Greetings,

Yes indeed we are finally on the road again. Finished work in Sydney at last and now back onto the highway and heading for the beaches, at least that's the plan for now.

In Brisbane for the long weekend but as we suspected everything is closed for Easter, great timing eh! This city seems very quiet when compared to Sydney which we had become so used to. Sydney truely was, and is, a beautiful city, so much to do and see however this all comes at a cost as your bank balance does a magical disappearing act.

Sydney was good to us, we can actually understand cricket now after watching a summer full of it including being at the SCG to watch England beat Australia to claim the one day trophy, saw Snow Patrol live who were excellent, and i had the joy of spending two weeks in Manila in the Philippines (sent there to work on a project by the office i was working with in Sydney). All in all we really did enjoy our time there and were sorry to leave but all good things must come to an end and the best is yet to come as we now head out into the great unknow.

First stop was Byron Bay, a small surfers town full of backpackers and surfer dudes, a nice way to ease us back into our travels. We awoke on Monday morning, having arrived Sunday morning after a 14 hour bus journey, to news that a tsunami warning had been issued for the entire east coast. Upon hearing this we decided to head for the lighthouse on the hill overlooking the town and bay to get the best possible view to see this tsunami. Well the tsunami never arrived, thankfully, but the views were magnificient and we did make it to the most easterly point of Australia!

From there we ventured further north and into Surfers Paradise, basically Bundoran times 1000. The beach is brilliant but with all the high rise apartment blocks and hotels (which the Gold Coast is famous for) you can't help but feel disappointed, it is too comercial for my liking and really feels altogether American, very like our experience in Waikiki in Hawaii. One night there was sufficient and we now find ourselves in Brisbane with basically nothing to do but sort out the arrangements for our trips to Fraser Island and the cruise around the Witsunday Islands. We will maybe take in a Super 14 game (Reds are playing the Sharks) on Saturday and meet with a few friends from Sydney but other than that it's basically relaxing before we get into the real adventure of the east coast.

And so we now prepare ourselves for what lies ahead, a further 3 weeks up the east coast, maybe 2 weeks down through the outback and Alice Springs and then another 4 weeks up the west coast before we head for Asia and begin the long journey home. Have to find myself a new book to read and entertain myself on these long bus journeys after finishing Bill Bryson's Down Under (highly recommended for anyone thinking of or travelling around Australia) so any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Well, hope ye all have a brilliant Easter and i'll be thinking of ye as i lie on the beach on Fraser Island topping up my sunburn.

Paul.