Fox Glacier is Mint

I'm so glad you all appreciated Zoe's chair bungy as much as I did. It was definitely a highlight. Who knows how we're going to top that.

Anyway, it's been far too long, and as usual I've got far too many photos to get through, so you might want to go and get a cup of tea... :) Or just get one anyway, and read someting more interesting, because tea is great

OK. So I have a question for Emma Russo if you're out there. How did you manage to do your skydive in a skimpy top and no helmet, when I had to wear this?? More on that later.

You left us on St Patrick's Day, making lots of new friends, none of whom we can understand. For a bit of respite we headed off to Milford Sound which is a famous, er, sound (water feature). It's one of those places that people gush about, being all magical and lovely etc. We decided to see it by kayak. And this is what it looks like. That's probably all you need to know about that, apart from that it was our first proper acquaintance with big mountains. The village we stayed in has this comedy sign. (There is a prize for anyone that can send me a picture of a "White Way").

And so, yes, lovely mountains etc, but it was now time to go back to crazy Queenstown and fill up on more adventures. The first thing we did was hop on the cable car to the top of the mountain. Where you get a beautiful view of Queenstown, and with my mega zoom on, our van in the campsite! *waves at van*. From the top of the mountain you get a chairlift even furhter up, and ride down on the exciting, and slightly dangerous, concerete luge. And here's our photo finish.
We also, and this was very exciting, went to the bird park and saw a kiwi. They are nocturnal though, so prepare youself for the first instalment of my night-time photography (there's more to come); Yup, this is a kiwi. We also had an incident where Zoe turned into her bird form. Examine the expression and tell me it's not her. On the way out of Queenstown we drove past the world's original, and possibly most famous, bungy site, the Kawarau bridge (At 43 metres high it's 66 metres shorter than the one we did, I would like to point out). Kawarau is also apparently where the "Pillars of the Kings" scene from LOTR was filmed. I have painstakingly recreated the CGI so you can recognise it, here.

Just before you think things couldn't get any more exciting, prepare youself for Puzzle World in Wanaka. It, simply put, is the greatest tourist attraction two nerds could come across. Apart form the altered perspective room where slides go uphill, there is a giant maze, a trompe d'oeil toilet, a room full of spooky faces that follow you round the room (because they're inside out), and a puzzling cafe and I even had a video (from my phone) where we're stood in a room, one of us looks massive and the other small, then we swap ends, but I'm afraid it hasn't worked so you'll have to make do with a still.

It was, basically, photo opportunity galore. And Wanaka itself is beautiful, we camped by the lake with a great view of the land of the long white cloud.

A perfect place, you'd think, for doing a 15,000 foot skydive. Oh yes. This has to be the BEST thing I ever done. 15,000 feet is a looooong way up in the sky. About twice as high as the nearest high mountain. And here is a picture of the nearest high mountain, Mount Aspiring, from the plane. So here I am looking cheerful, if somewhat bald, in the plane ( I was, surprisingly, not scared at all). Here I am getting out of the plane (WHAT were they thinking with those hats), here's me falling - at 200kph (apparently). And the less said about this photo the better. I was sticking my tongue out on purpose. I loved it. I know I look a little taken aback by the inital drop, but I was enjoying myself really, and the rest of it was pretty relaxing, nice view (if a bit windy) etc...

So having exhausted that bit of NZ (and ourselves) we zoomed over to the West Side, via some really incredible scenery, and more mountains. The west coast is quite barren but presents plenty of opportunities for doing art with sticks on the beach. It is also home to the world famous Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. Never being ones to skimp on style, we went up the FJ glacier in a helicopter. Then walked around on it. I could bore you forever with these photos, I love them. Here's our helicopter leaving us behind. And check out the boots they gave me, I loved them. Zoe in a tunnel, Rick in a tunnel, Zoe in a crevasse, Rick and a feature. This was our little team, and here's my picture of the main ice wall. Oh, and not forgetting, me surfing an ice wave. Aren't they great. This was one of my favourite places ever. The helicopter obviously helped.

