Australia

Hello everybody - sorry for being so slow to update the blog recently - normal service has now resumed. This blog is a bit of a combined monster effort, me first then Gareth. There is a lot to tell so get a cup of tea and a ginger biscuit and enjoy...

Off we all set to Caloundra, with Dai's car loaded up with stuff and a trailer behind us carrying surfboards, a fake Christmas tree, the laundry basket and an ironing board. After only a short while in the country, the new Australian residents and the two cling-on backpackers had managed to accummulate quite a lot of new stuff. Once we'd unpacked all our stuff we decided to celebrate by ordering a takeaway from the Chinese down the road - so Gareth and Dai set off and came back with a massive box of food - our hopes were high - but dashed when we tucked into the food, which was awful. I don't know whether it was the stress of the move, but we persuaded Dai to phone the takeaway to complain and then Di and I marched back down the street with the box, still full of food, to demand a refund. They gave us back about half the money after a lengthy discussion during which Di and I tried and failed to explain to the owners of the takeaway exactly why we didn't like their lemon chicken and chilli beef - so at least we went to bed with our wallets a bit fuller even if our bellies were still rumbling.

Next day we decided to split up for a bit of fun. Dai and Gareth headed off for nine holes of golf and Di and I booked a trek at a local horse-riding centre. As usual, there is a bit of a story behind this. At Christmas time, Dai and Gareth bought me and Di a lovely Christmas present each - a manicure and pedicure at a beauty salon in Tweed Heads called Splash (remember this name if you ever plan to visit Queensland). This was perfect, especially for me, who after a few months travelling, had forgotten how to put nail polish on. We were booked in for the day before we flew to Sydney for New Year's Eve - so we would be all poshed up in time for our big night out on the harbour. Sadly, things did not go to plan - my manicurist was a bit over-eager with the cuticle clippers and ended up drawing blood (and as I remember it, nearly severing my little finger from the rest of my hand) and it was Di's manicurist's first day at the salon - she had less beauty school experience than me - and Di had to ask her to take all the polish she'd done off and start again. Basically it was a terrible experience which has led Di to sign up to a beauty therapy course in Australia with plans to open her own beauty salon, since there is clearly a gaping hole in the market for beauty salons that actually know what they're doing.

Anyway, the other upshot of what should have been a lovely treat was that Dai managed to persuade the owner of Splash to refund a big chunk of the cost - mine and Di's Christmas money - and we were going to spend it all over again on our horse-riding trip. So we set off to the stables - ready for the hack which was due to set off at 2pm. Sadly, at 2pm the only life in the stables was me, Di, another couple booked in for the same trip and a selection of horses wandering around the yard, plus a dalmation dog that was hiding inside the little office building. Eventually, the stable owner turned up and over the course of the next hour, we got ourselves a riding hat and a horse each - mine was Cherokee and Di's was Dagfoot. What they didn't tell us was that Cherokee and Dagfoot were arch enemies - who we ended up having to keep apart for the whole ride. At one point during the trek, Cherokee, who had up until that point refused to think about trotting, decided to go for it and broke into a canter. I have so little riding experience I still can't work out how I managed to get him back under control - by rights I should still be clutching the reins and whizzing through the Australian bush on his back. At the end of the trek we got off our horses as soon as we could (good job too - Cherokee reared up on his hind legs moments after I got off) and ran off for the car, leaving behind a scene of total chaos, with horses, shetland ponies, a couple of donkeys and that scared little dalmation wandering around aimlessly. I think this is a clear sign that it's time for me and Di to take up caddying....and give up with the Christmas money.

Gareth continues....

While the girls went riding Dai and I met up with a friend of his from Carmarthen, Levi, for a round of golf. It was a fairly leisurely round on the nine hole par three course, with the only excitment coming from nearly hitting the group in front of us, who were the slowest golfers in the world. In the time it took the three of them to play one hole we were able to play one hole, walk to the bar to get a beer each and tee off on the next hole!!

We made a decision early on that any balls that went into the rough would not be searched for, as nobody wanted to risk a meeting with a snake, that would really have wrecked the scorecard!

We returned to the apartment to find that the girls weren't back yet from riding and it was a while before they arrived. They had apparently had a very poor trip and had not enjoyed themselves at all. (A week later we saw the owner of the stables in Coles supermarket and she looked like a fifty year old Vicky Pollard from Little Britain.) Anyway, Di and Sarah were left very unimpressed.

The next day we waved Dai off to work and then went off to pick up a (bright yellow) hire car so that we could get around for the week. We headed off to Maleny in the mountains above Caloundra (mountains is an exaggeration, hills would be more accurate), which is a nice little place where Dai and Di were considering moving to. It is quite nice there, but seems to have become a bit expensive recently, and it's full of hippies and new age shops.

On Tuesday we decided that we would head north a little to see what was inland from there, so first stop was a ginger factory. Unfortunately the gingerbread men we had there were the worst we had ever tasted, but fortunately there was a fudge shop on site, which more than made up for it. We then crossed the road to the Macadamia nut factory, with it's free factory viewing area, it was all so promising. Sadly, yet again we were disappointed, the factory only runs for about two months a year when the nuts are harvested and February is not one of those months! We did however see a man covering his nuts in chocolate.....

From there we went to Eumundi, where they have a weekly market. Thankfully for once we had arrived on the right day and the market was busy.....but mostly with people selling assorted useless tat....I think it was Diane who suggested that the world would be a better place if these people just got a proper job! By this (1pm) time we were getting hungry so we headed into the main street to a cafe. As we walked in through the door the owner told us that they were now closed!?! We were a little confused as everywhere else in the world one o'clock would be considered lunchtime, obviously not in Eumundi!

Next stop was Noosa, where the beautiful (ie. rich) people hang out, we decided to have a walk around to Tea Tree Bay and on the way spotted a koala. We had a bit of a paddle and then headed back through the forest where I turned into the 'The Koala Hunter' and spotted loads more. I can smell them out - they all smell of poo.

Not much going on around here

On the Friday we decided to head over to Pelican Waters, the massive new residential area in Caloundra to have a look at a few showhomes to give Di some ideas. There were some great houses, the first one we looked at was really plush, I asked how much it was and was told that it was $900,000. Not bad, I thought, for such a nice house, approximately 360,000 pounds for a 4 bedroom house with a jetty onto the canals for your boat and a pool. Then she said that the price was only for the build of the house and that the land it was built on was an extra $1 million!!

Dai and Di's new place was really plush

We had a look around a few others, which thankfully seemed to reduce in price as we went along, then the following day we took Dai back to have a look, before heading up to Bli Bli for a spot of wakeboarding.

This was wakeboarding with a difference though......there was no boat! What they have there is a lake with a set of cables attached to pylons all the way around and you do circuits of the lake. Easy you would think, but alas not so. Unlike with a boat, there is no smooth acceleration to lift you out of the water, instead you sit on the edge until the pulley comes around and then you brace yourself as it whips you away from the side. Dai managed to get up and going first time, but it took me quite a while to get it. What was most frustrating was that every time you fell off you had to go to the back of a twenty minute queue to have another go, which was a bit of a pain when you had only gone five yards. After a while I cracked it though and got a few laps in before the end of the day.

Knees bent, arms stretched, RA-RA-RA!

The girls were so impressed that they decided they would like to have a go too, so a couple of days later we all headed back there to have another go. Thankfully the queue was almost non-existent this time so we were able to get straight into it. Sarah nearly managed to stand at her first attempt, but looked so surprised by it that she fell off! After a few attempts Di managed to make it all the way down the lake before falling off, which was very good, unfortunately this meant crawling through all the weeds to get out of the water, then a long walk back!!

After all the exertions of wakeboarding, Sarah and I decided that we would spend the next day relaxing by the pool. Or so I thought, in reality Sarah wanted to learn to dive into a pool properly. Since we went scuba diving in Thailand, Sarah has become a bit of a waterbaby and you can't get her out of it. The first few attempts were rather belly floppish, but after a while she got it sussed, below are before and after clips of Sarah's perfectly honed olympic technique!

Before....

...after

We hadn't really planned to go to Australia Zoo, but we found that we had time on our hands and thought we'd have a look. We had a good day there, saw the Wildlife Warriors show, including a pretty big croc and some very bored looking snakes. Sarah then had a flash of inspiration and decided that she wanted to have a picture taken with a snake. On my list of Top 5 things that I would least like to do, having a Burmese Python draped around my neck comes pretty high, but Sarah has a way of persuading me to do things that I don't want to do and once again she prevailed.

It wasn't as bad as I had expected, the snake (called Medusa) didn't try to strangle me, she must have already been fed, but she was very heavy. Thankfully the photographer was very speedy, because she started moving her head in my direction and I wasn't too keen on that!

Ssssssthcary

Australia Zoo appeared to be very well run, and the handlers seemed to genuinely love working with the animals, but I couldn't help thinking that they would be happier in the wild, especially when we saw a Tasmanian Devil running around his enclosure constantly, looking desperate to get out.

Not dead, just sleeping!

For our last weekend we decided to head up to Noosa again with Di and Dai. The weather was scorching again so we headed straight for the beach. As usual with our round the world trip, the surf was distinctly underwhelming, there was a fairly powerful wave breaking on the beach, but it was completely unsurfable, so instead we did a bit of bodysurfing. It was great fun, but we took a few heavy beatings from the waves and I was washing sand out of ears for days!!

Anyone for a swim?

That evening we went to a very nice restaurant overlooking the beach and had probably the best meal we had in all our time in Australia. It was fantastic and the service was excellent, although it was probably one of the nicer restaurants there it still worked out much cheaper than we would have paid for a similar meal at home.

The next day was our last full day in Australia, so we headed out to lovely Tea Tree Bay to have a look for some waves, as we rounded the headland we were shocked to find that there were some!!! Unfortunatley we were not alone, there were at least fifty other people in the water and because it is a point break, there is zero chance of getting a wave. Every wave already had at least three people already on it before it got to you, so in the end we gave up and headed back around to the main beach for some more bodysurfing.

