And the orcs went there, and the elves went there...

I finished The Fellowship of the Ring (thanks Simon!) on the train. I tried to read The Lord of the Ring when I was a kid but failed, and still had "issues" with all the dull padding in the first book (I skipped through most of the songs, not knowing the tunes). I've been told the trilogy (it's not actually a trilogy - yawn) is really good as a whole, so thought I'd give it a go while I have the time. I enjoyed the first book (first two books actually - yawn) and it really made me appreciate what a fine adaptation the first movie was. Peter Jackson et al did a great job of removing the dead-wood and keeping the essence of the book. Perhaps a novelisation based on the screenplay would be a better read? (That is a joke.)

I've just started Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. So far it's a good read, though some of the "revelations" are hardly shocking to anyone who understands that advertising's purpose is to make people buy products, rather than to perform a public service. Schlosser seems to think it sinister that McDonalds and co "target" unsuspecting customers. A minor quibble though - other, proper revelations are genuinely disturbing. I'm looking forward to the rest of the book.

All a-bored?

Phew - well we've come out of our 39 rail journey from Perth, across the Nullarbor Plain to Adelaide, and without too much lasting damage, neither.

I'd been dreading this journey, and have been loudly complaining to all who'll listen that Anne has forced my hand on the issue of going by train. She thought it would be "romantic". I disagreed. I thought it would be horrible and crowded. We couldn't afford a cabin, so would be in a normal train carriage for the journey - yikes. Plus some Lancashire half-wit in Freo told us it was a horrible journey and there'd be kids running up and down the aisle the whole time.

As it was it wasn't bad. The seats were comfy and there was lots of legroom, plus the "Red Kangaroo daynighter carriages" were more than half empty so we had four seats to ourselves (two sets of two facing each other). We managed to sleep better than we'd expected and the view of the Nullarbor (no trees - Latin fans) was good. We left Perth on Sunday morning, arrived in gold mine town Kalgoorlie at about 10pm. Anne and I had a walk around there for half an hour and then reboarded and put our pyjamas on (not really). The train left Kalgoorlie just before 2am, but we were sleeping. I awoke on Monday morning to a spectacular view of the Nullarbor. I was dead impressed and nearly woke Anne up to show her, before realising that would be bad, since we'd be seeing these views for the whole day!

Before lunch we stopped on Cook - a tiny town (population of 2) that's there just to service the Indian Pacific Railway. It used to be a proper town with a hospital and school, but that was before railway privatisation. We hopped off there for some photos and felt glad we weren't in the posh "Gold Kangaroo" cabins. This wasn't just because it would have costed 10 times what we paid, it was also because all the passengers there we bumbling old couple who would have just got in our way a lot! (I'm kidding - we'd have been locked up antisocially in our posh cabin the whole time.)

There was "video entertainment" but this mainly consisted of weird, rubbish films from the seventies and eighties. The choices were baffling - Bill Cosby's Leonard, Part 6 anyone?? We did watch some of Philadelphia, but since we didn't see it all and some important parts were ruined by announcements I'm not able to give a star rating. Mainly I read and listened to music and comedy on my CD player.

We awoke on Tuesday just before the train pulled into the station at Adelaide, on time, at 7.20am. What timing!

Born to be mild

(To the tune of Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild". Obviously.)

Get your hire-car runnin'
Head south on the highway
Lookin' for a hostel
And any freebies that come our way
Yeah darlin' gonna check the map an'
Take the road at a gently pace
Take all your iced buns at once
And shove them in your face

To nerdy to be wild
We were born, born to be mild
We could climb so high
But only if we judge it to be safe

Born to be mild

This is an apt anthem for Anne and me on the road, I'd say. We've really enjoyed having a hire car for a couple of weeks as it gave us much more freedom than the Greyhound bus. Even if some of the things we went to see were closed. The nice thing was it was low season, meaning quiet hostels - yay!

We left the good Stirling Range Retreat at the crack of dawn (9.30am) on Friday, and drove up towards Perth. We were looking for a nice town in which to stay the night, before returning the car to Perth on Saturday. We drove through a few towns with not a lot in them, though many made some effort to attract tourists: "There's plenty to keep the traveller happy here, with ample parking and a modern toilet block." Priceless. One town (Wagin) had a giant fibreglass ram outside the tourist centre and billed that as an attraction. Er, yes.

After a picnic lunch in an unpleasant park Narrogin, next to a stagnant river, we carried on up to York (just north of Beverly - they like to cling to ol' England here). We looked at the hostel there (Kookaburra's) and found it to be very welcoming. We checked in and had the place to ourselves the whole night! York has a nice high street, and a timber furniture shop at which Anne could have spent several lotty wins. We had chilli for tea (yum!) and watched British TV (My Family, NCS Manhunt and Spooks!) It was like we had a big house all to ourselves. Which we did.

The hostel provided a free breakfast, including fruit, cereal, fruit juice, bread and eggs! I whipped up some scrambled eggs, we stuffed our faces, and then we drove to Perth and dropped off the car. Thankfully the car hire place didn't notice a small dent I'd put in the car. Yay!

We're doing chores in Perth in preparation for tomorrow. Tomorrow morning we catch a train from Perth to Adelaide. This will be a 39 hour journey and we don't have a cabin. We just have seats. I am dreading this. Anne thinks it will be romantic. I can't see much romantic about sitting in one seat for 39 hours with kids running up and down the aisles. The leaflet says there is video entertainment, but the photo on the leaflet shows a happy traveller with a guitar standing in front of the TV. I hate people with guitars who inflict their "talents" on other travellers. Gits.

Anyway, before this nightmare we're meeting up with yet another former member of The Economist's staff (Noreen) and are going to ex-Economist Lisa's birthday party! How cool to be going to a party at someone's house after so much hostel-living. Anne's had her hair cut v. short in preparation and looks like a boy. (Actually she looks nice. She looks like a nice boy.)

Albany addendum

Also in Albany I ate an iced bun that was bigger than my face and only cost 20p! Yay!

And I saw a very funny thing at The Patrick Taylor Cottage Museum: the elderly lady at the entrance who took our money (for entrance - she didn't rob us) was sitting spinning yarn at an old fashioned spinning wheel, singing "Stayin' Alive" along with the radio. An amusing sight.

Fun at The "Albany 3"

We went to the "Albany 3" cinema last night and watched the remake of The Italian Job. A lot of people are very wary about this remake, but I've only seen the original once, years ago and didn't have many preconceptions. I'd read some reviews, most of which were positive, so thought we'd give it a go.

The cast was good, though Charlize Theron is too pretty to be believable as an actress (I'd only ever find her believable if she played an actress or a model) and the usually great Ed Norton didn't have a lot to do in the film so he just over-acted. Seth Green played his usualy character (still fairly amusing).

The film's quite entertaining, and the heists are jolly. Reviews had said it was a classy heist movie, and I think this added to my disappointment, as when I heard that I thought: Ocean's Eleven and it was nearly as classy and fun as that.

The worst bit was when Mark Whalburg (sp?), in a Audrey-Hepburn-as-Eliza-Doolittle-"cockney"-accent said (at a completely inapproprate moment) "You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off , awwwwwwww". Of coure, that didn't happen.

Three stars.

Something rotten in the state of Denmark's YHA

Stephen here. On Sunday we left Walpole and drove to Denmark, a small town between Walpole and Augusta. On the way though, we had some things to see, and we were much more successful than on Saturday.

First, soon after leaving Walpole, we went to see the giant Tingle Tree. This is a famously large Red Tingle tree. We parked and walked along the path to the tree. The forest was nice and peaceful. We're chuffed to be back in the land of trees and forests after the desolate north of Western Australia. The "giant" tree itself turned out not to be very big at all. It certainly wasn't very tall. Its girth was large, though the base was hollow (tourists-past used to get photos of their cars parked in its base). You do get the impression that Aussies advertise these tourist attractions and over-hype them because there isn't much to see. That's not true - there are lots of great things to see in Australia, but the place is so large that the real sights are far between.

The next detour was much better - a tree top walk around a giant forest. This tree top walk was mention in Bill Bryson's "Down Under" and Anne and I were keen to go. It was great! The walk rises (without any climbing!) to 40 metres above the ground and you can see the tops of smaller trees and can see all over the forest. The walkway swings a bit and Anne was a bit wary at times, but we loved it. It was so peaceful (there weren't many people around) and nice (Anne is on a drive to remove that word from our vocabularies, so I put it in there to rile her).

Next, on to Denmark. We checked in to the YHA which smells of dog. During our cottaging trips in the UK we've learnt to avoid places that say "Pets Welcome" since that means "Stinks of stinky dogs". Yuck.

The hostel's run by a new-agey couple. The odd music (from before 7am!) and the chanting was a bit much for me. I'm sure Anne loved it. We managed to get over the smell of the dog since Flint - the aging Labrador) was just adorable. The only other guest there was an odd man who wouldn't do his washing up and just sat in front of the TV all day. That's one problem with hostels - you do occasionally get odd vagrants there. Gosh - I'm a big intolerant snob.

Denmark itself was nice (there it is again) and we went for a medium length walk along the river before going to the local museum. The volunteer there was an old man from Ealing! We talked about Ealing for a bit and he caught up on the gossip (Bentalls has changed to Beales!) and then we looked around the museum.

Back to the smelly YHA for the evening, and you can imaging my joy when the strange man hogging the TV went to go to buy some food at 6pm, just in time for me to watch the Sunday repeat of The Movie Show - a fantastic movie review show on SBS. Joy on joys!

Weather was a bit dull in Denmark. Monday's the first day of spring though - perhaps the weather will improve? (I write this on Wednesday, in full knowledge that the weather has been glorious the last three days.)

Biological clock's ticking

When we left Augusta to go to Pemberton, I decided I wanted a break from hostels and wanted a night in a motel. A TV and ensuite would be a nice change. Anne wasn't so bothered, but when we saw the state of the Pemberton hostels she soon came around. One was in town, and had a nice cat there, but looked packed with worker-travellers and was run-down. The other was 9km out in the forest and was deserted. The cabins were dire and run-down and the office was closed - bookings now being taken at the one in town. We found a motel for just $15 more than a hostel room and it was bliss!