We met some top people around there too. On this photo you can see Aidhin, (the Irish Claudine), and Mark, who I can say what I like about becuase he can't use a computer and doesn't have an email address. Mark was a lovely horse-man from the swiss army, who (and I thought this was hilarious), had a swiss army knife. I'm not sure who the blonde on the end is, but *waves* hello everyone. Oh and hi sally as well, hope you're enjoying your last few days here! x

The rest of the west coast was pretty remote, rainy, sandfly infested, but we saw the famous pancake rocks (they are made out of piles of pancakes) and, prepare yourself for more top notch wildlife photography, we camped next to this and saw these.

You may be wondering what goes on in between all this frenzy of sightseeing and throwing ourselves off things. Well, we laugh at things in the supermarket: Alison, I've had a flash forward to your future career. We make up lists of the top ten famous people in whichever country we're in ;We only have 4 for NZ so far, and it would be 3 had we not read in a New Idea yesterday that Keith Urban was born here. (And thus revealing another one: reading rubbish local magazines). We also like to endlessly discuss what films and soaps x has been in with y, or who sang with what band when, And, my current most favourite activity at the moment, go bargain hunting in The Warehouse. On my last trip I got a new washbag, 3 CDs and a citronella candle for $40.

We're now heading across the North coast of the South Island, looking forward to our last 2 weeks in NZ, and EEK planning South America.

Love you all, :)

xxx

Zoe Driver: Adrenaline Junkie

Well, just to start you off; Look at this nutter.
Ho ho, and there was me saying New Zealand might not be that blog-worthy.
I'll get back to that.
So last time we spoke we were on our way back from Kaikoura with its dolphins and whales, via Christchurch (the only photos of which I have are of the crazy golf - it's such an interesting place). We carried on South to a place called Geraldine on the Rangitata river - best rafting in NZ apparently. So that's what I did, to kick off the extreme sports. (Zoe had a relaxing day getting to know the local mad people, but I'll let her tell you about that.)
So, that's me at the front, getting wet, wetter and wettest. It was sooo much fun, I want to go every day. We finished off with a 10 metre jump into the gorge, which you can see me being very cool about *ahem*.
Things were a bit more sedate after that for a few days, some nice camping among the sand dunes, rugged coasts and the sunsets. (NB That last photo was taken in a campsite, not a concentration camp, despite appearances). Ooh, christiane, we had your jam with some scones it was lovely.
We visited the Moeraki boulders (you can see I'm starting to look like a transient after a week in the camper van) which have a honeycomb centre, geology/malteser fans. Then we headed down to Dunedin which is full of Scottish people. The Otago peninsula near Dunedin has some cool wildlife. Look at this chubby fella. And this one! He was having a very lazy day. We also went to a penguin sanctuary which had exciting underground tunnels, and, of course, some penguins. There was also a nice castle with pretty flowers round it. No visit to Dunedin would be complete (apparently) without a trip to the chocolate factory, where I was humiliated into wearing a "beard snood". Factory rick, notagoodlook. Here is Zoe in front of a mountain of crunchies.
So having got the middle-aged activities out of the way we set off for beautiful Queenstown and moved onto the stupid stuff. That's us in our jet boating outfits. Jetboats are daft things designed and operated by cheerful petrol-heads, which can be filled up with tourists, chucked around a river at several million miles an hour, and swerved past rocks, and do 360 degree spins. (I don't think they have any other purpose). There is also a video of that. Hilariously it features me picking my nose. Queenstown itself is ace, on a lake surrounded by mountains, brimming with pubs and restaurants, and full of idiots chucking themselves off things. Which brings me on to the canyon swing. I'm not sure what we were thinking here. We sort of thought it would be a nice fun swing (I imagine a few of you are shaking you heads here) but of course it's actually just a bungy jump where you don't bounce back up, you swing across. And it's more scary - your average bungy jump has 40 metres of freefall and this has 60. Sooo stupid.
So we got in our outfits, Zoe was quite calm, and I was fucking terrified. Zoe went first and after a bit of coaxing managed to jump off forwards which was mightily impressive. I was having none of this, and made them hang me up and pull a release thing so I didn't have to jump. Predictably, for full comic effect, he released it mid sentence, ("There's just a couple of things I need to *snip*") and I screamed like someone being murdered with a chainsaw. Here I am falling.
Then Zoe decided she wanted to do it again. I have NO idea what was going through her head. If you do it again you don't have to pay but you do have to do a crazy stunt - so, obviously, she chose falling off backwards strapped to a plastic garden chair. You can never get enough of this picture.
And then the next day, for a bit of respite, we did a whole day of horse riding which we loved, despite a slight feeling of the landscape being marred by Lord of the Rings tourism. Here's adrenaline Driver going at full pelt and here's me and Polar splashing about in the river. We met a lovely couple of lads on the horseriding called Peter and Alex and had lunch in a deserted mining village. Peter has promised to mention my sunglasses on his blog.
And that, as they say, is that. St Patrick's day was fairly predictable.