Late that afternoon we headed back to Caloundra for the last time to pack our things up again and ready ourselves for moving on to New Zealand. But first we decided that we'd have a final dip in the pool. It all seemed to be going fine when Dai suddenly started racing to get out and shouting at me to do the same. What I soon discovered was that he had spotted that one of the electric lights was floating in the pool!! Thankfully, we managed to get out before being electrocuted, but it was a bit worrying really.

One minute they're there ... then they're gone

On Monday morning we said goodbye to Di at home and Dai drove us to the airport to get our flight. We said goodbye outside, the last time we'll see him and Di (except on MSN!) for a while. We had a great time both times we stayed with them and they really looked after us, we'll miss them both a lot.

So that was the end of our time in Australia, exactly three months, we'd used every last day that our visa had allowed and we had a great time. The people were very friendly, if a little cheeky about the cricket, although they did seem to quieten down a lot towards the end of the one day series!!

One of the main reasons why I was so keen to visit Australia was to get a chance to surf as many of the world famous surf breaks as possible. Unfortunately this never materialised, we must have been there for the worst couple of months for waves in years!

I'm sure we'll be back to visit anyway, I've got a brother to keep an eye on.......

For the second time in our trip, Dai and Di were there to pick us up from the airport when we arrived after our flight back from Cairns. It didn't take too long to settle back into life at Coolangatta - dinner at the Surf Club, our own bathroom and an endless supply of tea and coffee, plus a night of ten pin bowling. I do normally play best after a 24 hour flight from the UK so I wasn't surprised to come last.

Dai ended up with the nasty pair of shoes

With Dai back in work, we decided that along with Di, we would head into Brisbane City for a bit of a challenge - called 'For how long, and for how little money can you entertain yourselves in the capital of Queensland?'. Well I can tell you that you can certainly make a good start on this game by walking thirty minutes in the opposite direction to your first destination - which is exactly what we did while trying to find Parliament. Eventually we got there for a free tour, our guide not quite as amusing as the one in Victoria but very informative and the building was beautiful. After nearly wandering onto the set of a film called Fools Gold, which Kate Hudson is starring in (Di tried to get us parts as extras but they were having none of it) we had lunch in the Botanical Gardens. After that we crossed the Brisbane River to Southbank, to visit Brisbane Museum (also free!).

To save money we swam across rather than catching the ferry

The museum is huge on four floors with a mini cinema that was playing wildlife films (where Gareth and Di actually fell asleep). The highlight for me was the collection of dead and deadly critters, which included Redback Spiders, the Bluebottle Jellyfish and my personal favourite, the Coastal Taipan snake. We agreed that you can actually have quite a lot of fun in Brisbane for not much money, but a glass of champagne, a nice lunch and some money to go shopping would have made it even better!

My favourite view of a snake - bottled

Next day we had a day of relaxing before heading off to Conrad Jupiters Casino Complex at a place called Broadbeach, for Tempo Rouge. With money from Gareth's mum and dad we'd booked a show and dinner package - dinner was lovely - we ate it all before we had a chance to take any pictures and then it was down the the theatre for the show itself. Di had got us front row seats so it was a bit of a scary experience, you wanted to clap and enjoy yourselves but not make eye contact with any of the cast in case you ended up being dragged onto the stage. Luckily we avoided it - a man called Wayne who had the weirdest looking goatee beard got pulled up instead and I suppose that really is a lesson to him that if you have daft facial hair you are going to attract a bit of unwanted attention.

Next day was Australia Day - a public holiday in Australia which commemorates the anniversary of white settlement in Australia. At Kirra Beach, with a little help from Microsoft, the Surf Club had organised to be part of Look Up and Smile Day. Try as I might, I can't get the picture on here but you can view the 100 image if you type this address in your browser.

http://www.lookupandsmile.com.au/australia_day_above.aspx

We were part of the 1 in the 100 (with the lifesaver image). There are two photos that you should be able to see on the site.

The photo was all done and dusted by lunchtime so we decided to hire a speedboat and cruise down the Tweed River - well speedboat wasn't really an accurate description of this battered old boat that chugged its way breathlessly downstream.

Me and Di let the boys have a go - but they never quite got the hang of it

The water was crystal clear, so we stopped for a swim and a picnic before chugg chugging our way back home again.

Cherry bakewell anyone?

On the way back to the apartment we stopped quickly for a photo opportunity that we missed three years ago when on holiday and weren't going to miss this time around. Coolangatta and Tweed Heads are known as the twin towns - bang right next door to each other but Coolangatta is in Queensland and Tweed Heads is in New South Wales - meaning they are in different time zones.

Sarah was an hour late - again!

That night we were going out for another meal - this time courtesy of my mum and dad - so we had booked a lovely little Tapas place just around the corner. The girl at the till had looked a bit dopey when we made the booking a few days before but that's not unusual in Queensland so we didn't worry too much. We got ourselves dressed up and headed down there. Luckily we had the car because when we arrived the place was completely shut up and dark. Uh-oh. We got back in the car and drove to a place called the Ivory Hotel - where we managed to get ourselves a table and had a delicious meal, even better than the tapas would have been!

Disaster recovered!

Next day it was time to pack up everything to move on again - but this time we were all going together. While we'd been away up north, Dai and Di had decided to move to a new place in Caloundra (about an hour north of Brisbane and our first stop on the drive to Cairns).

We think they probably hoped to get away and leave no trace in Coolangatta before we got back - but we foiled them with our early return! So they had no choice but to let us tag along and put up with us for another few weeks ...

We couldn't let another blog entry go by without a special mention of Fi, who has been faithfully commenting on almost every blog entry we've made (and there have been a few).

We've detected a slight whiff of despair in her most recent comment:

Oh look - qu'elle surprise, it's me again! Doesn't anyone else leave comments?

So Fi, in recognition of your services to our blog, we would both like to present you with the Award for Most Dedicated Blog Commenter.

Sadly we can't be with you this evening to celebrate with you because we're on a world tour, but we hope you enjoy your win anyway.

Keep those comments coming - they always make us smile!

Love Sarah and Gareth xx

After a terrible night's sleep in Rockhampton we set off early towards Mackay to try to avoid a little of the heat.

Goodbye and good riddance

Our car was air conditioned but even with this it was still pretty uncomfortable in the heat of the day. The journey was pretty uneventful, more empty roads for mile upon mile, looking exactly the same.....and on, and on and on.....

We're on a road to nowhere

Eventually we arrived in Mackay, officially the 11th largest city in Australia. You could have fooled me! It may be a city geographically, but yet again we came across another deserted urban area. To be fair, it was Sunday, but even so, there was barely anything open and nobody was around. Thankfully there was a little Italian cafe open where we were able to get some lunch, as by this point we were starving. We both had fettuccine carbonara and it was very good.

We had originally planned to spend a night in Mackay, but as it was only midday and there was nothing to do, we decided that we would be better off carrying on the extra two hours to Airlie Beach.
Back on the road again...

Airlie Beach is really only a single main street full of tour agents selling sailing trips around the Whitsunday Islands. As this was what we wanted to do we had obviously come to the right place. We made the unusual decision of starting to look for somewhere to stay fairly early in the day and managed to get ourselves into a very pleasant little cabin in a caravan park only 2kms outside Airlie. It didn't have it's own bathroom, but most importantly it did have air conditioning and after our experience in the Rockhampton Hovel this was very important. It also had a proper mattress not a horrible foam one!

We didn't even have to go into town to book our sailing trip, we spoke to the lady in reception at the caravan park, told her what we wanted and the next thing we were booked on a two day, two night trip aboard a 14 metre sloop called Prima, leaving the next day (14 metres is about 46ft and no, I don't know what a sloop is either).

The boat trips have a rather funny policy of not allowing anyone to bring bags that have zips onto their boats. Apparently the zips can harbour bed bugs and it is to stop them being spread around the boats. What everybody does instead is take their belongings onboard in canvas shopping bags. It's quite funny walking around Airlie, because everybody is carrying shopping bags full of clothes around looking like tramps!

We had chosen our boat on the basis that it takes only a small group, maximum twelve passengers and it's not a party boat. We were very lucky because the boat wasn't full and there were only eight passengers plus four crew. I think that there were only supposed to be two crew, but the deckhand had brought his brother along and the skipper had brought his girlfriend along too, claiming that they were 'volunteers', chancers would have been more accurate, but what can you say when you're already out at sea and don't have a 'driver's' licence. It wasn't really a problem, but I did think it was a bit cheeky.

We were very fortunate with the rest of our group on the boat, everybody got on well, there were a Dutch couple, two girls from Scotland and a couple from Dublin and we had some good fun together.

The boat had four double 'rooms' - three of which had their own bathroom and one of which had a bathroom that was shared by the crew. Can you guess which one we had? Thought so!

The bedroom was rather cramped, but there was more room than I had expected, because the boat was fairly wide. Having said this it was significantly smaller than our train compartment in Thailand, so there wasn't much room to move around.

The basic plan appeared to be to sail around a couple of the islands, do some snorkelling, visit Whitehaven beach and come back to Airlie. First stop was for some snorkelling just off Hook Island, where we all hopped in the water and had a look around. Around the Whitsundays you have to wear stinger suits at this time of year, to avoid being stung by Box Jellyfish and Irukandji, which are small but extremely venomous. The stinger suits make you look a bit daft, but not as daft as you'd look if you were laying in the sea dying!

No reason to feel nervous then

We pulled up at a deserted beach to watch the sunset, which was pretty special - then back on board for some dinner, where mayonnaise featured heavily. It was a theme that would carry on for the rest of the trip....

Next morning we set sail for Tongue Cove on Whitsunday Island, which is the drop off point for the famous Whitehaven beach, the one that you see in all the brochures and on the postcards. Unfortunately the sun wasn't out and the tide was quite high, so it wasn't really showing off to it's full potential, but still looked pretty good. From the lookout you could see stingrays in the shallows, and when we got down to the beach there were quite a few young sharks in the shallows too, only about two to three foot long, but perfectly formed ready to grow into something a little more scary! My main concern was that Mummy shark may be waiting around only a little bit further out, so we didn't venture too far. Note from SR: Since this event I have read about a shark attack in this very place where we were paddling!

