Simon & Caroline's World Tour 07/08

The plan, which didn't even sound great on paper, was to get up at some ungodly early hour (again), and be driven to the first train (again), and arrive back in Delhi for some final afternoon sight-seeing. Unfortunately, it all fell apart at the first hurdle, with the taxi not actually picking us up.

Maybe it was all the relaxation over the past few days, maybe we've become seasoned travellers, or maybe we knew it was pretty much out of our hands, but we were surprisingly relaxed about the whole thing. A phone call to the travel agent, and another taxi was organised, this time, all the way back to Delhi (a stonking 9 hour drive!) Still, we had time to have one last wander around Rishikesh before spending the afternoon, and most of the evening in the back of a taxi, listening to the almost constant beeping horn, and weaving in and out of the cows traffic. On the bright side, by the time the taxi driver had asked half of Delhi where our hotel was, we were glad we had spent most of the evening in a taxi, as the hotel wasn't really up to much (although the cockroaches seemed to like it...). Still, we were back on schedule!

Yoga, on the other hand was quite enjoyable, and to think some people consider this exercise. We were even relieved of the responsibility of deciding when to breathe, as the instructor tells you when! There was a lot of sitting, and pulling your legs into weird positions, with the instructor constantly asking if I was ok (maybe he thought it would actually be too much exercise for me...), and then finished off by a lie down. So relaxing was this lie down and chant, that I swear it's the closest I've been to consciously falling asleep.

Two showers later, and still smelling of that weird butter, we wandered off to the northern parts of Rishikesh, to see if the peddlers of tat had anything worthy of filling our bags with. Satisfied with a couple of back scratchers, we crossed yet another monkey-lined bridge, and explored.

Finding a 10 minute gap between the torrential downpours, we walked down to the town, although after a few days in India we're now used to the cows in the streets, it was funny to see them queued up in the covered car park sheltering from the rain, and I don't think it's ever possible to get used to the resulting "messages" on the streets. Rishikesh has a fortunately sturdy foot bridge across the Ganges, and as such gets used by everything, from the odd tourists like us to locals aimlessly wandering (how come so many Indians do that?) to motorbikes, monkeys and even cows.

Temple fatigue has truly set in (it's easy to tell - I took no photos!), so we rested in cafes, including one with an odd bloke dusted in flour sitting on a raised chair outside his cafe, greeting patrons. If only the waiters were quite as friendly! With that, the heavens re-opened, nothing to it but to return back to the hotel and do what Rishikesh is all about, chill out and be at one. The tuktuk driver had other ideas, thinking we didn't need to be dropped off at the hotel as we'd enjoy the walk down the steep hill - don't worry though, I had my revenge!

With a few hours to kill in Delhi before the next train we wandered markets and came to the realisation that even if you get the sellers to drop their prices to reasonable levels, the merchandise isn't amazing, and we may have difficulty refilling our bags after posting so much back, and disposing of our now very tired looking clothes.

It was dark before we arrived in Rishikesh, a village we were told was at the source of the Ganges (Ganga) River, but going by the size and ferocity, there's a lot more river before it. The village is also a world famous Yoga centre, not that we needed any help to relax after such an early start!

The heat was really getting to us, and along with most of the other westerners in Amiritsar, we found refuge in a the only air-con restaurant in town. There was just enough time to squeeze in a trip to the gaudy Hindu Mata temple, complete with a bizarre fairground haunted-house type walk, crawl and wade past various Hindu icons.

We were then off to the India-Pakistan border to see the closing of the gates ceremony. There were parties on both sides of the gate, as if each was trying to prove they were the more fun place to be, and as it got going the crowds from each side shouted slogans and made us wonder if there was going to be a riot (of which the Indians seem to have quite a lot...). Closing time came, and with a lot of guard's feet stamping, leg shaking and shenanigans that could have inspired the Monty Python Ministry of Silly Walks, the two countries exchanged dirty looks and slammed the gates to nearly off their hinges.

As a consolation for not being able to go to the real Taj Mahal today, we visited the Mini Taj, another mausoleum in Agra in a similar style to the Taj Mahal, just smaller, and the resting place of some relative to the queen in the big version. There's obviously something about that family and big graves!

There was a definite feeling of us being in Agra during the off season. The restaurants were empty, with one owner even showing us a window through to his kitchen to prove how clean it was, but all it did was scare us slightly and made us move on to the next place.

The first part of our Indian tour is the golden triangle, Delhi to Jaipur then Agra to see the Taj Mahal and back to Delhi. Jaipur is home to the Amber Palace, a 500 year old sprawling palace that puts most British palaces to shame. Amongst other features were hammocks in every conceivable place, and an elaborate system to ensure that no two of the kings 12 wives or hundreds of concubines visited him at the same time. It was obviously difficult to entertain oneself in the days before TV!

After a delicious Indian lunch (i.e. curry), where we learnt not to order so much just because it's cheap and tasty, we headed for the present day king's palace. As we reached the gate, a little turban clad man whipped the top off a straw basket to reveal a cobra, and played his flute to charm the snake. He beckoned us closer, saying that the snake wasn't poisonous. Closer up, the snake didn't look so charmed at all, in fact he looked quite irate, proved as he lashed out at the charmer as I walked away.

Jaipur's streets were still Delhi-esque, but the hotel proved to be a little oasis. Marble floors and a bizarre array of rooms, corridors, and roof-top dining gave the place character. As we sipped our beers, a safe 3 floors above the muddy noise filled streets, we watched monkeys leaping between buildings, pinching laundry as they went. This is more like the India we expected!

After wandering around aimlessly for a bit, wondering where on earth we were, we caught an autorickshaw to what we hoped would be 'civilisation'. We found the Indian equivalent of Starbucks and planned our next move over coffee.

That move involved a travel agent, a substantial amount of money and a promise that the next ten days were accounted for! With just half a day to explore Delhi, we began with the surreal experience of the metro, think London underground but with security scanners, frisk searches and then queues for the push into sardine formation on the train.
Alighting from the train we had no clues as in which way to go in search of the red fort (I know we're freshies but I swear there is no order, rhyme or reason to this city!) so we just followed the crowds and hoped for the best. Luckily our plan worked, the red fort was in sight (it was just as well that the red fort was unmissable - being big and red and all).

I've read somewhere that India is an assault on the senses and the short walk to the fort had them all (I will spare you the graphic and mind scarring details)
The red fort itself was a bit of a dreach and dismal affair, not helped by the rain, our jet lag and the fact that we didn't understand what we were looking at. It was also very unnerving to be so openly stared at and followed around, we were even asked several times if we would mind having our photos taken.

It wasn't long before we had had enough and so returned to the metro to make our way back to the hotel for a bit of a snooze. By the time we exited the underground station the monsoon rain had begun in earnest. We seemed to spend hours wading around in dirty puddles and streams up and down various back street alleys, in serious danger of losing our rag (especially when a 'helpful' local felt the need to point out to us that it was the rainy season!) before we finally found our hotel. A beer, a curry and some serious sleep and we will be ready to brave Delhi again in the morning.

We'd arranged to be picked up from the airport by our hotel, but then so had everyone else, which meant there were hundreds of notices with names on, except ours. An hour later we'd worked out there was another exit, found our lift to the hotel, and either we were very tired, or there was a rather large elephant walking down the motorway. What does India have in store for us?

Our trusty tuktuk driver dropped us off to catch our Bangkok Airways flight with asia's boutique airline, whatever that means. As we're heading for our final country soon, it's starting to feel like we are going home, and to prepare we bought the book "Dos and don'ts for the United Kingdom". It's full of useful advice to prepare us for the culture shock that is the UK: car headlights flashing means both "I'm coming" and "you first", don't stand on the toilet (or at least don't leave footprints on the seat), and the gem "don't blow your nose into your hands and wipe it on the wall". I'll miss Asia...

We only had a night to kill in Bangkok before our flight to Delhi, so we'd found a cheap (£12) airport hotel, and so were convinced we had the wrong hotel when we were met by smartly dressed porters at the airport and taken to one of the nicer rooms we've stayed in. To top it all, there was free wifi!

Hoping for something a bit different, we tuktuk-ed our way over dusty roads for an hour to reach Kbal Spean, a mountain river with linga carvings. The carvings were a half hour walk up a hill, and either we are exceptionally unfit these days, or the midday jungle heat is just too much. The rock carvings were alright, not enough to justify the hours to get there, but could be considered an extreme activity as there are unexploded mines in the countryside around them.

Back to visiting temples, and Banteay Srei was actually quite good. Called the womans temple as the carvings are so intricate that it's not thought possible a man could have done it. Even more temples followed, including one more overgrown and tree covered than Ta Phrom. By the end of the day we'd visited just about every one, time to head back to Siem Reap and it's many fine restaurants.

Angkor Wat is just one of many temples in the ancient city, Ta Phrom is a very atmospheric temple that has been left to the jungle ravages. Stone walls and ceilings have collapsed everywhere, and those still standing are more than likely to have a tree growing on them with it's roots hanging down the side. If you want see what we are talking about, the movie Tomb Raider has a few scenes set there. After many more temples (I'll save you the details...) we took a look around the ruins of the city, Angkor Thom, with it's huge relief walls. The scale of the ancient civilisation is hard to comprehend, but at a time when London had a population of about 50,000, Angkor is believed to have been home to around 1 million.

Inevitably, in a country where incomes are low and every tourist (even us!) is considered rich, there were a abundance of street stalls and children selling bracelets or postcards (for 1 dollar, obviously!). Beyond being annoying with repeated chants of "10 bracelet, 1 dolla", and "when you come back, you buy from me", there were the failed attempts at guilt: "if you no buy from me, I cry", and the sure fire way to get me to walk away: "I saw you first, buy from me!". Still, it was useful having cold drinks at every stop, and the advantage of high visitor fees is that there were no sellers inside the temples.

As with Laos, Cambodia is meant to easily accept US Dollars for payment. What is surprising is that the local Riel currency has essentially been demoted to a second currency. The cash machines dish out US notes, the taxis and restaurants quote prices in US dollars, and you get surprised looks when you want to pay in Cambodian money, but at least our 4000 times table is getting practice.

The first thing noticeable about Cambodia is that it feels a notch lower on the development scale compared to Thailand, the roads are dirtier, the houses more "rustic" and dust seems to fly everywhere. Each Asian region we've visited has it's own flavour of Tuktuk, from the custom made 3 wheel Tuktuks of Thailand to the Laos' chopped off front end of a motorbike stuck to a cart. Siem Reap is no different with it's Moto remorques (a moped with a two-seater trailer, great fun!). We took one of these out to the floating village, passing lots of wooden shacks on stilts with dogs and children running around in the dust. The floating village itself consisted of houses strapped to anything that floated: bamboo poles, oil cans and even the odd boat. Everything needed was floating too: churches, shops, farms, schools and so on, and they all moved with the seasons as the lake levels changed. We also got our first taste of feeling like walking wallets as little children held up snakes and crocodiles for their photo to be taken, only to be followed by chants of "1 dolla!" (we even saw one man fall for the trap...)

Wondering how I was going to explain someone pinching one of the bike locks we'd rented, we explored the limits of the city, quickly realising the roads either went nowhere or were too busy to ride on, unless you've got a death wish. I also found out that cheap plastic ponchos actually get you wetter on the inside when it rains.

With all that exersion, it was time for a massage and I even put my doubts to one side and joined Caroline (well, it was cheap, and you do have to try new things...). The experience was quite relaxing, with only the occasional bit of pain and only slightly tickly when my feet were done. A few hours later my neck and calf muscles did start to hurt, which I can only put down to the massage!

