So here we are in China! We had a lot of hanging around at the airport yesterday, as we got there early, but then our flight was delayed by an hour and then we sat for quite a while on the Tarmac before we got the all clear to take off. We were served jasmine tea and biscuits on the short one hour flight to Guilin. We were met by our pre-booked taxi, and as the driver didn't speak a word of English and we didn't speak any Mandarin, we had a rather silent journey ...

We arrived in Hong Kong on Friday night and were transported at breakneck speed to our hotel in a red 'urban' taxi. We're staying at an Ibis hotel, and our room could be described as 'bijou'! However, it's on the 25th floor, with a large window looking out over the water and all the high-rise buildings and hills on the Kowloon side, so it feels much more spacious than it actually is. They also have a great 'all you can eat' buffet breakfast, (well, I don't know i...

We really enjoyed our 3 days in the Blue Mountains. The first night we stayed in Katoomba, a very quaint town, in a quirky hotel which was straight out of the 1930s. We hiked along some pretty wet and muddy walking trails the next day, (quite a contrast to the Red Centre), which took us from cliff top level down hundreds of steps, past waterfalls and very thick foliage. We wouldn't have had time to climb back up via the steps before our car park ticket ran out, s...

Our last day in the Bush started with a 5am chorus of "Good morning starshine....." from Bernard. Pleasant as that was, it came just as we were getting to sleep, after a fitful night of tossing and turning, hearing wild animals walking about on the gravel outside the tents, and scratching on the tent walls, and at one point it even sounded like something was trying to dig its way into the tent in the corner by Tony's head! When I told Bernard about it, ...

So, not the best night's sleep, camping in the Outback! Went to sleep very quickly, but then woke up at 2am and spent about 20 minutes debating whether I really did need a wee, or whether I could hang on until we got up at 4.30...... In the end, I decided I couldn't wait, so fumbled about in the dark finding the torch, then fumbled about getting dressed and making sure there were no scorpions or snakes in my boots before I put them on, and set off on an expeditio...