Next stop was Manta Ray Bay, where we had the best snorkelling I have ever seen. The visibility was very good, the coral reef was alive with vibrant colours and the fish were amazing. We were surrounded by all sorts of fish, but the ones that stood out were the Maori Wrasses. One in particular was huge, over a metre long and probably two and a half feet high, it came right up to you as you snorkelled, it was amazing. Note from SR: This is a typical fish story as told by a man - the fish gets bigger every time the story is repeated - it started life as a pilchard.

That night we anchored in a bay off Hook Island, where we were sheltered by the wind - unfortunately during the night the wind direction changed and the wind strength picked up. At about 2.30a.m. the crew got up to move the boat as the anchor was slipping and we were heading for the reef. Thankfully when we moved the boat the anchor got a decent hold and we were able to stay where we were for the rest of the night. We had another snorkel the next morning, but after Manta Ray Bay it was a bit of a letdown. We were back in port for lunchtime and Sarah and I were both shattered, neither of us had slept very well on either night as our cabin was so cramped and hot. Two nights at sea was more than enough for both of us and we were quite glad to get back to our little cabin at the caravan park.

We were up quite early on Thursday to head north again towards Townsville, but as always our plans were 'subject to change without prior notification'.

Looks promising, doesn't it?

It was a long drive up to Townsville, we went through several towns that looked significant on the map, but turned out to be a single street with a pub and a bottle shop! The drive was again pretty monotonous and we were glad to get to Townsville, which is the second largest city in Queensland. We headed straight for the centre and shortly afterwards were ready to leave. It was very similar to Mackay and Rockhampton in the way that there is nothing much at all in the town centre, everything is in out of town complexes, so the towns themselves seem dead and totally unappealing. It is totally reliant on people driving out to places to shop for anything, so there are very few, if any, decent places to get a cup of coffee or some lunch.

After a great deal of searching we eventually found somewhere to get a drink (and lift my severly depressed blood sugar levels) before we headed off again to Cairns.

For a moment we thought we were on the M4 in Bridgend

We had actually chosen a good day to travel, because the weather was pretty poor, raining on and off all day, so we weren't wasting a nice day that we could have been doing something else.

Is it a mirage or have we finally arrived?

After travelling through a succession of forgettable towns, it was quite a relief to get to Cairns, which is quite a lively place. It's obviously very popular with backpackers, but there are also a lot of nice (expensive) places to stay and eat, because the city is very popular with Japanese tourists. Many of the shops have signs and label in Japanese, and there are quite a few places offering Japanese food.

We headed into Cairns city centre that evening to see if we could get ourselves booked onto a diving boat in the next couple of days, and had a boat called Aristocat recommended to us. It was actually departing from Port Douglas, an hour north of Cairns, on Saturday, giving us a day to spare.

We decided that we'd head up to Port Douglas the following afternoon and stay there on Friday night so that we wouldn't have to drive too far on Saturday morning. Unfortunately Port Douglas is a lot like Noosa and we soon realised that staying there was going to cost us a fortune, so we called the motel that we had stayed in the night before and booked ourselves in for the night, then got a bag of chips and an ice cream before heading back to Cairns.

We were up early the next morning to get to the boat and we were very pleasantly surprised when we got there, it was very new and flash and only about one third full, so there was plenty of room to move about. The sea was like a millpond, so we had a very nice crossing to the Agincourt Reef, where we were to do our dives.

The first dive was quite good, but visibility wasn't great, particularly for Sarah, as her mask kept filling up with water! I think that we really need to get our own masks, the ones that you hire can be a bit unreliable.

"I'm ok ... I'm ok ... I'm ok ..."

The second dive was much better, and we saw a small shark, it swam around a bit, but wasn't very interested in us, so it wasn't very scary.

Spot the real shark

Had I been bleeding I may have been a little more concerned. We had one more dive, but again the visibility was a bit poor, but overall it was worth doing the dives, although not as great as I had hoped the Barrier Reef would be.

We still had one more day in Cairns before flying back down to Brisbane, so we decided to go inland to the Atherton Tablelands. First stop was a place called Coffeeworks where we were given a tour and were able to sample up to 21 different coffees. I think I only managed about twelve, I was a bit concerned that if I had anymore I wouldn't sleep for weeks. We then did a circuit of the waterfalls in the area and decided that we would visit the tea house in Millaa Millaa, which is highly recommended in the Lonely Planet, for afternoon tea (very civilised). We were both really looking forward to this as it was Sunday afternoon and we had been thinking about what we might have been doing back home on a Sunday afternoon - (bread, cheese, jam, Bob the Builder cakes and a nice pot of tea perhaps). Unfortunately when we got there at three o'clock in the afternoon, in true Australian business tradition, it was closed!

So that was it for our trip up north, we left tropical Queensland on Monday afternoon, just as the heavens opened for another downpour and headed south back to Brisbane and then on to Coolangatta to stay with Di and Dai again until we fly out to New Zealand.

A week into the new year it was time to leave the lap of luxury and get used to living in hovels, sorry, hostels, again, so Monday morning we picked up our car and headed north - destination Cairns - eventually.

We've only just begun...

The original plan had been to do the journey in a campervan but finding one that was air-conditioned, available and within our budget seemed impossible so we hired a car again. This time Gareth tried a new company which he told me had a 'super duper deal' that meant a double upgrade for free. I have my suspicions that this upgrade might actually have been paid for from our travel cocktails fund, since Gareth ended up with a Toyota Camry, which made him very happy, and I have ended up with no daiquiris or margaritas, which has left me very thirsty.

Not that we needed any alcohol since as predicted in the last blog entry, we both started the journey with white wine induced monster hangovers. Our first stop was Caloundra, on the Sunshine Coast, only an hour north of Brisbane - less to do with planning and more to do with needing some greasy food. Caloundra was hot, sticky and busy so we avoided the heat and the crowds for most of the day by staying in coffee shops, internet cafes and the post office. Being a bit out of practice it was nearing 5pm when we realised we still didn't have anywhere to stay. Luckily the visitor centre helped us out and found us a motel in Maleny, in the mountains just outside Caloundra. I was bitten to bits by mossies after stepping out of our room for five minutes but it was a small price to pay for a roof over our heads.

Tuesday morning we had a couple of things to do before we carried on north. First we searched out the village of Reesville, definitely labelled on the Sunshine Coast map but not so easy to find in reality.

It's definitely around here somewhere!

We saw a few signs for it and drove past some Welsh-sounding homes - plus it was raining and hilly - so it looked like Wales - we think that must have been it.

Next stop was the Big Pineapple - there are lots of 'Big' things around Australia but this was the first thing we'd seen. It was just a big hollow pineapple that you could climb up inside and have your photo taken outside of, but I liked it!

Would make a lot of ham and pineapple toasties

Our next major stop was Noosa. We had visited Noosa before, almost exactly three years to the day, and my recollection was of an eight hour round trip to get there, broken in the middle for an hour, during which time I had an expensive coffee and Gareth discovered there was no surf. Luckily this time Noosa was only a thirty minute drive from the Big Pineapple but there was still no surf for Gareth. Some things never change ...

We spent the afternoon having a wander around, jumping into air-conditioned shops (it was hotter than Caloundra) then we walked to Tea Tree Bay - spotting our first couple of wild koalas on the way - and watched the spot where the surf was supposed to be. It never did turn up for us.

After a night in the Royal Mail Hotel - a room above a pub in a place that Gareth described as Hotel California - next day it was back on the road - this time for Hervey Bay on the Fraser Coast. We were desperate for a bit of long-term air-con so we went to the cinema to see Happy Feet. Well that's how I sold it to Gareth and it worked. The film could probably have been renamed Smelly Feet as every now and again there was a waft of something cheesy - (in defence of Gareth's feet I must admit that this was similar to the smell in the cinema in Coolangatta when we saw Casino Royale - so I think it must be an Oz cinema thing - although of course Gareth and his feet were present on both occasions so I can't be sure).

The Friendly Hostel in Hervey Bay was the cheapest we'd stayed in so far in Oz and was pretty decent. There were only four rooms in the unit so it was nice and quiet and the owner was helpful - making only one request - that we didn't leave our rucksacks on the bed as this transferred bed bugs from hostel to hostel. Bed bugs? This was something I hadn't even considered until now! How was I supposed to fit worrying about bed bugs in around worrying about snakes, sharks, jellyfish, crocs, rampaging kangaroos, evil mosquitoes and smelly feet?

It was a (rare) early start for us on Thursday - we were booked onto a one day trip across the Great Sandy Straits to Fraser Island. This is the world's largest sand island, apparently containing more sand than the Sahara desert and famous for its beautiful (croc-less) freshwater lakes, rainforest and white sandy beaches. It took nearly an hour to reach Moon Bay by ferry and along the way our Captain kept telling us to look over the edge for 'marine creatures'. I think most people were looking for rays and turtles but I was mindful of what I had read in the guidebook - don't swim off the beaches of Fraser Island - they are full of man-eating sharks. I would be happier when we reached Fraser Island. In fact, I would really be happier when we had been to Fraser Island and come back safe again.

Moments later the man-eating sharks took her...

Our guide for the day was Richard - or Richo as he liked to be called. Originally from Hertfordshire, he did a great job of driving our four wheel drive off-road bus through the deep sandy tracks around the island and definitely knew his stuff, but as Gareth said, he could have talked a glass eye to sleep. Our tour included visits to Lake Garawongera(completely clear but the colour of tea from the tannin in the nearby trees), Eli Creek (pouring up to four million litres of clear, fresh water into the sea every hour) , the Lidney rainforest and the wreck of the Maheno.

Aye, aye cap'n

Best of all though was driving 18km down seventy five mile beach, with the tide lapping at the wheels of the bus. Sadly we saw no dingoes on the island - since there are no domestic dogs allowed on Fraser Island the dingoes are said to be some of the purest in Oz. They also have a reputation for being aggressive as a result of having got used to human interaction - and in particular - being fed by humans who come to visit. Maybe it's better we didn't see them...

After another night at the Friendly Hostel with no bed bug attacks thanks to Mrs Friendly's rucksack policy, it was north again to Bundaberg.