And if you REALLY want to see them, here are the videos of our canyon swing. *holds head in hands*

Rick
Zoe (swing 2)

Blue Mountains Not Blue: Shock Report

The Blue Mountains are not blue, nor are they mountains, I can exclusively reveal. They are in fact a big green valley. A source close to the mountains yesterday claimed, "They sometimes look blue, from a distance". Seeing as this is the case with all mountains, I remain unconvinced. However they are very nice, but in the interests of chronology I'll get on to that later.
We got back to Sydney just over a couple of weeks ago now, and had an amazing few days recuperating and resting back at Christiane's. She made us fabulous healthy food, and we read books, played with Mitsy and went for swims in the local rock pool. One day it got full of bluebottle jellyfish (Portuguese man'o'war) and I got scared and got out, although some people kept swimming. I've heard they give you great scars that look like whip marks but I got out anyway and spent an hour fishing them out with a net and inspecting them, before throwing them in the jellyfish bin. Our most spectacular trip to the rock pool was when a storm came over like a roof. Unfortunately this was the storm that soaked my ipod and it is now dead.
Then we checked into the youth hostel in town, for the weekend, (youth hostels have changed - look at this rooftop pool!), met up with our friend Rory from Fraser Island, did some shopping, and mooched around the city. (Which by this point was infested with gays).
Check out this graffitti - one of my favourite pictures so far this trip.
And then on Saturday it was Mardi Gras. Obviously this was a lot of fun, and the pictures are endless. I will try and be brief.
We started off in the park, where there were some teenagers in funny neon outfits, and then headed up to the parade which was led by the dykes on bikes. (Here's more). Followed by all the obligatory representation from the public services - here's the police, and the army although I sincerely hope that's not the real army. Here's me up a lamppost watching the parade (yes that's another home haircut). This is Zoe and Christiane pretending to be lesbians, quite convincing I thought. We also made some friends; Here's Christiane with a gladiator, and this is me with little red riding hood. Other highlights included the big head-dresses, dancing letters, a man dressed up as kylie (obviously), and Lisa this is specially for you, a "bear" dressed up as an angel. There's a lot more I could bore you with, but I won't. I personally never get bored of glittery sponge lettering. And here's a good example of how my stupid new camera always focuses on the wrong thing. I vaguely remember later on making friends with a nice man from the navy, with a pirate-ship tattoo. I forget his name, but that's his fault for buying me four whisky and cokes.
We flung away our hangovers in true city-Sunday style by going for a massive breakfast, walk (over the bridge to the North shore) where we went to the fair. I went on a pirate ship, in honour of the man whose name I have forgotten. After being scared "wit"less in the "prison Break Live" thing (never go in one - it involves a chicken wire maze with strobe lighting, and out of work actors covered in blood flinging themselves at you in the dark, it was horrible. Zoe will want me to point out she wasn't scared, but I was) we found our better selves in the hall of mirrors, and played on the slides.
And then we had our last day in Australia, at the "Blue Mountains" (see above). They were cool, comprising Australia's highest waterfall folks, an intrepid 3 hour hike through the jungle (see I told you they're not mountains), a ride on a brass horse, a very steep funicular railway, a cable car past the three sisters and some aboriginal dancing.
And that, guys, was our last day in Australia. *weep*. We are missing lots of things, but one thing we are NOT missing is Christiane's jam, because she gave us some to take with us and we had to cleverly smuggle it through customs. This was our last view of Sydney, from the airport.

