The exertions of the previous day had taken their toll so we left the hotel late. The walk to McDonalds (to use the WiFi and forcing us to eat chips) took us past the Cross Country course that is being created in Victoria Park near the hotel. The Australian Horse Trails are the only Olympic standard event in the Southern Hemisphere all year and is comparable to the Burley Horse Trials. The venue is right next to the city centre and the jumps are HUGE. The staff w...

We can now reveal all as to why we timed the visit to Australia when we did. We have SEEN Father Christmas 6 weeks early in the Grand Christmas Pageant in Adelaide. We were lucky enough to see him along with 335,000 other South Australians in 30 degree heat at the end of a parade lasting over an hour and a half (This might explain the difficulty in booking a hotel room in Adelaide). The annual event seems to be something of a hidden treasure even though this wa...

Our plan to see the sunrise again at the lighthouse failed, Nicola said it was too cloudy, I think that was an excuse to stay in bed a bit longer. We heard our final dawn chorus before leaving the house asleep in Byron Bay for the 2 hr drive to Brisbane Airport. The original plan had been to have 3 nights in Byron and 1 night near the airport but this would have cut out most of the day by the beach and we were not sure of the quality of hotel we would find in Bri...

Our final day at Byron Bay. We have really enjoyed our short stay here and allowed us to take time to recharge our batteries after the frenetic first few weeks. The b&b, Burns at Byron (www.burnsatbyron.com.au) has also been a great place to stay with Hilary making it seem more like a home than an accommodation. Today I actually made the beach in the MORNING starting with a long walk past the wreck to the beach houses and back. There were a number of what ...

Set the alarm (05:00) for yet another early morning to see the sunrise at Cape Byron, the most easterly point on the Australian mainland. We managed to bag the last parking spot to save a lot of uphill walking and arrived at 05:35. Dawn was timed for 05:47 but the sky was already light when we took our position along with a small number of like minded nerds. Unfortunately there was cloud on the horizon and clear skies above so it was not destined to be a vintage ...