Hello everyone,

We hope you guys are well. We are now in Australia. We arrrived in Melbourne on the 4th November just in time for Melbourne Cup day. We didn't get a chance to go to the actual races but since they have a public holiday on that day we did manage to celebrate with the locals.

After a 9 hour overnight flight from Bangkok with absolutely no sleep we arrived at Frances and John's house (Friends of Steph from London) in the Albert park area of Melbourne and proceeded to drink and have our first Aussie barbie, well it was actually an English barbie since all but one of the guests were from London! but it was a great day and we managed to stay up until 11pm getting smashed and drinking VB (that's beer to the uneducated).

We spent the next few days hanging around Melbourne just enjoying the city, going to many great bars and restuarants in the city and outlying St Kilda. We even managed to head down to the great beaches on the Mornington Peninsula. We did visit the Melbourne museum as well, with the sole purpose of seeing the set of Jim Robinson's house....its not there anymore and we were very disappointed.

After the weekend there we hired a car, well i say a car but it was really a boy racer Mistubushi Lancer GSX 3.8 or something or other. Rob loved it. We went down the great ocean road for 3 days staying in Lorne and then Port fairy, but not before heading down to Bell's beach to check out the surf. We checked it out and then drove on...big big waves that scared the hell out of us and thought better leave it alone. Rob did pick up some $40 flip flops to replace the ones Steph forced him to chuck out due the smell they produced, so at least he was happy as a pig in the proverbial.

The great ocean road is a fantastic drive, especially when you're in a car that goes like a bat out of hell. We saw 5 wild koala's and plenty of roos ( Rob got very excited at the koalas and did scream like girl when he spotted them) and all the major sites ( 12 apostles etc) but after the umpteenth limestone sea stack we did get a little bored and decided to head back to Melbourne the quicker none scenic route from Port fairy. We passed through a few places that would have put american deep south towns to shame.

From Melbourne we got a flight to Alice springs ( only just, since we got lost in the car trying to find the airport). This place is hot and i really do mean hot. We arrived and it was 40C. There isn't a huge amount in the town apart from a few bars and drunk aboriginals. The next day was an early start to get to Kings canyon. After a huge drive we did abit of walking around the canyon, which was quite nice. then we headed over to see the sunset on Uluru. unfortunately we didn't manage to do this since a storm came in and it rained..alot, but with amazing thunderstorms and fork lighting.

We got up the next day to see the sunrise over Uluru. However since it was very cloudy after the storm we didn't get to witness the full effect of the changing colours of the rock, but it was still great to be there. We know it's just a rock, a very big rock, but still a rock. However, having been there we can see why the aboriginals hold it as a sacred sight as it does kind of loom over you and when you stand next to it is very impressive. After Uluru we headed over to the Olga's which are actually higher than Uluru just are not one solid rock. Still it was impressive to see them. We headed back to Alice springs that night since we were going upto Darwin the next day.

Another early morning again as we got up to head to Darwin. There were 24 of us on the tour bus, a little cramped, but there were some great people (even the hungarian lads who can talk and talk and talk at increasing levels. Its actually quite impressive skill if you take a step back abit and try not to beat them into being silent!) There isn't a huge amount to see as you drive up the red centre, we did stop at the devils marbles, quite a few outback cattle stations/pubs, the famous Daly waters pub ( not sure why it's famous but its a nice pub) and a few natural water springs and waterfalls. The highlight of the trip though was the guide. A young lad who you could more imagine wrestling crocs than tour guiding. He got very excited a the fact that dry rivers were now flowing ( due to the recent rain), got us stuck in the mud 30 mins after leaving Alice springs when he tried to turn around to show us a very small animal he had never seen and he loved saying 'beautiful' in a strong aussie accent...but his banter was great and he loved a beer so he was alright by us.

We arrived in Darwin after 3 days on the road. Darwin is a small city and as far as i can tell the chaviest town we've been to so far. We were only here for one night before heading off to kakadu national park. This is the place where crocodile dundee was filmed and we can see why, It's unbelievabley beautiful. We did a ride on the Mary river to see the crocs and then headed to Ubirr where they have plenty of amazing view points over the park's valleys and has tons of rock paintings by the aboriginals. Our guide this time was part aboriginal and had been initiated into a local tribe so the insight we got into the life of these people was pretty good. Before heading back to camp we passed by the South Alligator river to see if we could see anymore crocs. We didn't since it was too hot and they were under the water, however the guide did point out that should we try sand swim the river it was unlikley that we would have made it 10 m from the shore before getting nabbed by a saltwalter croc, we left pretty quickly after this and headed to camp.

The next day we went over to Jim Jim falls. luckily for us as it had been raining over the last few days the waterfall was in action. After a quick and turbulent bit of 4x4 driving we managed to get a swim in the plunge pool ( minus any crocs..apparently). We were supposed to go to Twin falls as well but since the water was too low we couldn't get there.

We arrived back in Darwin that night..it should have been day but the tour company forgot they had to come and pick a few of us up so we had to get a lift with another tour company. I'll save you the details but at one point they suggested that we hitch the 120km back to Darwin by ourselves..idiots, and once i have finshed this i intend to go over to their offices and tell them so!

We leave Darwin tomorrow to head to Cairns for some diving and pick up of our campervan. The weather has been pretty bad in South Queensland but we won't be heading to that part for a week or so and the strorms have now stopped there..so fingers crossed we get to see the coast in all its sunny glory.

Tata for now and we'll write soon

Rob and Steph