And now we're in New Zealand! It's verrrry beautiful, and unlike Australia the weather is beautiful too *touch wood*.
Due to budgetry restraints we've hired a "wicked camper" in Christchurch, which are cheap rubbish camper vans for students and poor people. They are only about ten quid a day though - and we need it for five weeks. The downside is that they all have some crazy art on them. And you don't get to choose. We missed out on all the cool ones (We've seen The Doors, Kiss, Elvis, etc) and have ended up with a jaded political message about George Bush. It could have been worse. Look at this one we were parked next to. What were they thinking??
So after some teething problems (the radiator pipe blew off and sprayed water and oil all through the gear box and onto my jeans) the van is fully up and running. It has been amazing so far. Very different to Oz. I'm wondering how to make it blog-worthy seeing as everywhere is very deserted, and there is nothing much to do except drive places and look at the scenery, which is great for us, but boring for you. You'll like this though, we went on a boat from yet another crowded beach, and saw our first ever whale. In fact we saw three, and some dolphins, which was amazing.
So, thanks to some careful planning over sandwiches in the van, we are well underway in New Zealand. We have also been to Akoroa bay, which has a really cute town, and one of our favourite things, a crap museum. And yesterday when it was windy we did some crazy golf. Check out the Downtown hole, the rollercoaster (your ball actually goes on the rollercoaster) and the castle with the snapping portcullis. All pure genius.
The nicest thing about NZ is the familiar wildlife. I saw some bumble bees yesterday, and a couple of days ago a hedgehog tried to lick our washing up clean. I am rambling a bit, and running out of money on the meter, so I had better go. Today's picture to finish is this one of Zoe demonstrating how windy it can get here.
Oh, and what do you call a lesbian off-license? Yup.
See you all soon!
x

