Nes starts: Hello - since last writing we spent our last few days in Bali in a place called Kuta which has the best surf beach but is the most touristy with such fierce competition amongst the vendors that we found it quite hard work.

Anyway Rhiain succesfully passed her PADI dive course and was a natural. We are looking forwards to more diving in Oz.

We arrived in Oz last Friday and spent a few days in Adelaide. We got v drunk on the first night there and chatted to some guys on a 'Buck' night which was interesting. They were most shocked when we started buying drinks - apparently it's not done here! We struggled with the heat and the hangovers the next day as we went into the CBD of Adelaide which turned out to be quite dull so we ended up back at the seafront where we were staying in a nice apartment.

On Sunday we flew to Alice Springs which is small town Oz - all a bit of a shock. We checked into our first backpackers lodge which I wasn't v impressed with as it was dirty and smelly and the aircon was crap. We spent that evening at an Aboriginal show and dinner which was really good. The dancers were from western oz and looked a lot different from the aboriginal people in Alice who are not the best lookers in the world. We met an American guy called Otis and a nice British couple and went to Bojangles which is pretty much the only good bar in Alice. It's full of 'interesting' people to watch.

On Monday morning we got up and 5 to be picked up at 6 for our 5 day 4WD Red Centre tour. There were 17 of us from Britain, France, Germany, Denmark and Holand. Again we found the first few days of going bush a bit of a shock to the system. Temperatures soured over 40 degrees in the shade on most days but we acclimatized eventually and got used to using factor 36 and drinking gallons of water. By day 4 and 5 we were really enjoying it and didn't mind so much that we were dirty, smelly and slightly damp all the time. We walked around Uluru (Ayres Rock), climbed Kings Canyon where the scene from Pricilla Queen of the Desert was filmed - the bit where they get dressed up in drag and climb the mountain. On the 4th day we went from river to waterholes and swam which was lovely and on the last day we went to Palm Valley and Simpson's Cavern and did some quite serious climbing which was really fun.

It was so nice to get back to aircon room and comfy beds though in Alice last night so we went out to celebrate with some of our group to Bojangles but were too tired to get drunk - oh well.

Anyway we are off to Melbourne by plane this afo and will spend a few nights there before driving up to Sydney for Xmas.

Will write again soon!

Lots of Love from Nes and Rhi