Can you hear me, Toecutter?

I have toured the wastelands in the last V8-interceptor, bumped into Tina Turner, Bruce Spence gave me a lift in his gyrocopter, and when I look up at the night sky I remember his name - the Night Rider!

Ok so maybe that stuff just happened in my brain but I did see some ace things. The Road trip took us north from Brisbane to Bundaberg (a small town spread over a wide area) then north again Agnes Waters and the town of 1770 to go out to see the Great Barrier Reef. Post reef back south again to Brisbane via the Glass House Mountains then a few days on the road down to Sydney stopping at Gold Coast (on Indy night), Coffs Harbour and Newcastle. And here comes the big boring list of things I've seen

Wild stuff seen on land:
An eagle feasting on some smaller unfortunate beastie.
Kangaroos bounding across the road, just like on the warning signs.
Parrots flying around like regular birds, who do they think they are? And Gallahs too!
Several large bats swooping about the place.
Lots of lizards they seem to be the equivalent of squirrels in this hemisphere - just wandering about and posing for photos! The biggest one spotted being a Lace Monitor lizard who was somewhere around 4 or 5 foot long.
A pair of possums who seemed to live on top of one of the motels we stayed in who were very friendly!

Water beasties - mostly spotted on the Great Barrier Reef near 1770:
A family of Humpback Whales jumping and splashing about.
Blacktip Reef Sharks grooving around by Lady Musgrave Island.
Turtles, one of whom came and swam with me!
An Octopus hiding on the reef who was kind enough to demonstrate his amazing camouflage ability!
And obviously a huge number of colourful fish and coral.

"Big Things" - there seems to be a weird Australian tradition of making huge models of things (vaguely to do with advertising) - for note you should really read Danny Wallace's book "Yes Man" which makes reference to these fantastic "Big Things" as well as saying yes to the opportunities life throws you like quitting your job and going to Australia! Anyway there are hundred's to see of which we spotted: the Big Banana (apparently the first ever "Big Thing"); Big Pineapple; Big Clam; Big Prawn; and a few biggish things - a fly, shrimp, avocado and a strawberry - only about the size of a car; and a small Uluru (the size of a petrol station).

Also worthy of special note is SuperBee HoneyWorld a roadside museum! As ever photos of many of these wonderful things can be seen on flickr with more to follow at some point - maybe even fish photos if they worked!

Photos

Hullo, the first (small) set of photos from Australia are up here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/olr/. I'll get more up as soon as I have more time at a computer of any sorts. In other news my brand new ipod has been wiped by a combination of stupid laptops and stupid apple programming - well I guess it couldn't all be sunshine and laughter!

Acting your age...

...is entirely overrated and not something that messers Thomas, Hicks and Roberts have ever been accused of! Accordingly we took a trip to Adventure World amusement park yesterday, it's basically a low-key version of Thorpe Park or somewhere like that - but the waterslides are awesome, and the place was pretty much deserted! So we three 30 somethings ran around like the fat childish idiots that we are sustaining many an injury, getting stuck in tubes, eating icecreams and generally having a top time!
My advice for anyone who wants it is act your shoesize... today we're off to the aquarium!

Land, Sea and Air

Went to Caversham Wildlife Park yesterday and Rottness island today so I've seen lots of flora and forna! I've stroked koalas, kangaroos, and a wombat - all very soft, softer than expected. Also seen were kookaburras, owls, spotted quolls, tasmanian devils, minks, and tonnes of other beasties!
Today the weather was gorgeous for our trip to Rottness Island - which is a small island with virtually nothing and no one on it, perfect for beaches and snorkeling. Huge numbers of fishies to be seen along with amazing coral - most excitingly we saw a lobster and a stingray!
And, of course, as always there were parrots flying around pretending to be normal birds!

Phase One

I'm now in Perth, Fran and Gord making me a welcome guest for the past few days. I'm not sure I really "got" Singapore to me it seemed rather a lot like Hemel or Watford - or rather a large number of Watfords gathered together! Malls and malls and malls which considering I've spent a number of months trying not to spend any money wasn't really what I was after. But Perth is a lot easier to "get" weirdly it actually reminds me a lot of Porthmadog (my Dad's home town in North Wales) - a seaside town with a fairly relaxed attitude... it is slightly hotter, though did go in the Indian ocean today which was cold beyond all expectation! What else have I done? Eaten prawns, Vegemite, and tim-tams. Seen parrots (walking around like regular birds), a bar of gold being poured, Norwegian Figs, a kukabura (sp?), a number plate that read Roo Mad, a shop called Dingos and one called Crazy Craig's, and a whole bunch of art in the Gallery of WA. Dave has joined us now, Thursday has come to Australia, walking along the beach and paddling in the Indiana ocean on the way to the Cott probably beats walking down Charring Cross to the George but I'd probably better keep trying just to make sure...

More news from nowhere...

All things being equal I start my odyssey on Monday night and the next time I write it'll be from Australia!
The vague plan (for those interested) is

• A couple of days in Singapore
• A week or so in Perth staying with Gordon and Fran
• Fly across to Brisbane with Dave
• Make our way to Sydney over the next 2 weeks
• Find somewhere slightly more permanent to live in Sydney and find some work
• Visit New Zealand in February or March
• Head back to Australia... what happens from this point depends on lots of things!

If I find myself near a computer during this time I'll be bunging photos up here and obviously if I have anything to say it'll be right here!