Seven hours later we pulled up to Luang Prabang, reputedly the prettiest town in South East Asia, and with a definite French feel to it. It is also home to a night market filled with merchandise that puts Chiang Mai's market to shame, and we were especially glad we'd emptied our bags a few days back!

Back in the bus, we suddenly stopped and reversed to a waiting kart being pulled by camel cows! Turns out that someone beat me to it and called them "Ox", rather boring if you ask me... The Ox kart ride involved us sitting in the back whilst the driver grunted and poked at the Ox to make them move along, whilst a couple of kids ran behind and secretly got a free lift.

The next excitement was an elephant trek, now I thought Asian elephants were meant to be small, but the beast we got on was huge, with us 3 or 4 metres above the ground. The thing was also banana powered, every couple of steps a huge trunk would reach back over his head to where we sat, until a banana was placed in it's finger like grasp. Before too long he'd eaten the whole bunch, but the trunk still came up, huffing and blowing snot over us until he eventually gave up. We almost got a soaking as the elephant sprayed water through his trunk to cool himself down, good job his aim was good, and the water was cleanish anyway.

The final activity was bamboo rafting. We'd been warned to bring a change of clothes and leave all belongings behind as we were going to get very wet. It turned out that the ride was very gentle, to the point of relaxing. We only got wet as the raft was partially submerged with five people on board, but I had faith in the discarded tyres holding the bamboo together.

That night we boarded the night minibus north towards the Thai-Laos border. We were never going to relish spending the night on the road, but by 3am we'd arrived, enough time for a decent sleep, and worth the day we saved!

The guidebook listed Doi Suthep as a must see, but at the top of the rather large hill there was just a decidedly hungry elephant, the usual tourist stalls, and a pleasant temple (albeit with a "Foreigner must buy ticket" sign outside). But then it could just be that we are temple-d out, and have been spoilt by Sukhothai. Back in Chiang Mai, we tried to find something else to do, but since everything exciting started in the morning, we opted for a river cruise. The commentary left a lot to be desired, with only two announcements, one of which was to point out a block of flats. Still, it was a nice way to pass the afternoon, even when the engine cut out and we drifted backwards for a while.

In case you wondered why there is a picture of a cow attached, these are seen all over Thailand, but up until I saw this statue today they've just whizzed passed a minibus window. I like to call them camel cows (species bovinus dromadarius), due to the big floppy lump on their backs. It was either that or a picture of the king sweating (seriously, can you imagine a huge poster of Queen Elizabeth II with a drip of sweat hanging from her nose?) It's been a slow day.

That night we visited Chiang Mai's top tourist attraction, the night market. Hundreds of stalls selling essentially the same things: fake watches, fake dvds, silk, chopsticks, and fabric bags of all shapes and sizes. We filled our bags, squeezed in a roti (pancake) before catching a Tuk-tuk home.

We arrived in Chiang Mai that afternoon, and managed to add Tuk-tuk to our list of modes of transport. Settling down to a late lunch, we realised (yet again) that to get anywhere pretty much takes the day.

After a heavy, but fortunately brief rain, we rode to a massive sitting Buddha, once enclosed in a rather tight fitting temple, but now open to the elements. There was also a herd of cattle, boney and loose skinned, grazing next to a moat that surrounds some of the temples. The lack of tourist crowds, and the freedom of being under our own steam made it feel as though we were discovering the temples for ourselves, apart from a hat and whip, I don't think I could feel any more like Indiana Jones. He probably wouldn't be seen dead on a bike though, so with aching bums and a broken brake cable we handed the bikes back and went to try the town's other restaurant out.

Our journey today, as always, involved a variety of modes of transport. The late departing train made up for it by having a stewardess dishing out food (it was 2nd class carriage too). Some poor unsuspecting grandma and grandpa samlor (rickshaw) drivers pedalled us and our huge backpacks to the bus stop for 50p (I felt like asking if I could do the cycling). Our bags were squeezed on to the bus for the ride to New Sukhothai where a Songathew/pick up truck took us to the old town.

Leaving the town exploration until tomorrow, we called in at the one stop Coffee Cup restaurant - beer, food, cheap internet, massages and travel agent under one roof, with friendly staff too!

The ferry dropped us off near the palace, but the first sight was the colourful roofs of Wat Pho, a buddhist temple adjacent to the palace. The star attraction was the huge gold reclining buddha, about 50 metres long housed in his own building. I'm betting the builders were glad the buddhists didn't want a standing buddha as that thing was big. At least my curiosity was satisfied as to what the sole of a buddha looks like (mother of pearl, in case you wondered), and the only enlightenment that sole received was when the camera flashes went off. (sorry, couldn't resist a rubbish joke...)

We ended up only having half an hour to look around the palace, which was probably a good thing as I had to wear trousers over my shorts in the stifling heat. There were also a number of "helpful" people telling tourists they wouldn't get in, or it was closed already, probably in preparation for some scam or other. There are plenty of signs telling you not listen to these people, often right next to the scammer, which makes you wonder why they don't just get the police to stop the scammers. The same goes for tuk-tuks and longtail boats in Bangkok, they look like such a fun way of getting around, but everywhere you look says to avoid as they are probably in cahoots with a scam, and just get a taxi instead.

That evening we headed to Khao San road, bars and tat shops galore, and of course the one time we leave our umbrella behind is when Bangkok decides to have a tropical downpour and change the road into a river. Good job the beer was cheap!

The journey made us thankful of iPods and their vast selection of music, memories of long bus journeys with a Walkman and a few worn out cassettes are a thing of the past. As expected our arrival in Bangkok was amongst the chaos of taxi and tuk-tuk drivers eager to help make a quick buck, so much so it wasn't even worth haggling when they start at about 25 times the actual fare. The hotel was only a short walk away, so with that overladen traveller look of big rucksack on the back, and small one on the front we made our way through the deserted streets to the nirvana of a proper bed for the night.

We tried to explore the rest of the island, but there was literally one road only 5km long, and we missed even the dirt track turnoffs that were optimistically marked on the map. Still, we managed to squeeze in another beer whilst watching the sunset, and then cheated by going to the local Italian-Mexican restaurant for dinner. The Italian bit was on the opposite side of the road, which meant my pizza took a while to make it's way over. That's something the Thais haven't mastered yet - delivering food at the same time (it is tasty when you get it, so we'll let it slide...)

Later that afternoon we boarded the ferry to the last island of our trip, Koh Tao, reputedly home to some fine sea life. So, after dumping bags we (ok, well I) were in that snorkel mask out looking for new wonders. Maybe we were on the wrong beach, but beyond a few sea turds (sea cucumbers if you're being accurate) and a dense school of fish scaring me as they appeared out of the murky water, there wasn't much to see. Come to think of it, the best snorkelling has been in Malaysia.

That evening we watched the sun set over the ocean whilst quenching the heat induced thirst with a couple of beers from the comfort of bean bags. Just as we finished the wind picked up, blowing mini coconut type fruit to fall dangerously close. Time to take cover and seek shelter from the rain in another beach restaurant - it's tough you know... ;-)

Caroline's update: After that stressful pillion ride (it was actually not too bad if I tried not to think of the number of accidents I had read about or the number of people I had seen with obvious moped style injuries!) what better way to unwind than another massage. I decided to try a Thai massage this time not realising that I was actually signing myself up for being poked, prodded, pulled, kneed, stood on, punched, slapped and having all my bones cracked! By the end I was left wondering if I'd been given a massage or been beaten up, especially since it ended with some vigorous blows to the back of my head! I think I'll stick to the relaxing oil massages you get on beaches in the future.

P.S. Apologies for the influx of posts, there's been a lack of internet!

Ang Thon is the setting for the novel "The Beach", about that traveller's nirvana of an off the beaten track place undiscovered and untouched by other tourists - although I doubt there is any beach in Ang Thon that hasn't been invaded by tourists, given the number that we saw. Still, the beauty of the forty or so islands is undisputed. Whilst the water was a bit murky, snorkelling revealed spiky sea urchins and almost luminescent yellow fish. We didn't actually need to snorkel to see those urchins as the next stop at a lagoon had plenty in it. After a beach lunch, and giggle at the attempts of some people to kayak and how frustrated they were getting, we took to kayaks ourselves and toured the cliffs and caves of a nearby island. That was our day done, just a ride back to shore with the sun shining and wind whistling past as the boat sped on.

The sun beat down as the ferry idled it's way over to Ko Pha Ngan, our next tropical island. Time to catch up on some music listening and blogging, although when they'll get posted is another matter as phone reception is flaky at best. The touts were out in force as the ferry docked, shouts of "YOU! Taxi!", and "where you go?!" were directed at us before we'd even disembarked. Fortunately, we could walk on by as we had found a helpful government tourist advisor who had booked us into the Cabanas.

The hotel backed on to the beach, and we had just enough time to have a swim and snack before watching the sunset whilst walking along the beach - it's amazing how quickly scenes change and you can forget about the woes of a day. With our next days adventure booked we relaxed and moved onto Fiji Thai time.

We moved on to Khao Sok, a national park to the north, in a similar vein to Taman Negara (well something has to break up the beaches and islands...). Our tree top hut (concrete looking trees mind you) was devoid of aircon, but did have mozzie nets over somewhat tired beds, and views over the river. Taking a night safari, we walked through the jungle stopping to see sticky frogs, fireflies flashing their bright bums as they fly, spiders, centipedes, frogs that play dead, and elephant tracks (scary, until we were told it was a domestic elephant). Alas, the walk was long and humid, and we saw most of the interesting stuff near our hut, but at least we got some exercise.

We landed at the west beach which was nicely framed by huge limestone cliffs indicative of Thailand, and the sea gently lapping at the shore. There were also a couple of other beaches a short walk away, the east beach, which seemed to have no sand and was closer to a mangrove swamp. The other beach was much nicer; monkeys playing in the trees, caves at one end, islands at the other. We even ventured up a hill/cliff (i.e. near vertical) to a view point, and a lagoon that was just a bit too slimy to get to with sandals on. Gibbons were hooting in the trees as we descended the few hundred metres back to the beach, making it feel like we were in a jungle in the middle of nowhere, not within sight of ten resorts.

The first stop was Deerworld, where we hand fed ravenous deer tiny bits of carrot that had us fearing for our fingers. A couple of deer had learned if you chew t-shirt the annoying biped holding the basket of food gets distracted so you can jump up and get all the food. I'm sure I'll have nightmares about being attacked by deer at some point. The zoo was very much of the interactive type, I had a kiss from a parrot, held a hedgehog (it was white, I thought it was some form of jungle hedgehog, but just the plain old UK type), had our hands pecked by quail, and had one very scared sugar glider (chipmunk-esque critter) use our hands as a toilet. The final animal was a rather large bear, fortunately vegetarian, who ate chocolate and Nestles milk from our hands, and was distracted long enough for a bear hug from us.

The government run Elephant sanctuary's prime role is to move elephants from ever encroaching palm tree plantations to national parks, in the hope they stay there - the only rescue mentioned had elephants that wandered out of the park. The sanctuary is also home to elephants that can't be returned to the wild, like the couple of baby orphans, and spend their days as part of the show. Firstly the encrusted mud is hosed off, the elephants laying down so their backs get cleaned, and enjoy every minute. We got to pass them their dinner of fruit, most of them taking it off our hands with huge slimy trunks, but a couple held their mouths open for fruit on what must be the biggest tongue I've ever seen. Finally, we got a quick ride on the stubbly back of an elephant, nicely cleaned only minutes earlier, so I'm pretty sure it was the keeper that smelled so bad.