The croc, the flip-flop and the exotic dancer

Phew, you'll be glad to hear we're back in Sydney and in the BLAZING sunshine although I shouldn't say that and jinx us... Currently sitting in christiane's lovely beach residence after an overnight flight from Darwin. We've had showers and done some washing and had cups of tea and EVERYthing, it's so exciting, and this afternoon we are going to the beach. As of today it's our last week in Australia. Where did that go exactly!
When I left you we were about to board the bus from Airlie to Cairns which had previously been doomed to all and sundry, but we had a lucky break in the clouds and made it in one piece. Cairns itself was a bit dull, apart from a nice beachfront pool, but we were only there one day and then we flew to Darwin. Here is everything you will ever need to know about Darwin. 1) It is very hot. 2) It is very wet. 3) It has the highest alcohol consumption per person in the WORLD. 4) It is the gateway to Kakadu, the national park where Crocodile Dundee was filmed. 5) The top tourist attraction in the city itself is when someone from the tourist office goes and throws bread in the harbour and some fish come and eat it.
So guess which one we were there for. Yes that's right, number 3. Hehe, only kidding, of course it was number 4.
So Darwin is not very big, and a bit of a cultural wasteland, but we did find some good graffitti. (Graffitti in australia is often quite classy). We had an infuriating night in the hostel trying to cook some pasta when the gas kept going off, and a loud swedish woman was trying to tell me how to boil water (she nearly ended up wearing it) then the next morning we set off for Kakadu.
The first of the many cool things we saw were these giant cathedral termite mounds. You get the picture of Zoe for that one, I was pulling a hilarious "ant face". We also saw some tombstone termites. Our guide for Kakadu was very clever, he made termites interesting and I would even go so far as to recommend looking them up on wikipedia. they have one queen in each hill. I won't spoilt the rest. On the subject of our guide, he was a regular crocodile dundee outback genius (probably no coincidence). He screeched to a halt, ran over to a tree, and caught us a frill-necked lizard. It soon got its own back. After the lizard excitement we went for a walk. In the wet season Kakadu is mainly grassy floodplains, rocky rainforest and canyony waterfalls. All v cool. I managed to lose a flip flop trying to get a photo from the middle of the river. Luckily I am very nimble and after a bit of flailing around with a stick, I managed to fish it out before it went over this. Look how happy I am. I'd never have found it, and they were a right bargain, $10 in Byron Bay.
Then we got to grips with the wildlife you all go to Kakadu to see. This is me looking nervous around the local Olive Python. And then losing my cool when it went for the nuts. And then we went on a boat where some lunatic dangles meat off it, so you can see the crocodiles. This one was really old and massive. This one was small and graceful.
Somewhere hidden away in the hills was some ancient rock art, loads of it, between 4,000 and 20,000 years old. I won't bore you but here's my favourite, the lightning god. And then we polished off the day with another good outback sunset.
We did loads of walking Kakadu (you have to) so the boots got a good wear. The walks take you to all sorts of isolated and idyllic little ponds and waterfalls, it was amazing. This sign obviously gets ignored by the occasional nutter. Same went for the one that says "jump in at your own risk". Here's another waterfall, Zoe at the bottom of it and some of us swimming somewhere. On the way back we went to a roadhouse where they have the actual buffalo from Crocodile dundee, stuffed.
So that was another trip and another group, and another hunky but somewhat brainless assistant guide. We finished it off in the true Darwin tradition of watching a drunk band, pouring beer up your nose, go-go girls, and drinking rubbish alcopops because you get a scratchcard.
I'll leave you with this sign which made Zoe's day. (That would be Ms Zoe Driver, in case you didn't know).
I'm going to the beach now. (This one)

Who's Harry Krishna?

Ahhh thanks guys it's nice to come back to some comments. You'll be sad to hear that straw hat bit the dust.

I have got SO much to tell you I don't know where to start. Not many pictures unfortunately but the reasons for that will become evident. So, basically, Australia is having it's worst weather in 40 years (the time period varies depending who you ask). Or so we are being told. We are beginning to wonder if the whole sunny Australia thing is a clever tourism myth, some sort of global joke. Apart from a few days in sydney and Melbourne it has rained perpetually since we got here. Queensland (where we are now) has been hit by cyclones, widespread floods and all the roads are closed. It's all quite funny. Keep that in your head as a backdrop to the following...

We stayed in Byron bay for a few days to chill out. Byron bay is a cool hippy town so it was definitely a good place to recharge. There was a shop offering to paint you as a fairy but we never got round to it. We had a bit of a laugh taking the piss out of some capoera dancers, I'm sorry, I have come round slightly to Yoga now I've discovered one of my best friends is a yoga teacher, but capoera is taking things too far (if you haven't come across it before it's a "martial art" that blends fighting and breakdancing; sounds cool; isn't). During the 5 days we were in Byron there was a brief few hours of sun so I went surfing and I Think zoe walked to the lighthouse. We had a giant dinosaur living in our garden, who we named Cooper. We also watched Fool's Gold which has very few redeeming features but is possibly worth seeing for Ray Winstone's Deep South (America) accent.

