I pricked up my ears at a conversation between a young couple in the hotel bar this morning: "So," the girl was saying, "Will you have to get a new heart?" "Naw" her companion replied, "This one ain't so bad. Should last a bit longer." There was an awkward silence before the girl spoke again: "Well it's up to you, obviously, Scott - but if I had a hole that size in my heart I'd want to get a new one pretty quick." Two or three other British tourists were takin...

So here I am on the Gold Coast for Christmas - and I can tell that I'm in for an exceptional time. The weather is as different from Sydney as I can imagine - down there it was just sunny, here on the Gold Coast my blood is in serious danger of boiling. I'm told that Cairns will be even hotter when I get there next week, so I think I might leave most of my clothes behind before moving on. The beach at Surfers is a several mile stretch of pure white sand packed wi...