Day after the reservoir walk, I was off to the much talked about Arts Factory hostel, in Byron Bay. The OzBus picked me up and we were headed for the morning's activity...Zorbing! It sounds ominous, and involves hopping inside a large translucent rubber ball and rolling down a hill! It was great fun, if a little short-lived.

The Arts Factory was a small hippy hostel founded in the 70s, and since then has expanded to become one of Australia's greatest backpackers! It has everything you could want...hot tub, sauna, swimming pool, large, clean room, friendly staff, a good kitchen, cheap cafe, cinema (!!!), bike hire (for $7 a day...more later!), hammocks, board games, reading room, the list goes on, and on, and on and on!

I met up with Jack, Dean and Laura who I'd planned to meet there a few days before, and we spent the rest of the day chilling in the hot tub and drinking goon! The next day, I went to the one and only Nimbin. It's a small town 70km west of Byron Bay, and is a seriously weird place!

A brief history; Nimbin was originally a small dairy farming community when in 1973 aq group of students chose Nimbin as the site for their new alternative hippy festival, named the "Aquarius Festival". Many of these hippies (as you can expect) were using marijuana, and after the festivals they would simply stay put in Nimbin, and form their own little communities. As Nimbin is now, Marijuana is as near as you can get to being legal, but is still illegal in the state of New South Wales.

Marijuana can be bought from sellers down the street, cookies, cakes and chocolate too. All this goes on, with some kind of exemption from the Police. There is actually a Police station in the village, how mad is that!?!? This place was unique, to say the least.

The tour took me to Nimbin, and Jim (the tour guide) told us many fascinating stories and took us on some rollercoaster driving trails! It was absolutely mad, but a good laugh none the less.

The next day, Jimmy (a friend we met there), Laura, Dean, Jack and I hired some bicycles! It was one of the best days of my trip! I was lucky enough to be dealt the cool card, and had a Harley Davidson type bicycle arrangement. It was amazing...dude! We cycled up to the lighthouse, which is the most Easterly point in Australia. From the point there, we saw stingrays and turtles in the sea below! Unfortunately, the bike had only one gear, so the ascent was pretty tough going.

That night, we made full use of the cinema and also cooked ourselves a fantasmic curry (the curry worked out at 1quid per person, the lady gave us too much change...quids in!). In addition to this stroke of luck, we also got a free cinema ticket as the lady serving us was just silly.

The next, we said our goodbyes to Jimmy and Laura, and Jack, Dean and I headed for Surf Camp. This is a special stop off for OzExperience customers where you learn to surf in a secret beach (ie. no real surfers there to make us look bad). I managed to stand up a few times long enough to scream "I'm Surfing Baby, yeah!".

This was this morning, and after a whopping drive we finally arrived in Sydney. I'm back here after 80days and it all feels very odd. Time has gone by so fast, I can hardly believe it's time to go home!

It wasn't one specific thing that you did, It wasn't one specific thing that you said

I've just got in from my bike ride down the river. The weather was fantastic, hot and sunny and a lovely cool breeze was blowing down the river. I biked for 3 hours or so and then, after grabbing a chicken kebab for lunch (it had too much chilli sauce on, and I had to pay for garlic yoghurt!), caught the 'Citycat' boat back down the river and dropped off my bike.On my way down the river, I made a friend.

Somehow it escaped the mind of the bike hire store owner to record the start time I hired the bike, so after having the bike for just over 4 hours, I only paid for 3. "Sweet", I thought.

On my return to the hostel I stopped off in a barbers for a long overdue hair cut, and basically asked him to make it less mop-like. I could have sworn this guy was drunk, but anyway, he cut my hair, and rather amusingly cut my hair completely, except for a mullet type arrangement at the back! For a split second I witnessed how ridiculous I would look with this hair style, it looked pretty stupid, and to think some boys actually think this looks cool over here in Australia ?

Weirdos.

That evening I went bowling with some guys from my room and their mates. It was cheapskate Tuesday, so how could I resist, cheaper bowling and free popcorn! I won, which was nice. It got me some more popcorn anyway.

The next day I planned to get the bus to Brisbane Forest Park to go on a walk and enjoy the scenery. Again, it was a lovely day, and unfortunately I drastically underestimated the time it would take to get to the bus station, so I had to sprint the length of Queen Street Mall, and, upon arriving at the bus station stood there in a confused, hot and sticky state trying to figure out which side of the road to be on. Fortunately, I changed sides and the bus arrived just on time.

I did a 5km or so walk, and it took about 3.5 hours! I was dordling, to say the least. One reason for this delay was the fact that shortly into my walk, I spotted a tree snake climbing up the foliage of some nearby branches. I took my eyes off it for a split second to get closer, and subsequently spent the next hour looking for it again. I eventually found it, but it was too far to photograph, and I couldn't be sure it wasn't a vine, even through the binoculars. It was great to see it anyway because snakes are usually very hard to see. I definitely heard some other snakes rustling along the dry leaves, but couldn't see them, unfortunately.