Bundaberg seems to be famous for one thing - its rum. I got a bit confused here between the Bundaberg bear - he's white and says 'Follow your nose' and the Hofmeister bear, who if I recall correctly, used to wear a bomber jacket and said 'Follow the bear' or something like that.

Gareth hits the bottle again

Anyway, we took a quick tour of the distillery, which was nothing special and pretty hard work in the searing heat - but the bonus was the free tasters you got at the end. Seeing as he was driving, Gareth stuck to the soft stuff but I tried out Bundaberg Royal Liqueur - a delicious mix of coffee, chocolate, caramel, sugar and rum - our tour guide described it as the five major food groups! It was very nice but unfortunately you can only buy it at the distillery and there is no room in my rucksack for anything, not even alcohol, at the moment.

It was a long drive on to Rockhampton that afternoon - and of course I dodged it all because of my drinking.

Are we there yet?

At 7pm we rolled up at our accommodation for the night. To pass the time and save our precious dollars, Gareth and I play this game called 'Drive the price of the room down'. This worked particularly well in Sri Lanka and helped us get used to a rapid downwards spiral in accommodation quality. We'd forgotten the game once we got to Oz since there didn't seem to be much variation in price BUT the East Coast was different with lots to play for. In the spirit of that game Gareth had booked us in, for TWO nights, at the Ascot Stonegrill Backpackers. Walking into our room, I realised that in this game, you get all you deserve. It looked more like a prison cell, with a bed covered by a thick, nasty looking and well-stained rug and an electric fan, covered by an even thicker of dust. It got even worse at bedtime. By now, the temperature was still safely in the 30s so the room was roasting - and when I lay down on the bed I discovered it was a foam mattress with no spring in it whatsoever - plus on one side of us there was the lounge where the TV was blaring and on the other side was the main road, with racer boys zooming up and down the road all night long. Eventually I think I must have passed out...

Next day it was time for an education session. You'll remember that as soon as we arrived in Australia we visited the Aquarium of Western Australia to get to grips with all the things we needed to avoid in the sea. Now that we were getting into North Queensland we were in crocodile country and we needed a bit of background info - so we headed to Koorana Crocodile Farm for a tour. The tour started with our guide handing out a piece of crocodile leather and a massive croc skin with all the knobbly armour plating down the back - telling everyone to have a good feel. Well I decided not to just in case I ever find myself face-to-face with a crocodile - at least I'll know I'm not being punished for holding the remains of one of his beloved relatives. After the introduction we got out into the farm and started meeting the crocs - and they were pretty scary.

Would make a lovely pair of shoes and matching handbag

What I understand now is that crocodiles can be very grumpy. We heard lots of stories about how some of the male crocs had been moved to different enclosures after beating up or sometimes eating up their girlfriends and we met Shah, a croc who drowned his keeper in Townsville Zoo back in the fifties because he didn't like the noise of the lawnmower. We were also told to look out for the three signs of crocodile territory - the nest, the wallow (a puddle of water) and the slide - where the croc moves into the water. After a quick cuddle with Harley, a young croc whose jaws where safely taped up, we left the farm, suitably terrified of going anywhere near water for the rest of our time in Australia. Job done then.

Really, it was bigger in real life!

We drove the 45 kms back to Rockhampton, hoping to have a wander around what is supposed to be one of the major cities of Queensland - but at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon everything was closed, so we turned the car around and headed to Yeppoon, a small seaside town where we managed to find some signs of life and a fish and chips supper. After delaying as long as possible we had no choice to go back to the Ascot Stonegrill Backpackers and our hot little cell. We set the alarm for an early getaway ready for the journey onto Mackay next day ...

So it was back to the Gold Coast for a few more days before we were due to head north to Cairns and there was quite a bit that we wanted to fit in.

Dai had secretly arranged a tour for us of Queensland's wineries, so he had us up early on Wednesday morning to be picked up by Peter of Cork 'n' Fork Wine and Food Tours to take us into the hills of the Gold Coast Hinterland.

The basic plan appeared to be to do a tour of four wineries and a distillery. Now that's what I call a day out!

First stop was a winery whose office and reception area was actually the former governor's residence in Brisbane. Apparently a few years ago it was put up for auction and the winery's owners bought it. As it was a wooden building they were able to cut it into sections, put them on lorries and then transport them the 60 odd miles into the hills to be rebuilt on their land. Proper recycling.

The wine was pretty good, particularly a slightly sweet red wine called Poinciana that is served chilled, so we bought a bottle. It was here that the art of 'trilling' was explained to us. What you do is hold some wine in the front of your mouth, then breathe air in over the top of it, this is supposed to speed up the alcoholic effect, apparently this is something that wine experts do to assess quality. Sounds more like something a drunken bum would do to get howling quicker to me!!

Early morning drinker

After a quick stop at Witches Falls winery we went to Tamborine Mountain Distillery, where a mad old chap who looked like Uncle Albert from Only Fools and Horses was making alcohol out of anything he could get his hands on. He was handing out shots to try like it was nobody's business, it was a good job nobody was driving!

We had a very nice lunch and more wine tasting, then another wine tour before we were returned to Coolangatta. We decided that we'd give the Mexican restaurant downstairs a try that evening before going out for our music night and when we arrived the waitress took us out to the balcony. It was then that the Christmas beetle struck! This beetle which was about the size of a Cadbury's Creme Egg (Sarah's description) decided to attach itself to the bottom of the waitress' trousers. It kept hissing at us as we tried to remove it - apparently they bite - in the end she managed to remove it with the aid of a menu. We chose to eat inside.

When Sarah and I were in Melbourne we saw a poster advertising a Matt Costa concert in Coolangatta. Neither of us knew who he was or what his music was like, so we bought his CD then got some tickets so that we could all go along and see! Rather fortunately the venue for the concert was the Coolangatta Hotel, which is directly below Di and Dai's apartment block.

They knew we were coming

It wasn't very full and they were offering 2 for 1 tickets on the door, which wasn't a good sign. The support act turned out to be a surfer that I had heard of called Timmy Curran and he and his small band were very good, I would definitely go and see them again. Matt Costa had a much larger band and was OK, but when he said how pleased he and his band were to be there, it wasn't very convincing. Certainly his bassist didn't seem to know where he was!

My one's bigger than yours

We just relaxed and went to the beach on Thursday, but as this was a bit boring we decided that we'd go to Byron Bay on Friday. We got up early and headed down there, it's only about an hour from Coolangatta, so we were there quite early, but as we'd crossed the border into New South Wales we jumped forward an hour.

I had been looking forward to going to Byron Bay for some time as there is a surfboard shaper based there called Bob McTavish and he is a bit of a legend in the surfing world. I had also seen on his website that they hire some of their surfboards and we thought it would be good to hire a couple from there as they would be nicer than the usual hire boards. As we came to the outskirts of Byron Bay I spotted the shop and we pulled in. We walked into the showroom and were greeted by a young Australian guy who was looking after the shop. Hhe asked us where we were from - when we said Wales he proceeded to speak to us like we had never seen a surfboard before and didn't really belong in his shop! I was tempted to ask him which side the wax goes on and whether the fins were hand grips. Instead I asked about hiring some boards and he clearly didn't want to hire them to us, he said they were expensive ones and we'd be better off getting some in town, what a great salesman! One thing is for sure, he's made sure that I'll never buy a Bob McTavish surfboard. It's a strange attitude when you consider that Byron Bay is a real holiday place and 80% of the people that go into their shop must be tourists.

We then headed off to Byron Bay Longboards, where the guy was only too pleased to hire us a couple of boards and some bodyboards for the girls and we went off for a fun surf on the main beach.

That evening after dinner we were enjoying one of the bottles of wine we had picked up on our tour when Dai produced the quote of the trip so far, he said 'It's amazing what you can do with a grape'!! How right he was, although I think he may have consumed a few glasses of the grape product by this point.

Di was getting really fed up of telling Sarah to put the toilet seat down

Saturday was time to go to the Wet'n'Wild Theme Park, where we had a fantastic time on various rides. We went on the Mammoth Falls ride six times! Some things you never grow out of.

On Sunday night we had a farewell barbecue on the headland between Coolangatta and Kirra, it has a great view and free electric barbecues. We took a couple of bottles of wine and by the end of the evening Sarah, Diane and I had managed to empty more than a couple more. We were definitely going to have a hangover to start our journey north!

We decided before we came away that it would be a great experience to spend New Year's Eve in Sydney, or to be more specific, in Sydney Harbour. Urban myth has it that there are more sharks inside Sydney Harbour than outside. Now I'm not a marine biologist, but I am aware that outside the harbour is the whole of the Pacific Ocean, so I have my doubts that this is accurate. Despite this we decided that we wouldn't take any risks and booked ourselves onto the plushest looking boat that we could find doing the rounds of the harbour on New Year's Eve.

First we had to get there, so it was up early on the 30th to catch a flight back to Sydney, which was an hour ahead, so we lost a little bit of 2006. When we were booking the whole trip to Sydney, the only place that we could get to stay in Sydney was a hotel in Parramatta, a suburb of Sydney, it didn't look very far on the pop-out map of Sydney, but turned out to be half an hour by train. (Our friend Lee Ann had told Sarah that staying in Parramatta is a bit like staying in Reading for a night out in London - there were certainly similarities.)

As it turned out this wasn't much of a problem as you can get a ferry down the Parramatta River to Circular Quay (next to the Opera House), so that's exactly what we did. (More public transport for Sarah.)

The ferry wasn't the only plus for Sarah. On the way down the river we spotted that there was a funfair in the shadow of the Harbour Bridge, and there's nothing that Sarah likes more in the world than funfairs (well, maybe tails). So that was Saturday night sorted out, they had quite a few entertaining rides, but only one that I will remember for the rest of my life....

We had just come off a strange spinning ride that made me feel a little queasy, when Diane spotted a ride on the map called Rotor. As you went up the steps you were given the option of going into the ride or going to the viewing platform first, well obviously we weren't going to do the sensible thing and we headed straight in to have a go.