From Byron we moved north to Hervey bay which was the base for our Fraser Island Adventure. And it was quite an adventure, let me tell you. It's a big (100mile long) island made entirely of sand and rainforest and the idea is you hire a 4x4, buy some food, get the ferry, and spend 3 days bombing up and down the beaches and through the forests. The problem is you have to cook, drive, camp and co-operate with a group of complete strangers which would normally be fine, but we got stuck with some totally ineffectual 19 year old Germans & Belgians who were just far too young to look after themselves. And they were all too young to drive, so between 11 of us there were only two of us driving, me and a girl called emma from Southampton who was LOVELY and made it all worthwhile. Anyway, we (I) managed to burst a tyre 15 minutes into the journey, on some sort of jungle root, which was quite funny. Despite this we managed to get to the other side of the island and set up camp. We made sure we camped with the other vans so we had some nice people to talk to.
At this point the weather totally collapsed, and all our carefully erected tents along the beach (this was the view - it was very remote) started to leak. We managed to get 3 of the vans together and strapped up a ground sheet between them. In time honoured tradition, to ignore the fact we were wet and cold, we all got drunk. This proved to be a mistake because we forgot to put the rubbish in the van so our camp was invaded by dingoes at4/5am which was about the same time all the tents fell apart and flooded. Waking up in a howling gale surrounded by flat tents and dingoes was a really cool experience.
It all got better from here, despite a second burst tyre. The weather didn't improve and the tents were so f*cked we checked into a lodge for the second night. This meant we got to have a shower and a proper feed. Unfortunately by this point my camera was beyond repair but hopefully I can steal some other people's off facebook at a later date. What I can show you is the nice lake , the main road at its busiest, and a parrot. Oh and the two drivers, me and Emma, and of course Zoe Driver.

So we made it back to the mainland in one piece and were confronted with loads of horror stories about the floods and some tourists being winched off a boat etc. We were booked on a bus going North (right into the middle of it all) to get on a boat to the whitsunday islands. Not wise, but we decided to go anyway. We were really lucky - there was a cyclone and some of the buses just before and after ours got stuck along the way, or flooded, but ours made it through by some miracle although it took 24 hours instead of 14. And when we got there we discovered all the boats had been cancelled, (alot were all smashed up) except one; a racing yacht called "Spank Me" (groan) which was the only one capable of sailing in such bad weather. Being the intrepid people we are we transferred onto it, leaving our nice comfortable catamaran with a lounge and bar safely in the harbour. I'm SO glad we did it, it was amazing and we met such an ace group of people. Basically we spent 3 days reliving "The Perfect Storm", drinking cheap wine out of a bag, and not being dry once. I went scuba diving for the first time ever, at the Great Barrier Reef, which was a very proud moment, I have a certificate to prove it.

I didn't take many photos because my (new) camera was getting soaking wet and all the pictures I did take are generally of us all getting pissed and drawing on ourselves with luminous zinc sticks. But here are the photos anyway. Here's the boat. Here's Driver driving. These are our new friends Theresa and Philippa and here we are with our sunblock on. This is our captain biting his nails which is never a good sign and here he is trying to fix the generator, a key moment in all our memories. This is the boat that the tourists were winched off (see above). this is Tara modelling the bedroom that 12 of us had to fit in (You can actually see all 12 beds in that photo). This is everyone winding up the sails and here we all are drunk.

I think I've just run out of time on the internet so I had better go, but just to finish off - we are stranded in Airlie beach and all the buses are cancelled and the airport closed. There is 3 METRES of rain predicted tonight, and somehow we have to get to Cairns in 2 days, wish us luck...

Ice cold in alice

Hello kids,
First of all some general admin.
1) Happy birthday Rachel! (I know it's late, sorry) hope you had a great day :)
2) My mistake on the last post; it's not 4 days drive from Bateman's Bay to Sydney it's 4 hours. heh. Those Australians amongst you were probably wondering what route we had taken there...
Speaking of which,
3) Clare, call yourself an aussie - they are "Grey Kangaroos" not "Wallabies". (What funny animal names you have here). One of them was a baby though so I'll let you off.

