Uluru

Too cloudy for a decent sunset, but the champagne's good! We'll be back in the morning for sunrise. My trip's been upgraded so we're camping in luxurious style!

Australia Day Bank Holiday

Saturday (26th) was Australia Day. We were in the metropolis of Northampton, staying on a farm. In the evening (after our dinner of roo stew) we headed for the town and one of the pubs. Our tour guide assured us it would be a great night, with everyone out celebrating. We passed two empty pubs and stopped at the third. We joined the three other customers in the pub and stayed for a couple of drinks, enjoying The Empire Strikes Back which was playing on the TV. Maybe all the Ozzies stayed in to celebrate?!

So this monday was a bank holiday and my friends and I headed off to Fremantle to chill out on the beach. We were going to go to an island, but had left it a little late in the day. Unlike the UK, there was no travel chaos and the beach was practically empty. It was rather windy, so maybe the locals don't like getting sand everywhere. We relaxed on the beach and went for a swim (no sharks, turtles, dolphins or fish this time) and had a wander round the town before getting the train back to Perth. Despite the factor 30 sunscreen we were all starting to feel the tingle of sunburn as we headed home. It's very obvious when you've missed a bit with the sunscreen!

But now it's farewell to the west coast as I fly inland to Alice Springs. Oh boy, it's going to be hot!!

Skippy

I was feeding him up so that the roo stew would go further.

My bonza mates

Fiona, Dan, Ronan, Steve, Faye and Helen.

I'm back in civilisation now (aka Perth) after a fantastic trip up the west coast. Australia is bloody huge!! On the map it didn't look that far to Exmouth, but it was probably the length of the UK. As you may have noticed from the pictures, I've been to some amazing places and met some great people. Apologies for some of the photos being the wrong way round, I think I've worked out how to avoid it happening again, but I can't change the ones that are already there.

I'm in Perth for another day or so and I've been hanging out with people from the west coast trip, but there's only 3 of us left now (there were 18). There's been a slight problem with my trip to Alice Springs... it's been cancelled!! But the tour company have been great and I'm flying to Alice Springs tomorrow and then doing a 4 day trip to Uluru, Kings Canyon, etc. So it's all good!

I've got too many good memories to write them all here. But in summary, I've seen, eaten, fed and stroked kangaroos, swam with a manta ray, reef sharks, a turtle and a gazillion fish, been up close to dolphins, held several snakes, seen a red-back spider (very dangerous), taken hundreds of photos, laughed till I cried, seen some amazing scenery and made lots of new friends. And I've only been here two weeks!!

Happy Australia Day!

We celebrated with a roo stew... Yum!

Ningaloo Reef

Totally, totally AMAZING! I swam with a manta ray, reef sharks, a turtle and loads of fish. We're all rather sunburnt tho!

I woz here!

We crossed this today on our way north. Australia is bloody huge!

Monkey Mia

This morning we had breakfast with some dolphins!

Nature's Window

Helen, from the group I'm travelling with, admiring Nature's Window.

Kalbarri Gorge

It was hard work walking up and down here in the heat, but well worth it in the end.

The Pinnacles

This was our first stop on my trip up the west coast. Very hot and sandy! I saw my first real kangaroo today and some flaming gallahs.

I'm in Australia!

The kangaroo's are suprisingly tame!

OK, so it's not a real one, but it's the closest I've come to native Austalian wildlife so far.

I've been in Perth for a few days now and it's ok, not somwhere I'd want to live... it's a bit boring. The highlight was King's Park, where I fell asleep for two hours under a tree. I think I was suffering from jet lag! Today I took the ferry to Fremantle, just down the coast. It's much nicer than Perth and I might try and go back there when I return to Perth in a week's time.

Tomorrow I'm off on my first trip, up the west coast. I've just met a girl who's come back from the same trip so she's been telling me all about it. The only scary bit was the huge spider and other creepy crawlies she said she saw in the last place they stayed. Something tells me I won't be sleeping well that night!!

So far I have six mosquito bites (they're big, lumpy and itchy), one blister (I walked about 6 miles yesterday!) and just a wee touch of sunburn on my shoulders.

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to my Blog! If you're reading this you'll know that a few months ago I decided to take some of the hard-earned cash from my extensive property portfolio and spend it on a wee trip... round the world! So after months of planning, the trip is only a few days away and I've still loads to do. Panic would have set in today, but I was a little bit too hungover from my farewell drinks... damn those Cock Sucking Cowboys!!

In case you need reminding, my rough itinerary is: just over three weeks in Australia, five weeks around New Zealand in a campervan, two weeks in LA and Las Vegas and then two weeks in Vancouver and Vancouver Island visiting and / or travelling with various friends, family, friends of friends and distant relatives along the way.

I'm hoping that I can send photos from my mobile phone straight to this Blog, so even if I can't get internet access you should be able to see plenty of pictures of what I'm getting up to.

Well, that's enough for my first post. Watch this space for more!!