The walk was around this reservoir, and was a haven for birdlife. I saw lots of birds, which I photographed and will identify now I've bought myself a more in depth, yet concise, bird guide to A-U-S-T-R-A-L-I-A!

Ella, eh, eh, eh, under my umbarella!

My attempted walk was a dismal failure beyond all previous dismal failures. I awoke early, packed and ready to go. Off I skipped, heartily excited about the ventures I had planned for the day. I hopped onto the right bus, which, was arrived early. I was to get the bus to Cooroy, and then a train from Cooroy to Cooran. From Cooran I was to walk a bit and then get the train back, and the bus back after that.

Unfortunately, there were no trains on saturdays. Supergay! So I went back to Noosa for 10am. Great.

Making the best of the wonderful day, I decided to walk up to Laguna Lookout, which was more of a look-at-hideously-overgrown-vegetation-from-a-lookout-type-platform. The views were impressive though, be they obscured by masses of foliage.
I spent the next 6 hours walking along the beach, sunbaking (grrrr...), reading, eating and generally what people seem to call "relaxing". It was the only day of sunshine I had at Noosa.

The next morning I left for Brisbane/Brisvegas. Personally, I was excited by this as it is the third largest city in Aus (population 1.3million), but most people I'd met along the way had advised me to skip Brisbane and head straight for Surfers Paradise. After inspecting the lonely planet, I easily made an itinery for 4 full days in Brisbane, so, ironically, I extended my stay in Brisbane and decided to skip Surfers Paradise.

I'm glad I did. Today was my first full day in Brisbane, and I had a great day! I roughly followed the Lonely Planet "Walking Tour" of Brisbane, and also enquired about bicycle hire (for tomorrow) and a few other bits and pieces.
I attempted to trade in two books I had read in return for some cash. Unfortunately the evil book stall man exclaimed he was not interested in my books, and that he would not pay cash for them. I said the same back to him, and then went and burnt down his house.

Planned for the rest of the week is a bike ride down the river, walking in Brisbane Forest Park, climbing Mt. Coot Tha and visiting the Dreamworld Theme Park. Exciting!

Play that funky music, white boy!

Bourne Ultimatum was a great film! Some bits didn't make sense because I hadn't seen the first two films in the trilogy, but it was fun nevertheless.

Yesterday I went to Australia Zoo and it was pretty cool. I saw otters (they were unbelievably cute), more crocodiles, alligators, koalas, tigers (!!!), kangaroos, laughing cockatoos etc.etc. This was great, but most of them I'd already seen in the wild. Even though it rained heavily all day, it was a good day out.

Today, I decided to head up to Noosa National Park and take a look at the bushwalks around there. Every walk I seem to go on, they massively overestimate the time it will take to complete the walk. I walked 10km, and they claimed it would take 5 hours! I'm guessing this had something to do with the fact that they suggested it was a strenuous walk, which it really wasn't.

The walk was cool, I didn't see any koalas, but the second half of the walk was coastal, and I sat eating lunch watching the surfers down below negotiate the ginormous swells. I've never seen waves as big, they were about 6 ft high!

After my walk, I went into town and grabbed a Subway (as in a sandwich, not an underground railway) and as I sat eating it, something odd happened. A cleaner came up to me, and, after kindly taking my rubbish, he asked me what I was doing around here, where I was from etc. and as he left, he pointed out that I had a bruise on my arm. He said it in the same manner as you would if you had, I don't know, a bit of dirt on your face, and that I was supposed to somehow remove this bruise because it was there by accident. Furthermore, he was surprised when I told him that the cause of the bruise was a horny goat. After this, I'm sure his mind jumped out on all sorts of tangents, but I explained that I had been wrestling goats and tieing there legs up. His surprised look didn't fade, I then lowered the weirdness tone by asking where the bus station was, I was getting a lfit back to the hostel by their courtesy bus.

Tomorrow, I'm hoping to do a 26km (just over 16 miles) walk, I've heard the weather will cheer up a bit.

G'day G'day, and how ya goin? Whadda ya know, you'l strike a light.

Hey hey folks! My blogs are like London buses, you get none for ages and then two come at once!

I'm here in an awesome place called Noosa Heads, or just Noosa for short. I came here from Rainbow Beach this morning and it has been raining solidly since then. In addition to the obvious annoyance of the rain itself, an additional irritation comes from the fact that I have a lot to do here in relatively little time.

As I arrived here, I had no accommodation booked in for the evening, so I spoke to my guide and he suggested this place called Koalas, which is a chain of hostels all over Australia which I've stayed in before and have been bearable. It turns out three others (two Londoners called Jack and Dean and Jenny who I'd met from a previous trip) were also staying there so we rang up the hostel and they sent out a courtesy bus, which arrived unbelievably quickly.

