... Back to city living Spent a week in sydney and, as I mentioned in the last mini-blog, it was a rather relaxed and lazy affair. It's amazing how staying in one place makes the time race away, and my week in Sydeny certainly did that. I'm used to spending about three days somewhere then moving on and then time gets really distorted; I'm often stunned that something I'm recalling was only a week ago... Anyway, in my more speedy-paced existance in Sydeny I busied...

.....Making a teensy weensy U-turn I'm in Sydney now which is rather cool, always good to get to a city and see how the real people live from time to time. Can even pretend to be a real person myself for a few days, shopping trips, coffee and cake, drinks by the harbour - great stuff. And I've decided to indulge in a week of this pleasure so I can really get a feel for the city, but also because I'm using it like a kind of pit-stop to recharge the old batteries ...

.....Taking a trip to the zoo Next stop on the east coast trail was Noosa, a kind of combination between a posh weekend retreat (smart shops and restaurants galore) and a surfers hangout (great waves man). There are a series of fab beaches and bays backed by green hills and a small but lovely national park perched on the end of the headland ripe for exploring and stretching the by-now very unfit legs - it was super and is definitely competing for my favourite O...

....Happy camping After the Whitsundays have been sailed and fun has been had in the pretty party town of Airlie Beach, the next obligatory stop on the east coast backpacker trail (for those heading south anyway) is Fraser Island, generally ited as one of the highights of the Australian travelling experience. It's a rather large island made up completely of sand but home to forests and fresh water lakes and creeks, surrounded by wild seas full of sharks and man...

....Island hoppingThe first of what will be many Greyhound bus rides down the east coast took Suzanna and I from Cairns to the ferry terminal in Townsville ready to head over to Magnetic Island for a little holiday. We did an overnighter and got there at 6am in the morning so had to hang around for a couple of hours for the first crossing, am getting very good at hanging around and killing time though, and always carry an arsenal of reading material, so this...