We had time on the way back to drive up to the Genting Highlands, Las Vegas in the mists (sic) of KL - the air was cold and at 6118 ft our heads were in the clouds, that's probably why half the theme park was inside. Poking out through the mist was the bizarrely multicoloured largest hotel in the world with 6118 rooms, and the inevitable airport style check-in desks. Altogether a packed day, maybe it wasn't so bad I can't read flight times properly..

The boat back was on a not so converted fishing boat that couldn't even get close enough to the beach, so we had to jump and swim for the shore. Already missing the beach, we skipped the afternoon trip and read our books on the beach before seeing what else we could find at the local beach, turns out there was a bigger shark, about a metre long, but it disappeared before I could photo it. (or frighten Caroline...)

The day started exploring Long Beach where our hostel is, we contemplated walking through to the next bay, but seeing as we couldn't actually find the path, we hired a water taxi (for £3!) to take us. D'Lagoon has only one small beach and a small hostel nestled on it, and the occupants stared at us as we arrived, as though we'd interrupted their private beach. Our stay didn't last long though, as we arrived a storm brewed up, the wind making snorkelling difficult. I did have enough time to find Nemo though, hiding away in the anemone. Fortunately as the storm settled down, a boat passed and gave us a lift back to Long Beach, just before the rain settled in for the rest of the day, there is a reason we've been carrying heavy reading books around after all!

After the mini buses came the high speed "ferry" to the islands, which was really a oversized dingy, and we bounced/jolted over the waves to the tropical paradise island that is Perentian. The whole setup was very similar to Fiji, including the boat transfer to the beach and me worrying about bags going overboard. Leaving Caroline to bagsit, I wandered looking for a nice little chalet, skipped on the Guantanamo Bay-esque one (it was less than a tenner though...) and settled for the one with aircon, balcony and 70's pink sheets. Sitting on the beach eating our dinner and having a beer, you realise all those hours on the move are worth it!

The boat trip up the rapids had told us to prepare for getting wet, but for some reason it didn't quite twig that I shouldn't wear shorts and a t-shirt. At least I had my camera in it's fancy new underwater housing to get this shot. Three rapids, and several complete soakings later, and just as the little man at the back with the bucket for bailing the water out got tired, we made it to the natives village. To be fair they seemed to look like they lived in the straw huts, but the guy demonstrating fire starting and blowing darts was wearing a Quiksilver baseball cap and t-shirt... That soaking had washed off our mozzie repellant, so after a few minutes in that village we were literally itching to get back in the boat and down those rapids.

The train had left half an hour late, and the driver seemed intent on making up the time, but the train did not agree. Rocking furiously from side to side, it made me wonder what it would take for a carriage to come off the rails. To get between carriages required a leap across a wobbly bit of metal, with the tracks whizzing past underneath. Even after safely navigating that, there was the small matter of open carriage doors. Not so bad until you add the movement of the carriages. After several attempts I concluded that it was safest to just stay in our seats!

All fun and games though, seeing as we made it to KL in one piece. The taxi system here is the best, you pay at a counter in advance before even finding the taxi - no bartering, unexpected charges etc, just pay and go. Our British pounds stretch a bit further here (the taxi ride cost £2:10, how far could you go for that in the UK?) and so we have splashed out on a rather plush hotel, our room is great, and so long as you push your nose up to the glass of the window and squint a little, it boasts views of the top of the Petronas Towers, sweet!

With 2 pairs of shoes to choose from and only one night to drink in Raffles, Caroline had to pick her favourite. Saying that, we needn't have got dressed up so much, the place was full of tourists (who'd have guessed!), and the floor littered with peanut shells that crunch unpleasantly underfoot, as the thing to do is eat peanuts and chuck the rest on the floor (if anyone knows why please let us know). But we had our one or two Singapore Slings, revelled in the colonial surroundings and left, another landmark done.

Around the corner from the hotel is the Buddhist Tooth Relic Temple, a modern (there's a car park in the basement!) temple, full of buddha statues and gold. The sceptic in me wondered why they emphasised inner peace resulting from giving money to the temple, and every brick and tile could be sponsored. I suppose they are at least being open about it, and there was a whole lot of gold to pay for.

That evening we went to the zoo, or more accurately the one and only Singapore Night Safari. Suitably laden with mozzie repellent we caught a tram around the park, making out the dusky shadows of animals as we drove past - the photo is of a rhino, and about as good as they got, so unusually for me, I just watched the animals. Finally we wandered around the walkways, constantly imagining mozzie bites, but seeing the animals when they are naturally active puts a new slant on a visit to the zoo. It would've been good if the bats in the walk-through enclosure weren't so active!

Our next hotel, whilst not a touch on the Angsana in Bintan, is in the middle of Chinatown. We also arrived at the best time to experience Chinatown - dinner time! Our first call was to the food street, deftly avoiding the "pig liver" stall we made for the Thai stall and had spicy chilli chicken, the even hotter Mee Goreng noodles and pineapple rice - served in a pineapple! So simple and so nice.

Next was of course the markets, so cheap yet so full of useless tat, like silk tissue box covers, I mean who has a need for that? So we only bought three.

Caroline's parents left today too, the original plan was to spend a couple of nights, but then I'm not too good at reading itineraries! We had dinner down at the beach again, but this time with musicians and countless different types of Indonesian/Malaysian Satay skewers (including little squids!) - the prospect of Malaysia is looking better by the day!

I'd also like to say a big thanks to Mel, my little big sister who compiled an album of photos of my life and stories from friends and family, along with getting it hand delivered to me here in Australia - it really made my birthday special. Thanks as well to everyone who wrote something, and I hope Mel gets reinstated on Facebook after being flagged as a spammer for sending too many anonymous messages!

The rocks stand upright in the patch of sandy desert, looking like a cross between termite mounds and a henge created by a very hyperactive druid. A convenient driveway weaved through the sandstone rocks and meant we didn't need to get out of the car, but we were glad to be out of it really. With our photos taken from every possible angle, we drove on to Perth, our little northern excursion complete and looking forward to the comfortable abode of Caroline's aunt and uncle (and of course her aunt's cooking!).

The bay is also the first landing site for the Europeans, the Dutch who landed here 300 years before Cook. Neither they nor the French who followed showed much interest in the land, and as soon as they did, Britain was quick to claim it as their own.

Just to contrast my ramblings of how big a place Australia is, today we bumped into Dirk, the guy who rented our first camper from Sydney. So not only did we meet one of the few Australians we know in one of the remotest places in the country, it's also about as far as you can get from Sydney. Maybe the world is quite small after all.

500km later we reached Kalbarri, the first interesting place since Perth and the only place for the last 200km that was more than a petrol station. The huge waves of the Indian Ocean crashed onto the rocks whilst they dwarfed the surfers stupid/brave enough to be towed out by jetski to tackle them. Feeling bored of the car, we took a walk to look at the coastal cliffs, where the flat land abruptly stops and falls into the sea. The clouds stretched off into the interior of Australia until they met the horizon, just another sign of how big this place is.

The only job left to do was pick up the hire car in preparation for our big drive north. It was almost tempting to get another campervan, but those days are over, and the lure of a car with cruise control was too much!

Unsurprisingly I didn't take any photos today, so instead here's one of the manta ray from Rottnest Island, the thing was huge (that's my shadow next to it!) and effortlessly swam around the shallows, it was definitely worth risking attack by pelican to see it.

The sun shone, the roads were blissfully quiet for a leisurely bike ride and the sun set over the ocean with a deep orange glow. All in all a great summers day, albeit in the middle of the Perth winter.

Sydney wasn't much better though, but the hotel was in the shadow of the harbour bridge, and as we had free passes to go up the turret we idled away the afternoon in there. Unsurprisingly, I didn't take too many interesting photos (but I did take some Cat!), so here's a photo of Sydney sans Opera House. There was public outcry at the time, as the disused tram depot would be knocked down to make way for the Opera House, go figure!

The climb finished and left us with half a day to fill, so braving the rain we caught the ferry across the harbour to Manly to promenade and eat fish and chips, well it's what you do!

But all good things must come to an end, and today we flew back to Sydney to meet Caroline's parents. Now you'd think with all this flying around the world that nothing would impress, but the Emirates airplane has the pinnacle of in-flight entertainment. Not only could you choose movies, music and games, the whole thing worked on a touch screen (jealous, Cat?) and also had live camera feeds from the front and bottom of the plane so you got a pilots view for take off and landing, who needs movies when you've got that!?

Arriving in Sydney was like coming home, it was easy to navigate the airport, we knew where the bus was going and recognised streets and buildings on the way to the hotel. Then there were the familiar faces of Caroline's parents to greet us to our home for the next few days - that's pretty permanent for us!

P.S. Cat - That jump was a cracker, right?! It's so easy to imagine you calm-faced jumping off that ledge, in fact did you run off? ;-)

With our belongings nearly shoehorned back into our rucksacks we checked into the Auckland hostel and marvelled at the space afforded to us, and the fact that we didn't need to convert the bed each night.

Caroline did manage a half day visit to Kelly's school whilst I found some waterfalls with no water, but in the afternoon there was nothing for it but to enter the dark sanctum of the cinema and veg out to Indiana Jones, ah bliss...

The cold night was coming in, so back at Rotorua we headed for the Mitai village to culture ourselves in the Maori traditional canoeing, greetings, songs, dances and of course Haka. The Maoris are also dab hands at cooking too; Hangi is dinner cooked in the smouldering embers of an outdoor fire so that meat falls off the bone, gives it a nice smoky flavour and makes you eat until stuffed. Which we did, mmm!!

So with our new van we zoomed up (it's petrol instead of diesel and moves somewhat for a van) the imaginatively named Northland peninsula north of Auckland to meet Cat and re-establish the convoy, ready to continue our tour. Oh, we've also been reunited with our passports and India is on, woohoo!

We also stopped off to see some Kauri, New Zealands second tallest trees. Doesn't sound impressive when it's put like that, but they are the largest by volume, and that's what really counts in my book. The relatively young 600 year old trees we saw were a mere 2 metres across, and given that they can live to 4000 years old, these monsters can get to some impressive sizes. What a shame someone thought it was a good idea to chop most of them down.

We were going to do some walks around the mountain, but just counted ourselves lucky that we did manage to catch half of the mountain peeking out from behind a cloud for a few seconds. As you'd expect, when we were about 75km up the road taking sunset photos the mountain was there in the background in it's full glory without a cloud to be seen!

This is New Zealand though, always lots to do, so plan b was to catch a scenic flight over the three volcanoes and see them that way. Unfortunately as we woke this morning, the cloud cover was so low you could almost touch it. Instead we took the scenic route around the national park, the mountains still hiding behind clouds. Eventually we were far enough south to get out of the cloud cover and see Mount Ruapehu, New Zealands tallest volcano, in all it's glory (apart from the power cables obscuring the view...).

The volcano had erupted 8 months ago, and had a large eruption in 1996, so quite an active one! The 1996 eruption threw out 5 to 15 metre boulders (that must be like a house flying at you!) along with hot ash and other debris. The volcano is currently under alert as there is increased activity in the crater, meaning a possible eruption could occur. There was also a map indicating where lava flows and water from the crater lake would go if an eruption occurred. Came in quite useful for us when picking a campsite!

The sun was starting to peek through the clouds, just in time as we were off to the luge, as recommended by Pete. Seeing there was some other ride called the Skyswing at the top of the hill as well, we eagerly bought tickets, and were up the gondola in no time. The Skyswing looked so innocent, a nice little cage suspended by cables that would somehow do a swing. Laughing off the suggestion the ride was scarier than bungies and skydives, we climbed in and were strapped in, twice. That's when the little seed of doubt was sown, the cage winched the three of us up, tilting so we were face down and we had no option but to trust the harness. At the top there was one thing left to do, come down, and I had control over that with a release cord. With a couple of screaming girls next to me, I gave the cord a tug and we were off, 150km in 2 seconds.

