Wednesday 30th March - Alice Springs. This was nice enough, but anything of real interest seemed to be a day trip away so we just walked about. Our hostel was horrible though. The room was okay, but but the kitchen was horrible. We saw ants, cockroaches and a mouse, eurgh. In other hostels the fridges and shelves get cleaned out on a regular basis, but thee seemed to be no sign of this happening here. Also, huge amounts of space were taken up for staff use. One of the washing machines was also labelled for staff only, and we never saw it in use when we were there.

Thursday 31st March - Uluru. This was just as amazing as expected. The Uluru trip is best done over two days, with a night sleeping under the stars in the desert, but we just didn't have time and had to do the brief one day tour. We had fantastic guides who told us the Aboriginal stories relating to different parts of the rock and you could really see the shapes and formations that led to those stories - a snake's head here, a footprint there. We also saw another nearby rock formation called Kata Tjuta, which was just as spectacular. Just as in Coober Pedy, the recent rains meant that all sorts of plant life had sprung up and waterholes were full. We were forced to by fly nets to go over our heads though, and we did where them! There were just so many flies about that we didn't care how stupid we looked in our nets!

Friday 1st April - arrived at Coogee Beach. We're staying at Coogee Beach so we're in a different part of town to our first visit.

Saturday 2nd April - Sydney. We popped back to Sydney for one last look around. We climbed up one of the pylons of Sydney Harbour Bridge. It doesn't go quite as high as the bridge itself, but a least we could take some photos this time.

Sunday 3rd April - Coogee Beach. We just wanered around town. Coogee is nice and pretty relaxed. After rushing around in Vanny it was nice to have a day just doing things at our own pace.

Monday 4th April - Bondi Beach. The only thing left to do on our to-do list is pop over to Bondi but this just a scenic walk away from where we are staying. The walk takes you along the cliffs, through some pictureesque coves and passed a huge cemetery.

We've got just about everything we wanted from our trip in Australia. We've seen amazing scenery, from cities and beaches to rainforests and deserts. We've driven 3948km in Vanny and stayed in three different states. And as for the wildlife - we've seen things we didn't even hope to see, like a baby koala and an echidna! Despite all or adventures we feel like we've barely scratched the surface of Australia. We could easily have spent the whole six months here. But the rest of the world is calling - onwards to China!

Next update will be from Shanghai!
Lindsay and Chris