Rotor consists of a cylinder where the riders stand against the outside wall as it is spun around at about 70km/h (so I was told), so that you stick to the wall, then the floor drops away and you just hang there. I remember doing the whole centrifugal force thing in GCSE Science and I know why this works, but I'm still not happy about it. The force holding you against the wall was so strong that you couldn't move a muscle and it actually made it quite difficult to breathe, so I was very glad when it stopped, although for some strange reason as they slowed the ride down, they allowed us to slide down the wall, rather than bringing the floor back up to meet us! If anybody has ever seen the film 'Spies Like Us' with Chevy Chase and Dan Ackroyd, then we looked very similar to them after going through astronaut training, with faces contorted from the G forces.

Geddit?

This was quite enough excitement for one night, so after a leisurely ride on the ferris wheel we hopped back over to the other side of the harbour to find someting to eat. Unfortunately it was now 10.30pm and most places were shut, so we headed to the one place we knew would be open....an Indian restaurant!

After a hard night's work we had a lay in the following day, followed by a very nice lunch by the river in Parramatta, where Dai managed to polish off a giant bowl of wedges as well as a fillet steak. Then it was off into Sydney for New Year's Eve.

We expected it to be quite busy getting into Sydney, but it wasn't actually too bad, there were very regular trains and we got in in no time. On our way to the wharf to catch the boat there was a bit of excitement as sirens were going off all over the place - it turned out that a flat above the Wagamama restaurant on Darling Harbour was on fire, so obviously Dai had to get in the way and start taking pictures. Anyone who didn't know him would think he was a paparazzi photographer.

Thankfully our boat wasn't on fire, but it was very full - considering how much we'd paid for the trip we had expected something with a little more space, although as a bonus they did have a DJ who looked like Freddie Starr, thankfully his language was a little cleaner!

Happy New Year!

There were two firework displays that night and the first one was at nine o'clock. This was better than any other firework display that I have ever seen, and that was just the warm up! There was non-stop tail food being dished out, so we didn't go hungry, or thirsty for that matter. Everybody onboard was getting rapidly more drunk ready for the big moment and it came rather suddenly. We were standing on the bow looking at the Harbour Bridge when suddenly they started counting down from ten. As the new year came in a mass of fireworks exploded in every direction and continued for what seemed an age. Apparently the cost of the fireworks was AU$4m.

The next thing we knew they were heading back to Darling Harbour to boot us off and that was New Year's Eve for us. As the authorities in Sydney had called it 'A diamond night in the emerald city'.

As you would expect, we weren't awake too early the following day and weren't really in the mood for anything too energetic, so we had lunch in a pub down the road and then decided to watch a film in the hotel. Dai and Di had decided that they would like to watch 'Snakes on a Plane'. If anybody reading this is considering watching this monstrosity then please take my advice and don't bother, I would normally explain the plot at this point, but there wasn't really one, the title tells you all you need to know!

We decided that as we had made the effort to come to Sydney, we should really try to go and have something to eat somewhere nice around the harbour and we found a lovely place right on the the water near the Opera House. Sarah, Diane and I all decided to go for the king prawns and we were presented with a giant bucket of them.

Seefood diet!

The food was great, but unfortunately we were seated outside when the heavens opened and we had to try to fit under the tiniest umbrella to keep ourselves and our dinner dry.

On our last day we had decided that it would be fun to climb Sydney Harbour Bridge, so we pitched up at the Bridgeclimb office to be kitted out in grey overalls and shown how to use our harnesses, then we were off onto the bridge. It wasn't as scary as you might expect, the paths that you climb up are quite wide most of the way, but the views are spectacular. The whole thing takes about three hours, which would be quicker if they didn't keep stopping to take photos of everybody, but it's definitely worthwhile and I would recommend it to anybody visiting Sydney.

Don't look down!

We learnt quite a lot about the bridge during the climb - it weighs 38,000 tonnes and is actually held up by the metal framework. The stone pylons on either side serve no structural purpose, they just look nice! The metalwork transfers all of the weight of the bridge onto 8 metal pins, 4 on either side of the bridge, which are known as King Pins. The King Pins are capable of holding up to 80,000 tonnes in weight. I don't know if there is supposed to be an apostrophe at the start of King Pin or not.....

So that was it for our return trip to Sydney, a short but very enjoyable few days.

After our flying visit to Sydney, we hopped on yet another plane and headed up the East Coast to Coolangatta, in Queensland, for Christmas in the sun with Gareth's brother Dai and his wife Di. To get into the Christmas spirit Gareth was wearing a Santa hat and I had a furry Christmas pudding on my head - it was a good idea in my head but walking through the airport I felt just a little bit self-conscious.

Dai and Di have just emigrated to Australia so we caught up on the gossip from home as we settled into our home for the next three weeks. After all this time unpacking and packing our rucksacks almost every other night it was bliss to unpack our things into our bedroom, knowing we would be here for a while. Most importantly, there was a washing machine for Gareth to wash his stinking trainers which had been smelling more and more like a pair of decomposing rats in recent weeks.

Dai and Di's apartment is a stone's thrown from the white sand beach, with a view of the sea from the balcony (very handy for Gareth to check the surf every morning). We'd already decided on our plan of action for our time in Coolangatta - we were going to relax, live like locals and indulge in a bit of retail therapy - and that was exactly what we did for a week until Christmas.

Tipsy cowboy Rees

It's very strange being in the sun at Christmastime - but we still managed to get in the mood.

No really, this is our own hair

Gareth's entries on the blog might have you thinking I'm nothing but a cocktail guzzling undomesticated old soak who couldn't tell one end of frying pan from the other but me and Di kept ourselves very busy preparing everything for Christmas - icing the Christmas cake (with the help of a clingfilmed wine bottle in the absence of a rolling pin - this always works better if you drink the contents of the bottle first), making homemade cranberry sauce and stuffing and buying up the bulk of Queensland's Christmas cracker supplies. On Christmas Eve - all jobs done - we joined the rest of Coolangatta - and Santa himself - for Carols and Fireworks on the Beach. I'm not sure how well this combination would work in Dewi Sant in Tumble but it looked pretty special on the beach in Oz.

Dai's beard had got really out of control

"Yes, we have been very, very good this year"

Christmas morning we were up very early for the Grand Webcam Plan. At 5am we got ourselves out of bed and drove to Currumbin, a little way up the coast. I think that 5am is the earliest I have been awake on Christmas morning since - well - last Christmas probably. In Australia, there are loads of webcams set up so that you can check the surf conditions, and it just so happened that the webcam on Currumbin beach also had a view of the car park. So while our families waited and watched online at home, we bounced around the car park like nutters, wearing Santa hats and waving wildly. Luckily it wasn't too busy in the car park but I'm sure the people there wondered why four crazy Welsh weirdos were running around in circles, waving at a brick wall and talking into mobile phones. Still, the plan worked and although we were a bit fuzzy on screen, we were definitely there!

"Can I get two chicken dopiazas, a lamb bhuna, pilau rice and a plain naan to take away?"

Back at the apartment we tucked into a breakfast of pancakes with maple syrup, strawberries and ice cream, accompanied by champagne brandies - well it wouldn't be Christmas otherwise would it? It was all wolfed down pretty sharpish because it was the only thing standing between us and the pile of presents under the Christmas tree.

I think that Gareth and I must have been very, very good all year because we did very well with our presents. Between us we had quite a few urgent replacements for items in our rucksacks, including new clothes, toothbrushes and possibly best of all, new pants. (You may notice that in future pictures we've moved away from our brown, green and orange theme to blue and pink - that's clothes, not pants. Don't worry we're not going to be showing you pictures of our pants.)

Dressed in new clothes we packed up the picnic hamper and headed off to the beach for a Christmas day sunbathe and splash in the sea. The day had started off a bit cloudy but luckily it all cleared and the sun came out for us.

The sun in Australia is very strong - you should ALWAYS wear a sunhat

We all headed into the sea with our Santa hats still on and it was all going swimmingly well until Di got out of the water after being stung by a bluebottle jellyfish. The boys had already had a couple of minor run-ins with the little buggers whilst surfing but this one was obviously a monster. It had managed to wrap its tentacle around Di's leg a few times before finishing off with a little 'whip' and leaving evil red welts on her leg. So we headed back to the apartment for some ice treatment and luckily it didn't take too long to work and ease the pain.

We'd planned to eat our Christmas dinner on the balcony looking out to the beach but the high winds that picked up during the day put paid to that. Eventually we sat down to dinner, only about an hour later than we planned, and considering the limitations of Di's oven (one setting - fierce) I think between us we did very well indeed and our dinner was delicious.

Just like home, only 9470 miles away

Boxing Day brought rain and cloud, but we braved it anyway to drive to Mount Tamborine. The views from the mountain are supposed to be spectacular but we couldn't really see anything and ended up playing pool in a bar along the way. When we got back to the apartment we decided that seeing as Australian TV is so dreadful we would hire a DVD. The boys went out and came back with 'Walk the Line' - the Johnny Cash story. It's very good if any of you are thinking of watching it. Next night we let the boys choose again and they picked something called Inside Man. That was dreadful and me and Di fell asleep before the end. Obviously beginners luck!

The pro circuit beckons for Gareth

The rest of the week went by quickly - we kept ourselves busy stuffing ourselves with the Christmas leftovers and getting ready for our New Year trip to Sydney - and Gareth will tell you all about that soon!

My husband and I, would like to wish all our loyal subj ... we mean blog readers, festive greetings from our current residence down under...

No really, we're sending this Christmas message to all our family and friends who are faraway now. We've arrived with Dai and Di in Coolangatta on the Gold Coast and although it's strange being in the sun at this time of year, you'll be able to see that we're all getting into the Christmas spirit. We'll be spending Christmas Eve singing carols on the beach and tomorrow we'll be sitting down to a traditional Christmas turkey dinner in the evening, on the balcony.

We hope that everyone at home, or in any of the places we've stopped along the way has a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

With love, Gareth and Sarah xx

So we headed from Melbourne to Sydney, with Virginblue airlines and they were having a bit of a testing evening when we arrived at Melbourne airport. There had been thunderstorms in Sydney that afternoon and flights had been delayed by forty five minutes on take off. This was causing them major problems in Melbourne, because the schedules run on such tight timetables. The flights that were supposed to leave at about 7pm were now scheduled to leave at 9pm. Thankfully ours was only delayed by about half an hour and we were soon taxiing down the runway.