The ride was definitely scarier than it looked, helped by the cage pushing you down the free fall, and swinging out over nothing but a long drop down to Rotorua. At least I know my adrenalin glands still work.

That wasn't even the reason we were up the hill, the luge beckoned, and true to Pete's word it was great fun. Sitting on a little black tray with wheels we careered down a concrete track, screeching around corners on two wheels (me!) and over kerbs (Caroline!), although some of us took it a bit too easy (Cat!).

We caught the gondola back down the hill with Caroline renewing her vow to retire from these danger sports, we've all heard that one before! ;-)

The area is also the setting to a Maori story recently told in the film Whale Rider, where a girl from a tribe fights against adversity to prove that she is the successor to the chief of the tribe whose ancestor arrived in New Zealand on the back of a whale. A good film, and a little unusual from the norm, along with teaching a bit about the Maori culture - watch it if you can!

The viewpoints over the Marlborough Sounds, when not completely covered in cloud show thin whisps of rain cloud floating over - even when the heavens open, this country still has a charm to it!

Campsite for the night was Smiths Farm, a favourite from the last time we were in Picton, even though they still gave us the fresh banana muffins. With the rain not showing any sign of stopping we got the log fire going and planted ourselves in front of that for the night. At least we've got our tramping done!

With a fried breakfast in our bellies we set off with a spring in our step, rounded the headland and started the climb up to the saddle between the mountains. The climb continued up and up, and our blood sugar and resolve started to drop, not forgetting we were getting to the lowest point between the mountains. But we made it, and as you can see had some difficulty getting somewhere to rest the camera for a group photo.

The rest of the walk was downhill, and as our tired little legs rounded the final corner we were greeted by the ramshackle sign of our "eco lodge". Expecting the worst, our hippy host showed us to our little wooden cabins that were actually new and as nice as can be. Home brewed lager and freshly caught green lipped mussels and flounders followed for dinner, all cooked on an open fire barbeque. I guess tramping has it's upsides.

After four or five drops into the water, it was time to head back to shore, our thirst for swimming with marine life, cold water and wet suits well and truly quenched!

Taking to the air with me in the copilots seat, (and quietly trying to remember how that flight simulator game worked, just in case) we took to the air, flying up the glacier from yesterday and over the névé (the snow "lake" that the glacier flows from). The snow was pristine, untouched and ripe to jump into. Although it looked close, it was probably a long way down as the névé tend to be a few kilometres across, and those little cracks were probably a few hundred metres deep. New Zealand is meant to have about 3,000 glaciers, and up there it's a lot easier to believe it as the mountain ranges stretch off to the horizon with peaks as far as the eye can see. The plane flew over the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers, around a few peaks and then headed back. We also got some pretty awesome and up close views of Mount Cook, which left us feeling even more impressed with anyone who has ever climbed it.

I think it's now safe to say that we've done glaciers, and they are surely the best thing to come out of getting water cold!

The valley glaciers around Mount Cook are unusual as they have huge lakes at the bottom, and as we've already walked on glaciers, we took to the water. Coming over the terminal moraine rocks, the huge murky grey lake spread out in front, and was dotted with icebergs huge and small that have broken off the front of the glacier, about 2kms further up the lake. The lifejacket made the layer total 7, and me look like the michelin man. Our little boat poked up to the icebergs, that look like ice islands, and to think that 90% of the iceberg is submerged! The ice itself is a strange patchwork of building blocks as it originates in the glacier where the ice cubes tumble over each other on the way down. Each iceberg is slowly dissolving, tipping up and occasionally turning over, although fortunately the one we had a little walk on stayed very still!

That evening, after a walk up to another iceberg lake at the foot of Mount Cook with views of at least 17 glaciers, we retreated to the Old Mountaineers Cafe and planted ourselves in front of the roaring log fire. Seriously contemplating a warm room in a lodge somewhere, we dragged ourselves back to the chilly campsite with it's crystal clear night sky and moonlit glaciers. I think it'll be another cold one tonight.

The drive up passed by the turquoise blue glacial lakes which contrasted nicely with the autumnal orange trees. There were a few wisps of cloud hiding the peaks of the Mount Cook range as we drove up the huge glacial valley to the base of Mount Cook. It's hard to imagine a glacier so large that it could fill the width and height of the valley, nevermind stretch more than 50km back to the mountains. Rounding the final bend we were treated to the face of a mountain with four glaciers clinging to the almost vertical rocks. It certainly is good to be back in glacier country again, although first call was the visitor centre to get more woolly clothing and have some hot chocolate!

The DoC campsite was literally walking distance to the Mueller Glacier, the second largest in New Zealand. (as I found out by accident after going for a short stroll, not something you expect!) So, unsurprisingly it was fairly cold that night, and as it's the DoC, there's no electricity to be leaving the fan heater on all night to keep warm!

First up was Signal Hill, at the top of a very high and steep hill, but fortunately with a road all the way up. The memorial celebrates 100 years of colonial rule, but more importantly there is a lump of the real Edinburgh there, from castlehill itself. Next sight was also on the same steep hill, well it actually is the steep hill. Baldwin Street is the world's steepest street, and we walked/ran/staggered up to the top, then watched the Japanese tourists do the same, along with a few cars at high speed. The walk down gave us chance to get more silly photos in the same style as San Francisco, as well as an excuse to run uncontrollably to the bottom.

At the end of the peninsula, the Royal Albatross have been nesting there for the past 80 odd years, oddly choosing the site once the Kiwis had put a few huge cannons on it, and also having their hefty (500g) eggs used to make rather large omelletes! It is just coming to the end of the nesting season, so there were a couple of chicks waiting to be fed, although they are larger than their parents and look like huge lumps of cottonwool in the grass. We'd seen different Albatross back in Tasmania, and you know they are big, but seeing photos of these huge birds next to humans puts it into perspective, as their body is about the same size as a human torso, and they have a wingspan of 3 metres. Whilst we watched the chicks, a young Albatross was gliding around, taunting us all with how easy it was for him to fly (I don't think I saw a flap of wings), and how hard it was to photograph - as you can see!

The Milford sound, or more accurately Milford Fiord can only really be seen by boat, and from the plethora of tours, we chose the one that went the furthest and had free soup. As soon as we left port, the Mitre Peak dominated the skyline, all 6000+ft (that's 1.5 Ben Nevis') of it that rises nigh on vertically from the sea. Heading out to sea, the hills were lower and rounder as we had passed over the fault line between the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates (could be wrong there...), with the sharp tall peaks on one plate, and the lower hills on another - geology in action! The whole of New Zealand is geologically new and has loads of earthquakes - can't wait to experience one, as long as it's not too big!

With that in mind, we high-tailed it out of Queenstown, to save our hearts and wallets from all the excitement. The sun beat down as we drove through to Te Anau, and started up the Milford Road, the easy option to get to the Milford Sound, compared to the Milford Track!

The Kiwis proved a match for the Aussies naming skills with the Blue Pools, ice cold, clear and blue, and a wobbly swing bridge on the way too. The scenery continued to amaze for the rest of the drive to Queenstown, and it's easy to see why the area is home to loads of the Lord of the Rings film sets. Queenstown is also activity central, so as a warm up we booked on to a paraflight, a parachute towed behind a boat, but alas the wind again put the stops on us, so there's only one thing to do - wait until tomorrow...

From where the helicopter landed we could see a huge ice fall, making the glacier really like a frozen river. The ice was even clearer and bluer than yesterday, and although solid it was so clear that it looked like thin ice on water and could break at any time. Jeff the guide meandered his way across the ice and found us caves to climb through and up, getting only slightly muddy in the process, as well as freezing ourselves onto the glacier. Before long it was time to climb back in the chopper, in what is the first time we've used helicopters as a means of getting somewhere instead of scenic flights, cool! Well, that's the last glacier blog for a while, I think wearing the same woolly socks for two days straight is pushing it!

By lunch we'd made it to Franz Josef, and booked ourselves in for a couple of tours over the next two days, which will be unlike anything we've done before. I'll not spoil the surprise, you'll just have to see if we have enough energy tomorrow to write about it!

The drive on to the coast was spectacular, the road hugging the deep, churning Buller river and reverting to single track as it cut into cliffs. Camp for the night was next to the sea in Charleston, our first free campsite, complete with long drop toilet, the things we'll do to save £10!

With all that rowing and walking we deserved that cuppa at the end, and it does mean we've done a fair bit of Abel Tasman, so time to move on tomorrow!

To compensate, we detoured on our drive to Nelson and visited Happy Valley Adventure park and their Skywire, essentially a gondola ride with no brakes Great fun, but not quite on a par with a skydive!

With the glorious day ahead of us we drove the windy road back to the campsite, stopping at every other corner to photograph the Queen Charlotte Sound, and for me to scare Caz and Cat each time I parked near the cliff edge. We took a walk along the Queen Charlotte track, a 3+ day hike through forests with views over the sounds, we managed about an hours walk before dipping our toes and heading back, well the best views are meant to be at this end, so that'll do for us!

Not far along we passed Nins Bin, promising freshly cooked crayfish, and green lipped mussels, New Zealand delicacies. The crayfish is like a small lobster, and the cook (Nin?) had helpfully sliced the beast down the middle, revealing the egg sacks. The mussels were huge, three times the size of others I'd eaten, but they went in the mouth whole! Now I'm not one for shellfish, but Mum and I had a good crack whilst Caroline nibbled and prodded, and Cat and Ian stayed at a safe distance. Here's hoping I avoid any food poisoning!

Mum and I had fun hurtling down a flying fox at the campsite that night, it was great until the tree at the end got close and you just weren't sure if you'd stop this time. Well if the other kids can do it, so can we, and I did have parental supervison!

The amazing thing with driving in New Zealand is that you get places quicker, only because the distances are so short in comparison to Australia. In a few hours, we'd done half of our travel for the next five days, and made it to Kaikoura, site of our fun for the next couple of days.

With a Mum and Ian found at the airport, we all had enough time to punt down the Avon river in Christchurch, in gorgeous sunshine - so much for those thermal undies we bought yesterday!

We did also manage to visit some of the sights though, and ventured up the cathedral tower for a view over the city, watched the chess game and listened to the buskers in the square and then got all arty with a trip around the art gallery. We haven't gone all upmarket in our touring, it's just that the only map we had was in the Cultural Christchurch guide!

It does feel like Australia has been home for the past seven months, and we've been lucky to squeeze so much in. But New Zealand beckons, and it wouldn't be much of a World Tour if we stayed in one country!

Our wanders around the city parks kept us amused until dark when we headed back to the Comedy Festival (third largest in the world) and chuckled at a few British comedians before sampling some of Melbournes ales and music.

I'll not bore you with how the huge sea cliffs (tallest in southern hemisphere) were made, but I did come away with a new respect for Albatross and Muttonbirds. The Albatross don't seem to need to flap their wings at all whilst flying, and effortlessly fly a few inches above the pounding waves. The Shy Albatross only nests in Tasmania, yet is found in all of the world's oceans, that's some serious mileage. They are also suffering from fish shortage, and it's thought we may be the last generation to see them.
The Muttonbird is also quite amazing; all Muttonbirds mate on exactly the same day, meaning all eggs hatch at the same time. When it comes to leaving the nest, the chicks spread their wings for the first time, step off the sea cliff and fly. Not only that, they continue flying non stop for 18000km. Makes the 18+ years homo sapiens take to reach independence look quite pathetic!