We were picked up in a Ute (pick up truck) and our things were taken from us and placed in the back of the truck. They were covered up to protect them from the rain. We spoke to the friendly driver about the weather, the city, what there is to do etc. and I quickly began to adore the place.

Just north (as in walking distance) of Noosa is Australia's most visited National Park, ("AWESOME!!!" I thought), and there are oober loads of fantastic walking tracks. In addition to this, the driver (who's job it is to drive customers around) said he would drive me up there to save me the walk, ("AWESOME!!!" I thought).

Australia Zoo is owned by the widow, Terri, of the late Steve Irwin, or "The Crocodile Hunter". There's a free shuttle bus from the hostel to there ("AWESOME!!!" I thought). I'm off there tomorrow, very excited indeed. It's very wet, so four of us are going to cheer ourselves up and go to the cinema to see "Bourne Ultimatum", it looks fantastic although I haven't seen the first two.

Two weeks today.

The more you try the Fraser

Ah yes, you last heard from me a while ago when I was off to Kroombit Cattle Station, yeeee haaaaaa! Kroombit was brilliant! There were 7 of us on the bus, and 3 hilariously funny guides, which is a pretty good ratio! At Kroombit, we spent the night and the next morning went off for a horseride to muster the goats.

That was great fun, except for when the guide's horse stood on a goat! The goat made an heart-wrenchingly painful-sounding scream and then proceeded to limp onward on three legs, it's fourth leg bent double and cringeingly taking some of the poor animal's weight. The guide, unbelievably optimistically, assured is that the poor goat would be fine and make a full recovery. It was one of thousands of similar goats, and I would bet my life on it now being dead.

I have to choose my photos to put on the blog carefully due to poor upload speeds, and my picture of the backside of my horse does, disappointingly, not qualify.

Next, we were to do a goat rodeo. We were, in simple terms, instructed to pin a goat down by kneeling on it's ribcage, and then tie three of its legs together and then poke it on the rump with a brander. This was all very well, but our goat was very frisky and very horny, that is, it had big horns, which it succeeded in ramming into my, now bruised, upper arm.

The next activity was clay pigeon shooting, with a 12-gauge shotgun. The guide told us that if any of us beat him, he would buy us two beers or something of equivalently enormous value, so I was concentrating hard on this activity, a little shaken from my two earlier goat related incidents.

I missed the first shot, and immediately hated myself. Fortunately, the next four shots were successful, so suicide was removed from the equation. Frat also shot 4, so we were equal. Without my two beers, suicide was, once again, put back into the equation. Only kidding :-) .

Below is a picture of me shooting up, note cowboy looking figure in the foreground, who is actually a proper cockney lad who works there. Damn, deleted the picture. Sorry.

After Kroombit was a long, long, drive to Rainbow Beach. Mind you, a 10 hour drive is a quick trip to the shops by Australia standards.

In the morning I was booked into a 3 day self drive 4x4 trip around Fraser Island. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world. I was told that if all of the sand that makes up Fraser Island was picked up and dropped onto Sydney, that is, all of Sydney, the sand would be 80m deep. This island is 130km long, and covers an area of 1630 sq m., in short, it is gigantic. The whole island has no sealed roads, and so access is by 4x4 only.

I met my group in the morning and they had been shopping already the night before. We loaded everything onto the roof and off we went, none of the drivers had driven a 4x4 before, and, ironically, I had yet I couldn't drive as I wasn't old enough (21yrs) to hire a car.

As most of the good driving is on the beach, the tide times and heights strongly determined our itinerary for the trip as there were certain periods when you couldn't drive on the beach. a few hours in, we got a flat tyre. Fortunately, I was there to save the day and take some cracking photos of other people doing the work (below). One bloke, dyeing to put his new toy to good use, attached a tube to our exhaust, the other end of which attached to an industrial strength balloon and proceeded to lift our car up from beneath. I was impressed, if not a little anxious that the balloon may burst and kill our little leprechaun hobbit-like Irish helpers.

Anyway, an hour or so later we thanked them greatly and made our way across the island to Lake McKenzie, which is a huge freshwater lake. It was stunningly beautiful, with gorgeous white sands and crystal clear water, picture-perfect, ready for a postcard. It was cloudy though, picture below.Following this, we set up camp at central station and, after a good feed, I proceeded to have second worst nights sleep of my life, the first worst was to await me the next evening.
The next day, we had to go to Eurong (pronounced "you're wrong", much to the amusement of German fellow on board) to pick up another spare tyre, leaving us with a total of six tyres on board.