We explored what there is of Pemberton, and this includes The Gloucester Tree - a 61 metre tree with metal posts stuck in the side all the way up so you can climb to an observation post at the top! They used to climb this to look out for bush-fires. I climbed it, and Anne didn't. I'm not great with heights. I'm not bad, but not great. I raced up at first, but later became a bit worried and my rate of ascent slowed considerably. The view from the top across the forests was marvelous, so it was well worth it.

Some Vietnamese Aussies were around when I got back to the bottom. I got chatting to a guy (when he saw my digital camera - always a conversation starter). He asked if we were married and I said no. He asked how long we'd known each other, and I told him ten years, but we'd only been together seven and a half. He was visibly shocked and tried to convince me to marry Anne. He explained that a woman's ability to reproduce decreases with age and I really ought to get a move on. Hearing this, a girl in his party who was starting to climb the tree screamed "WILL YOU STOP GOING ON ABOUT REPRODUCTION ALL THE TIME?!"

We then went to Lavender Berry Farm, a nice little place we'd read about. We looked at their alpacas for a bit and looked around. The real reason we went was to have a berry pancake (with ice-cream) and this we now did. My god - it was heavenly. My taste-buds were treated that day I can tell you. I'm telling you - it was glorious! (But expensive at three pounds, so Anne and I had to share one between us.)

Anne and I spent a night in the luxurious (basic) motel room eating hoummous (sp?) and dip, olives and pate and drinking wine. I had a bit too much wine and got a headache.

I must go now - I think I hear Anne's Fallopian tubes aging as I type.

Thar she blows!

First off, my friend Tony in London had an odd bank holiday on Monday. He was sitting with friends in Hyde Park and Han Solo and Ally McBeal walked past him! I'd guess that they didn't realise it was actually Tony, but it was. I never see celebrities, and Tony always does. Humph.

Anyway. Anne and I went to the winery on Tuesday alvo, and tasted several wines. I was driving so we didn't tip too much back. We bought a bottle and our treaty day cost us over $50. Oh dear! However, I managed to justify it since the organised half-day wine tour would have cost us $110. Saving!

On Wednesday morning we left Margaret River and drove down to Augusta. On the way we visited CaveWorks - a display on caves that wasn't very good - and then went to Jewel Cave for an hour long tour. This is the second cave we've been down on our adventure, and Anne has decided that she likes caves. (I should hope so at $15 a pop for a tour!) Jewel Cave was quite impressive, with some unusual formations and big caverns.

We checked in to the Baywatch Manor Hostel in Augusta. This hostel has won 'Best Hostel' awards all but one of the last seven years, or something. Hmmmm. I'm not overly impressed. It's nice, I suppose, and it's clean, which is good, but it's noting special. And this is one of the few hostels we've been in where there's been no hot water for our shower. Grr! And a bunch of Japanese youths insist on having the TV on all the time and putting videos on for five minutes and then putting a different video on, despite claiming not to understand English when I tried to speak to them. Gits.

Today, Anne and I went whale watching. It was great. Some humpbacks had been spotted off the coast so once everyone had boarded the boat, we raced out to look for them. I was disappointed that we didn't find them, but we did see lots of huge Southern Right Whales and their calves. It's a humbling feeling being in the water with these things (well, being on a boat which is in the water). They also gave us sandwiches on the boat - bonus ball! The weather was a bit wet and windy, and Anne got cold, but the skies cleared for a while and the sun came out enough to warm us up a bit.

After the whale watching Anne and I raced out to the most south-westerly point of Australia, where the Indian and Southern Ocean meet. There's Leeuwin lighthouse there too, so we looked at that for a bit. We also saw an old waterwheel. Back at the hostel, after a soup lunch, Anne fell asleep on my shoulder at the dinner table. It seems the travel sickness tablet she took has made her drowsy. I put her to bed, read for a bit, and then snuck out to write this blog. Bless her.

Movies and books

After our Rottnest hell, we treated ourselves to a (discount) movie at Freo cinema on Friday night. We saw Identity, an interesting movie with John Cusack heading a good cast. A bunch of strangers end up at a hotel following a series of coincidences, and they gradually get bumped off by an unknown murderer. Meanwhile a hearing is going on elsewhere to decide the fate of a serial killer. The story twists a little, and I figured out what was going on before it was revealed, so I was happy. The film turns into something more, and less, than a standard bump-em-off killer film. If that sounds like film-review rubbish, don't worry - it means nothing. Three and a half stars.

In the nice Bunbury YHA the nice man let us watch a DVD (joy!) for free (double joy!) We watched The Mothman Prophecies. This is supposedly based on actual events, but seems so far fetched as to make that claim a hindrance to your (my) enjoyment. A bunch of US yokels making some odd claims would be ignored if it weren't for the presence of a Washington Post reporter. Would have been interesting to watch the DVD "doco" (as they're called here). Two and a half stars.

As for books, I've had less time to read. In part this is because I've been home to the UK, but in part it's because we've been busy and there's more to see in the south-west. I read the two Douglas Adams Dirk Gentley novels: Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Souls. I'd not read these since I was a teenager, and it was good to read them again. I like his writing a lot, but I didn't think the second of these two tales was his best. Still enjoyable.

I then read Jared Diamond's sciencey book, Why Is Sex Fun? This is an interesting look at the odd sex-life of humans (compared to animals) and what it says about our evolution. It's a short book (160 pages) and worth a look. Last year I read the author's book Gun's Germs and Steele, which is a really good look at why agriculture and advanced societies evolved where they did. That book's harder going, but recommended too.

Now I'm reading the second volume of Spike Milligan's war memoirs - the oddly titled 'Rommel?' 'Gunner who?' Like the first, it's odd but fun.

Our time in Hell

On Wednesday we got the ferry from Freemantle to Rottnest Isalnd. The ferry trip was quite expensive ($43 each, return) but there's no other way to get there, so we had to bear it. Rottnest Island is famous for being populated by Quokkas - small ratlike wallabies, abundant on Rottnest, rare in the rest of OZ. This is thanks largely to there being few introduced predators on the island.

Soon after we arrived on the island we went for a walk to explore and came across two of the little blighters. How lucky, we thought, and spent ten minutes looking at them and taking photos. We felt a bit silly that we'd spent so long with them, as we soon realised that they were everywhere, and not shy!

The YHA hostel there is an old army barracks and is quite nice. I imagine that Rottnest is a nice place in general, but we didn't really have a chance to find out, since it rained and hailed for most of the time we were there. Oh dear - time spent sitting around the hostel, you'd imagine.

But no. The hostel lounge had been taken over by The Family From Hell. This comprised Mama, Papa and Big Kenny. (Big Kenny was in his 30s.) They were overly-friendly, very simple and bloody annoying. It seems cruel to moan when they were friendly and didn't have a mean bone in their bodies, but there it is. They made life difficult for us and all the other guests there. Grrr.

Big Kenny introduced himself to me about four times, and I told him my name was Stephen. Despite this he proceeded to call me "Davo". He was like an Aussie Trigger from Only Fools And Horses. He kept coming to our room and summoning me to the lounge where Mama awaited with a question or favour. They wouldn't leave us alone while cooking or eating. They sat in every other seat around the lounge, so if anyone else wanted to sit in the lounge they had to snuggle up amoungst them. We spent the evenings freezing in our rooms - playing rummy in our coats. We spoke to others who'd gone to watch their washing dry in the laundry rather than brave The Family From Hell.

Somehow I got into a conversation with Papa about Irish terrorism. He kept asking me about Shane. Shane? I'm no expert on the Irish Problem, but I don't know of a Shane. "The big guy with the curly black hair" he ventured. "Gerry Adams?" I suggested. "That's him - Shane!" "Sinn Fein!" I cried with joy, figuring out what Anne had realised from the beginning.

Strangely, they left Anne alone.

More conversations:

"Pauline Hanson - I call her Pauline Pantsdown!" (Laughter).

"Camilla Parker-Bowles - I call her Camilla Parker-Balls!" (Laughter).

Oh God.

On Thursday the weather was so bad that some of the ferries back were cancelled. It was rumoured that the ferries would be cancelled on Friday, and Big Kenny informed us of this twelve or thirteen times with obvious glee. When told this I looked for a sharp implement to end my pain.

Thankfully, although many ferries were cancelled, including the 10.30am ferry we were booked on, we managed to leave that terrible place at 2.30pm today. I'm sure Rottnest is a lovely place, but weather and circumstance have ensured that we will never return to find out. We're so happy to be back in Freemantle for the night. On Saturday we pop back to Perth to pick up a hire car for our trip around the south-west.

Bloody, bloody Rottnest.

Stephen returns

Hello. Stephen here. I flew back to Perth on Saturday. That is to say I left Heathrow at 3pm on Saturday (an hour late) and got to Perth at 5pm on Sunday. A long, dull flight. Since I was flying back in the same month I flew out the same films were on the plane. I'd seen all those I fancied on the journey to London.

I did watch Basic though. This is a very "twisty" film, none of the twists being interesting or surprising. I ought not have bothered. Two stars.

Again, people were annoying me. People are selfish, and this comes out more than ever on planes, where people must grab as much room as they can. As usual, the people in the row in front of me put their seats back as soon as they possibly could, even during meals. They then spent half the journey leaning forwards in their chairs, and I spent the journey with the TV in my face.

It was good to finally arrive back in Perth. I presented Anne with a bag of gifts. This bag contained:
- gossip mags from the UK (so Anne could find out what the stars of Big Brother 4 and Fame Academy are up to, even though she hasn't seen these shows).
- The Weekend Guardian (so Anne can see a decent paper for a change though annoyingly there is no longer an Editor section).
- Persil non-bio liquitabs (Anne is especially happy with these. She requested them. We don't actually know if they're called "liquitabs", but we imagine they are).
- some chocs and wedding cake, which I snuck through customs.
- a book - Fast Food Nation. Anne believes that after reading this she'll never want fast food again. We'll see.

I was very pleased to see Anne. I decided to chance my arm and tell her how nice her haircut looked. Anne had been talking about getting her hair cut when I left, and I assumed she would have had it done. I instantly realised I'd made a big mistake. Anne slowly shook her head and said "No". Damn. I thought that was a fair bet, and knowing how much girls like haircuts to be noticed I thought the risk was worth taking. Despite my kind presents, I was in trouble already.