Grandness on another scale greeted us at Hobart, with the towering Mount Wellington looming over the capital city. I say capital city in the loosest sense, as it's got that small market town/fishing port feel to it, but we did visit on a Sunday and hung around the harbour so I may be mistaken. We took a drive up Mount Wellington, for impressive views over the city and even more amazement at the steepness of the mountain that the van actually managed to get up. To make up for all that effort it was time for fish and chips from the floating chippies in the harbour!

We also squeezed in a walk at Lake St Clair, a glacial lake at the back of Cradle Mountain, and Australia's deepest. It was also the end point of a 5+ day walk from the mountain, and there were plenty of walkers there to put us to shame as we set off on our 1 1/2 hour stroll. Our quest to spot a Platypus continued at the enticingly named Platypus Bay, but to no avail. The views over the lake were great though, so all was not lost.

The afternoon was a lot more civilized. Boarding a fast, slick ship we zoomed out of Strahan into the dark waters of Macquarie Harbour and through Hells Gate, named so by the prisoners on their way to Sarah Island (think the Alcatraz of Australia). The ship then motored to the Gordon River, a World Heritage site that satisfies 7 out of the possible 10 criteria required to become World Heritage listed, and joint top of the table with another site in China, so a pretty important place. It's not so hard to see why, as we cruised up the beautiful mirror smooth waters of the river, passing trees that are up to 4000 years old, and aren't found elsewhere. The area was also home to Aboriginies that were the most southerly humans and survived several ice ages (average temperature of -14), and not forgetting the unique flora and fauna that Tasmania has.

At Cradle Mountain, after taking a dribble of expensive fuel, we abandoned the van and shuttle-bused it to Dove Lake at the foot of the twin peaks of the mountain. The dark brown lake complements the mountain perfectly, and with the trees replaced by heather, the view of the mountain is unhindered, especially important for taking photos! Arriving a tad too late to walk up the summit track, we took the easy track around the lake then went up a steep path to Lake Wilks to get the blood flowing, and make it feel more like a hike than a boardwalk stroll.

We camped up at Rosebery, site of yet another zinc and tin mine, and also a train line that passes over the campsite but with only one train passing by as we tucked into dinner. It wasn't until lights out that the strange noises began, a cross between a bird of prey call and a cat being tortured. I'm hoping it was neither, and just the Tasmanian Devils talking to each other, after all it is how they got their devilish name.

So get in we did, at Emu Bay on the sheltered north of the island. The water for the first few steps was so hot it was like stepping into a bath, but a little further the cool water was tickling our toes. The strangest thing was that the top few inches of water remained hot whilst the bottom got icy cold, so I was walking along with hot knees and frozen feet. The rest of the afternoon was idled away, Caroline soaking and reading, and me snorkelling to pester the little sand critters, and photograph pelicans.

Venturing into the city in search of shops proved to be a sticky affair, the city itself looked quite relaxed, with wide streets and a huge open square in the centre, but alas not a shopping centre. Salvation was found out of town, and the air conditioning, along with a couple of ice smoothies brought our temperatures back to normal. As if the cooling retail therapy wasn't enough, Caroline had some real therapy in the form of a chinese massage to help fix the effects of 2 months of van bed.

Beyond a doubt the highlight of the day was finding Larry the Lobster, a "big thing" as per the banana and pineapple from earlier in our trip. Larry is special though - he was originally designed measured in feet but accidentally made in metres, so he's three times bigger than expected (the photo has Caroline and Dad standing next to him, but they're just dots!), and a testament as to what can be acheived with fibreglass!

The day finished with a dip in a shady cold swimming pool, absolute bliss after the day in the van. We also managed to squeeze in an Aussie barbeque for Dad's last dinner with us, well it just wouldn't be a trip to Australia without one!

Also on the cape were blowholes, although not nearly as impressive as the Kiama ones, as these just blew horizontally back from a cave. The petrified forest was so realistic we were even counting the rings on the tree stumps, albeit with the nagging feeling the stumps were just a little too close together. An informative sign further on explained why, the forest doesn't actually contain any trees, it's formed by water filtering through the limestone. A fossilised forest sounds a lot more impressive though!

Apart from the obligatory photo stop at the state border signs, Mount Gambier was our first South Australia stop, where we learnt they have a weird half hour time difference, and visited the sinkhole gardens caused by a cave collapsing. The mount itself holds two massive volcanic lakes, with the imaginatively titled Blue Lake doing a good oversized impression of the crater lake from James Bond You Only Live Twice. The lucious blue water looked ripe for jumping into to escape the South Australian heat, if the cliff hadn't been so high that is.

The drive on to Robe took us on bridges over dried up river beds, dried up lakes and cows seeking shade from the blistering sun. South Australia is the driest state in the driest country in the world, and you really start to appreciate it, and that's with us in the cooler south east corner!

With that excitement over, it was back to the van to continue on, passing some more impressive formations such as the Bay of Martyrs, hardly mentioned, but just as beautiful. We ended up in Portland, not really to see the place, as it doesn't boast much more than an Aluminium smelter, but was civilization, and spared Dad my cooking for a meal out.

Goal for the day was the Twelve Apostles for sunset, a set of twelve rock columns eroded away by the sea, so much so that some are now submerged. We'd also like to know what an apostle is - closest we got was a disciple, but that's not a definitive answer. As the sun set we were treated to the beautiful orange hues, and reflections of the sea. It was so good that I didn't even need to use the sunset/cheat mode on the camera (the new official standard on good sunsets).

Once the sun had dropped (along with the temperature!), a group of little penguins appeared on the beach. We had seen the many footprints leading down from the nesting sites to the sea, and were expecting a large flock to be returning. The ten or so that did appear must be the most indesicive penguins around as they made several tentative attempts to get to dry land before we gave up and retreated to the warmth of the campervan!

The morning started with a chill in the air, a reported 9 degrees, which is probably the first time we've been in single figure temperatures for a while. But, as they say in Victoria, if you don't like the weather wait 10 minutes, and true to form there was soon a bit of heat from the sun.

The Great Ocean Road was built after the First World War as a memorial to the soldiers, and a mighty fine memorial it is too. The huge sandstone cliffs have been carved away with pick and shovel (although I'm convinced they must have used explosives, or at least gone through quite a few shovels) to create what must be one of the finest tourist routes around. An attempt to find waterfalls proved futile, as there hasn't been too much rain recently. However there were scores of sulphur crested cockatoos flying around Teddy's Lookout in Lorne to keep us entertained, and even kangaroos in the distance to provide Dad with his first glimpse of them, although they were so far away we're not sure it really counts.

It's been a good while since we were in a city, having bypassed Sydney on the way down, Brisbane was the last urban stop, and that was when we were still heading north. So with the roads getting busier, and too many lanes to choose from, there was the feeling that maybe after all this rural living we weren't cut out for city life, or it could just be that Friday afternoon roads aren't the best way to appreciate a city! We'll find out in a couple of weeks when we return to Melbourne sans campervan.

The aptly named Seal Rocks lay just further out to sea, and whilst not visible to the naked eye, telescopes (or my supremely powerful zoom lens on the new camera, which I'll now stop going on about) revealed that hundreds of seals were basking, or doing whatever seals do, out there.

With our fill of marine life, Dromana on the Mornington Peninsula was the next stop, in view of Melbourne over the bay. Whilst trying to find the campsite entrance we almost drove into a huge car park with big white screens, a drive in theatre of all things! Returning later that night (with a freshly cooked dinner waiting to be eaten) we were treated to not one but two films. There was even an American diner, albeit an early closing one, but alas no roller skating waitresses to be seen.

It did give us the chance to stock up on energy bars for our climb of the day up to the granite peak of Mount Oberon that looms over the campsite, and promised views of much of the Prom. Suffice it to say, our preparations of all weather gear and food for the day were a bit over the top, as were my expectations of a peaceful vista of the unspoilt countryside. Once we'd passed the phone masts (the link with Tasmania, so I guess our blogs will be flying through here soon!) we were given tantalising glimpses of the landscape, as the low morning clouds drifted by. We didn't have to wait long before the clouds burned off, and the impressive landscape presented it's true glory. The park is quite different to the Australia we've seen so far, with its huge granite outcrops sticking out of green forests there is more than a passing resemblance to Yosemite - albeit with less threatening wildlife in the form of Wombats!

The peninsula is famed for the number of wombats, and on our first walk to the beach we weren't disappointed, as turning a corner a blonder than expected wombat was making it's way across the path. They're funny short stumpy creatures, a bit like a brown stocky badger, and for Aussie wildlife, they're quite timid when they realise you are there.

The beach had some cool sandstone cliffs, with what looked like sand falls where the sand tries to fall down off the cliff, but during it's descent is blown back up by the wind to the top again. A couple more beaches later and we were ready to soak up a sunset, with Wilsons Prom being the only place East Aussies can see it set over the sea. I also discovered a sunset cheat mode on my new camera that turns the vaguest orange hue into the most glorious sunset imaginable... er, actually they're all real, honest! ;-)

Passing through the villages, there's a distinct difference in Victoria compared to New South Wales - it has an older more permenant feel than the outback pioneer feel of New South Wales. That might be due to the convenient discovery of gold 9 days after Victoria became a state, and with more gold found than in California, they must have had a fair bit of cash floating around!

We were making good progress, then Caroline suddenly stopped and jumped back, having nearly stood on these two snakes, having some form of wrestling competition in the middle of the path. Now the warning signs say to just back away from snakes if you see them, which we did, but the snakes didn't read their part of the sign where they also slither off into the undergrowth. With us making lots of noise, and even chucking things near, (and accidentally on, which got them understandably irate and us fleeing) they didn't budge. After we took a muffin break, they finally moved on, leaving us to finish our walk with a wary eye at each tree root that crossed the path. I'm sure the snakes we saw weren't poisonous, but Australia has something like 8 out of the world's 10 most poisonous snakes, which in my mind translates to 8 out of 10 snakes are poisonous, who said fear was logical?

So, we managed to finish the walk, getting to where we would have started our intended walk, so I'm sure it was stupendously beautiful just over the hill...

The drive to Hobart Beach was nice, especially as we saw a joey poking out of his mum's pouch! Most of the journey was on gravel roads, which we are braving more often as we haven't had any screws fall out for a while. We have also noticed another pleasing reward from all the bumps - the dvd/ cd player seem to have suddenly started working. Bonza!

The crystal clear waters of Pretty Beach called, so the bodyboard was dusted down for the first time in a few weeks so that we could ride some waves once again. Pretty beach was a truely magical spot and as we headed down the coast to Depot beach in the same national park we were hoping for more. I made do with snorkelling in the shallow (about 30cm!) warm water, spotting wee crabs hiding away as I brushed past. Making an early exit from the beach in search of the loo made us realise that a camper with a toilet may be a good idea next time, either we're getting looser with the wallets, or we're just not made for real camping!

With van fixed, the journey was back on, with camp for the night at Pretty Beach, which to be fair is actually quite pretty. We're in a national park, and the wildlife abounds, with the obiligatory Kookaburras, and a possum that appears to have decided it would like to try a curry. The best bit, however, is the herd(?) of grey kangaroos that are happily chewing their way through the campsite grass. There's so many, and they are so unperturbed by humans that I just about tripped over a little one on the way to the kitchen. It's a pretty cool feeling to know that if you open your door, chances are there'll be a couple of kangaroos outside, how much more Australian can you get?

Update: Either the possum is a practical joker, or there's a clumsy roo out there as something pulled the power cable out!