We then proceeded to Wabby Lake, which is the deepest freshwater lake on the island. We had a nice swim and a sunbake (why do Australians call it that? What am I? A cake?!) and the rest headed back to the van for some lunch. I wanted to walk up to the lookout, which was well worth it. Photo below.

There are many fantastic bushwalking tracks on the island which, unfortunately I was not able to explore.

After lake Wabby and lunch, we drove to the famous wreck of the S.S. Maheno. This is a ship which, in 1935, was being towed to Melbourne for scrap metal when it was caught in a cyclone and washed up a few days later on the beach of Fraser Island. It was used as bombing practise for the RAAF in WWII, and is now very rusty.

We then went back to camp, and had a great meal (Martina, a woman on my trip, is a cook :->), after which we had an early night and I lay there for 10 hours, insomniac.

We rose early this morning to see the sunrise from Indian Head. Indian Head is in the north of the Island, and was named by Captain James Cook, after seeing many Aboriginal people gathered at the peak of the headland on his sail by.After this, we drove back along the beach to wait to board the ferry and return our vehicle. We saw our third dingo of the trip, on the beach as we left.

Happy Mondays, Whitsundays!

Well hello family and friends! I've spent the last two days having the experience of a life time!

I'm in Airlie Beach on the East coast of Australia about an 18hr drive south from Cairns. The town centre is a street made up of little more than pubs, clubs and travel agencies, which is a little samey, but quite fun nevertheless! The town is really just a gateway to the archipelago called the Whitsundays, which is a large group of 74 islands, mostly National Park and therefore protected land.

The Whitsundays islands were named by Cook (again), and he simply named them after the day he sailed through them! However, due to the time zone difference, it was actually a Monday!

It's one of few places where normal, smelly, scummy backpackers can spend a few days on million pound maxi racing yachts, all at backpacker prices too! So it was definitely not to be missed. I was on the Boomerang!There were about 20 or so of us, and it was a real laugh. The food was great and we visited many famous sites. We set off from Airlie Beach, and the 30m high mast was overwhelmingly impressive! At one point, we were sailing and the boat was about 45degrees to the water, one side of the boat was almost submerged! I was sure we were going to capsize, but the crew said that as long as they're smiling, all is ok!

Here's the bed I was sleeping in, suitably trashed!
We visited Tongue Bay on Whitesunday Island, and the famous Whitehaven beach, which is apparently the third most photographed place in Australia. I found this a little hard to believe, but it was certainly a beatuful postcard-worthy photo!

We sailed around a few Islands, including Border Island, Hayman Island and Hock Island, and also stopped off for some brilliant coral snorkling.
So I'm here in Airlie for a few days now, until I head off to Kroombit, which is a cattle station inland! I hear many interesting things go on there...

nb. pictures can all be enlarged by clicking on them.

Geekazoid!

On my way back from the Internet Cafe last night after blogging, I took a photo of the view from my hostel, it was pretty impressive at sunset!
I slept well after the garlicky bolog, and awoke ready to pack up to go back to Townsville, where I was expecting to be collected by the bus to go down the coast to Airlie Beach. However, I soon realised I'd got the wrong day, and in fact the 25th was tomorrow. I thought I'd head back to Townsville on the ferry anyway because, as I said yesterday, I was confident I had "done" Magnetic Island, or "Maggie" as it's known.

So I returned to Townsville, and went searching for Accommodation. I found a really nice little place called Globetrotters, which sounds quite modern and coorporate, however it was actually pretty rustic and down to earth, which I liked. In addition, I was in a dorm of four beds, not bunk beds! It'll be a relief sleeping without someone on the bed above waking you up every time they fart/wriggle.

So, I arrived in my hostel and swiftly departed on the traditional walk around the town. This time, after failing to find anywhere to hire a bicycle, I had further to walk than I thought. I wanted to walk along the Strand and then down to Queens Gardens and then return to Molly Malone's for my free dinner at 5.30.

On my way to the sea front, I stopped off at a local bookshop and bought two small extended-leaflet type booklets, one on Australia's wildlife and the other on birds specifically. These were simply to know what it was I was photographing, and be able to say what that animal/bird actually is, rather than just saying how amazing it is!

The Strand is a fantastic promenade along the beach which runs for 2.5km. It was a spectacularly beautiful day, and the whole walk along the beach front was done very tastefully. As I set off, I saw this White Bellied Sea Eagle (This is what it is, as far as I can tell from my small extended-leaflet type booklet). The views back across to Magnetic Island were impressive as the sun shone down, it was getting on over 30degrees heat today!
So I wandered all the way along, resisting the lure of the Ice Cream store and arrived, excitedly, at the end of the road, called "Kissing Point", which was an utter disappointment. The actual interesting lookout from the point, was owned by the MOD, or the Australian equivalent, so you couldn't get there! I sidled along the fencing for about 2km and there were some good views out over what I belived to Rowes Bay.It was now a small mission across Townvillian Suburbia to Queens Gardens, which don't deserve to be called gardens, and certainly do not justify relation to Her Majesty. I think Peasant's Park would be more appropriate. For fear of becoming synical, this place wasn't that bad, but it was just an extended front garden type arrangement, not what I'd refer to as a public garden. This flower was quite cool though, but I have no idea what it was. *Note to self, purchase small extended-leaflet type booklet about flowers of Australia. I left pretty hastily and had my feed.