So all in all sydney was great, you probably picked up on that, but it was very exciting leaving because we were getting our first internal flight. Not least because we were heading to the desert, and deserts are way cool.

Oh, I should warn you before I start writing that my camera is completely up the spout, and the light meter ist kerput, so some of the photos are really weird colours.

Unfortunately our plane to Alice Springs wasn't a little Indiana jones plane with propellers, it was a proper passenger plane. Alice is, however, not a proper town. It is a mini place (smaller than wilmslow) and I think it's famous because a) it has a nice name (although no spring) and b) it's the only town for 3 days drive in each direction, of which there are two - up and down. Why anyone would want to live there I've no idea, but it is quite chilled (despite being VERY hot). Zoe got a new day-sack. I bought a hat then sat down and had a beer which attracted several flies, one wasp, and an aborigine. I also bought some pink sunglasses. They will crop up later...
We were a bit unlucky with our accomodation in Alice; it was a 16 person dorm in a hostel, and the other 14 inhabitants were perma-drunk australian manual workers who insisted on calling me buddy and bro (etc) and trying to get me to smoke weed with them. Going to bed involved wading through porn magazines, work boots and beer cans. Luckily we were only there for 1 night.

So, now for the red photos. Our "outback safari" was really really ace. We were basically bunged in a minibus for 3 days with the same 20 people, camping under the stars, eating rubbish food and visiting red rocks, and walking a lot. We loved it.

So here's the bus and the road, and here's the view (which I stared at for a total of approximately 15 hours). The weather was rubbish (It was cloudy) so we were denied a sunset at The Rock - therfore it looked like this. Not very red at all. Unless you employ the red filter. And here's the team. The next day we also missed out on a sunrise thanks to the weather. But then we did the long hike all the way round it which was really wicked. Once you start learning about all the aborigine stuff it takes on a weird spooky atmosphere, like a huge cathedral. Here's a weird mouth thing. This is me by a pond where a giant snake-lady had a fight. this is Zoe modelling her lovely fly hat. (we both have them, aren't they gorgeous).

I particularly liked the wave cave. Apparently aborigines made their kids stand here for days, because they believe you have to learn patience before you can become a real man. This explains a lot. In case you haven't seen it before, here's what Uluru looks like at close quarters. This is Zoe modelling a close up of the rock, for those of you who are interested in geology you can see it's made of a rusty metal type thing. To be precise.

We also visited the Olgas, and I took a brief detour to Mars.

Camping was a laugh. We slept in swags and made our own bread. (That's Kerry, Hi Kerry). See if you can spot the Irish person in this photo. We camped right in the depths of the outback. Here I am collecting firewood. At night a dingo came in, looking for babies to steal. Here he is looking at me. And here he is leaving. (Stu we'd like you to name him, seeing as you did such a good job with Karl the goat.) Here's an outback sunset, and this is one of my favourite pictures ever, an upside down Orion, taken from my cosy swag. The stars were beyond amazing, but I won't lose my cool and gush. Anyone who's been to the middle of nowhere will know what I mean.
And the other highlight from the "Red Centre" of Australia, as it's known, was the King's Canyon. It was a bit of a climb, but at the top there was a fossilised sea, plants left over from dinosaur times and perhaps best of all, the bit where they filmed some of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. We took it in turns to do the frock on a rock pose (Me. Zoe). There was also an ancient billabong called the Garden of Eden which ironically was probably discovered by aborigines about 70,000 years before the bible was written. That's all the politics I'm doing today folks.