Freo
We stayed in Perth on Sunday night, took a 20 minute train journey to Freemantle on Monday morning, and it's here you find us now. Freemantle is a pleasant relaxed coffee-drinking town near Perth. I spent Monday in an exhausted jet-lagged daze, so we didn't do much (though we did go for a cheap meal in the evening and ate far too much!) Today, however, we were more active and went for a tour of the old prison. This was built by convicts and only closed in 1991. Our guide was a Manchunian (sp?) who worked as a guard at the prison for 20 years before it closed.

This afternoon we went to the Freemantle History museum (entry by donation - i.e. free!) It was very interesting, and we didn't get to see it all before it closed so we may go back. Tomorrow, though, we leave here for two days on Rottnest Island.

Search engine fun and worries

It's a little worrying to see some of the search terms used to arrive at this blog. Here's a selection. Some are funny, others a bit sick (a few people clearly looking for kiddie porn).

You may remember that I spelt Delta Goodrem's name wrong at one point, and I'm still getting a lot of people arriving here searching for nudie "Delta Goodrum". Also, lot of people searching for Magnum ice creams and nudist beaches.

"dogs in jumpers"
"weeing on"
ben affleck and speedos
broome nude
des clarke neighbours photos
eric bana, nude photos
jehovah
what's delta goodrum address
"big italian mama"
"pr disasters" +recruitment
"right in the stomach" soccer
8 different typs of cats
aerial photos of winchester uk
appartment match barefoot girls
email contact of people in the american villages that win big money in the pool last month
if I travel at the speed of light for 30 mins, what will happen to my
laugh i nearly paid my licence fee
brokenman.net
"harold and lou from neighbours"
"head shaved" or "head shave" and beach and stories or story
"neighbours" speedos picture
"the guy who plays alf"
"working at the economist"
gay accommodation coff harbour
gibson story conclusion spoilers "the patriot"
how do i remove biro from a photo
hugo weaving naked photos
club-reps blow job
actress-gagged
lisa kudrow gagged
men's speedos
my-head +shaved +photo
name misspelt immigration
naughty nurses restaurant sydney
noosa nudie beach
nude pictures of andie mcdowall
nudist pools photo album
palin, michael - hemmingway's chair
penelope wilton naked
russell crow +sailing
salty dogs+crisps+uk
school girls nude photo hostel
stephen's girlfriend
versatile tractor+wrecking+australia
when do hard bolied eggs spoil
wife +gagged +pictures -nude -naked -sex -porn -bondage
youths in speedos

I think it's fair to say that the internet is an odd place to be.

Blog Shares

I can't claim to entirely understand the website Blogshares.com, but it seems to be some fantasy blog-trading market. (Not had time to read the site in detail.) I have seen that our site is listed on there though, so I've registered on there and "claimed" my blog. There's a link at the bottom of the rest of my links to the left - click on it and see if you can figure it all out and then tell me about it.

Photos

Another Yahoo photo album has been added to the blog ("Big Adventure Photos 3" link on left). This includes our flight over the Bungle Bungles, The Pinnacles, and Anne as an emu.

(These were an effort to upload, since BT have cut my mum's bandwidth in half - idiots.)

We are on a break

Stephen here. So, I’ve been busy.

First I was writing and practicing my best man’s speech with Craig, the other best man. Then we went up to the wedding (near Derby) and we were the best men (with the possible exception of the groom). There we did the speech and it went pretty well, especially considering how nervous we were in rehearsal. The wedding was on Sunday. Everything went well, though it was a shame that the heavens opened just after the ceremony, making the photographer’s job more difficult. The photos got done – they just took more time. Ian and Sarah, the happy couple, went off on honeymoon, and I came back to sort out my tax affairs.

As you may know, I was fined £100 for not submitting a 2001/02 tax return. I’ve never submitted one before, and wasn’t asked to for that year. My mum spent ages trying to get some sense (and a return to complete) from the tax office, and was eventually advised by a friend to write to her MP. I thought this was an odd idea, but within no time we had an answer. The tax office sent me a form, but it got returned to them soon after. They ignored this and decided to fine me anyway. They also ignored our requests for them to send a form out and threatened me with more fines if I didn’t return the form they’d never sent me. Gah! I completed the 2001/02 form (they finally sent) and one for the following year, and sent them off. I hope they’re happy now. The 2002/03 form was made more complicated by the fact that Anne and I are renting out our flat in Ealing, and, being me, I found this complication interesting.

I also prepared Anne’s tax return (which my mum will have to fill out when it arrives since, despite requests, they’ve not sent her return). I then filed both Anne’s and my Australian tax return. Oh joy – what a fine time I’ve been having.

London calling

I’ve also been relaxing and enjoying my mum’s hospitality. On Tuesday I went into London to meet friends. I went in early to make the most of the day, and whilst I was waiting for lunch time to come around (when I had arranged to meet some Economist colleagues) I thought I’d do some touristy things in London (having spent the last six months as a tourist elsewhere.

I went along to the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden, as I’d heard it’s good, and I’d seen a documentary on the history of the tube on The History Channel last week. I went to the ticket office and asked the lady if the concession ticket rate applied to YHA members (backpackers). Without even looking at me, and still reading her magazine, the lady managed to grunt a negative, and brilliantly pretended that I hadn’t disturbed her in the first place. This put my back up a bit. I wasn’t trying to be cheap, and was willing to pay the full rate. I tried to make conversation and asked who does get the concession rate. I had even less luck with that one. I wandered out of there in a daze. I got in a bad mood and decided that I hated Britain. I wanted to be back in Australia. Silly cow.

For want of a better expression, The London Transport Museum can shove it up their fat arse.

I went to The National Portrait Museum instead. That’s free, and the staff are intelligent. (Microsoft Word is telling me that that should be “The staff is intelligent”, which I know is right, but it would be silly to write it like that.)

Watching too many movies

I’ve been talking to friends who read this blog, and follow Anne’s and my big adventure. One of the criticisms some have is that I watch too many movies. They are wrong.

I’ve really missed my DVD player, though have only watched two DVDs since my return. I’ve also seen one film at the flicks, and watched almost one film on VHS.

My mum taped Ang Lee’s Ride With The Devil ages ago, and had not watched it. I fancied it, so mum and I sat down to watch it on Friday evening. I was not impressed when the film stopped after two hours (with the story some way from completion). My mum said she probably assumed the film wouldn’t be longer than two hours when she set the video and made some remarks which indicated that she thought it the director’s fault that the whole film wasn’t on the tape. I intend to write to Ang Lee to complain about this. Since I missed the end I can’t review the film here.

On DVD I watched Daredevil and Adaptaion. I’d heard Daredevil wasn’t good from a few people, but stubbornly wanted to see it. I’m a fan of comic books (though don’t really read them any more) and I always want comic book movies to be good. I though it was OK, but not a lot happened and the best thing in it, Colin Farrel’s Bullseye, wasn’t in it much. It was a very lightweight introduction to Daredevil. Two and a half stars. Ooh I love DVD.

Adaptation was much better. A very original story about screenplays and adapting a book into a screenplay (as well as being about just about everything else). As a blog writer and the co-writer of a best man’s speech, I found I could relate to the protagonist’s issues intimately. Four and a half stars.

My mum and I went to see The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (phew – I’m not repeating that!) last night at the cinema. I’d had no interest in seeing this, until my friend Tony pointed out that it has had good reviews. I’m glad I saw it as it was a good, silly blockbuster that takes itself not-at-all seriously. Johnny Depp is just great in it. Worth a look. Four stars.

My Monkey Lies Over The Ocean

People have asked me, “So, are you talking to Anne on the phone every day?” A reasonable question, since we’ve been away together for six months and travelling with each other for the last two. I was sorry to report that I’ve not spoken to her once since I returned to the UK. We’ve sent a few text messages and emails, and had a conversation on MSN Messenger, but that’s it. I am missing her though, and looking forward to seeing her on Sunday (after my mammoth flight back to Perth). Anne’s working on an organic farm at the moment, but should be back in Perth on Friday. She says she’ll ring me then. Then I'll see her when I get off the plane on Sunday, all grumpy after a 21 hour flight. Yay - I'm a-coming for ya Anne.

Random blog link

In order to encourage people to read around the "blogosphere" here's a link to a random blog. (I'll put the link at the side, with my other links too). Click on it every now and then and see what blog-writers are saying. Have fun. Some are dreadful, some are good.

Stephen two-breakfasts

I’m at my mum’s house in Welwyn, following a mammoth journey home. I flew from Perth to Heathrow with Emirates, with a 2.5-hour change in Dubai. It took about 22 hours.

I left Anne in Perth as I got a shuttle bus to the airport. On the bus I got talking to two other backpackers - these both returning home to the UK after a year away. I had a beer with them at the airport. They were both 22 year old blokes, and I was soon bored by their tales of the girls they’d slept with when they were away, how drunk they’d got and what drugs they’d done. I like airports, and would rather have had some time to look around the one at Perth.

Annoyingly I was cornered by these friendly blokes at Dubai too, but eventually shook them off. What an anti-social man I turned out to be.

On the first leg of the flight I had two seats to myself. I managed to get a bit of shut-eye, but mainly watched films. We were given a dinner and a breakfast. The food was a bit poor. I missed Anne, who gets inordinately excited by airplane food. It was 35 degrees at 5am in Dubai - blimey!

On the second leg of the journey we were given another breakfast (!) and a lunch (at 10am UK time). I had a v. large G&T at about 9.30am. By the end of the journey I was very tired and very grotty.

On the flights I watched three films. First up, Anger Management - a pretty funny comedy, with Jack Nicholson in OTT mode. It had some good cameos, and a particularly poor one (from the ex-mayor of New York). Three stars.

Finding Nemo was also watchable, though not, I think, up to the standards of Toy Story and Monsters Inc. I think this may be because toys and monsters are more entertaining than fish. I’d put it on a level with A Bug’s Life. Fish are as entertaining as insects. Three and a half stars.

Save-The-World-From-Disaster movie The Core was quite entertaining. It was ridiculous but knew it, and had a good cast who pulled it off quite well. Three stars.