Jervis Bay is actually part of the Capital Territory (for some reason they reckoned it should have a naval port..), so that's another state ticked off, not that we saw any sign that we'd changed state.

There were also some huge grey kangaroos nearby, about 2 metres tall, which are probably the males - easy to see why the zoos only keep the smaller, gentler female of the species!

So after a 3km walk around the escarpment (that's a cliff to the uninitiated like myself), passing waterfalls at every corner, we started the descent to the coast. As you've probably guessed by now, Aussies don't do things by halves, and after a few kilometres of steep descent the van started emitting a funny smell, probably just the brakes on fire!

The bottom of the hill was Kiama, site of two blowholes, where the rock allows waves underneath and up through a hole. The larger blowhole looks like the Sarlacc (sand beast) from Return of the Jedi, and every so often a big whoosh is followed by a jet of water squirting up. The smaller blowhole is only about a foot square, but the water squirts higher and the whoosh is louder - it's also easier to hear without everyone oohing and aahing in the background!

The drive to Bundanoon across the tablelands was like something out of a British summer - rolling green hills with pine trees - only with the roads a little quieter, and the views stretching that little bit further. The sleepy hamlet of Bundanoon claims Scottish heritage, but not being a scratch on Maclean further up the coast, we made for Morton National Park and a quick walk into the forest.

Taking the longer walk, and the path less trodden, we reached the Fairy Bower falls, and whilst clambering over rocks to photographise, I slipped and got a foot soaking. Now it was whilst looking at my one sodden foot that I noticed the waving tentacles of three or four leeches! Now you may think I go on a bit about leeches, but they have one task in mind - having a suck on your blood. Also, unlike mozzies, they are fearless and aren't scared off by a wave of your hand or even a flick of a stick, just continue up your shoe relentlessly. They just hold on at one end and wave around until the find something to grab on to. To top it off, you can't even tell which end bites! So, the walk back up was fast, with frequent stops to check for leeches and tuck trousers into shoes. I'm sure at least fifteen of the critters made their attempts, but not a single one got to skin, woohoo!

The day was rounded off with a trip to Glow Worm Glen at night, with trousers firmly tucked in red leech spotting socks, we walked a kilometre down to see the little green glowing worms in their natural habitat, made even more fun by torch failure on the way back!

With our own transport this time, it was easier to visit the different viewing platforms and walks of the Blue Mountains, and after a few hours of walking and viewing we moved on to the Jenolan Caves, foolishly expecting the Jenolan Campsite to be in the vicinity. A steep winding road dropped us down into the gorge containing the caves, but with no campsite in sight. A check of the map showed the campsite 30km away back at the top of the hill. Nothing else for it but to stay in the hotel, with heater and a TV, ah such luxury!

The winding hilly road took us back to Katoomba, which we visited back in October, although the accommodation this time was noticeably down-market in comparison. (Yes, Caroline did pine as we walked past Lilianfels) The views this time were still impressive despite having seen them before, and it was still cold too, so no hanging around to see the sunset this time!

The valley is covered with vineyards, some with household names (Rosemount, Lindemans) and nearly everyone gives you the chance to sample and buy their wares, although with our limited knowledge of wine, we simply tried a couple, thought they were nice and bought them. No swilling the wine around to savour the bouquets for us!

To get us out into the country air, we jumped on the back of a couple of horses and rode off, well sort of. Caroline's horse decided he'd rather chew on the fine grass we were walking him past, and mine knew the ride inside out, when to walk and stop, and played little heed to where I may have wanted him to go. We did get to see a few Kangaroos, and it's surprisingly tiring given that we were essentially sitting down for a couple of hours. Sure do think it's going to be hurting tomorrow though!

We're inland again, in Tamworth on the New England plateau and amazed by the variety Australia has to offer: waterfalls, rich green lands, red soil hinting at the red centre that lies beyond, glorious sunsets and thunderstorms at night that were so far off they couldn't be heard (thankfully!)

Now, we've had a bit of rain over the past few days, but none quite as impressive as seeing this storm lurking over the hills as we had a wee stop. With flashes of lightning over the river, the clouds passed over accompanied by fierce winds and a noticeable drop in temperature followed by buckets of rain. As we were driving along there was a flash and the whip crack of a strike about a hundred metres away, now being a good physicist I know a car is the safest place to be, still scary though!

Sea World not only has a marine wildlife conservation side, but also manages to squeeze in rollercoasters and shows! With the Seal Detectives, Water Skiers (who accidentally fell off a few times, which made the show much better), and of course the jumping, splashing, human-transporting dolphins. They try to sell the dolphin show as mankind and dolphins living in harmony, I think it should be sold along the lines of "it's amazing what a dolphin will do for a fish".

Tropical cyclone that is though! With concern for the waterproof-ness of the van through the night, we awoke to a stream, or rather white water rapids, beneath the van (good job we're not in a tent!) Seeking refuge in a multi-storey car park, and the dry cool air of a shopping centre, we rode the storm out before driving on to Surfers Paradise.

I'm sure it was once a surfer's paradise, but it's now more of a Blackpool on steroids, or a sleepy Vegas with fewer casinos. It doesn't do badly though, $2.2bn turnover, 200 high rises, and the tallest residential building in the world. All this learnt from our trip on the amphibious duck bus, which takes a little paddle up the river as part of the tour. They also mentioned that Schoolies week (30,000 17 year olds descend on the place to cause havoc) brings in $60mn, and that's why they put up with it, doesn't sound worth it to me!

I'm off to guard my wallet, there's too many businesses keen to relieve you of cash around here!

Fraser Island isn't the only sand island in town, just further south, west of Brisbane lies Moreton Island, so our wee treat was a day sail. Incidentally, it was first seen by Captain Cook who thought it was part of the mainland, as he did with Fraser Island - I reckon he must have been going faster than we are!

With a grey start to the day, we weren't holding out for much, we did get in a good bit of snorkelling around some wrecks, but alas the sand boarding was rained off. So, it was time to try the jet piloting, essentially a inflatable disc towed behind a fast moving vessel (piloted by skipper Joe who doesn't like going in straight lines, especially if you call him a sissy!) Much fun ensued, as you might be able to make out from Caroline's expression!

The yacht, "Solo", was built in 1955, holds the record for winning the most Sydney-Hobart races (from Boxing day, if you've been paying attention ;-) ), has been solo circumnavigated around Australia twice, and the world to boot. It was then used as an Antartic research vessel before being the first Whitsundays tourist yacht before moving to Moreton Bay. So we've been on a bit of floating Aussie history, still feels like Howard's Way to me though...

Well, it's been an adventure packed few days and it's going to be hard to top it, so we thought "why bother?" and turned our wee van around and headed south.

Well, that's not strictly true, we've had a lot of fun going north, but we've saved a few rippers for the journey south so that it's not all driving down highways to Sydney and the undiscovered territory beyond.

Before we left Mon Repos, we took a walk down the beach, and found this little nipper lying on his back in the sand. On our way to the ranger, she sprang back to life, so she's in the sea somewhere, at least with a better chance of survival than back on the beach. Fair well wee girl, hopefully you'll be back on those shores in thirty years time!

Well there certainly was a lot of it, but less to see than you would imagine. The place is covered in thick forest (some of it rainforest), along with fifty odd lakes, an abundance of fresh water creeks and a couple of rocks thrown in for good measure too. There is enough sand to cover the Sahara, given that Fraser Island is over 600 metres deep in sand, and the sahara only 20 metres.

Our leisurely tour took us to the Maheno shipwreck, a lump of rust that was a ocean liner in the 20's, until some Japanese sailors tried to tow it. The Champagne pools were about as close to a natural jacuzzi as you could get, huge waves crash over into rock pools, leaving a white fizzing foam behind for you to wallow in, although the best bit was getting caught unexpectedly by a huge white wave!

Camp for the night was pure luxury compared to our campervan, with a proper bed and wooden floors in the tent, the only thing tent-like was the canvas. We didn't even need to make our own food, now that's what I call camping!

The next day brought us lounging around in the warm fresh water of Lake Wabby, with little fish sucking dead skin off my legs, Catfish swimming past, and the occasional turtle sticking it's head up in the distance. Final stop for the day was Lake Allom, with it's little turtles swimming next to the shore, hanging around with their little ET like heads sticking up, until we got in for a swim that is!

With all the wildlife and lakes it's easy to see why the aborignals call it the paradise island! It certainly feels like we've been in paradise for the last few days. Sure beats work anyway ;-)

After a quick bodyboard to wake us up, we booked a trip to Fraser Island, and drove what must be our longest drive so far - 200kms non-stop. The only thing that did warrant a detour was the Big Pineapple, just as we left Mooloolaba. It has that 70's kitsch about it, essentially a 3 storey plastic pineapple you can walk up the inside of, for great views over a couple of pineapple patches, and what has to be the most optimistically sized car park for said attraction.

Anyway, we've made it to Hervey Bay and are now raring to go on our little 2 day adventure to Fraser Island!

The first animals we see are huge tortoises, they used to have one originally caught by Charles Darwin, that lived to 175 years old! Around the corner were three elephants waiting to be fed by the crowd, including us. With my piece of carrot swapped for elephant snot, we moved on to the Crocoseum, a huge arena with snake, bird and crocodile shows, all done by those enthusiastic keepers!

To round off Australia day, we ended up having a barbie with some Aussies in our campsite next to the beach whilst watching fireworks off in the distance, now I don't think it gets more Australian than that!

Our whistlestop tour of Brisbane was completed with a trip to Mount Coot-tha, offering views over the city and beyond, and more importantly a road all the way to the top. Next stop was the Glasshouse Mountains, a set of 9 or so steep peaks sticking up from the otherwise flat plain. Most of the peaks require mountain climbing experiene to attempt, which left us with Mount Ngungun, described as "easy" by the guide. Well, if that's easy I'm glad we didn't attempt the others as we still ended up on all fours during our ascent, but the views more than made up for it!

Mount Tamberine is home to a species of glow worm, which we did think about trying to find in the wild last night, but the lure of the camp fire was just too great. It's a good job that we didn't, as people fumbling around in the dark and shining torches trying to see them have caused numbers to decrease. So, taking the easy, and environmentally sound option we visited the glow worm caves of a local winery. Inside there were about 15000 glowing bottoms of a fly larvae, each trying to catch a fly or two. After up to 12 months feeding as a larvae, the fly has about a week to mate and lay eggs - that's some preparation.

From a tourist perspective, the pitch black cave was peppered with tiny green dots, and as eyes adjusted it was like the night sky, which is a good thing as that's what attracts the flies!

Photos weren't allowed, so the true to life representation from the leaflet is attached, and I'll leave you with the glow worm ditty:

I wish I was a glow-worm
a glow-worm's never glum
'cos how can you be grumpy
when the sun shines out your bum!

There's few things better than camping next to an open fire. Beyond proving my manly instincts to create a fire, and the smoke keeping insects at bay, nothing beats having your legs slowly toasted as the embers burn.

Simply put, it's not so bad to be returning to camping after our wee escape yesterday. We've edged slightly north in the Queensland hinterland to Mount Tamberine, and have been surprised at just how cool it is, given that we're closer to the tropics than before. The rainforests are still there, as are the numerous waterfalls, with one even hinting that the elusive platypus were to be found nearby, although we settled for spotting a koala dozing up a tree.

Anyway, the embers are smouldering now, and the moon is poking out between the clouds, time to get to bed!

I'm sure something is trying to tell us not to go inland, the last two attempts have ended up with heavy rain, and us scurrying back to the coast. So, with a spring in our step after our relaxing day yesterday (Caroline wasn't happy until she went to the doctor who said her thumb was fine), we made for the hills to Springbook National Park, site of many waterfalls and rainforest.