Cool, well, I'm having fun, I'm happy and under three weeks now until I'm home! Although, I have a lot to do before then!

This is me being a geek, and taking a photo of myself in a curved road mirror thing.


nb. Sorry about the small, and seemingly shrinking photos, blogger.com is behaving strangely!

Kowala Kowazy!

Charlie, you pose an interesting question about the origins of the name "Magnetic Island". It was named by the famous explorer Captain James Cook (you know, the guy who the house in Meridian was named after ? I was in Glenn!). As Cook's ship, the Endeavor, sailed past the island, the navigation compass Cook was inspecting seemed to point in different directions, leading him to the conclusion that the Island was magnetic. However, many studies after this show that there are no signs of the island being magnetic, and people generally believe the bloke was pissed blind.

Also, in my last post, I forgot to mention that with my $6 upgrade meal of Chicken Schnitzel, salad chips and gravy, I sank my first pint of Guinness. Obviously, this was about as far as Ireland you can get, so the boys assured me there were better pints to be had in the UK. Here are James and Josh inspecting my Lonely Planet.
After getting a few supplies and one of the popular green (in both senses of the word) Coles bags, we headed off to Magnetic Island. Coles is a supermarket here supplying $1 sturdy, green, reusable cloth bags. We arrived at the ferry terminal as our ferry was pulling away, which in the heat of the day, and with getting on 20kg on my back, I was frankly disappointed by. However, being Brits, we made the most of the situation and had an early picnic lunch, made some sandwiches for our walk and I taught James how to play cribbage.

We arrived at the ferry terminal and trotted toward our path from Nelly Bay, to Arcadia. It was a delightful, but tough walk around to Arcadia, with breathtaking views over Horseshoe Bay (below).
We arrived in Arcadia, had a quick look round then headed toward our destination for the day which was a WWII fort. J+J were both keen on this, being history students! This walk was AWESOME! I heard the familiar noise which can only be described as a whoopy snorty cough coming from a local koala. I strayed, excitedly, from the path in search of this fluffy-grey-bottomed beast. To my delight, I found him/her/it. I heard this Koala, I found this Koala, as far as I was concerned, I owned this Koala, it was mine. I named it Kenny, after rejecting Carlos and Karl. Picture below.
I walked hurriedly down the track in the chase of my fellow walking companions, and partly to my irritation, heard the noise again! I knew what I had to do. This koala, too, was mine, his name was dopey.
The view from the fort was fantastic at sunset, picture below w/ fill-in flash. Notice sweaty rucksack-strap marks on shoulders. Ewwwww.
We hopped on the bus, and after saying, what seemed like remarkably final goodbyes to my twin companions even though I was to see them a few days later in Airlie Beach, I went back to the hostel and joined the rest of the hostel in cooking spaghetti and pasta sauce.

After a great night's kip, my only plans for the day, after waking up to a terrible cheesy smell, was to get some washing done. After doing this, I was proud of myself, although it set me back a whopping $6 in all!

Yesterday, I had noticed scooters for hire, like little mo ped type vehicles (no idea how that is spelt, but moped looked wrong). I was toying over whether or not to hire one, with no previous experience. But, strangely, all it required was a driving license, so I thought, what the heck? and hopped on. After a 2 minute run down of the controls, I headed off with the ambition of exploring every single road on the island. Thus, after walking the best tracks on the island, and driving on every road, I could properly say I had "done" Magnetic Island.
Mildly amusing tangential sub-story. During my trip round the island, I was keen to spend a penny at the local "Exceloo", which is a 22nd century public toilet. Anyway, after the door opening automatically, and a slightly disconcerting fake locking sound emitting from the speaker, a voice told me I had 10 minutes. In my case this was fine, but I read a sign beside me that not only do they have 10 minutes, the door will open in 10 minutes! Outside, was a popular paved path down to the beach, so I feel sorry for any poor person present, either inside or outside the "Exceloo", who witnesses the 10-minute automated door opening where an occupant is present!

I stopped off at the grocery store for some onions and garlic salt, and came back to the hostel feeling lightly adrenaline pumped after travelling a whopping 60km/h, and doing something a little riskay. This is me, on the bike!

It's easy for me, to make it hard for you

Just to let people know, I was delighted to hear that I got 4As at A-Level! Also, I got 5As and a B at AS level. I'm now really looking forward to University and UCL.