The flight was punctual until we got to the UK. We were kept in a holding pattern over Essex for about half an hour before landing. Ian, the friend of mine who’s getting married, and whose wedding I was returning to the UK to attend, works for air traffic control. As I watched the screen showing the path flight I started, in my dazed state, to wonder if Ian was pulling strings and planning to make the plane spell “Welcome Back Stephen” or “Where Do You Think You’ve Been?” It didn’t, we just circled.

By this point I was looking forward to seeing my mum and very grumpy at the delay. When we eventually left the plane I was very angry with the people who were getting in my way and wanted to push some of them over, preferably hurting them in some way. Following very little sleep and little room on the second leg I was not in the mood for slow idiotic people. What a horrible man I turned out to be.

Given that I’d been up for nearly 48 hours, with just snatches of sleep on the plane, I’m a little miffed that after going to bed at 11pm on Tuesday night (I stayed up to try to get into UK time quickly) I was wide awake at 4am on Wednesday. Gah!

This Was Spinal Tap

On Saturday night we went to the flicks to see A Mighty Wind - the new comedy from Christopher Guest and pals (Best In Show). It's a mockumentary about a folk band reunion concert in New York. Some of it's very funny, but as a whole it's more gently amusing than laugh-out-loud funny. Not up to the standards of Best In Show but worth watching. Three and a half stars.

A bouns was we got cheap tickets, thanks to our membership of the arts cinema in Sydney. Yay us!

Anne and Stephen's cleft-in-twain adventure - begins soon

I leave for the UK tonight, leaving Anne in Perth. We checked out of our double room this morning (once I'd stopped getting stressed about not being able to pack my rucksack) and Anne checked into a single room. It's lucky we're in Perth and in this hostel, since we've not been in any other hostels which had a significant number of single rooms, and ridiculously it'll cost her less than half the price of a double.

I'm going to miss the little monkey, though at least I'll be having fun with friends and family back home (and will be frantically writing my best man's speech in order to embarrass the groom to maximum effect). Anne will be entertaining herself. Hope she's OK. It's been weird spending all day every day with each other, though we've had surprising few rows. This'll be the furthest we've ever been from each other! First time we've been in different hemisphere! I bet she'll have a whale of a time.

Perth's good, and Anne should find plenty to do here. Before we arrived here I got in touch with Lisa, another girl with whom I worked at The Economist. She's from Perth, and following extensive travelling has returned here with an enthusiastic appreciation of home. Lisa picked us up in her car on Sunday morning and took us on a tour of Perth. We saw great views of the Swan River, and some nice properties. We saw the beach, and dropped into the market at Freemantle ("Freo") for lunch. We ended up in a bar in Subiaco ("Subi") for some beers with Lisa's flatmate and a couple of her pals. It was great. Good to be shown round by a local, and great to have a drink with non-travellers! We realised how much we've missed going out for drinks with friends at home. Travelling in a couple, I suppose we've been a bit anti-social - we've chatted to travellers, but not for any length of time, and people are less inclined to chat to a couple.

Today (Monday) we're going to look at more of the city (in the rain!) and then I'll pop off to the airport.

Perth-etic pun

We left Cervantes (late - bloody Greyhound buses!) on Thursday evening for the final leg of our journey to Perth. We were very much looking forward to getting to a real city. We arrived at about 8pm, checked into our hostel and nipped out for a thai meal. Yum! We even had a bottle of wine. Hell - hang the budget! Go mad.

The hostel's nice, with high ceilings, character and decent facilities. The Lonely Planet says that it "lacks atmosphere", but we've found along the way that that means that the hostel lacks drunken young travellers making noise after 10pm and making lots of mess. Perfect.

Anne will be based in Perth for a while now I think, since I'm flying to the UK on Monday to go to the wedding of some friends, where I'll be one of the two best men. The better of the two? It'll be weird to be leaving Anne for nearly two weeks, having been with her almost constantly for the last two months since leaving Sydney. I'll miss her (sob!) and I'm sure she'll miss me a lot. I believe that.

Saturday morning we rose and hit the town, and found a suit hire shop, where I got them to measure me. I've been trying to get my measurements sent back to the UK for weeks now (for the wedding) but have not found a suitable place since none of the towns we've been in (even, weirdly Darwin) have had such a shop.

After that we did spent the morning doing jobs - shopping for toiletries, going on the internet and arranging stuff. So nice to be in a city again with good facilities (and cheapish internet!) Anne's looking for volunteer work or a farm-stay while I'm away, but is having no joy finding anything at the moment. Ho hum.

Perth's an attractive city, quite small but first impressions are good. We're staying in an area called Northbridge which from what we'd heard was a little dodgy. We've been reading in the paper about the curfew recently introduced there to keep kids off the streets after 10pm. Seems fine to us now - a bustling bar area. There are lots of security guards and police around, so I get it used to be bad. I'd have been worried about Anne staying here alone if it was bad, but it's busy and seems safe so that's ok.

We've explored the city a bit now, and this morning went to the Perth Mint (a money-making venture if ever I saw one). (Do you see what I did there?) We did a tour and saw molten gold being made into a bar - very interesting. We also picked up a "Walking In Perth" book, giving lots of good walks and did one of the city walks. Good stuff. Nice to be back in a place where it's not so exhausting hot!

Culture round up

It was with buckles swashed and timbers completely shivered I raced through Treasure Island (a children's book, after all) and started on John LeCarre's The Looking Glass War. His spy books are quite realistic, in that, unlike in James Bond stories, the spies are human and make mistakes. They're empire-building, petty, and care more about whether they can claim for their lunch on expenses than whether telling their wife about their job will hinder their efforts. Very refreshing. Now I've started on John Gribbin's Almost Everyone's Guide To Science - a good guide to EVERYTHING in science, much of which I learnt years and years ago and so have forgotten. Nicew to find some good books in that market in Geralton as I was getting sick of having the time to read books but few books I wanted to read.

As for movies, we watched Doctor Doolittle 2 on the coach. Yikes! I hoped to never see that. It was rubbish. One star. I suppose kids will like it. On the same journey we watched Behind Enemy Lines, with a strangely cast Owen Wilson. Quite entertaining - two and a half stars.

At the hostel in Geraldton we watched Lake Placid on video. Very amiable, with plenty of laughs. I knew Rose from the Golden Girls was going to be trouble from the moment she turned up. Four stars.

At the flicks last night we watch Charlies Angel's: Full Throttle. We were torn between that and the new Terminator film, neither of wich we really wanted to see. We didn't like the first film (we saw it when we were last in Australia!) This one we enjoyed more, perhaps because we knew what to expect. Some of the jokes were quite funny - I laughed out loud once or twice. Lots of the Angels dancing around wearing not much in a post-modern "ironic" way, which at the end of the day still has much the same effect as when "exploited" women do it. Me? I liked the colours. Three stars.

Bookish boy

I've recently finished reading an imaginatively titled history book: Europe Since 1870, by James Jolls. It was pretty good, especially at explaining the causes of WWI. It was published in the early 1970s, so was rather weaker on the end of the Cold War, etc. Following that I read the first part of Spike Milligan's war memoirs, Adolf Hitler: My Part In His Downfall. Pretty funny, and interesting. I'm now reading Treasure Island, which I picked up for a dollar!

Whilst reading these I came across a Watch Tower book (Jehovah's Witnesses) called something like Evolution Or Creation. It was funny, offensive, and misleading, often using the natural (and correct) willingness of scientists to question everything to "disprove" the theory of evolution. Anne got annoyed with me reading the funniest bits out. One bit said something like "The theory of evolution means a constant struggle to survive, involving hatred, wars and murder". Ahem.

Cold winter morning

Having moaned in my last posting that we were too hot and looking forward to the colder weather, we got off the bus in Carnarvon at 4am on Monday morning (after a 12 hour journey) and it was really cold! Brrr! I don't think we've been cold since Tokyo, back in February!

We were booked into a caravan park on Monday night, as the local hostel had no double rooms (shared dorms be damned!) and the lovely people at the caravan park had said that if our caravan was empty on the Sunday night they'd leave the key out for us so we could get into it when we arrived.

We trapsed to the caravan park, laden with big rucksacks, and joy upon joys, the key was waiting for us! We got in and slept (in our clothes) for a few hours. We were up early - no rest for us - to see if we could get a tour at the local School Of The Air, but were told to come back on Tuesday. Since we were up we went to Woolies and got eggs, bacon, juice and muffins and then went back to the caravan for a cooked breakfast - not too shabby!

The caravan's nice and would sleep up to six people, at a squeeze. Better than anything Tom and Pippa Fletcher ever had, I think. Best of all we have kitchen facilities inside, and so have been cooking and eating well in our time here! So nice not to have to share facilities with young "travellers" who seem intent on never washing up and leaving wet tea-towels lying in heaps so they'll never dry. (Now I think of it, that must mean that someone is at least drying up, but anyway.)

We spent Monday morning orienting ourselves in Carnarvon. It's a nice little town and there seemed to be enough here to entertain us for three days. My sister lived here for a couple of months while working on (I think) a banana plantation, I now find. In the afternoon we did a heritage trail walk around the town. The "exhibits" had mostly been destroyed years ago, but at least they made the effort.

That night I'm ashamed to say we watched the final of Big Brother. Reggie won, as expected. She's a simple girl from Tassie, and is the only Aussie I've heard say "Fair Dinkum" since we've been here.

Back To Skool
And so Tuesday morning we went to the School Of The Air (SOTA). We'd read about these, and there are five of them in Western Australia. SOTA are correspondance schools, which include an element of teaching over radio. The kids sit in their homes in the middle of nowhere (in just their pants, apparently, as it's usually so hot!) talking to the teacher ("Yes Miss, Over"). The Carnarvon SOTA has sixty pupils, spread over a vast distance.

We watched a video on the school, and then sat in on a class. The teacher was in radio contact with two 12 year olds and was going through some worksheets on gold prospecting in Western Australia. It was interesting to see (and hear) as the kids were really attentive. The sound quality was poor, and they're looking to upgrade to a fancy sattelite system.

