough on regardless and hope that some people can access it at home. A bit of sightseeing in the next update.

Canberra Sightseeing

Canberra, the capital city of Australia, was specifically created in 1913 to end the row between Melbourne and Sydney over who should be the nation's capital. It's a planned city, designed by Walter Burley Griffin, after whom the artificial lake in the city was named. To put Canberra halfway between Melbourne and Sydney would place the capital in New South Wales, something Victoria objected to, so they created a new Territory (not a State) to go with it - the Australian Capital Territory. Jervis Bay was also allocated to the ACT to give it a port - see my previous Roadtrip entry!!

Canberra is spread out over quite a large area, with a population of about 350,000 people. As a result there's a lot of nothingness about and it really doesn't feel like you're driving through a city, let alone the capital of Australia. If I had to liken it to anything it would be Milton Keynes (also a planned town), although Milton Keynes has a good shopping centre and Xscape. Unlike Canberra.

Unsurprisingly the government dominates life in Canberra. Most of the famous attractions are government related - Old Parliament House, New Parliament House, Aboriginal Tent Embassy - and a large part of the population are employed by the government, including Barbs and a few of her friends. The new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, has made himself popular here by moving to Canberra, whereas John Howard previously refused to do so and stayed in Sydney instead.

So, what is there to do here? Well, as previously mentioned you can visit New Parliament House, which is a bit of an eyesore, or Old Parliament House, which is now a museum. If you stroll over the road you'll find the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, a protest by the aborigines against the government which is literally a collection of tents on the grass.

There are lots of National things around in Canberra - the National Museum, the National Gallery, National Zoo & Aquarium, National Botanical Gardens, and so on. The best attraction in Canberra is probably Anzac Street, with the War Memorial at the end. It's just a pity that you can see the steeples of New Parliament House down the far end.

I can't imagine how a backpacker can come here and have a great time. It's vast and spread out, there's not a great deal to do and even that is difficult to do without a car. Public transport here isn't great either which just adds to the problems. Unless you do something like I did then I certainly wouldn't recommend a long visit.

Right, back to Sydney then. Again. Speak soon, and to those of you at HBOS - if you can even see this - sorry to see the share price!! What a joke!!

Illness!!

After I got back to Sydney I started to feel pretty crappy and eventually went to see a doctor, where I was diagnosed with influenza and a bruised rib cartilage. So, not much to say really apart from that the weather has been a bit rubbish and I finished 6th out of 70 in a poker tournament last night. Not bad but unfortunately only the top four got any money. My french roommate won the $370 first prize after flukily knocking me out, but that was okay as he bought lots of drinks afterwards.

I still feel pretty rough but I'm on the mend. Next update from Cairns as I'm meeting back up with Dave and Jamie to begin our East Coast adventure...

First Impressions

I've now entered the largest state in Australia, and indeed the second largest subnational entity in the world, Western Australia. Its capital is Perth, home to three quarters of the population of WA. You can fit the UK almost 15 times into WA - it's pretty big. Perth and its surrounding area is famous for a very generous all year round climate - in the summer the temperature is regularly up to 40 degrees with a refreshing breeze, and usually doesn't drop far below 20 degrees in the winter. It really is a great place to live, although house prices have shot up in the last 5 or so years and the cost of living is quite high anyway as it's a long, long, long, long way from any other major city.

Of the original crew that spent a lot of time together in Sydney, and that travelled to Tasmania, only 3 of us remain - myself, Dave and Jamie. The others have either stayed in New South Wales to work, headed off home or have already travelled through the west. I'd already decided to go to Perth after just 3 nights in Adelaide so when the other two guys decided to visit some friends of Jamie's north of Adelaide I was left with a week in Perth to myself.

Hostels in Perth are in high demand at this time of year - probably partly because the east coast has had terrible weather recently - so I booked myself into a hostel in a little beach-side place called Scarborough, about 45 minutes from Perth city centre on the bus. After 2 days of cloud and rain the legendary Perth weather finally made an appearance and I settled in for some serious tanning sessions on the beach - long overdue after 2 months of decidely average Australian weather (I still had the bottle of suntan lotion that I brought from England).

