Yo, it's 14th June and I'm in Adelaide. Just spent the last month touring the east and southeast coasts of Australia. From Sydney I took what's called the Oz Experience bus (filled with young backpackes - and me) which tours the various highlights of the coast there and goes a bit off the beaten path also. Stop offs were at a gold mine (where you can pan for gold and actually find some), a winery, a sheep station (where we stayed at the Dag Inn, a dag being that encrusted bit of dirty wool that you can find on a sheep's ass - trivia piece number 27), Byron Bay (big surfer spot), Brisbane, Airlie Beach (where I took a trip out to the Great Barrier Reef and had a snorkel and dive of same which was interesting - well, scary - 'cos I can't swim but at least I got to see the reef), Dingo (where we had a tour of a cattle station, did a bit of whip cracking, had some bush tucker (stuff that bushmen eat!), played a didjeridoo (badly) and tossed some boomerangs about), Fraser Island (the world's largest sand island no less, took a 3-day four-wheel drive tour of that which was interesting, the only roads there are beaches and the beach is used as a landing strip also), and Cairns. Saw lots of rainforest, sugar cane, kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, dingos and parrots.

From Cairns I legged it down to Sydney (26 hour bus to Brisbane and another 17 hours to Sydney). Went on a tour of the Blue Mountains there which was quite nice (travelled on the world's steepest railway - superlative number 29). On then to Canberra (an Australian Washington DC, lots of big white federal buildings, quite boring actually), Melbourne (which is a good ole place) and here, Adelaide. Weather has been hit and miss, it's pretty cool/cold at the moment (it's winter down here y'know) but I should be in Darwin in a week or so and it's 33C (91F) there (with Ayer's Rock to see in between).

Pretty interesting country, more so the parts with Aborigine culture. People are pretty friendly but the backpackers are assholes (like the wanker of a Scotsman that's sitting beside me at the moment)!! :-)

Spending lots of money of course and lots of time on buses. This country is big! I've sent a didjeridoo and a couple of boomerangs home so I'll entertain you all with some aborigine renditions as soon as I get back and yes that is a threat, not a promise! :-)

Dunno when next I'll be connected. I'll probably not bother trying to connect again from Australia and I've a funny feeling Internet connections are few and far between in Indonesia. Singapore maybe in a couple of months or so??? So long ...