That afternoon we went on a huge long trek ("Come on Candice-Marie!") to Babbage Island and out to One Mile Jetty. We saw old trains being displayed there, and a ring of odd, furry caterpillars. We were shattered when we got home. We had sausages, potatoes and vegetables for our tea.

Yes, we've seen some bananas
This morning (Wednesday) we were up with the larks again to go to a banana and mango plantation. It was a good 5k walk there, then we were early so walked a further 1k and back to a big satellite dish which our literature said helped to "intercept" Halley's Comet. When we got back to the plantation we went on an informative tour and saw the bananas growing (as you'd hope you would at a banana plantation). We then had a chocolate coated frozen banana each. Yum! We were shattered when we got home and fell asleep after lunch.

Back-end of nowhere

We thought Broome was going to be a fair size town, but in fact it was v. small. (It did have a car rental place caleed Broome Broome, so that at least kept me amused for ten minutes.)

The journey out of Broome was another long coach journey, but a daytime one this time. Whilst Anne was surprisingly good on the night journey, I was able to pass the time by listening to comedy shows on my MP3 CD player. Some kind soul (I met on the interweb) was kind enough to send me three CDs with 25 years' worth of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, so I giggled to myslef for most of the journey. I rarely sleep on journays, but I think I managed a few hours. On the latest coach journey I ignored the film Serendipity but watched Four Weddings And A Funeral. I'm sure everyone's seen this - it's a very funny crowd pleaser. It gets four of my stars, losing one for having Andie McDowall in it. (Somehow, Groundhog Day survives having this annoying actress in it, but this film suffers a little: "Is it raining? I hadn't noticed.". Yuck.)

After the long long coach journey from there, we arrived in Port Headland (and had a quick row, to celebrate the end of another tiring journey). This is an even smaller place which is a mining community (I so look forward to a city!) They also "make" lots of salt here by flooding and area with sea water, letting it evaporate, and then collecting the salt. It's odd to see huge mountains of salt around the town. Huge long trains take the salt and iron ore form the town, and huge ships come in to transport more. Big vehicles for such a tiny town. We did a self-guided heritage walk on Saturday morning. It was good, though some of the sites weren't that interesting. It's a shame the UK don't have these in little villages (like Welwyn, where I grew up) as we have a lot more (known) history than Aussie towns and these walks are a good way to spend a morning and help you get your bearings. We then tried to go to the local historical society museum, but that is run by volunteers at the weekends and was closed. Lazy b*ggers.

It's so very hot, all the time. I didn't think I'd ever think this but I'm looking forward to the colder weather as we travel south. People keep telling us it's very cold in Perth, but I don't know if that's cold-for-Aussies or actually really cold. We'll have to see. We don't have many warm clothes, so if it's really cold we'll be wearing the same jumpers for the rest of our time in Oz.

Another (longer) overnight journey tonight. Yikes.

Blog of life

A friend, Simon, has said (using our comments facility!) that, whilst another report of world-travelling he's following could be compared to a James Cameron film: all glam and exciting, ours could be compared to a Ken Loach film: all gritty and down to earth. I was quite pleased with this analogy. We're doing this blog in part to keep in touch with people at home but also as a record of our travels for our own benefit, and I thing a "real" diary will be good to look back on.

Travelling for such a long period of time means we're living our life at the same time as seeing the world, rather than getting away from everything and living in a "time-out" situation. Travelling can be pretty tiring, and we've had to make sure we do normal things and don't get sick to death of "another beautiful national park". We've made our own little routines and, being a creature of habit and slightly obsessive-compulsive, I've found ways to bring home away with me. I take the opportunity when I can of watching movies - one of my great loves - and this leads to some days when I watch three films (all good, none amazing). Yesterday was one of those days.

First we watched Swimming Upstream, an Aussie film which came out at the cinema when we were in Sydney. It's about a boy, growing up in Brisbane in the 50s and 60s trying to win the approval and love of his unpleasant, damaged father (Geoffrey Rush). I enjoyed it - three stars.

Then it was to the outdoor, deckchair cinema to see Whale Rider, a New Zealand film about Maoris. We'd read a lot about this film and were reasonably pleased with it. The little girl in the lead was impressive. Three stars. The outdoor cinema was fun!

Also three stars for the late night film we watched on SBS, Harry, He's Here To Help. This is a French film we'd wanted to see for a while. Whilst we enjoyed it, it wasn't a good as we'd heard and I get the feeling it got more praise than it deserved as it is French. Still a solid, entertaining effort though.

Helen Daniels's painting retreat

After the long long journey, we arrived in Kununurra and checked in at a nice hostel we'd booked. Kununurra is a few hundred kms from The Bungle Bungles - huge weird rock formations. We wanted to see them, but the ground-based trips took two or three days - we didn't have that long. So it was we splashed out for a flight over them in a tiny (six-man) plane. I've never been in such a small plane, and the Bungle Bungles were really something special so I'm glad we did it. Typically for this vast country these rock formations were only really made known to the Aussies in the 1980s. Amazing that such things can exist unnoticed for so long.

When I flew to the Grand Canyon in a little plane in 1995 my mum and sister were both ill due to the turbulence. Anne and I took travel sickness tablets to try to ward off this, and thankfully we weren't ill.

In the afternoon we both fell asleep (thanks, I suspect, to the travel sickness tablets) and later went to watch the sunset at Kelly's Knob look out. Kununurra is a small town, built to service a nearby dam when it was built in the sixties. There's not a lot else to do here!

Saturday we relaxed in the very very hot sun, by the pool. What a nice way to spend the morning. It was too hot by midday, so we retreated to the room, then went to a nearby national park to look at some more rock formations.

Today, Sunday, we are hanging about waiting to get the bus to Broome, on the west coast. We're not looking forward to this journey - our first over night bus journey. We leave here near 5pm and don't arrive in Broome until 8am on Monday morning - yikes. I'll have to put up with fidget-bum Anne that whole time!

Movie overload

On our last night in Darwin we watched the v. good comedy Office Space on the wazzark lantern. We'd seen it before. It's a very funny movie - recommended - four stars.

On our 11 (11!) hour bus journey from Darwin to Kununurra we were treated to three (three!) films, which made the time pass more quickly. Two of them we'd seen before, but it didn't matter as they were both five star films - Monsters Inc. and Ocean's 11 (remake). Nice!

The other one was Hearts Of Atlantis starring Anthony Hopkins. It was OK - two and a half stars.

Bruce all righty then?

Anne's comments on the movie Bruce Almighty about sum it up. Poor. It's a shame - annoying as Jim Carrey can be, he can often do OTT comedy well, and the concept for this film offered a good opportunity, especially coming from the director of the decent Liar Liar. The main character, who is given God's powers, is a horrible one with whom no-one can sympathise. He should have been smited at the start rather than been taught a lesson. The film attempts to teach a lesson, and fails due to the smug Carrey failing at the heartfelt stuff. Jennifer Aniston does nothing and Morgan Freeman fails to impress. We should have seen Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle instead, and that's saying something! Two stars.

Read a book instead

I'm currently reading a great book called The Surgeon Of Crowthorne, by Simon Winchester. It's about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, and specifically about an insane veteran of the American Civil War who was one of its major contributors. Recommended for those who like anecdotal history, words and dictionaries.

Darwin devastated by SKT's birth

Darwin is notable as a city partly for what is missing. Cyclone Tracey destroyed much of the city on Christmas Eve 1974, about the time my mum was returning home having given birth to me. Such was the destruction, that it was debated whether to rebuild the city. And to think, all this when I was only just starting to bring joy on the other side of the world.

Nude Photo Shock!

I've added a second photo album to my Yahoo photos, to cut down on load time. I've also added a few photos, including ones of spiders from our night-time rainforest trek and, you lucky people, one of our skinny dipping adventure. Censored, natch.

Welcome to Darwin

After a short (2.5 hour) flight on Sunday evening, we arrived in Darwin and checked in a lovely 4 star hotel. We're bored of hostels and so decided to blow the budget on a nice, sizable room with good facilities.

Oh, would that it were...

In fact we'd pre-booked a room in the Melaleuca Lodge hostel. The Lonely Planet said it was a good hostel (and the YHA my sister recommended was fully booked). However, it's being bulldozed to make room for a better hostel in the future, and the new management are content to run it into the ground. The facilities are dreadful, and what's worse is that management don't give a hoot about complaints. They have no interest in improving the place (or even in keeping it functional) and we are in no bargaining position having pre-paid, and with all the other hostels having no double rooms. Grah! Sometimes I hate travelling.

This experience is a shame, as Darwin is a nice city. Hot though (over 30 degrees, and this is the middle of winter!) Today, after I'd stopped seething with anger about the hostel (and the chance of me turning big and green had subsided) we went for a walk around. We explored the really nice parliament building, went to a good pre-loved bookshop, and later went on a historical walking tour. We're shattered now, and have been seeking out air conditioning all day.

I don't want to go back to that horrible hostel. : (

Movies, book and TV

On the way to Cairns from Townsville last week, the coach driver put Chocolat on the video (French for chocolate, probably). It was certainly watchable, though a bit of a wet fairy tale. It made me hungry though. Three stars.

Today we're in Cairns, waiting to go to the airport to get a flight to Darwin. It's dreary and raining, so to pass the time we went to the flicks to watch The Hulk. Directed by Ang Lee (the most versatile director ever, surely!) it stars Aussie Eric Bana as Bruce Banner, who gets angry and turns green. It's quite long and slow, and I doubt the kids in the audience enjoyed it that much. However, it's entertaining and a very good comic book adaptation. There's a great battle between the Hulk and the military in the middle, but the last battle is a bit of a mess. Nick Nolte overacts well as a mad scientist. Good stuff - three and a half stars.

Having finished the new, over-long, Harry Potter book, I've now started on Robert Harris's Fatherland. Am enjoying having time to get through a decent number of books.

Since we had a TV in Port Douglas we spent Tuesday night glued to it, watching The Simpsons, Neighbours, Big Brother, Becker, Everybody Loves Raymond (v. good) and the overrated CSI. I think we overdid it. The next night we did the tourist thing, left the TV behind and went to watch Cane Toad Racing in a pub. It's questionable which night was more intellectually stimulating.

