We arrived in Bangkok in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Wow what a complete contrast to the cities in Australia. Its huge, dirty, smelly, sweaty yet enchanting. Shiny skyscrapers next to shanty houses, orange robed monks walking past exclusive shopping malls. Plus beautiful temples and shrines everywhere. On Wednesday we had a walk round Siam square which is close to our hotel, lots of little streets packed with bargain shops. There are also big flash mal...

Saturday night a couple of C&C's friends came round so we had our first oz bbq. Complete with one or two sociable drinks. On sunday we headed out to Mount Coot-tha for a great view out over the city as it was another cracking day. We had all been dreaming of a sunday roast including yorkshire puddings so that was Craig and Chris's job for the afternoon. Surely it wasnt a good idea to leave it to them and they didn't disappoint. The thought of Yorkshire Puddings w...

On wednesday we headed south towards the Sunshine Coast just above Brisbane. First stop was Noosa, it was here that we got our first proper look at the locals enjoying the beach. We couldnt believe the age of some of the guys surfing, we're talking 70+ I reckon. Noosa was a real millionaires playground with loads of flash water front pads. We carried on down the sunshine coast stopping at a number of beaches, just a shame the sun wasnt shining. We arrived i...

Well we escaped the cyclone that hit the Queensland coast through sunday night, monday morning. We were very lucky as if we had been driving down just a day or two later we would have been stuck right in the middle of it and not had the chance to see the whitsunday islands or go back out to the reef. It was strange seeing the banana plantations on the news that we had driven past a couple of days before, they had all now been totally flattened as well as many bui...

On Saturday we went on a trip to the Whitsunday Islands and the barrier reef. Thankfully the weather was better. We took a 30 min hellicopter ride over the islands, the famous whitehaven beach & hill inlet and then over the reef and the famous hear shaped reef as shown above. The snad at whitehaven beach is pure white, and the colours of the sea were a gorgeous green colour. There are lots of small islands mainly inhabitated, some with some hotel resorts on, and ...