So the morning after Dunk Island, I was off to Townsville on the OzExperience bus! The next day, after a morning of breakfast and Bryson I was picked up by the bus. The journey was quite uneventful, except for the purchase of a GIGANTIC focaccia ( this word processing utility didn't think that focaccia was correctly spelt, and instead offered me the following alternatives: dogcatcher, cowcatcher, fogyish, flycatcher and quackish! I found this quite funny :-) ). Anyway, this focaccia was about the size of a boulder, so pretty large! I ate half of it, and was full up . This was two days ago, I just finished it off for lunch.

I shared my focaccia with two twin brothers, James and Josh, from London, who were in their second year of a history degree in Surrey. On our bus, it was coincidentally only the three of us who were actually spending any time in Townsville, the rest were skipping it and going straight to Magnetic Island. This is a large island just off the coast from Townsville. In hindsight this was a good decision to stay.

On the bus, I asked the driver to book my accommodation for that night and unfortunately the hostel I wanted to stay at was fully booked. However, I was able to share a 4 bed room with James and Josh, for a measly $25 with included breakfast and dinner! That made my week, that really did.

The room was clean, tidy and had free disgusting tea. It was definitely no Yorkshire Tea.

The next day I was desperate to climb the local Castle Hill, which is a 286m tall granite monolith which towers over the city. It was a surprisingly easy, quick climb, and we soon found ourselves on this gorgeous day with spectacular views over the entire city. The island in the background is Magnetic Island, where I plan to spend the next two days, and hopefully see some wild koalas up in the Eucalyptus trees!
After this, we grabbed a Subway for lunch (we were cheap, and shared two footlongs and a free refill coke between three of us) and then went to ReefHQ, which is a fantastic Coral Aquarium. It was well worth the visit and I saw many types of coral and marine life, and was also there in time to catch the feeding frenzy.
The TV, Newspapers and media here generally is appallingly bad. I want the Guardian again!

In addition, Dad, I saw this Wicked Camper, I think it is the one you drove! It had written on the back "It's easy for me to make it hard for you", or something along those lines, and it also had the same flames as you, although they looked duller than they were in the pictures you showed me from your trip.

Shalalalalalalalalalaaa

Hi Everyone!

I'm still here in Mission Beach, I'm leaving tomorrow. I'll be sad to leave, it's a really great hostel, with nice people and very friendly, helpful staff.

Henny way, yesterday I washed. I know, it's impressive. Only kidding, I manage to look at water every week or so, and actually get in once a month or so. Only kidding, I have washed quite a lot, NOT! Only kidding, I wash normally, just like other people, as in NEVER! HAHA! Only kidding, I didn't wash yesterday, I washed yesterday instead.

Actually, yesterday I went on a walk down the beach, which was boring because as I walked down the beach, to my left was a large mass of water usually referred to as the sea, sometimes the pacific ocean. To my right was some trees, and the odd building, and then in front of me was constantly sand. So, as you can gather, the view becomes a little monotonous and to illustrate how boring it was, I started running for entertainment. I also met a couple of mates along the way, and, relatively speaking, relative to the view that is, their conversation was interesting. They were birds, of the flying kind.

However, today, I awoke after not enough sleep and decided to get the "Water Taxi" across to a nearby island of similar insignificance to say, Tasmania ? The island is amusingly named "Dunk Island" which sounds like some kind of afternoon tea biscuit. The above boat is not the water taxi by the way, the picture above I selected by accident instead of the birds.

On Dunk Island, it rained consistently all day, however, being a rainforest, the concept of rain seemed more acceptable to me. I set off on a good 10 km circuit walk around the island which was very nice indeed. Mount Kataloo (which to mee sounded like a Scotsman saying he's going to the toilet) was a much appreciated climb 271m high, with a fantastic view at the top, a view of the drizzly, barely visible kind.So after my 10km walk, I went to get on the water taxi, along with some strange people I won't go into. OK, that sounded wrong, I mean I won't go into why they were strange....but in essence both statements are valid. For reasons unbeknown to me, the boat did not use the nearby jetty, and instead lots of historical tourists were forced to remove their footwear and become submerged knee-deep in water before boarding the boat. Seemed a very primitive way of getting onto a boat, and the conversation on the way back revolved around getting dry, is there a dryer at the other end, this 'getting wet upon entry to a boat' business is quite an experience, wait 'til I tell the kids about this, bla bla bla. So I then walked back to the hostel in the soaking rain in shorts and t-shirt and was a little chilly, which I haven't been in quite a while!

For dinner I had air as a starter, cooked up some spaghetti, pasta sauce and bacon for mains and finished off with a nice lung full of fresh air for pudding.

Congratulations! Your place at University College London (University of London) (U80) to study Medicine (6 years) (A100) has been confirmed.