I've heard that a bomb scare in teh UK led to the Big Brother house being evacuated. Since most of the even slightly controversial people are now out of the Aussie house it's duller than ever. One girl, Reggie, is a cert to win. To liven things up they've introduced a bra-less flirt from the UK house now. Clutching at straws I say.

Tropical Rainforest joy

From Magnetic Island, we returned to Townsville to get the bus to Cairns. Not much to Cairns, from what I saw last time (other than trips to do) but we weren't there long enough to confirm that impression or otherwise. Early on Sunday morning we got a bus up to Cow Bay, just south of Cape Tribulation, where we were staying in a rainforest retreat called Crocodylus. We stayed in a tent/cabin IN the rainforest. It was grand. I think it's been Anne's favourite place so far (not least because it had a great, cheap restaurant!)

We spent Sunday afternoon wandering up the long, largely deserted beach (on the way there we spied a cassowary and a snake!) We've had glorious weather for days now, and the nice thing is it's not half as humid as it was when we were up this way in December 2000 (Aussie summer). On Monday morning we were dropped off at a creek. We paddled up the creek to a waterhole where it was safe to swim (i.e. no croc or stingers). Again on the beach in Cow Bay we came across nudie bathers (though saw nothing to match the man on Magnetic Island strolling on the beach in just his hat), and since Anne and I now found ourselves alone amid a dense rainforest we decided to throw caution to the wind and go skinny-dipping! We felt very daring and it was fun, especially in the hot sun. We had to be careful not to burn our bits. Photos to follow. (Reckon.) Stop picturing us naked!

On Sunday night, we had retired to our cabin early for a romantic evening. Our antics were disturbed by a bunch of people outside, shining torches through the canvas. This was the hostel-organised Night Walk, and these people were searching for "wildlife". They wouldn't have seen much through the mossie-net anyway, but we didn't appreciate the privacy-invasion. Anyway, on Monday night, we joined the Night Walk and traipsed round the forest from 8 until midnight with a man named Possum! We had torches and saw lots of spiders, some fungi, two birds (only two!), a bandicoot, a white-tailed rat, and a black and white possum. Again, my mammal-spotting abilities came in useful. I think I may have some aboriginal tracker blood in me. My genealogy work may later reveal this for sure.

After a late night, the last thing we wanted is an early morning, so we got up at ten to six for a sea-kayaking trip! We kayaked (i.e. canoed) to an isolated beach where we had a "tropical" breakfast (it involved lots of fruits), swam and snorkelled on the reef. Yay! I wasn't very good at keeping the kayak straight, and Anne got frustrated with me. Anne wasn't very good either and I got frustrated with her. Thus we were even and neither of us has any right to go on about it. Got that Anne?

Alas, we left the rainforest hostel this morning and travelled by bus down to Port Douglas, just north of Cairns. Anne didn't want to leave. As there were no double rooms left in any Port Douglas hostels we splashed out an extra four quid a night on a motel room. We weren't chuffed with having to break the budget, but though a bit of luxury would be nice. Imagine our disgust when a sign at check in told us that this was a budget motel, and it's being pulled down at the end of the year so we shouldn't expect great things. We have a fridge in our room, and a kettle, the TV doesn't work very well and there's no laundry. Frankly, I've stayed in better hostels.

Here endeth today's blog.

Anne and Stephen's Tropical Island Adventure

Stephen here. We arrived in Townsville on Wednesday afternoon. We'd stopped there briefly on our last trip to Australia at the end of 2000. We checked out the hostel and found that the kitchen was tiny. We figured this gave us a great excuse to treat ourselves to a meal out, and so after dark we sauntered down to Tim's Surf And Turf and had the eponymous steak and prawns. Yum!

Townsville was just a stopover to take us to Magnetic Island - 8km off the coast. It's a very attractive island (or a repulsive one, depending on your polarity). (Do you see? It's magnetic.) In fact the island is not magnetic, and is so called as Captain Cook's instruments went funny as he sailed past it in 1770.

We passed the tropic of Capricorn back in Rockhampton, so we're into Tropical North Queensland now. Thus Magnetic Island is truly a tropical island. It really is beautiful here. Much more heavily populated than Keppel Island (where we were a week or so ago), though still populated with odd wildlife. We're surrounded by possums as we eat, and "screaming" curlew birds wake us in the night.

We scrabbled around the island on Thursday, walking (and climbing) about 10k, exploring the bays and beaches. Unfortunately Anne got bitten to ridiculous extremes by mossies. She has bad reactions to bites, and has large lumps on her leg, arm and bottom. Her back looks like she's been removed from The Matrix! She's itching, is in pain, and is very unhappy about it. Fortunately she has a supportive boyfriend who puts up with her irritability like a martyr. I am great. Poor Anne though (for being bitten).

Today we scrabbled over a big hill to a secluded beach at Balding Bay. We sunbathed there for hours. After some time we realised that a few of our fellow bathers were entirely nudie! This was, we later read, an unofficial nudist beach. Unfortunately it was generally only men and older people who'd shed their clothes - none of the more nubile younger ladies. I was thus able to concentrate my attentions on the new Harry Potter book, which Anne finished two days ago.

This afternoon we went through hell trying to book hostels north of Cairns. We got quite stressed and realised we should have booked earlier. We may end up spending one night in a dorm again. Oh noooo!

Snorkeling memories

Anne neglected to mention my antics whilst snorkeling off the Whitsundays. First off, I swallowed a load of saltwater in one horrid mouthful. I felt dodgy for the rest of the day and kept burping. Blargh!

Second, we bought a disposable underwater camera in Airlie Beach before we set sail. I was swimming on my back underwater, posing so that Anne could take a dramatically heroic shot of me. Once she'd taken the photo I swam into some hard coral and cut myself (ripping my stinger suit). It hurt like hell, and the crew of the boat told me that coral can grow inside you if it infects you. I'll keep you posted as to whether I turn into Coral Man. (In my X-Men outfit, at least I have the uniform.)

Welcome To The Hell-Hostel

We were forced to sleep in a shared dorm last night, with five strangers.

This is not good. We're not really up for that, and have been getting double or twin rooms everywhere else. In most of those we have to use a shared bathroom, so we are roughing it a bit.

Neither of us were pleased by having to share a room at the Airlie Beach YHA. A computer error meant that they couldn't tell us if a double was available when we booked, but they would put that down as the preference.

After stressing about it, and considering blowing fifty dollars on a room in another hostel, we got an OK night's sleep in the end. It still meant that we had no privacy, and when Anne fell asleep with her glasses on and her book open (as she always does) I had to sneak across the room in my pants (cue joke about there being room in my pants) to take her book from her and put her glasses in their case.

Someone had plugged their mobile in to a wall socket by my bed and left the phone on. I switched it off so I wasn't awoken by text messages in the night, though later wondered if they had set the alarm to wake them up. They should have kept it by their bed, shouldn't they.

Plus, Anne and I had been given "stinger suits" (thin wet-suit type things to wear while snorkelling) and if we'd had a private room we could have tried them on and looned around in them pretending to be space aliens or something. As it was we probably would have felt embarrassed doing this in front of the surly, anti-social people in our room, so didn't.

Not the way a couple in their late twenties should be travelling. We'll try to avoid that happening again.

Movies and books on the coach

We saw Rush Hour 2 on the coach from Rockhampton to Airlie Beach. It was really poor, made bearable only by Jackie Chan's fighting and stunts. Two stars (for the fights).

Snow Dogs starring Cuba Gooding Jr was on later in the journey, but we couldn't bring ourselves to watch that. Anne was immersed in the new Harry Potter book, and I was finishing off Nicholas Parsons's autobiography, The Straight Man: My Life In Comedy. I picked this up for two dollars (about 80p) in a "pre-loved" (second-hand) book shop in Hervey Bay. I got it as I liked the picture on the front as much as anything, but it was an interesting look at the entertainment industry in the second half of the last century. Its start pre-dates most of what I've read about comedy (i.e. Peter Cook and his ilk) and had some good insights. I now have the dubious claim to fame of knowing more about Nicholas Parsons than anyone I know. (I bet now that Colin will come up with loads of stuff I didn't know about him.)

Notes from Stephen to correct Anne

In response to Anne's post (below) about Great Keppel Island - me naming the crow Russell was a clever pun. Russell sounds like Rustle, which means to steal, and that's what the crow was attempting to do.

We also saw some Kookaburras close up, and I've just uploaded lots of photos to the yahoo photo album (link on left) which include our wildlife spots of the last few days (and, yes, plenty of John Possum).

So long, and thanks for all the treats.

We bidded (bade?) a sad farewell to my mum today at Hervey Bay coach station. She's off back to Brissie, from where she'll fly to Ayres Rock, and then to the UK. It's been great seeing her, and we only bickered a bit (mainly when I was driving). I'd like to thank her publically for all the treats and hotel rooms, and for travelling all this way to see us.

Anne is a saint for putting up with both of us moaning about the illogical pedestrian crossing light sequences (having tolerated me moaning about them for three months). She was amply rewarded though - especially with the luxurious Noosa appartment!

Now we're in Rockhampton ("Rocky") - The Beef Capital Of Australia. We're here so we can go to Great Keppel Island tomorrow for some beaching and treking. It's a tough life, but it's the path we've chosen.

Movies

A couple of movie reviews. On our last night with my mum we took her to see Phone Booth at the flicks and then for a pizza. I'd been annoying Anne for weeks by calling the film Telephone Box instead of Phone Booth, and I annoyed her even more by asking for the tickets with the wrong name too (Tony - I can hear you wincing in sympathy with Anne). The lady selling tickets didn't even register my hilarious mistake - spoil sport.

I enjoyed the film a fair bit (though Anne didn't like it as much as I did). It was interesting more as a novelty work I suppose, but was well done, and I pretty much got what I expected. Three and a half stars.

On the coach from Hervey Bay to Rockhampton today we were treated to mad-cap comedy Rat Race on video, with bad picture and bad tracking. Damn, I miss DVD. I'd never been interested in this film, but I suppose it was quite entertaining in a ridiculous way and an OK way to pass part of a six hour coach journey. The plot was preposterous throughout, and I was particularly amused when at one point (no more silly than the rest of the film) the girl behind me muttered "Oh, as if". How I laughed. I'm sure this is generous, but I'm giving it two and a half stars.