I think I will remember that flight for a long time. Not because it was bad in anyway, but because of the steward who was in charge of the cabin crew and his pre-flight message. It started normally, even if it was a little on the camp side. Then he got to "...in the event of a loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will automatically drop from the panel above you. Please ensure that you put your own oxygen mask on before helping anybody else. Anybody travelling with two or more children, please take a look at them now and decide which one you prefer." I was almost crying with laughter.

We arrived in Sydney at about 10.30 pm and were approached by a man who could barely speak English who said that he was the shuttle bus driver, and where were we staying? Now, I knew that we had already missed the last shuttle bus and suspected that this chap was a little dodgy, despite his assurances that the shuttle bus was just around the corner. We opted to take the safe route and get a taxi to our hostel in Glebe. The hostel was OK, the room was quite large and reasonably clean, but when we went to go to bed we remembered why we don't like hostels...the noise. There were people sitting on the tables outside our room talking loudly until gone 4am. Not impressed. Thankfully we had great plans for the following day to make up for it.

We decided back when we were in Sri Lanka staying in some hovel or other that we needed some luxury to look forward to, so we decided that we would save our pennies along the way to have one night staying in the Shangri La on Sydney harbour - and December the 13th was it. So in true backpacker style we got the bus to Sydney's best hotel and pitched up in reception with our rucksacks on. I can only think that the receptionists thought that we were lost and were going to ask for directions! If this was the case then they did a very good job of hiding it.

It may seem a little lazy, but we decided that if we were going to spend a substantial amount of money to stay somewhere then we were going to make the most of it, so we turned up at 11am to check in and didn't leave the hotel until we checked out the next day at 1pm!!

The view from our room

As part of the deal on the room we had a free laundry service. We may have singlehandedly managed to convince the senior management of Shangri La hotels that they should end this offer. As soon as we checked in Sarah and I emptied the entire contents of our rucksacks into the laundry bag and sent it for washing. When the laundry came back the invoice for it said that it would have cost us $186!

I have to say that the Shangri La was worth the wait, we had excellent views over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Opera House and Circular Quay, it was fantastic! They also have a fantastic cocktail bar on the top floor which we obviously had to test out!

Down the hatch

Unfortunately our time in the lap of luxury had to end and we left the Shangri La bound for Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. Katoomba is not very far from Sydney at all, but it is a two hour train journey from Sydney Central Station, because it stops every five minutes all the way there!

Katoomba is quite a small town, so we quickly found our hostel and dumped our luggage to have a bit of an explore. There isn't really very much there, it's more of a base for people who want to explore the Blue Mountains and do various "adventure" sports. It's a bit like Chiang Mai in Thailand in that way and seems to have attracted exactly the same budding Ray Mears types! That evening the hostel was buzzing with people going on about the adrenalised mountain experiences they'd had that day. Now I don't want to belittle their efforts (I'm going to anyway) but the highest mountain in the range is apparently around 1200 metres above sea level, this compares with Snowdon which is just short of 1100 metres. Hardly mindblowing when you consider that the temperature is around 25 degrees and you could easily climb it in shorts. Not really an expedition. Although to be fair, unlike Snowdon you can't get most of the way up the mountain on a train either!

Not to be outdone, the following day we headed into the mountains. Well actually we walked to the end of the main street, (imaginatively named Katoomba Street) to Echo Point to check out the view and have a wander over to the Three Sisters.

They're bigger than they look

Time for a history lesson.... apparently the Three Sisters were three aborigine girls who wanted to marry outside of their tribe. The tribe's witch doctor turned them to stone as punishment, and then died before they could be turned back to humans, so they were stuck like that. They must have been big girls though, the rocks are massive!

We then did the proper tourist thing and headed over to Katoomba Falls, to have a ride on the glass-bottomed cable car, ride down the steepest railway in the world and then come back up in another cable car. Then it was back to Sydney on the train and back to the noisiest hostel in the world. I think I could probably have persuaded Sarah that we needed another stay in the Shangri La, but thought it best not to or we'd have to severely shorten the rest of the trip!

The next day we took the bus to Avalon beach, which I'd always fancied visiting since I first saw it on a surfing video about ten years ago. We had also been informed that this is the beach where they film 'Home and Away'. Unfortunately the weather wasn't on our side, so after a two hour bus journey we arrived just in time to get wet in the heavy rain and strong winds. It was just like summer at home. There was no sign of Alf or Sally on the beach. We made our way back on the bus via Manly, so that we could get the ferry back across Sydney harbour to Circular Quay. It was a lot colder on the ferry than last time we were there.

So that was Sydney, a brief visit as an excuse to stay in a nice hotel really! We'll be back for New Year's Eve though with Dai and Di, so that will be a much more lively affair!

So we waved goodbye to Western Australia and headed to Melbourne. It had only taken a few days back in Perth to get used to the weather (much warmer than the South West) so it was a bit of a shock to get off the plane in Melbourne - although the sun was shining it was cold. We found our way to our hostel in St Kilda (a suburb of Melbourne) and set off straightaway in search of a supermarket and some food. On the way back the wind was so cold I thought I might freeze before we got home. This was not the Australian plan!

We had two days in Melbourne before heading off down the Great Ocean Road. We spent Monday getting to grips with Melbourne's public transport system (they have electric trams that whizz about everywhere - wicked!) and getting in some free visits around Federation Square. We visited ACMI - the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (a showcase of things like film images projected onto thin air that you could then walk through and lots of video booths where you could watch short films or read interactive stories) and St Paul's cathedral (we'd timed our visit perfectly because only the night before they had pulled down a screen that had been obscuring the altar and beautiful stained glass window for the last eighteen months), and then moved on to Parliament House, where we managed to get on a free tour, with a very interesting and amusing guide. We were able to sit in seats normally occupied by very important people and Gareth made himself very comfortable as Speaker of the House. You did get the sense you were naughty children being allowed to run riot while the teacher was out of the room.

"Order, Order! Let the honourable gentleman speak"

We also fitted in a quick beer in Young and Jackson, Melbourne's oldest pub, which apparently houses a very famous nude painting that caused huge controversy when it was painted back in the dark ages. We did have a quick look around but it was nowhere to be seen. I think it may just have been a ploy on Gareth's part to have a quick beer...

Back in St Kilda we walked down the pier where we spotted some dinky penguins hiding in the rocks and then stopped for drinks in one of the cafe bars along the beach. St Kilda is full of beautiful people (I don't know how we sneaked in) and the thing to do when you're there is watch these beautiful people all day long. I don't know whether you've ever done it, but it's quite tiring watching beautiful people rollerblade, cycle or run along the beachfront. All that exercise really takes it out of you. We decided we preferred the other thing you're meant to do in St Kilda - eat delicious cakes from all the fabulous Continental style bakeries on Ackland Street - yum.

Next day we decided we would first head over to Queen Victoria market to get ourselves some things for a picnic. It's a monster of a market, with hundreds of stalls selling everything you could wish for, from pet food, to sunglasses, to Ugg boots - but we were only interested in food - you know Gareth and his blood sugar swings. Half an hour later we had organised ourselves with some bread, Tasmanian Brie and grapes and headed off to the Royal Botanical Gardens.

"I'm not asking fifty, I'm not asking twenty, yes mate, any two for a pound"

Well, it was a warm day and a long walk to the gardens. It took us some time (and nearly a divorce) to cross one particularly busy road across the Yarra River but eventually we arrived and found ourselves a nice shady spot to eat. Sadly the shade came a bit late for the Tasmanian Brie which looked a bit more like cheese fondue when we opened the bag and smelt a bit like Gareth's shoes after a long day on the road.

I must admit that I still prefer Kings Park in Perth but the Botanical Gardens are beautifully kept and we must have spent a couple of hours there, just relaxing. When you lay down in the grass you could almost have been in the National Botanic Gardens of Wales, had it not been for the skyscrapers in the distance, the searing temperature and oh... also the fact that all the plants looked healthy and there were no comedy farmyard animals wandering around.

Another hard day for two globetrotters

Next day we picked up our hire car to drive the Great Ocean Road. I think Gareth was pretty gutted when he discovered that we weren't getting another one of those Kia Rios that he loves so much but a Toyota Corolla instead. The Great Ocean Road is one of the most spectacular coastal drives in the world, with differences of opinion about where exactly it starts and finishes - our guidebook said it started in Torquay and ended in Warrnambool and that was good enough for us.

We decided to spend our first night in Torquay and fixed ourselves a room in a little guesthouse. The owner was friendly but a bit obsessed with the sharks that he said were waiting to eat us in the water around Torquay - it certainly put me off going for a dip. Gareth, fearless as ever, wasn't put off so we headed to a place called Jan Juc in search of some waves - but the surf was pants. No dinner for the sharks that night anyway.

Next morning we visited Torquay's surfing museum, then set off for Bells Beach. At last there was some surf for Gareth who was a very happy bunny. From Bells Beach we drove on through Anglesea, Lorne and eventually got to Apollo Bay, where we stayed the night in a fab little place called Angela's Guesthouse. When we arrived Angela showed us our room which was sparkling clean, with a balcony that had a view of the sea. Angela said that if we would like breakfast it would be ten dollars extra and she would bring it up on a tray to eat on the balcony. Well how could we say no?

Somewhere along Great Ocean Road we must have got a bit lost..

For our last day on the road we'd left a lot to pack in. From Apollo Bay you leave the coast and enter the Otway National Park, where we took a quick detour to see Cape Otway and its lighthouse and then walked to Triplet Falls, a beautiful waterfall in the middle of rainforest. After this the road goes back to the coast and you reach the Twelve Apostles, the huge rock stacks that come up out of the sea.

Along most of the road, if you pull into a viewing point there's a really good chance you'll be the only people there but the viewing platform for the Twelve Apostles was absolutely packed - with other people and also with flies. I don't think we've mentioned how awful the flies in Australia are - they try to get in your nose, your eyes, your mouth and your ears and they particularly like Gareth. I have never seen anything like it before - they were swarming around him and he was trying to cover his face, unsuccessfully, with his fleece. I did the only thing any good wife could do - I gave him my bandana - and for the first time in our trip he took it happily. (I knew I would break him eventually.)