Firstly, I GOT MY PLACE AT MEDICAL SCHOOL!!! I opened up the UCAS track service to see:

Congratulations! Your place at University College London (University of London) (U80) to study Medicine (6 years) (A100) has been confirmed.

I could barely contain myself in this Internet cafe! I had to unleash Tim Henman fist clench, after all this moment would affect my career and the rest of my life!

Anyway, after my day scuba diving on the reef, I had booked myself on a two day one night tour around Cape Tribulation. Cape Trib is north of Cairns and is a region of rainforest, which stretches down onto the beach and it's all belly beautiful. On the way up to cape trib, the guide pointed out this sign, which was originally a warning for a speed hump ahead, and then a warning of the locality of Emus. Chortle, chortle, chortle...

We arrived at the Daintree River after about an hour or so, and I grabbed a fantastic B+E sandwich! I went on a wildlife "cruise" around the Daintree river, but I've always associated cruises with spending days on a hugely over sized kids toy boat. This was just a boat trip. And that's pretty much all it was, just a boat trip. I saw crocodiles, but not as good as when I saw them in Lichfield. But I did see this Tree Snake, and fortunately no Trouser Snakes.After this, we drove up to Jindalba Rainforest Boardwalk, or Boredwalk, chortle, chortle, chortle...

Actually it was quite interesting, and I ate some more green ant's bottoms.

After this we drove up to the hostel, I dumped my bag and went for a walk down to Myall Beach. It was a short walk through the rain forest and then it came out onto a white sanded beach. It was Britishly overcast and drizzling, so wasn't quite as stunning as it could have been. But, with views up to Cape Tribulation, it was very fulfilling. After wandering around here for a good coupler hours, I headed back to the hostel and opened my book. I also met a great Irish group, who I went to dinner with down at a local pub that night.The next day, the first stop was Alexandra Range Lookout, which was just a quick photo snap and back in the bus and on the way back to the Daintree River. This time we were crossing it, and the bus drove onto the ferry which took us across. We were headed to Mossman Gorge, where I went for a swim and saw a little turtle up on the rock where I was swimming. He was friendly and joined me for a swim. Either that, or he was scared and fled. I also saw this lizard, the name of which escapes me.
And then, as the leaflet said, I had "Time to walk through Port Douglas and soak up the atmosphere". Yeah, right. We had half an hour to walk around this more than averagely bemusing town. I bought an ice cream to make the experience more satisfactory. This made me feel sick. I was not impressed by this final part of the tour. From this, I learnt not to go on cheap, crappy tours that rush you around a stunning region in too shorter time.

Anyway, the next day was the beginning of my East Coast trip, so I go the ozexperience bus down to Mission Beach. On the way we stopped at a crocodile farm, where they farm thousands of crocodiles for their skin and meat. I witnessed feeding time, where Mick, the owner, sat on the back of a 6 metre crocodile and gave it some chicken. Worryingly though, he was scarred, and could barely walk from his previous crocodile-related injuries. He was the first of two nutcases I met that day. I also held a little freshwater crocodile, which, without it's mouth taped closed, would definitely and skinned me alive.
Note the pleb in the backgroud knowing that she's in the photo, and so looking at the camera and giving an awkward smile. I think she must be French.

I went for a 6 mile Rainforest walk near my hostel with 3 Germans and a Welsh woman. I spotted a Casawarry and inspected it heartedly with my binoculars. I also provided a german with an antiseptic wipe from my medikit after she walked into a thorn bush with bare shoulders. It, sorry, She didn't need this antiseptic wipe, but it made me think it was worthwhile bringing that bloody medikit to Australia in the first place, let alone on that walk! nb. The bite and sting relief has been very useful, Mother. nbb. Note the bare shoulders walking infront of me, dear dear.

That night I was staying at a hostel called "Scotty's" which was famous for it's Kangaroo. So I just had to spend the 8quid on some delicious kangaroo steaks, with chips, salad and a droolingly complimentary sweet plum sauce. After this, I realised with a bit of wink wink nudge nudge, the pool tables were free! So I then spent the rest of the evening drinking and playing pool. Heaven.

Oh, and the nutcase was a drunk woman about my mother's age, who thought she was fantastic at pool, and would bend the rules embarrasingly to ensure her victory. Which she did, of course. In the end, I conceded by pushing the black into the pockets, which she then had a smeg saying I'm not allowed to touch the balls on the table, and that I was moving them to my advantage. I then told her I had conceded, and she looked smug and proud of herself and walked away. Now I wish her husband, who was a decent fellow hadn't had to leave and be replaced on the table by his estranged wife. A very interesting experience indeed.

Scuba Divarge

Just after the last post I posted (Hm) I had to leave my hostel in Darwin so I ventured out with my Lonely Plant guide to Australia and Bill Bryson's Journeys of a Small Island (or whatever it's called, basically it's the one where he travels around the British Isles) into DARVIN (as all the Germans call it) I had a great walk. Darwin has basically been destroyed almost completely TWICE in it's lifetime. Firstly by Hurricane Tracy, and then again by the Japs in WW11.

