YO! Just a short blog to let you know that Cairns is a cool little place, although it reminds me a bit of most European holiday resorts. The MAJOR difference are the tours and things to see. Replace beaches with lagoons and rubbish bars with Crocodile steak houses, and you are nearly there. We started the day with being ripped off today, when the English manager of a shocking hostel REFUSED to refund our money for a room we didn't stay in. But easy come and easy ...

"thriller in Manila" to "thiefing in White beach." Physically this place is awesome, just 7 hours or so from Manila, Manoro island is beautifully set with white beaches, blue water, back dropped with waterfalls, mountains and volcanoes. but the PEOPLE, they are something else. at day time they will find anyway of stitching you up, at night time they literally patrol the beach with a torch for anyone who dares leave there bag or wallet un atten...

Now then peeps-- this blog will be updated a lot more in the next few weeks, especially as we are planning on travelling quite a bit, through the North and maybe the West too. Just to say that Sydney (although cold, dark and pretty grey) looks like a pretty cool city. Paul and Jane (Sharon's brother and his girlfriend) have welcomed us in to their flat in Cremorne, and we haven't done a lot yet. They are obviously going about their normal days, working and earnin...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAURA! Between Faye, Adele, Mike, Sharon, Nick and I, we sang that song about ten times yesterday! (Apparently it is a Dean family thing, so we tried to do the same...)This is just a small update, to say what an amazing time we had last night, on the Victoria Peak tram thing. The view in the picture above says it all, and despite a bit of cloud (as we were so high up, looking down on the world of Hong Kong), it was clear in an hour. Just like ...

Hello All! we have arrived in the Philipenes, "Thriller in Manila" it certainly is.we arrived at the "stoned" hotel to a lady who seemed to be sniffing a bag of sick up her nose and a laminated home made sign suggesting that bringing fire arms into the premises would not be a great idea.all in all i would say the overwhelming feeling at this point was "welcoming." even more welcoming as we turned to see a man snarling at Mike while s...