Yes, count them again.

It's strange when you see in front of you, something you've seen so many times before in pictures and the Twelve Apostles are striking and impressive - but it was so busy and the flies were unbearable so you couldn't really take it in.

We finished the drive in Warrnambool (this place name sounds expecially good if you say it in a Bristol accent, as Gareth did to the lady in the Visitor Centre, who nearly wet herself laughing), where we spent the night, before driving back to Melbourne via the Princes Highway next morning.

Getting back to Melbourne the first thing you noticed was the smoke - while we'd been away bushfires had been raging and the city was covered by grey. The second thing you noticed was the temperature - which was also raging. After returning our hire car we went to Melbourne Cricket Ground, nearly dying of thirst during the tour. The ground is very impressive (though probably the highlight for me was visiting the Changing Rooms where all those yummy cricketers have been before). Gareth was very excited to sit in the commentary box where BBC radio will broadcast the Boxing Day Test.

"and Flintoff bowls to Ponting from the pavilion end..."

Next day it was even hotter - we later found out that it had reached 42 degrees - too hot to do anything outside, so we went to the cinema instead. Later on, we got ourselves as glammed up as we can within the limitations of our rucksacks and went to the Crown Casino. It is a massive place, part of a huge entertainment complex (including the cinema we'd visited earlier) and was the most blingy place we'd seen since Bangkok. We made a deal before we went in - we'd spend a maximum of $50 in the casino and save any winnings. In true James Bond style we headed straight to the Roulette tables where Gareth got stuck in - and he's a natural - we came back out of the casino with $95! He's available to hire for special occasions and can even tie a proper bow tie!

So that was Victoria, lots of fun, hot, cold and sharky and we didn't spot a single koala while we were there. Next - Sydney.

So we headed south from Perth towards Margaret River, via the 'city' of Bunbury for a long weekend. We decided after much investigation that the easiest and cheapest way to get there would be by train. This was mainly due to the fact that the supposedly greatest surfing nation on earth has a tendency to make it either difficult or expensive to travel with a surfboard. I have to admit that as soon as we started to find out the charges for taking a surfboard on the train or bus I began to wish that I had waited until we reached Queensland to buy a board!

When we booked the ticket we were told that we were lucky and had got the last seats in the carriage that carried surfboards and bikes. Phew, what a relief. It was only when we got on the train that I realised what a joke that was; there were no other boards or bikes on the train and mine went in the overhead luggage carrier!

Anyway, we arrived in Bunbury and sought out the Wander Inn, our hostel for the next few nights, only to find that the reception was closed from 12 to 4pm, so we couldn't check in. Our room was OK, but the hostel seemed to have a number of more permanent residents who weren't travellers but sat around smoking and doing nothing all day.

That evening I volunteered to make dinner, Chicken Pilaf. This was the first time that either of us had cooked since we left (apart from the famous Thai cookery course) as it was so cheap to eat out in Sri Lanka and Thailand that it wasn't worth cooking for yourself, and none of the accommodation we stayed in had any cooking facilities.

I immediately hit upon a problem when I tried to find a pan to cook dinner in - there weren't any! I headed off to reception to ask where I could find one and was told by the owner that I would have to hand over my room key in exchange for a battered old saucepan. It was hardly something that I was going to steal! I was sorely tempted to tell him that it wasn't flippin' Le Creuset, but thought better of it as we were booked to stay there two more nights.

The next drama that we had didn't emerge until the next morning when Sarah went to check the washing drying on the line. Only not all of it was drying on the line. Someone had stolen three pairs of Sarah's knickers, which was a particular problem as she was only travelling with four pairs in the first place. What kind of weirdo would steal someone's pants?

This really summed up the Wander Inn, a bit rough, and Sarah spent the rest of our stay wondering who else in the living room was also wearing her pants, female or male?

The only good thing about Bunbury

On Sunday morning we decided to go down to the Dolphin Discovery Centre, where we discovered that the dolphins weren't coming out to play. We were hopeful that they might make an appearance the following day, as it was my birthday and our last day in Bunbury, but again a no show from Flipper. Don't they realise that we are on a very tight schedule?!

From Bunbury we took the bus down to Margaret River, where we were picked up to go to the Surfpoint Resort at Gnarabup. It was then that we learned that you really need a car to get around the Margaret River area and that the surf was flat!

We amused ourselves the following day by renting a scooter again and headed off into town to explore. It cost roughly twenty times more than our Thai racing machine, but this time we had helmets and they wanted to see a driving licence, which was reassuring.

Now where did I park my moped?

The next morning I retraced our steps north on the bus to pick up a hire car. It was a Kia Rio, the car of choice of people who don't like cars. It was actually an upgrade from the bottom of the range car we had ordered, because they didn't have any of them in stock, I dread to think how small that would have been. Good news, the board fitted in the car....there was room for Sarah on the roofrack. Once again we were mobile, so we headed straight to a farm in the middle of nowhere to live like hippies for five days. As you do.

Yes, we had decided that in a bid to save money, the planet and bring some moral justification for taking six months off work, we would spend some time WWOOFING. For those of you who don't know what that is, it has nothing to do with dogs, but actually stands for 'Willing Workers On Organic Farms'. Unfortunately it should have been WWSETLING, 'Weirdos in the Woods Searching for Extra Terrestrial Life', or something like that. Yes, I know it's not as catchy, but it's more accurate. Crop circles, you know the hoaxes that were exposed many years ago in Britain, well the news that they weren't created by aliens doesn't seem to have filtered down to South West Australia.

Sarah spent five days cleaning kitchen cupboards, one of her favourite household chores, and I spent five days building a fence that was twenty foot long and I could have built in five hours if I'd been doing it on my own! (It wasn't actually finished when I left.) Sarah also spent one day learning to sculpt...or was it learning to dust sculptures, she's still not sure. They were actually a very nice family and made us very welcome, but we are now no wiser as to the ways of organic farming than we were before we started. We did manage to fit in a few quick trips around Margaret River while we there, to Redgate Bay, a beautiful beach with white sand, completely deserted, Hamelin Bay, completely packed out with school leavers and flies, and also to Augusta and Cape Leeuwin, where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet. Very wild and windy.

It took me ages to do my hair this morning!

After we left the WWOOFERS we managed to fit in a day visiting a few wineries. Well it would have been rude not to! We sampled a few in various locations, but it was definitely Sarah who got the most out of it, as I was driving and had to spit most of them out. (It'll be Sarah's turn to drive when we visit New Zealand's wineries.)

Labour shortage in South West Australia leads winemakers to resort to desperate measures

We spent another night in Margaret River and met up with Sarah's friend Matt and his girlfriend George, who it turns out, I worked with when I was working for BT in Bristol, small world, as they say. (Good luck Matt and George - you should be somewhere on the Nullabour Plain by now on your way to Adelaide we think.)

The Margaret River area is renowned for three things, wine, surfing and caves. We had tried the first two so on our last morning we headed off to the Lake Cave to learn about stalagmites and stalagtites. It was actually very impressive, but one cave is more than enough for me, so we headed through the famous southern forests of karri trees to Pemberton. There wasn't much to see there, so two toasted sandwiches later we were headed for Walpole where we were booked in for the night at the YHA.

I decided to start a new paragraph to describe Walpole, but it doesn't really merit it. Sarah described it rather aptly by saying that it was like driving 100 miles to stay in Porthyrhyd for the night, but without the pubs. For those of you who don't know Porthyrhyd, let's just say that it's small and there is no reason to visit it.

The next day we headed straight for the Valley of the Giants and its Treetop Walk. This was very impressive as it was a 500m long walkway through the Tingle trees - 40m above the ground at it's highest point. It had a tendency to sway a little when you walked on it, which was mildly alarming at times.

Looking very pleased with ourselves

We then followed the advice of one of our WWOOFING hosts and headed to a spot called Conspicuous Cliffs. This involved an 8km drive along an unsealed road, think red dirt and ruts, which our hire car was neither designed nor insured for. It was worth it though, it was by far the best beach that we had seen so far on the trip and it was completely deserted. It was very windy, but we managed to eat our picnic on the beach, although our sandwiches were very sandy!

Comes complete with squeaky sand

We were very careful while walking along the beach as the night before we had been warned by a local to watch out for King waves. These are freak waves which occur in the Southern Ocean and have a tendency to take fishermen who are standing on the rocks by surprise and sweep them away. Phil, our friendly local advisor, didn't know why they are called King waves, but we have found out since that there is actually an apostrophe missing from the front of King. This is because it's actually an abbreviation of the last words uttered by a fisherman shortly before being swept to his death. The full version is "Oh no, look at the size of that ***king wave!". I'd like to apologise for my language, I have been in Australia quite a while now and I seem to be picking up the local accent...

That evening we did our usual trick of leaving it to the last minute to book somewhere to stay, but this time we fell on our feet. We arrived at the Cruize Inn in Albany to find the best hostel we've stayed in yet, it was very comfy and quite small and all the time we were there we saw no fights, swearing and the police weren't called out once (unlike in Bunbury, where they were called out twice). We celebrated by having fish and chips by Middleton Beach, which was lovely, but sadly there was no surf. Apparently it had been really good on Monday. Typical.

The next day we managed to fit in almost every tourist stop and sight in the area before heading off to town to get Sarah a book and me a new rucksack. We also found somewhere that did a lovely cup of tea, so that made us both very happy!

It was very cold and windy at the edge of Australia

After all too short a time in Albany we headed back up to Perth, dodging a plague of locusts on our way. Well, trying to anyway, but there were quite a few attached to the front of the hire car when we handed it back. Albany was really very lovely and we could have spent much longer than we did there. The climate was much more pleasant there than Perth and Kristin summed it up perfectly when she said that Albany was where they should have built Perth!

We headed back to David and Kristin's in Perth on Friday, which just gave us enough time to visit Lawrence, Sarah's grandfather's cousin, for a cup of tea.