Hi Everyone! I'm in Sunny Cairns and have had an awesome day! I arrived yesterday feeling pretty down in the dumps after the night flight and too much time on the plane to think about home, friends, family and my great country.

However, after a good sleep in a nice bed I felt good this morning! Yesterday I had booked my self onto a day trip out to the Great Barrier reef today. I had a great time, I went Scuba diving twice and saw a reef shark! No turtles though unfortunately, but I'll go diving again I hope.

Darvin

Hi Everyone, I'm now up in Darwin in my Hostel. It's 30degrees here!

So, since my last update I've been on a 9 day trip from Alice Springs to Darwin. I did it with Adventure Tours, who are a tour guide company who take small groups on these sorts of trips. I did a 3 day tour around Alice Springs, which is the red centre of Australia. The first day was a trip to "Kata Tjuta" which is the aboriginal name, or "The Olgas" as their known by others. Kata Tjuta means "many heads" names this because they a large group of domed rocks the aborigines thought looked like many heads. They are red from the iron oxide (rust) absorbed into the surface of the rocks. We did a 8km walk around the Valley of the Winds. It was a nice walk, not too strenuous but nice to stretch the legs after lots of sitting on the bus. Pictures below.

After the walk we headed to the sunset look out, and watched the sun set over Uluru (Ayres Rock), there's a pic of me there below. We had Champagne! And biscuits too, which was a nice, unexpected touch.

After this we drove back to camp, where that night I slept in a "swag". This is basically a bed rool, where you put your sleeping bag into it and sleep outside. So I slept under the stars that night! IT got a little cold around 4 in the morning, but we were getting up at 5. Lots of early mornings, I'm looking forward to sleeping in a bit longer in Cairns, but not too late there'll be lots to do and see!

So the next day we woke up early to watch the sunrise over Uluru. Unfortunately the walk up the rock was closed, which I was very disappointed about. However, the base walk, which went around the rock was good too. There were also aboriginal rock art sites, where painting which were thousands of years old still remained on the rocks around uluru.

That afternoon we drove to Kings Canyon, and after sitting round the camp fire that evening, we woke up the next day for our exploration of Kings Canyon. We did a good long walk around the canyon, and saw the impressive amphitheatre which is a circular rock formation which looks much like an amphitheatre. Kings Canyon pic below. We then drove back to Alice Springs, where I stayed for the night.

The next morning I departed on the three day tour to Darwin. We crossed the Tropic of Capricorn on our way to Banka Banka. We stopped off at the township of Tennent Creek, which is a small town along the Stuart Highway. The Stuart Highway is a long highway running from from Alice to Darwin. It is named after John McDowell Stuart who was the first man to explore from Adelaide to Darwin.

We also visited Devil's Marbles that afternoon, which are named becuase they look like huge marbles. Pic Below.We stayed that night at Banka Banka cattle station, where we saw a short presentation about the cattle ranching in the area. The famers there eat the cow's willies! Ewwwwww!!!

The next day we visited the famous pub at Daly Waters, which is famous because all over every wall are a collection of photos, IDs, underwear, hats, basically anything a guest wants to staple up on the wall they can. It's very impressive the amount of stuff they have up there! I didn't see anyone I knew on the walls though.

We then took a lovely swim at Mataranka natural springs, which are geothermically warmed, and so were lovely and hot, and very refreshing!

We then headed to camp at Katherine Gorge. The next day we went canoeing down Katherine Gorge, which was amazing! We had a good 3 hours which was awesome. After that we drove to Darwin, where my hostel was for the night. A free meal was included at a local bar that night, which was cool.

5am the next daywe drove to Lichfield park, where I saw crocodiles! Both Freshwater (freshies) and salt water (salties). Only the salties tend to eat people.

We camped that night much like we had for the nights before. I had slept in permanent tents, with 4 bunk beds in each. They stop the mosquitoes and flies, but that's about it. You're exposed to the outside air. However, I found that I was too hot most of the time, it's about 15-20degrees at night so pretty hot under the sleeping bag!

Yesterday we went swimming in Jim Jim falls, which was lvoely and cool. The falls were quite dry though, as it is the dry season up here. It's monsoon forest around here, and in the wet season, the water rises right up into the trees about 6-7 metres! So you can see leaf remains right up high in the canopy where the surface of the water is during the wet season!

So late this evening I fly to Cairns, via Brisbane which is a long flight. I arrive in Cairns tomorrow morning, so I'll be quite tired after the night flight. But after 4 days in Cairns my trip down the east coast begins. I'll be able to access Internet Cafes pretty easily down there, so more to come soon!