For Hallum

Here we have some diggers. We understand that little Hallum positively lives for them. So we collected some. We will keep our eyes peeled for any more along the way.

Whilst enjoying the waterholes so perfect for swimming
around Katherine in the Northern Territory Vicki discovered that Crocodiles live in the area. She got her knickers in a right old twist.

We made our way up into the red centre of Australia by train. There, we found Alice Springs, with the Todd River flowing (a fairly rare sight) and the waterhole that was mistaken for a spring and named after Alice (who the f ...) positively overflowing. We took a tour around the principal big bits of rock in the region, camping in swags under the stars around the fire by night. At the close of the tour we were compelled to have a couple of beers, which ended up at our tour guide's (second from left) house at 5.30 in the morning with respectable goodbyes. We had good fun around the outback. You'll have to wait for the album for the compulsory 4000 sutset / sunrise pictures of the Rock.

After a short visit to Adelaide we hopped up into the nearby Barossa Valley, a region of vineyards and wineries. Jacobs Creek, Penfolds and Wolf Blass dominate the shelves of Tesco from here, along with a hundred or so other wineries. We spent a fabulous few days cycling around the area visiting the numerous cellar doors, all of which have free tasting lists. We stayed in a geat little stone cottage in a vineyard (botton pic) and generally drank far too much fine Shiraz.

In Broken Hill, which is basically miles from anywhere in kind of south east Australian outback, we encountered a quite astonishing sandstorm. We tried to take some pictures, but they hardly do justice to the sight of an enormous burning cloud rushing across the desert from nowhere at considerable speed. This storm left an ethereal sunset over the town. Broken Hill is a funny place; isolated and stuck in it glorious mining age of 130 years ago, redneck yet an artistic enclave (hence the sculpture symposium that permits arty sunset snaps). It also has a brilliantly random memorial to the band that continued to play whilst the Titantic sank (bottom pic). Why there should be such a memorial in Broken Hill is a complete mystery.

We pulled into Sydney just after new year and caught up with Michelle and Mark who were over on holiday. See front to back, Vicki, Gandalf, Mark and Michelle. We were able to enjoy several drinking sessions as well as a trip to the SCG to see the English getting thumped. As scant revenge, we went to the Aussie Stadium to see Sydney FC get beaten at home by bottom the the league New Zealand Knights, in their soccer 'A' league. The standard was woeful. We stayed just outside the city centre in beachside Coogee, pictured, which is a bit like Bondi Beach without the kudos. This also allowed us to stay in perhaps the shabbiest hostel in Australia, Coogee Surfside Backpackers, just across the road from this beach. Don't go there. We had a fabulous time, however, in Sydney, and thanks to Mark and Michelle for getting Ashes tickets and generally allowing us to invade their holiday.

Port Stephens

Here we have images from our time in Port Stephens, a couple of hours north of Sydney, where we spent New Year. We walked around the fabulous headlands, drank wine in our tent, explored the rockpools along the coastline and sandboarded on the huge dunes. It was a lot of fun.

Warney

This post is being composed from sunny Broken Hill, a town about a million miles from anywhere. Since last posting, we have bussed down from Brisbane, into beachy Port Stephens for New Year, and then onto Sydney. Busy busy Sydney. There we met up with Mark and Michelle for a few days of boozing about town, interspersed with lots of wandering and bussing and boating about the city. This time also saw a trip to the SCG for day three of the final test. A tearful experience. For the record, we suffered on this day like every other on the tour a humiliating thumping. Bowled Shane. After a week on hectic Coogee we have boarded the Indian Pacific, which has taken us in relative comfort at pedestrian pace across much land to Broken Hill. Once we have worked out why this place is still here we'll re-board for the jaunt to Adelaide and thence north through the red centre and a town very much like Alice to Katherine and finally Darwin. That's a lot of train induced arse ache.

Thereafter, at the beginning of February, we'll be flying the short hop over to East Timor, to begin our South East Asian adventure. When we bought the tickets the sales girl enquired if we were peace workers. Excellent.

Pics etc to follow. Technology is slow to reach this town, unless you want to dig rocks out of the ground.