I also managed to see Sebastian play cricket on Sunday morning. He's going to be playing at the Waca during lunch on the Friday of the third test, so keep an eye out.

Sunday morning we waved goodbye to our new found family. Hopefully we will see them all in Wales soon ...

Next stop Melbourne......

So, from Singapore our next destination was Oz - for three months and the bulk of our trip. Our first stop was Perth in Western Australia. We had a great flight, leaving at 9.30am, lasting only four and a half hours and best of all - no time difference to adjust to. It took us nearly as long as the flight to clear customs - Australia has very strict rules on what you can and can't bring in - there was a lovely little beagle sniffing all our luggage and we had some wooden things in our bags that had to be declared and checked over by the customs officers.

Eventually we got through to the Arrivals Hall where David, and his son Sebastian were waiting for us. We haven't worked out exactly what we are, whether it is first cousins removed or second, third, fourth cousins - who knows - but what we do know is that David's father Lawrence and my Grampa are first cousins. We got in touch before we left the UK and despite never having met us before, David had offered not only to collect us from the airport but to let us stay with him when we first arrived. We left the airport and drove to Mount Hawthorn, a suburb of Perth, where we met the rest of the family, Kristin and Stefan. It is a long time since I have had to introduce Gareth to family members and good on him, he behaved himself well.

In case you have forgotten what we look like, it's from the left: Me, Gareth, Sebastian, Kristin, David and Stefan.

Unusual for us you might think, but we made no plans at all for our time in Australia (except that we need to get to Dai and Di, wherever they might be, in time for Christmas dinner and mince pies) so next morning we decided to start by getting the bus into Perth for a look around. It didn't take long before we found City Beach surf shop and Gareth was the proud owner of a new Dale Chapman 6'5" surfboard. I managed to restrain myself in the face of bikinis, flip flops, and beach bags on a scale I've never seen before.

Surfboard mission accomplished, we left the shops and walked off in search of inspiration. It didn't take long to find Swan Bells, an impressive looking building that was one of Australia's Millennium projects and is one of the largest musical instruments in the world. Twelve of the bells came from St Martin in the Fields in London. I have never thought of bell-ringing as the most dynamic hobby but it was pretty amazing to see this petite white-haired lady, who didn't tell us her age but gave away she was at least in her seventies, ringing one of the heaviest bells (weighing 863kg - same weight as a Daihatsu Sirion apparently). While we were there we had the chance to chime some of (much) smaller bells ourselves (and we have a certificate to prove this!). The main difference between ringing and chiming bells is that when you ring a bell it starts and finishes in an upside-down position whereas when you chime it you start in a normal bell position and really just wiggle it from side to side - so it is a lot easier (as our bell-ringer lady was at great pains to tell us - I think she wmight have been a battle-axe teacher when she wasn't bell-ringing). I'm sure that Gareth and I could learn to ring the bells too but apparently it takes between three weeks and three months and we only had that afternoon to spare.

Afterwards we walked down to the Esplanade and as I sat marvelling at the number of jellyfish in the water (jellyfish in a river??) Gareth was marvelling at a sight of his own. Sitting behind us in a posh looking restaurant was ... wait for it .. Toady from Neighbours.

Yes, Gareth and I do come with an in-built celebrity radar...

To finish the day we walked over to the Western Australia Museum. I'm not normally a big museum fan but I had read in Bill Bryson's Down Under travel book that it had a fantastic collection of stuffed animals - well you all know how I love something cute and cuddly. Best of all, entrance was free! It is quite a cool collection, they had a tiger, an elephant, a koala, a platypus, a seal, a sealion plus loads more - and in the middle of it all a massive bison that was a bit scary. I don't like the way their eyes look at you... There was plenty more to see in the museum, including lots of beautiful butterflies, information on European settlement and an explanation of the Dreaming (how Aborigines explain how Australia was formed) and I know I should have paid more attention but after the stuffed animals, the only thing that got me going was the lifesize Tyrannosaurus Rex replica. I was looking forward to seeing Megamouth, a massive shark that was supposed to be on display in a giant preservative bath but we never managed to find it. It was a bit disappointing as I had already discussed it with Sebastian who had told me it was very cool. Never mind, plenty more sharks in preservative baths to see.

David and Kristin live just off Scarborough Beach Road so next morning it was a short bus ride to test out Gareth's new board. The waves were pretty small and I missed Gareth catching his first wave as I was too busy texting Dai and Di but I got his next one and I think you'll agree that I'm improving in the surf photography stakes.

Next stop was a haircut for both of us. Gareth's hair had been getting a bit crazy and it's nice to be able to see his face again. Somehow I went in with long hair and despite just asking for a trim I was scalped. Oh well, it takes less time to wash now.

With much lighter heads, we headed over to Fremantle, a small port town south of Perth with lots of nice coffee shops and fantastic ice-cream, yum. Sebastian had already told us about the Maritime Museum there so we went over to have a look - got in free since it was the second Tuesday of the month (I love a bargain). If you like boats it's quite impressive - they've got Australia II - the yacht that won Australia the Americas Cup and Parry Endeavour - the yacht that took lone yachtsman Jon Sanders three times around the globe. Gareth thinks he can't have many friends. The museum really is a bit of a giant boys toy and at one point I left Gareth behind in the mock-up submarine muttering 'Captain, I have the con' to go and watch a video about the Swan River.

The poor river has taken a bit of a battering over the years with parts of the bank blasted away to make it easier to navigate boats through. All of this has caused the river to change from freshwater to saltwater - with a significant effect on the original fish and plants - explaining the jellyfish I'd seen the day before. Outside the museum is the Thank You wall where the names of all the first European settlers to reach Western Australia are listed on gleaming tablets. I liked that but I still think Gareth's favourite bit was the submarine.....

Wednesday we got up early for train journey and a morning of education - at the Western Australia Aquarium, or AQWA. Sebastian had primed me for this so I knew what I was looking our for - sharks, rays and most importantly, the Danger Zone. This was going to give me all the information to let me safely get into Australian waters (I stayed firmly on the sand at Scarborough the day before - you need to be informed here before doing anything reckless like paddling).

Well I'm not sure whether it was a good idea to walk through the Danger Zone as it certainly confirmed one thing - there are a lot of nasty things in the sea out here - and they're not all sharks. As we walked through we passed tank after tank with nasties - I think this was the full list: sea snakes, lion fish, cone shells, blue-ringed octopus, and a stonefish plus big displays on sharks, box jellyfish and pufferfish. A lot of these little critters sit quietly in their tank looking harmless so they also play video footage so you can see them in action. The blue ringed octopus is titchy but can kill 10 people!

Luckily the Danger Zone didn't affect our appetites too much so after AQWA we got some fish and chips at a cafe overlooking the beach and then got the train back into Perth for a look around Kings Park.

One thing I haven't mentioned yet is Perth's fantastic public transport arrangements. Apart from the fact that buses and trains run on time, are clean and the staff are friendly (which would be a good start for us in the UK), within the centre of Perth there are three CAT bus lines, that take you from place to place for FREE! There are also other free buses that service other areas. Guess what, Perth doesn't seem to suffer very much from traffic jams and you don't see many cars in the centre. Isn't that a clever idea? I think we could learn a thing or two from other countries public transport services y'know.

So we got our free bus to Kings Park, which is four square kilometres of natural bushland in the city, and is beautiful. I could have spent hours there. Perth is a long way to go for a beautiful garden but if you're near here ever, visit it. You approach the park down a tree lined avenue - the trees here are nearly eighty years old and all have plaques to say who planted them. At the entrance you get a spectacular view of Perth and the Swan River. This is one we did on the timer - as you can see, the view is pretty fab.

The park is so big there was no way we could see that much of it in just a couple of hours but we did the Tree-top Walk (16 metres above the ground at its highest point) and came back through the Water Garden walk. We made another exciting discovery at Kings Park - in Australia you can get Cadbury's Picnic ice creams - yum again.

We'd already decided that on Friday we would head down south by train so we spent Thursday on Rottnest Island, which is about 20km off the coast from Fremantle. We took the ferry across, it took about 45 minutes and was much smoother than anything we'd been on in Thailand. There are hardly any motor vehicles on Rotto so we hired bikes and snorkelling kit and headed off to explore. It's a great place to cycle for someone like me, (who really can't cycle very well) because despite there being a few hills, they're quite gentle and you can normally work up enough speed coming down the hill below to fly up the next one. We didn't get very far though before we ran into trouble - Gareth's bike had a flat tyre.

Should have taken the bus.....

Gareth was about to cycle back to the settlement on my bike when a Ranger (wearing a polo shirt and driving a little jeep, not on horseback and wearing a poncho) came past and radioed the bike shop to send a replacement. Twenty minutes later, we were back on the road. We stopped at a beach called Little Salmon Bay, to do a bit of snorkelling, sunbathe and eat our picnic. Except that the 'picnic' was really just a giant bag of crisps and I'd eaten most of them waiting for the replacement bike. Snorkelling it was then.

The memory of the Danger Zone from AQWA was still raw in my mind so I was a bit nervous getting in the water but it looked so inviting - crystal clear - it reminded me of gin! In only knee-deep water, when you looked under with your mask there were fish a foot long and when you swam a little bit further out to the reef you started to see loads of colourful tropical fish and we saw a cute red octopus - I don't think he was venomous but as soon as he noticed us he wobbled off to hide in some rocks. After diving, snorkelling feels restrictive because you can't swim into the water but it was still very good. We spent the rest of the afternoon sunbathing before cycling back to the settlement, spotting a few quokkas along the way. Quokkas are small marsupials - like kangaroos and wallabies they carry their young in a pouch. They're normally quite shy - but on Rottnest they're tame and friendly and there are loads of them - although we only saw four between us - but they were four very cute ones. I would like to bring one home for Owen if I could but I can't see us getting through customs. Then it was the ferry back to Fremantle, the train to Perth station, and finally the bus to Mount Hawthorn.... public transport is great but it will be nice to get a car!

So, a busy first week in Oz and we have packed in quite a bit in Perth. Now we head south to Margaret River and beyond in search of surf for Gareth and wine for me. Bring it on!