I ended up staying in Scarborough for 5 nights - a bit long for somewhere so quiet, only one pub there - and then spent the next 7 at the YHA in Fremantle where Jamie and Dave made the mistake of joining me. It really was a horrible place, hot and sweaty and full of lunatics but it was the only place with space in Fremantle. The weather remained pretty decent, getting up to 40 degrees at times, but the beach life was getting kind of annoying, not just because it's a bit dull but also the wind in Fremantle is so strong at times that you get covered from head to toe in sand and also might end up chasing your towel half way down the beach. So, we decided to get away from the mainland and spend a few days on Rottnest Island.

Rottnest Island

When Frederik de Houtman visited a small island to the west of Fremantle in 1696 he noticed that a number of marsupials (kangaroo relatives) on the island resembled rats, and hence the name Rat's Nest (Rottnest) has stuck ever since. The little critters are actually called Quokkas and as there are no predators on the island they positively flourish; apparently it's impossible to visit the island without seeing them. And see them we certainly did.

The ferry to Rottnest costs about 25 pounds for a return journey. The journey takes 25 minutes each way so that works out at about 50p a minute - I'm not sure if that's expensive or not. Lots of people take a single day trip but if you want to stay a bit longer, like we did, there's plenty of accomodation in the way of a hotel, a hostel and loads of little apartments. We chose to stay at the hostel, a former army base called the Kingstown Barracks, for 2 nights before heading back to the mainland. We also hired a mountain bike each as cars are banned from the island (only shuttle buses and maintenance vehicles are allowed) and it's the best way to see the whole island in a few days.

We still had our snorkels with us and, since Rottnest is also famous for snorkelling and scuba diving spots, we put them to good use by following the designated 'snorkel trail' as best we could. Parker Point had the best snorkelling area and had a nice touch of mounted plaques on the sea bed for you to read as you move along. I didn't see anything particularly dangerous, unlike in Jervis Bay where there were stingrays galore, but I did see some pretty colourful and also very large fish.

After stopping for an ice cream on the way between beaches we spotted a quokka hopping about outside a shop. We got very excited and tried to get loads of pictures, but had we realised how many there were on the island we wouldn't have been quite so enthusiastic. They're incredibly cute little things and quite friendly to humans too, and when they want to they can hop REALLY fast. It's quite a sight. They flourish on the island because predators such as cats and foxes are banished. Also they, like most of the island's fauna including the coral, are strictly protected. You can't even pick up a shell from the seabed in some places on the island.

We didn't quite manage to get round the whole island - mountain biking and snorkelling in high temperatures is a tiring combo - but we did get to see most of it, and beautiful it certainly is. If you go to Western Australia in your lifetime make sure you check it out, it's well worth the time and effort and is fairly cheap too, our hostel cost about 25 pounds for 2 nights and there's loads to see and do. Right, I'm pretty much up to date now so I've no idea what the next update will be about. I've moved into Perth city centre and am staying here for a few days so I'll probably be back with an update about that soon enough. Take it easy, and I'll see some of you soon, yes?

Sun City

Not a huge amount to report since the Rottnest update. I've had a great time, no doubt about that, but it's been a very hot and subsequently laid back affair that's mostly involved being out in the sun, which has been out in full force for virtually the whole time. Did I mention it's been very hot? Usually upwards of 35 degrees, and not much wind in the city centre until late in the afternoon when the Fremantle Doctor kicks in.

First thing to mention is that we had fun getting our luggage back from Rottnest after we put the wrong ferry labels on our bags - you specify one of 4 destinations by getting a particular colour, and they take your bags and put it on the relevant ferry going to a particular port, either in Fremantle or Perth. We were going to Fremantle on the Rottnest Express but we were hungover after a night of drinking with our roommates and didn't even notice there were different colours when we picked them up. Fortunately, and I mean very fortunately, they arrived 30 minutes later at a port not far from ours in Fremantle - they could have gone to Perth instead, or been left on the island. Phew.

Some sightseeing updates - I've been to the Perth museum, the art gallery, Kings Park, the WACA and the Swan River. And I've also been to the Adventure World water park near Fremantle. We went back to Scarborough for 3 days at the beach as well. As a result of all this I've decided to put some pictures up of my tan.