There's lots more I could say about that very cool part of the world but the photos go on a bit and they're all the same colour. We had a night out in Alice with our outback friends, a brief stay in Brisbane where I briefly thought I'd accidentally caught a plane back to Stockport, (What on earth Scott and Charlene are doing there I have no idea), got out as quick as we could and are now in Byron Bay, home of hippie surf culture, before heading up to do some sailing in the Whitsundays. Unfortunately it is chucking it down with rain so we are at a bit of a loose end. You're not allowed to swim because it's all stormy so I am predicting an afternoon in the pub.

I'll just leave you with my latest persona; Outback Rick.

is that you sydney?

HI
Once again we have done too much to write about succinctly since my last post so i apologise in advance for more rushed waffle if that is indeed what comes out of my fingers now...
Had much fun driving around the snowy mountains and going on charilifts, which I might have mentiooned last time. We have enjoyed the English place names. This one was quite funny. This one will only mean something to certain members of my family. On the subject of dodgy names, check out this cheese.
Our next stop on the way to sydney was out-of-the-way Bateman's bay (where we made kebabs and used our first coin-operated barbecue) and the surrounding beaches; the most exciting of which was pebbly beach, where we were inundated by kangaroos trying to eat our crisps and steal Zoe's phone. It was really cool, you could touch them and everything. I took the opportunity to cuddle one, although in the tussle for the crisps one stood on Zoe's foot and drew blood. We are telling people she has been mauled by a wild kangaroo.
After that it was quite a dull 4 day's drive to sydney, arriving in which was VERY exciting. This far into the trip my hair was beginning to malfunction so I bought some scissors from a service station and cut it all off over the bin in a backpackers hostel. How times have changed. After that we spent the evening checking out the obvious sights, (Obvious sight 2), climbing the tower (here's sydney by night and here is a picture of luna park) and getting ready for Australia day. I'm not sure how we have fluked being in the right place for all these major events (thailand at new year, melbourne for the open, sydney for australia day) but despite the acomodation issues, it's been amazing. For thos of you that aren't australian, or happen to work with any, australia day is a day when millions of australians get pissed, watch bands, (That was Dan Sultan, we liked him. He is indiginous) and watch fireworks (My fireworks photos are shit but you know what fireworks look like). We were both a bit freaked out by the large amounts of giant bats in Sydney. They also had a big car rally which is why there's millions of car photos on flickr - I'm not sure what I thought I was doing there.
Later that evening I took this photo of the Opera house which I am pleased with.
The rest of our time in Sydney has been an opportunity to catch up with those of you who have emigrated, ALL of whom have sickeningly jealous-makingly great lives. Dufty took me in her jeep to a cool bay where you can go swimming and look at the skyline. Yesterday we met up with Christiane who's living in a huge old beach house (with the world's biggest bathroom) on a hill in Coogee with a view of the sea. (grrr). From her house it's a really nice walk to bondi past a few beaches where we went snorkelling. I should say thanks to the very helpful Mark for finding me a giant blue grouper (? spelling) and taking Zoe her glasses. And in Bondi we had an ice cream then bumped into suzy and Luke. So here we all are post-beach and pre-drinks.
So Sydney life is very agreeable and civilised. We have been at the beach again today. My favourite thing is the swimming pools that fill up with sea water when the tide comes in. I think I am going to live here for ever. Or I would were it not for the fact that we are going to Uluru tomorrow. Yes folks in a moment of madness we are going off-itinerary and visiting The Rock at a mere cost of *cough* million pounds. Apparently it's, erm, quite hot at this time of year so the next blog post might be written by a charred corpse... (At least the cemetary here is a beautiful place to hang out. Ooh - Lee - we even saw your tomb.)
So that's all for now, I am, for once, fully up to date. I am now going for a shower followed by a bowl of pasta by the beach. As always, missing you all xxx

[PS. This last photo is for people who worked at BBC broadcast. We saw some australian dead-ringer lookalikes for Paul Marsh and Andrew Davies in a bar. I took this surreptitious photo. W.E.I.R.D]