A few books

Stephen here. One thing I didn't get much time to do in Sydney was read books. Since I was walking to work I wasn't reading during the day and I was often pooped at night. Since we've not had time to watch films lately (sob) I thought I'd summarise the books I've read.

In Sydney I read a great book on the history of transportation (of crims) to Australia, Robert Hughes's The Fatal Shore. This was reasonably heavy going, but really interesting, especially when living and working in the centre of it all. (I won't give star ratings for books - since books are highbrow and thus can't be summed up just with stars.)

Also in Sydney I read half of How The Mind Works by Steve Pinker. This was also heavy going, but really rewarding. It explains so much and goes into a lot of haman nature in great detail. I finished it as we were travelling.

So only one and a half books read in the three months we were in Sydney. I'm quite a slow reader, but this is slow going even for me. Now we're travelling I'm reading more, which is good, and swapping books at secong hand stores (though I "released" How The Mind Works at BookCrossing.com).

I read BBC reporter John Simpson's A Mad World, My Masters - stories from his time reporting foreign affairs. Simpson is a great story teller and often very funny. I'd read his first auto-biographical book before I came out here and am looking forward to his next.

After three non-fiction books I dipped into fiction with Robert Harris's Enigma - a good yarn set around code-breaKing Bletchley Park during WW2.

Then it was on to Michael Palin's Hemmingway's Chair. It was well written and amusing, but I thought the plot was a little lacking. Maybe I need to know more about Ernest Hemmingway?

I've just started another Robert Harris book: Archangel (about a hunt for Stalin's notebooks). I'll let you know how that one goes.

Looking forward to the new Harry Potter next week! I think we'll splash out on that, though Anne will read it first as she reads really quickly.

A map!

I've put a link to a map of Australia on the left of the diary. Should have done this ages ago really. See how little we've come in two weeks.

Highway 1 Revisited

We hired a car on Sunday and left Brisbane. On the way out we went to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, where we saw koalas (of course), roos, wallabies and other animals. Mum really liked the koalas and took literally thousands of photos of them (not literally). We saw koalas move and even jump, which is quite a novelty, as they usually just sleep in the day. We were able to feed the kangaroos which was pretty good too.

Last time we were here (Nov, Dec 2000) Anne and I drove up Highway 1 from Brisbane to Cairns, and that's the road we took up to Noosa after leaving the koala sanctuary. We drove a couple of hours to Noosa - a posh(ish) beach resort at the top of the "Sunshine Coast". It's very pleasant here. Mum forked out for a luxurious two bedroom apartment with kitchen, laundry and two (two!) bathrooms! After exploring a little Anne and I (over)cooked some pasta and we watched Analyse That on the movie channel. It was rubbish, and it's horrible to see Robert DeNiro do comedy. Two stars.

The weather was glorious on Monday, so we sat on the beach all morning and baked ourselves. This was just as well, since the weather's been grotty today. We timed things right though and did a three hour costal and rainforest trek without getting wet. We'd been told to look out for koalas, so my mum and I did our necks in by straining to look for them up in the trees. We saw very little though, other than pretty birds and big spiders (my mum maintains they weren't as big as some she's seen in her dental surgery in Welwyn Garden City). Finally my mum spotted a big koala sitting in a gum tree and we were then happy.

We now have a couple more nights here in Noosa before moving on. Life is hard.

Surfers Paradise to Brissie

Anne and I arrived in Surfers Paradise at lunch time on Wednesday. The weather wasn't good, and the "paradise" looked very much less than that. The hostel wasn't up to usual YHA standards either, and was run by a bunch of miserable, coughing, lazy, unpleasant English girls who were more interested in partying than cleaning up after themselves or opening reception. The food store near the hostel was woefully inadequate and we ended up having a "Ragin' Cajun" burger at McDonalds. We then trekked the 3.5km into town and bought a cheap steak and salad at Woolworths. That night's meal was one of the most glorious things ever to pass my lips, so the day wasn't a complete disaster.

The next day, the sun shone and shone. Suddenly we could see the attraction of Surfers Paradise, and we rushed to the beautiful beach and spent the morning there. This was more like it. Hurrah! Funny how much difference a bit of good weather can make.

The sun didn't improve the hostel, however. Never visit The British Arms YHA hostel at Surfers Paradise, I tell you.

Much better is the hostel from which I'm writing this blog - the YHA in Brisbane. We arrived here on Friday morning and I went to the airport after lunch to meet my mum (where she was shocked at my head - see my last post). She'll be with us now until about 17th June.

She took us for a nice Italian meal last night, and today we took a bus tour of the city. At first it didn't look like there was much here, but the bus tour revealed some very pleasant areas, including countless parks, nice buildings, and a man-made beach and pools by the river. We spent hours wandering after the bus tour, and got a catamaran up the river. Again, the winter weather's been great, so that has helped.

We're (my mum is) hiring a car to drive up the coast from tomorrow. It should be great fun. It's good to see my mum after four months away. I hope I don't annoy her too much! Anne and I are in tight tight budget mode, so we're having to adjust for my mum who is here for a holiday and is not looking to skimp. What makes it easier is that she seems to want to treat us - hurrah!

On an unrelated note, someone has contacted me about my family tree research (which is on our home page). They're sending me the details of a cousin of my dad's who lives near Cairns. Small world!

Dude - where's my hair?

I've not "blogged" this before as I wanted to surprise my mum when I met up with her in Australia, but just before we left Sydney I had my head shaved! Not bald, but a "number one" all over. It was a bizarre experience. I felt breezes on my head for days, and kept catching my reflection and recoiling as I thought Phil Mitchell had finally tracked me down (or "tracked me dahn").

I figured I have an opportunity to do this sort of thing, as I don't plan to look for work until next February. When am I going to get that chance again? I'm used to it now and can hardly remember what I looked like with beautiful locks.

I met my mum at Brisbane ("Brissie") Airport yesterday, and she was shocked. It took her a moment to recognise me with my new hair, and she immediately decided she didn't like it. I've told her she'll get used to it, but she could barely look at me yesterday. So it's a new look that not even a mother could love. At least Anne's stuck with me. (We have joint travel insurance.)

Winter travels

After Coffs Harbour we travelled up the coast to Balina, a small tourist resort about 20 miles south of Byron Bay. We stayed in Balina for two nights.

Friday night we went Greek Style, and had a meze in a restaurant. Whilst cheap, it was a little over our budget. Ahem - we'll learn. It was good though! We spent a relaxed Saturday just wandering around Balina. We walked for a good while up the coast (still aching from our previous walks and injuries!) We did a self-guided tour of a historic Balina street (in which most of the historic buildings had been replaced) and went to a good, small naval and maritime museum. They had a raft which had been sailed from Ecuador to Australia in the seventies! The aim was to show that people could have sailed that far in pre-Columbus times, and hence that migration from the Americas to Australia could have happened. There were also lots of war displays. V good for a two dollar donation.

On Friday night we had the small hostel to ouirselves, which was great. On Saturday, however, several guests arrived - a young girl, an older man, and a couple of old women. The young traveller was welcome, but couldn't the others have paid for a proper hotel room? How selfish of them! We watched The Bill with them for a bit in the evening, then antisocially went to our room to read.

On Sunday morning we did the short coach ride to Byron Bay (annoyed only by the dire older couple sitting behing us - they were so dull and annoying). Clearly, the relaxed hippyish Byron Bay was just what I needed. I was expecting it to be a bit grungy and unplesant, but it's actually really nice, with good beaches and good places to walk. On Monday morning we walked along the coast to a lighthouse and Ausralia's easternmost point - the Lowestoft of Down Under! We were looking out for wildlife, amd saw some bush turkeys. Odd to see turkeys wandering around in the wild. We'd been told that you can sometimes see dolphins in the sea from the lighthouse. We'd looked ofr a while and seen nothing, and when Anne went to move on I was determined to stay to see some dolphins (for free, rather than paying for a tour!) A few minutes later I spotted six or seven of them in a group swimming up the coast, and was disproportionatley chuffed with myself for the rest of the day.

On Monday afternoon we went to the local hippish cinema, which my sister had recommeded to me. We watched The Hours, a mad-cap, hilarious film which keeps you laughing from start to finish. Of course, that's a joke. This is the much Oscar nominated movie starring Nicole Kidman's fake nose. It's about three women in different times, and kept me interested for the two hours it lasted. Good stuff - four stars.

Anne is currently off having a massage. I myself am relaxed enough as it is. Ahem.

Sunday was the first day of winter here, so I'm pleased to report we went to the beach on Sunday and sat by the pool yesterday - we've got a little tanned. Our tans had both faded in the months we worked in Sydney. It's grey today, but we're heading north tomorrow so we're not worried. Surfer's Paradise here we come! (Apparently it's not nice - I think we'll be the judges of that.)

Photo update

Hope to do a longer update on our time in Balina and Byron Bay tomorrow, but for now we've uploaded some photos to the Yahoo photo album (Big Adventure Photos link to the left).

Quick movie update

A quick round up of the films we've seen in the last week and a bit. I mad the most of the VCR in Sydney (before Richard bought it) by hiring Top Gun, which I'd never seen. Anne thought it was odd I'd never seen it, since I've seen so many films. I quite enjoyed it - it was so cliched and silly (partly because I've seen it copied so much I suppose) but ultimately well done. Very silly in parts, and Quentin Tarantino seems to have the subtext down pat with his "Go the gay way" dissection. Three and a half stars!

Also in Sydney I watched Changing Lanes while Anne was working (she'd already seen it). Ben Affleck and Samuel L Jackson in a witty revenge drama. Pretty entertaining, though tied up too neatly at the end. Three and a half stars.

At Coffs Harbour YHA we've seen two vids. The first was the dreadful Vertical Limit. This is a mountain climbing thriller which is just ridiculous. It stars Chris O'Donnel, with the supporting cast being either unknowns or bit players in US TV series. It has some entertaining moments I suppose, but everyone watching was laughing at the bits which ought to have been tense and exciting. One and a half stars.

Better was The Patriot, which we saw last night. This long US Civil War drama, starring Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger, is entertaining and fun. I remember when it came out there was controversy about the accuracy of it, but I certainly didn't come away thinking I knew more about the civil war - I didn't assume it historically accurate. Gruesome in places, and not as good as Braveheart, it gets four stars.

