Hello from the swish resort town of Noosa Head on the Queensland coast. I'm just taking advantage of my 2 hours here to get on the Internet for the last time in a few days (how sad of me!), before I am cut off when we get to Fraser Island and then the farm stay near Rockhampton. Its the last stop for us on our days drive from Surfers Paradise to Fraser Island. We left Surfers at around 7.45am and spent 2 hours this morning in Brisbane, and we'll arrive in Fraser ...

Much to the disappointment of most of you I'm sure, I didn't try my hand at surfing during our stay at surf camp. I thought the price for the 2 hour lesson was too expensive (like most things in Australia) and the whole sport doesn't really appeal to me. Its not something I could ever see myself doing again, and the whole surfer scene just grates me for some reason. I guess its the whole image obsession of it all, and the guys running the camp exactly fitted the ...

So my 25 day Contiki tour is underway. Although Contiki follow the same format as Connections (a tour bus and quad share accommodation in budget hotels) the atmosphere is very different. There are 35 of us currently, and the bulk of the people are from North America - a vast change from the British dominated groups I've previously been in. There are also plenty of Aussies travelling their own country, 1 or 2 who are bizarrely from the East Coast themselves. The ...

Hello for the second time from Sydney (for the first blog click the drop down box). My 6 day stay in this city is almost at an end. Tomorrow at the horrific time of 7.30am my Contiki tour departs from a nearby hotel, bound first for Port Stephens, 2.5 hours north. It will be strange to leave after nearly a week here, which is the longest I've spent anywhere in 3 months, but I'm definitely ready to meet my new tour group. Every single person who has stayed in my 4...

Good evening from Down Under. I have made it to Australia and am now midway through a 6 day stay in the country's signature city, Sydney. The early morning flight with Jetstar really took it out of me, although the flight itself ran smoothly. They at least offered in-flight entertainment TV's for a small fee, which saved me 3 hours of complete boredom. When I stepped off the plane I was hugely disappointed to find the weather was a bit miserable. It was very wind...