The Purlingbrook Falls were all you could ask of falling water, including a walkway going behind the falls (look for the blue dot on the picture), which were so tall that the fall was spray by the time it reached the bottom. A short walk further on promised water pools, and just as we reached about as far as you could get from the car park, the heavens opened, rainforest style. Within 30 seconds we were soaked through, but the fun kind of soaked where the rain is warm. After the 5km squelch back, we were changed into nice dry clothes, but noticed there weren't any campsites nearby, not that the thought of camping in such rain again was that appealing, so a with Caroline haggling the price down, we retreated to a mountain chalet complete with spa pool. Bliss doesn't begin to describe the comfort in comparison to the van, although I'm sure just the sofa would have sufficed...

Well, it turned out to be a little wet for us to climb Mount Warning (i.e. we're scared of a bit of mud), so instead we ended up in Tropical Fruit World. As we were repeatedly told, they grow over 500 varieties of tropical fruit (I didn't know there were that many types of any fruit), and after a quick tour via tractor, boat and minature steam train, we were treated to a fruit tasting show by the fastest talking human alive. Suffice it to say, most of the valuable information has now been forgotten, but Papaya (also incorrectly known as Paw Paw) is very good for you in so many ways, grapefruit interferes with many medicines, white sapota is a good relaxant, and black sapota tastes a bit like chocolate.There's also Jakfruit, the largest tree born fruit with an unusual taste of bananas, chewing gum and cream. Overall the message was eat more fruit, and with a conveniently positioned fruit store just outside, we stocked up.

The Captain Cook memorial at Point Danger marks the boundary between New South Wales and Queensland, and at the moment a different timezone However, it's not that easy to work it out, with just a line in the ground with QLD and NSW on each side, and people frantically adjusting clocks as they walk over it.

Point Danger is also an excellent viewpoint to see the tourist mecca that is the Gold Coast, a sprawl of high rises and theme parks with a touch of Vegas style that Tweed Heads marks the start of. We're already looking forward to booking a few nights in a hotel to soak it all up, not that we're tired of camping!

It's the little rest stops that make the journey, and with signs proclaiming "udderly fantastic coffee" at the Moo Moo Cafe, there just isn't a reason to not stop. So we emptied our bladders (udders?), had a coffee and sat next to cows wandering through banana plantations, which I think is actually an experiment to make banana milkshake.

Moobar is in the Tweed Valley, and whilst there are some similarities to the original - green hills, trees, river - that's as far as it goes, as I don't remember seeing banana trees near Peebles! The centre point of the valley is Mount Warning, named along with Point Danger by Captain Cook when he ran aground, I think I would have named them Point Stupidrocks and Mount Dammit.

Mount Warning is a huge volcanic plug, and can be climbed by walking 9km through rainforest (yes, with leeches, I'm a sucker for punishment), with a scramble to the top. Unfortunately/fortunately we arrived a little too late to do it today, but there's always tomorrow!

Finally, the tropical Sesame Street that is our trip was brought to you today by the bite of a huge ant to Simon, and the sighting of a tiny (think 5p coin) green frog.

Ok, so walking barefoot around the wet campsite probably wasn't the wisest thing to do, especially considering the fact we were only about 5km from those leech warning signs from yesterday. However, there's nothing quite like a leech attached to your ankle to wake you up, really give you the willies, make you scream like a little girl then never be able to look at wet grass the same again. Before you wonder, no I didn't cut it off my leg (the knife wasn't handy at the time), several determined flicks finally detached it from it's dinner, and a photo of it on my leg would've been good, but even I sometimes have other things on my mind.

With that excitement over, the route continued north and back to the beaches, taking us through miles of forest and grazing land, and even though we've only scratched inland a little, it starts to make you realise how big a country Australia is. En route was the little village of Maclean, an oasis of Scotland next to the huge Clarence River. Each lamppost had a tartan painted on it and the butchers sold square sausage, now that's something Caroline just can't pass by!

So tonight we're at a slightly different campsite than normal, a field at the top of the hill in the rain, which was not expected this morning as we woke to blistering sunshine, but it's good to have a change, and we'll appreciate that beach more when our route takes us back. We've also learnt that pop-top canvas isn't waterproof, and neither is the seal when it's shut. The bolts have been tightened, so hopefully that trickling water I can hear as I type is on the outside...

To get a better look at said beaches, the lighthouse at Cape Smoky (named by Captain Cook as he passed in 1770, because the forest was on fire - there's no magic to this naming malarkey!) provided excellent views, along with our first sighting of a wild kangaroo!

The next stop was much more like it, easily moored up, pelicans nearby and a rope swing over the water, my faith in boating was semi-restored.

Finally, and I don't mean to go on about the mozzies, but they seem to be attracted to repellent and are literally biting through clothes to get to the skin, I mean what are we meant to do?

The second detour of the day was to Cape Hawke, named by Captain Cook himself (they've got a plaque to prove it). The walk to the summit was rewarded with a viewing platform taking you above the trees for views for miles in all directions.

The campsite tonight is positive luxury: showers, laundry, swimming pool and power for the microwave so we can have popcorn whilst watching the DVD - heaven!

So beach number 1; Stockton. Nah sorry, the guidebook was wrong - it wasn't all that! The washed up lumps of coal and dead stingrays did not make for a very appetising pre-breakfast stroll. We ditched that idea and went for a swim in the pool instead. Quite frankly we are used to a much better standard of beach. And beach number 2 was bang on the mark. Birubi beach had the beautiful golden sand, the inviting turquoise waters and sand dunes to rival Westport- bonus! We passed on the 4WD and camel tours, opting instead to hike up the dunes and then run at breakneck speed back down. What fun.

Next up was Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest with the promise of urban Koalas and dolphins. No sign of either so we had to make do with beach number 3 and a bit of a surf before heading further up the coast and towards our camping destination for tonight. And so we drove into the Myall Lake National Park where Si, who was feeling a little crowded by the bustle of the caravan holiday parks that have been home for the previous few nights, was hoping for a more rural camping adventure. Not far into the park we stopped to climb a few more sand dunes (it looked like something out of star wars - pretty cool!) at the top we were rewarded with stunning view of gorgeous deserted beaches, which of course we had to explore.

Finally we arrived at our designated camp site, where the only things to identify it as thus were a few other campers and an eco toilet! No office and shop? No amenities block? We're really going to rough it to the max. Well, after our sparkling red wine and dinner of Chinese beef stir fry that is. Tonight's wildlife: dingoes!

This also marks a special day as we're leaving the Sydney section of the guidebook that has been keeping us busy for the past 4 months, and moving on to the crisp clean pages of the New South Wales section (thanks to Fee and K - the guidebook has been serving us well!)

Campsite for the night is Stockton, across the river (Hunter, not Tyne) from Newcastle, and right next to the beach. It's not really a beach for boarding on (although I did try!), but the breakwater nearby has a nice wreck attached, and pelicans sitting on lampposts waiting for the fishermen below to just turn their backs for a few minutes. As we've been in the van every night so far, we treated ourselves to the night life of Newcastle, New South Wales' second city - hardly bustling but then it is only Tuesday!

Hot tourist fact for the day: Newcastle NSW, like the original is a prolific coal mining area, helping it shifting the most tonnage of any port in Australia. At any given time there's a multitude of ships just off the coast waiting to be filled. (We thought it was a mass exodus from Sydney, but there you go)

The camp site hunt was on once again with the aim of getting us fed before the mozzies, this time taking us quite a way up the coast to Toulakey, a quaint little place next to the calmest water I've seen for a while, alas by the time we'd bought beer for the barbie it was getting dark and the mozzies won - next time...

With slightly groggy heads after the first night in the van, a BBQ in the Ku-ring-gai National park, followed by a walk on the Birrawanna track seemed an ideal way to perk up. With rain threatening followed by bursts of sunshine we headed up the hill, with the deafening cacophony of the beetles around (cicadas?). On the way back down, an echidna rustled past, as oblivious to us as the possum from the night before.

With late afternoon approaching, it was time to find a beach (it's been 2 days!!), although many of the east coast beaches were shut due to large waves, so no swimming or bodyboarding. First beach was Bilgola, reputed to have red sands, and to be fair they did have an orange hue, but no more than Palm beach, film set for the venerable Aussie soap Home and Away. Avoiding the waves crashing high up the beach, we found the Alf Stewart's diner and other scenes familiar to Caroline (I obviously had no idea what Home and Away was ;-) )

Finally we took the easy option and stayed in the same camp site s before, well with no one turning up to collect fees, it's a bargain!

The van is pretty sweet, there's a pop-top so you can actually stand up inside (when you remember!), lots of little storage cubby holes, a microwave and even a DVD player! Only time will tell if we are still keen after 3 months in it! After crossing back over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the swathes of traffic carried us to the coast north of Sydney. Expecting there to be loads of campsites with ample room, it was a bit disconcerting to find them all full. In the end we found a nice little place next to a showground - all we really need are showers and a electric socket and we're set for the night! Night fell with the laughing of the Kookaburras all around, and even a little possum walked past, completely unperturbed by us. I hope all our campsites are this good!

There's also a new page on our website that lets you see day-by-day(ish) where we have been. There's also a lot of places we might go to which are all on a map, and the itinerary page has a rough plan of how we plan to squeeze it all in! See what happens when you leave a geek with a computer and a couple of weeks!

The first fireworks were set off at 9pm, whilst we were worryingly moored under the Harbour Bridge (fortunately no fireworks on the bridge!), then our boat along with the others in the exclusion zone lit up and cruised up and down in the Harbour of Light parade. That gave us the chance to make the most of the band and DJ, who even took the request for 500 miles by the Proclaimers, a song that Caroline danced her heart out alone to, as I was keeping a spot at the front of the boat in preparation for midnight (sorry Caroline - I didn't know!). Midnight came with the illuminated countdown on the Harbour Bridge, then all manner of fireworks set off from the bridge, with us parked a nice distance away this time!

Here's wishing everyone the best for 2008!

P.S. Sorry it's taken us 2 days to get around to writing this, January 1st has always been, and always will be a day to lie low, eat unhealthy things, and vow never to touch alcohol again! ;-)

To see the year off in style, I've bought a bodyboard (short surfboard for lying on) and got down to the surf at Bondi Beach this morning to catch those waves again. Alas all I managed to catch was a mouthful of sea and a rip current, but I'm learning!

Thanks Caroline for a fantastic Christmas present! :-)

We stuck to a typical Aussie Christmas by spending most of it outside (although given the number of Irish in Bondi, you could be forgiven for thinking you were still in the northern hemisphere). There was walking along beaches, playing beach tennis at Coogee, and venturing into the sea at Bondi for a quick paddle. Dinner was of course a barbeque in the park opposite the flat, ending partly because we were stuffed as expected from everyone on the 25th December, but also as the mozzies were tucking into their Christmas dinner!

My arms are now thoroughly tired, which isn't that surprising given that they were essentially doing press-ups for 2 hours, and that's a tad more work than the typing they are used to. It may take a few days to recover, but I'll be back in again soon!

My quest for uber-fitness goes on, bike rides-a-plenty, and even a ride back to the Olympic pool for a swim. The swim was really to prepare for the surfing lesson tomorrow - despite there being the first shark attack for 70 years at Bondi, I'm going into the water. We were walking along Bondi Beach on Friday night around the time the attack happened, and saw someone swimming in the darkness - didn't think it was the wisest thing to do! Anyway, the shark was a tiddler that just had a nibble, and statistically it's probably the safest time to go back in, as it'll be 70 years until the next attack. That's my logic and I'm sticking to it!