I've been reading a lot of books on my travels. Current count is 15 but some of those were pretty chunky, over 750 pages. The good thing about reading books in Australia is the abundance of second hand bookshops that will take back the book you bought for $15 last week and give you $5 credit for the next one you get. So you end up spending about $10 per book, which is about 4 pounds. Not bad really, and the second hand shops are excellent, full of all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff. Here's a selection of some of the books I've read:

- The Godfather Returns (Mark Winegarden)
- The Eagle Has Landed (Jack Higgins)
- The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
- Mein Kampf (Adolf Hitler)

Yes, you read that last one correctly, Australia is one of the countries in the world where you can legally obtain copies of it. Amazing what takes your fancy when you've got loads of time on your hands at the beach. Oh, and I've decided to teach myself Spanish. I've started with a simple book but hopefully by the time I rock back to Blighty I'll be fluently covering everyone in saliva when I speak.

I'll be back with one more update from Perth before flying to Sydney on March 6th, where I'll see a few visitors to this blog. Don't forget that it's my birthday on March 17th so make sure you have a few drinks for me. See you later.

Goodbye WA

Transport in Australia is a strange beastie. You can get cheap shortish-range transport such as a bus from Sydney to Canberra (> 3 hours) for just 15 dollars - under 7 quid - yet air and, in particular, long distance rail journeys are extremely expensive compared to the UK. Get this - to travel from Adelaide to Perth you can realistically either get a train or a plane. For the plane you can fly with Qantas or Virgin Blue, and it takes about two and a half hours. For the train, you sit in a single seat with nowhere to lie down for almost 2 days solid. And which costs more? Yep, you guessed it - the train. And yet people actually choose to travel on it!! You can sit and explain that one to me all day and I still won't get it.

So, what was the point in that bit of waffle? Absolutely none, I just thought I'd mention it. It probably comes from reading Mein Kampf, which is possibly the worst written book in history and is literally just pure waffle (and insanity). One amazing point about that book - it appears that the Holocaust, in which an estimated 5 million+ Jews were murdered, might have stemmed from Hitler contracting syphilis from a Jewish prostitute as a youth. Talk about holding a grudge.

So, what have I been up to? Not much is the answer, apart from topping up my tan at Cottesloe Beach. As previously advertised, I fly to Sydney on the 6th (exactly 3 months after first landing there), however I'm doing this with a tinge of regret. It'll certainly be nice to see the likes of Dez, Bev, Jon, Beth and Nick, and Sydney is great, and Dan and Holly will be plus one and I still have friends in Bondi. But the trip means I'm missing out on going up the west coast of Australia with my friends Dave & Jamie, with whom I've been travelling for the best part of 3 months. That would have been a blast - the dolphins at Monkey Mia, stromatolites at Shark Bay (oldest living microbes in the world, over 3,000 years old), and the wildlife at Coral Bay which is apparently almost as good as the Great Barrier Reef and more accessible too. Hopefully I'll get a chance to do that later, but in the meantime it's back to the hustle and bustle of Sydney for about a month.

It looks like I'm going to be spending my 31st birthday in Canberra of all places, with Lynn's friend Barbra who is a lovely lass indeed. Most travellers don't even bother to visit Canberra because its reputation is so unbelievably poor (Bill Bryson even hated it in his book, and he likes Bradford) so I'm eccentrically delighted to be spending 4 nights there and celebrating my birthday in a very original way. If nothing else I've always liked to be a bit different. Incidentally I've booked a Murray bus to get there for 15 dollars - see first paragraph.

I went to Fremantle before flying to Sydney to exchange some books and subsequently lighten my luggage load. I was rather surprised to see the QE2 leaving Fremantle harbour when I got off the train, on its last ever voyage to Dubai. What timing. A few average kodak moments later I was back on the train, the proud owner of a book called 'Danger Down Under', full of tales of woe of backpackers in Oz. How cheery.

So, my little Perth adventure is over. I loved it, it's really relaxed but can also be bustling if you got into the city centre or out anywhere at night. The trick is to get out of the city and down to one of the suburbs, preferably a beach side one. I'd love to live in a place like Fremantle, it has everything, but I think it would be too expensive for a pauper like me. Oh, and don't forget the weather in Perth which is just awesome, probably the best in Australia. You can go hotter, but why would you want to? Anything more would be too stifling. I'm hoping to come back here to work, if I can find something suitable - touch wood.

Next update from Sydney, I'll be staying in the city centre which is a first for me - should be an experience. Bye for now!