Now we're in YHAs and don't have the pick of the video library (or even, necessarily, a say in what's on) I figure the quality of the films we watch will be much more variable.

Free spirits. No, make that Bad Attitude

Hello. Stephen here. We left a raining Sydney by coach at 1pm on Monday - bye bye Sydney. We were on our way - free as birds. However, I was getting stressed. No more security. Carrying everything on our backs - how would we cope? Plus my knee was still smarting from the weekend.

But after a three hour journey (US Marshals on the video - I didn't watch it) we arrived in Newcastle. It wasn't raining, but it was very windy. The hostel was nice - a heritage building, big staircase and roaring fire. We immediately signed up for a free meal at a local Irish pub - they get the backpackers in by giving them a free meal and the backpackers buy drinks. Everyone wins.

We met in reception at 6.30pm, and walked to the pub with ten others (in line). Anne didn't like this. It reminded us of ITV's Club Reps programme and we half expected to be made to sing dirty songs. We were feeling quite antisocial. Oh dear - bad us. When we got to the bar the free sausage and mash was just fine, and we got talking to an Aussie couple who were travelling around. We left after two drinks and were in bed by nine (after sitting reading by the fire for a bit).

Next morning were were catching a coach to Port Macquarie at 10. I got in a strop when we didn't have milk for coffee. Grrrr - need my morning coffee. I was being irrational and calmed down after a bit, but realised I need to change my routines and work out what I need and don't need. We bought milk when we got to Port Macquarie - job done.

On Tuesday afternoon, just after we arrived, we went to a Koala Hospital, run by volunteers. There was some information to read (which Anne, as ever, lapped up in style of Number 5 from Short Circuit) and then there were several pens with trees in. We got to play Spot The Koala as we looked in the trees. Some had been brought in suffering from burns following bushfires, others had been attacked by dogs or hit by cars. Some had "wet bottom", a form of chlamydia (sp?). One particularly was a sorry sight. She was almost blind and would never leave the hospital. We watched a lady feed her with a milk solution, and the koala was the most animated we've ever seen one. It was quite amusing. Anne got all soppy - I doubt she'll ever want to eat a koala sandwich again.

Later that same day, we were walking to town when Anne slipped on a metal grate and fell like a sack of potatoes. I didn't have a chance to try to save her, though obviously I would have done my best had I had time. She fell on her hip and elbow, and got a wet bottom. I offered to take her to the koala hospital to see what they could do, but she refused medical attention. There was nothing I could do - Anne's and awkward patient. She soldiered on, moaning. It was raining, and didn't stop raining before we went to bed (past ten this time!)

So are we coping? We're pretty fussy people, so I guess it will take us a while to get out of our routines. Many of the other backpackers seem to be gaunt and unhealthy, with persistent coughs, so we're determined not to fall into similar habits. Most are also well under 25, so we're feeling pretty old. But this morning was nice and hot and sunny. We wandered around Port Macquarie, and sat on a bench reading our books in the sun - glorious. The coast here is pretty spectacular, with some big waves. I think at one point we may have even started to relax!

So, on to Coff's Harbour by coach in an hour or so. We're spending two nights there (and then have at least two nights at each stop until Brisbane) so we can slow our pace a little. Go, laid back us.

A man of leisure

Yay - no more work for me. I left The ABC on Wednesday. Quite an experience there. I was working on improving the processes in a few areas, and was designing diggy Excel spreadsheets to do lots of cool things. (Remember that this is accountancy so "cool" is a relative term.) I borrowed a book from Andrew and Shae on Excel programming and have now taught myself macros and VBA to a reasonable level. After I'd designed a sheet, full of whizzy macros for the petty cash officer I went through it with her and taught her how to use it. It was clear to me that this spreadsheet would save her a lot of time and make her record keeping better. I'd made it idiot proof so she couldn't corrupt it - only the cells she needed to type in were unprotected, and there were double checks and validations everywhere. Anyway, I didn't want to scare her off as she's quite a nervous person, so I took it slow and walked her through the process. After the first day, it was clear that this would cut her work by a huge amount, so I was surprised when she said, "Yes it's good, but I don't think I'll be able to use it." Oh dear. I asked what was wrong and said that I'd change it to her specifications. She said that she was worried that if she used this spreadsheet she'd have nothing to do for much of the day. And that attitude pretty much summed up the culture there, and, I've heard, at many public services. So long as you fill your day it doesn't matter how inefficient you are. Grrrr! I didn't tell her that her boss was looking to throw more work her way, but I was pleased that by the time I left the cashier's office was running smoothly with my program, and she seemed happy.

I was also working on another department, where I was hindered at every step by the guy I was trying to help. He was such an arse, and seemed to think I was there to make his life more difficult. If he'd given me the time and support I needed I could have cut his workload and made his life easier, but as it is I had to leave that to my replacement (whom I advised to go over this guy's head and not to rely on him).

So having finished work, I am now unemployed - hurrah! We have a few days to sort things out, and then we start our trek up the coast to Brisbane, where we'll meet up with my mum.

Today and yesterday I've been sorting out accommodation and coach trips between Sydney and Brisbane - we leave for Newcastle (about three hours north) on Monday, after our flat's been inspected.

After a nice meal in a Spanish restaurant, we went to our final quiz at our local bar last night. Richard came too, so of course we won (we need him for the music and sport questions!) I was touched when the quizmaster gave us a big pack of Tim ams as a leaving gift (if you've read my praise for these Aussie biscuits you'll know why I was so happy). We stayed afterwards and chatted with him and the quiz regulars after. I'll miss the routine of our regular Thursday quiz. In the three months we've been here we've not missed one Thursday, and have won all but two times. Creatures of habit, us.

So now our routines are gone. Travelling is, by its nature, a haphazard and disorganised affair. It's apt then that we have our two week journey to Brisbane planned with military precision, and have accommodation booked for most of our stops. Ahem. One step at a time I say. Maybe by next February I'll have relaxed, and will wander round singing "Hakuna Matata" (sp?) all day. (It means "no worries".)

(When I say we have the journey planned with military precision, I'm saying it's planned well. Looking at the number of "friendly fire" incidents and other PR disasters in the recent Gulf War you may think the term an oxymoron.)

Ah, extreme odd trial

That's an anagram.

Of The Matrix Reloaded. This is my review. We saw it at the flicks on Saturday afternoon (and brilliantly escaped the rain). I loved the first film. I liked it at the cinema, but I've seen it on DVD a few times since and I think I like it even more now. It's so stylish and original, and Keanu Reeves does really well as a dazed and confused Neo.

So the first of the two sequels (next one out in November!) Was I excited? Probably not as much as I was with the second X Men film, since the first one was really good without blowing me away, and it was clear that the sequel could be just as good. There was nothing that original or different about X Men - it's just a retelling of an old comic book. With The Matirx I thought they'd have to go a long way to equal it, so I wasn't expecting miracles.

So I'd have to say that I wasn't that disappointed since I was expecting to be disappointed. If you follow me.

The film's exciting, and fun, and there are some great bits (the freeway chase, especially). However, there's very much a "seen it before" feeling. Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith seems to have been relegated to comic relief, since seeing so many clones of him is just amusing and you never really feel he's going to duff up Neo good and proper. Equally Neo doesn't seem as kick-ass as he was at the end of the last one. I suppose the fight scenes wouldn't have been as good if he just moved his arms around nonchalantly.

And as I was expecting, whilst Keanu Reeves was perfect for a Neo who didn't quite understand what was going on in the first film, he's less well cast as a saviour and superhero.

The effects are good, but watching CG people running around often feels like you're watching a cartoon. During Neo's fight with multiple Smiths I was in turns amazed and bored by the technology. The scenes of Neo flying were great, and made me wish they'd hurry up and get the new Superman movie into production. Alas it seems that's not going to happen for a while. (They should get Nicolas Cage back on board for that too.)

Back to TMR, there's too much rubbish philosophy in the film, especially in the first half hour. "But what is control? Do we control machines or do they control us? Ahhhhhhh - do you see? Ahhhh." There is some good stuff though, especially with a discussion of Neo's purpose as "The One" near the end, which changes your understanding of the films (I don't think I fully understood it, however).

So not a disaster, but not an equal to the first one. The original was a five star movie, but this one's just a three star one. That's probably a bit unfair on the film, since it's being judged in relation to it's predecessor, but I never claimed to be fair. Perhaps it will seem better once the trilogy's complete.

A bit of rambling about our plans

We'll be leaving Sydney next Monday and starting Stage Three of the Big Adventure - travelling anticlockwise around Australia from Sydney. (Stage One was Tokyo, Stage Two: living and working in Sydney - keep up at the back!) We'll be giving up what little security we have with our jobs, our cosy little studio flat and the people we know in Sydney. We are quite (as in completely) excited. I've no idea how we'll fill our days.

Once we've left Sydney I won't be in internet cafes so much (indeed, can't afford to be - they're more expensive outside the big cities). This blog will probably change from a place for my rambling thoughts with diary also to a travel diary proper. This will please a number of you.

Australian youth hostels tend to be pretty good, so there's no need to pity us too much. Unless we have to, we won't be staying in dorms - we're in our late twenties, so of course we're above the straight-from-uni travellers who come to Oz for the sole purpose of destroying their livers and we don't fancy sharing a room with them.

I'm a little worried that will mean we're less sociable than other travellers (he says, having just snobbishly put down a majority of the travellers here). There's less motivation to chat to strangers when traveling in a couple. When you're travelling alone you have to talk to others to keep from going mad. It may be that we find that we too have to talk to others if we drive each other mad, of course.

We won't have a TV any more, so less of The Simpsons for us (and fewer movies too - sob). Some youth hostels have a wazzark lantern in the common room, but you have to put up with what other people are watching. (What am I saying? It's more than likely to be The Simpsons - that show is always on, and is internationally loved.)

For the moment though, it's time to start getting things in order here. My job finished today (huzzah!) and Anne's ends on Friday. My mum's coming to Oz to travel around a bit so we're timing it so we meet her in Brisbane. With our recent weekend hikes I may even be able to keep up with her - she usually wears me out when we go walking with her.