Other weekend activites included lengths at the North Syndey Olympic pool, in full view of the harbour bridge. The pool definitely seemed to come from an era before the recent Olympics. The outdoor pool was filled with salt water, and after a few lengths of injesting a weeks supply of salt, we retreated to the indoor pool. Post swim snacks of salty pretzels were ill-advised - salt overload!

To get me around in the meantime, a cheapo bike from K-Mart seemed the ideal solution. With the big box already balanced on the trolley, the prospect of waiting a week for them to build it was too much, I mean how hard can it be to stick a wheel and saddle on a bike? Shoving a spanner and allen key set in the trolley, I found a quiet corner of the multi-storey car park. 50 minutes later, and without looking at the instructions (pfft, they're for amateurs) the bike was done, albeit with flat tyres meaning a walk home (well they felt hard when prodded inside the box...). It's also my first bike ever to have a side stand and a bell, maybe I should get a nice little wicker basket for the front too...

Today after the rain stopped, I took to the roads. With spanners in pockets just in case my handywork wasn't all that, I toured the coast line around Bondi, and found some more great beaches, like the one in the photo (no, that's not from Fiji, it really is Sydney Harbour), and also discovered it's not so great living at the top of a steep hill...

The photo is IBM Darling Harbour (the office for lazy days), I didn't have a Pennant Hills photo to hand, and for once I think I'll leave that computer turned off. Is this a turning point for Simon, a life without computers? Nah, don't be silly! :-)

After catching up with the Aussie election news in a decidedly cooler park (landslide to "Labor", with the residing PM losing his seat, and an MP getting slapped by a jilted journalist - UK politics is so dull!), were our ears deceiving us or was that the faint drone of bagpipes? The annual Scottish fair was in town! Passing the Irn Bru and shortbread stands with saltires flying, we managed to make it in time to hear the thank you speech and see the tents get put away. Ah well, at least we managed to scoff a square sausage butty (white sliced bread, obviously!)

There was still time to get back to the flat and walk to Bronte beach for a quick swim, if that's what you call being at the mercy of huge waves (great fun though!). I reckon I'm in need of more beach time - still haven't mastered walking around in those thongs!

In an effort to avoid the beach at the weekend we headed to Centennial Park After picking up one pair of rollerblades and a bike we were ready to hit the road. Luckily there was a path in the park especially for rollerbades and bikes so we didn't have to worry about such obstacles as cars and other people. Even more lucky, for me, Si took the rollerblades first. After a wobbly start he was off like a pro making it look easy. I, on the other hand, did not find it so easy! I made Si swear, on pain of death, that he would not let go off my hand- fortunately he is an expert on a bike and can ride one handedly! Of course, after a while I did pluck up enough courage to let go of his hand for brief spells and amazingly I only fell off once. Honest!
In the evening we headed to the Opera bar for a much needed drink or two. The bar is located beneath the Opera house with perfect views of the harbour bridge, especially for the fantastic New Years Eve style fireworks.

Sunday found us hitting the park again but for a much more chilled out affair this time. Armed with a picnic and our books we prepared ourselves for a day of relaxing in the sun.

Back to Bondi for fish and chips, well prawns in my case as they'd run out of octopus. I thought I was on to a winner as the bag was pretty full, but as I sat down to munch, 12 little black eyes stared back. Time to try and remember how to peel the little critters!

Sunday started rudely with Caroline waking me up for a walk to Coogee. We walked along the same path as last weekend, although there was now a sign indicating that the homeless man was not an art exhibit, and to please step away. A few miles, and several bays later we arrived in Coogee, where a proper slap up breakie of pancakes made up for the walk.

It's now only 2 weeks until I'm done with this working lark, and the holiday starts again. It's feeling like those final few days of school before summer holiday, maybe I should start taking board games to work...

Continuing the art theme, we headed to the Star City theatre for a showing of Miss Saigon. Now I know it's a musical, but you'd think their motto was "Why say it when you can sing it", for barely a word of dialogue was spoken, instead replaced by long theatrical outburst (man, they can hold a note). Nevertheless, a good time was had, and the show had an underlying political theme, raising awareness of the children of US soldiers born to Vietnamese women.

Sunday was easier on the art, after a failed attempt to get to the zoo, we wandered around the botanical gardens next to the Sydney Opera House. Caroline had heard there were bats in the park, and only after wondering why the crows seemed to be hanging upsidedown did we see them - fruit bats, or flying foxes - and they definitely have a fox-like expression as they stare down at you from their lofty positions. Walking on, and passing loads of outdoor weddings in progress (brave souls, it was forecast to be a wet weekend), we sat for a while at Mrs Macquaries chair, said to be one of the best views of the harbour. It was alright, but you really had to strain to see the harbour bridge, and to not look at the docks in front of you. I guess Sydney's changed a bit over the past hundred years.

One of our encounters with the flies this week was at Watsons Bay and South Head, the southern side of the entrance to Sydney Harbour. You can imagine Captain Cook entering the harbour through the relatively small entrance to the large natural shelter, but what is quite surprising is how far they went before stepping on shore near the harbour bridge which is way off in the distance. Watsons Bay itself surrounds a grassy park, perfect for Sunday picinics - something that the ferries and buses realise as they only head out this far at the weekend.

We didn't miss out on the beach action either, although it was a bit more uncomfortable this time as I walked down to the beach in my new thongs (that's Aussie for flip flops in case you were worried...)

Anyway, sipping a fruit smoothie and lying back reading a book is definitely the way forward. There are a couple of other beaches near Bondi, so we headed down to Tamarama beach, a smaller homely place. Lunch was at a cool little beach café, whilst a wedding took place on the grass. It also had loads of washed up jellyfish like creatures, little blue pockets of air with a long strands coming out the back. Didn't think much of them, but Dave at IBM later told me they are Bluebottles (also known as Portuguese Man O'war) that can administer an almighty sting (non-deadly if that makes it any better). I've now spent the rest of the week scaring myself and Caroline by trawling the internet finding out about all the poisonous and deadly creatures of Australia! Syndey also has the Blue Ringed Octupus on it's shores, with a venom that inflicts so much pain you don't need an ambulance siren on your way to hospital, nice!

We rounded off Saturday with a trip to Star City, the casino of choice in Sydney. I guess we've had our expectations set high by Vegas, as it didn't quite cut the mustard, or was it that the $1 put in a fruit machine didn't pay out...

By Sunday it was time for another beach, Cronulla (pronounced Cru-null-a, although that's still up for debate...), basically a suburb by the sea 1 hour from Bondi. A relaxed sort of place with families sitting by the sea doing the sandcastle thing and having barbeques. Quite a contrast with Bondi, but I'm glad we're living near Bondi Beach!

Caroline has nearly finished her nannying, and is already looking forward to being on holiday again (2 weeks on, 2 weeks off, at least!). It's also her 30th birthday on Thursday, but alas she'll be working, I'm sure we can make up for it somehow. As for me, I'm on week 4 of 12, not that I'm counting..

It's also warming up here, meaning I get to use my convertible trousers to the full - shorts on commute, trousers in office, and no, I don't care how stupid I look whilst I've got half trouser, half shorts on!

P.S. Cat - I know the photo is not as impressive as your whales, but I promise I took it! ;-)

For a change of scenery, or days when the bed is just a wee bit too comfy, IBM Darling Harbour comes to the rescue. Based in the CBD*, with the treat of a ferry ride for the first visit, it's only later that I realise the station is only 500m away, but that's boring! Working on the 12th floor and doing lunch is actually great fun, and a new experience for someone who's never worked in a city before. Having a commute is also a novelty, and actually quite relaxing, plenty of time to read, play and email.

The final work topic is Caroline having found a job as a nanny (i.e. playing with kids all day...), just for a couple of weeks as she continues to collect the required mountain paperwork to allow her to teach (thanks for posting it Dad, I'll let you know when it arrives!).

As for the sightseeing, it's slowed a bit compared to the first few weeks. We've mostly been walking around markets, along beaches (ferry to Manly, Bondi etc) and eating fish & chips, or chish & fips if you're in Coogee. Today was a nice sunny day down at Bondi, people out surfing, sitting on the beach and playing catch with their dogs along the front - bearing in mind it's still essentially winter here, makes you wonder what the summer is going to be like!

*CBD - Central Business District, in case you didn't do that in Geography...

After a couple of days we'd done everything there was to be done (and there was no one else there either!), so moved on south to Coconut Bay, where you could literally stumble out of your room onto a hammock and watch the world go by on "Fiji time", a very relaxing approximate time keeping affair. The evenings entertainment was hilarious, reminiscent of the New Zealand Haka, with 5 young men strutting their stuff in grass skirts (along with Britney, otherwise known as Steve). Followed on by us doing the Bula dance (think Macarena, but more cheesy!), and then musical statues, with a partner! (Caroline got Britney :-) ) We then had a sample of Fijian culture by going to the staff Kava drinking session, it's a strange muddy drink that has the same effect as a strong strepsil, making your tongue and lips a bit numb, and is meant to make you sleep well, and the locals prefer it to beer (it's ok Dad - I'm sticking to beer...). True to form we slept well that night, but that could just be the alcohol!

Final night on the Fijian Islands was on Kuata, another stressful time sitting all day in hammocks!

The Joshua Tree portion of the park is actually quite small, and limited to the cooler (~35 Celsius!), higher Mohave desert, the park then drops down to the hotter Colorado desert, with the cacti you'd expect. Wildlife seemed to be quite abundant too, strange white lizards, little squirrel creatures, and a coyote have been added to the list.

We're now reaching the end of the US part of our trip, tomorrow is LA but only for the day as we're flying out to Rarotonga in the evening. I'm not sure what the internet access will be like for the next two weeks, so blog updates may be sporadic - I've added lots of photos to the link to the right - health warning: there's an awful lot of them, but hopefully not too boring!

Then to the Tioga pass, the back door to Yosemite. The 40 mile road is closed through the winter due to snow, hard to believe when you're in the valley roasting at 90 degrees. It could be any other main road through a forest, but then you whizz past the sign that marks 9000 feet, that's well over twice the height of Ben Nevis!

Andy - just had another Jack in the Box, mmm! :-)

Next up was a great bar that only does draft beers, everything from the local (Miller *Genuine* Draft) to the exotic (well, Strongbow and Newcastle Brown on draft). Then as my eyes perused the labels for the next tipple, I was drawn like a simpleton to the comically named Moose's Drool. After asking the bar keep about it, he claimed it was a brown ale, better than Newcastle's (Dad, John, I put up a fair protest, but to be fair the drool has a malty tang, and doesn't make you ill after 1 pint...)

P.S. Hats off to Cat who managed to religiously write something on her blog everyday, for us, these things are like buses, 2 coming along together...

The bus driver on the way home was a cheerful chap, and to prove the world is small, his dad lives in Glasgow, and he knows the captain of the ship taking us to our Fijian island. He also told us that we'd need to drink a bucket of Cava to get any effect, will have to remember that one! (Cava's a mild narcotic Fijian drink)

Haight Street for dinner, where the hippy movement started off, although unless hippies have taken to talking to themselves and rummaging through bins, they were nowhere to be seen :-)

Who would have thought that booking 3 nights accommodation in a city as big as San Francisco would be so difficult! 3 painful hours on dial-up Internet later, no booking has been made...  It is of course my own fault as I want a cheap few nights, somewhere free to park, close to the centre of the city, oh and a swimming pool too!

Vegas on the other hand is a completely different story - fancy 4-star hotels for £40 a night, I'm there!