Clare writes:In the immortal words of Tom Waits: 'There's a world going on underground!' There is in Coober Pedy anyway - opal mining capital of Australia, possibly the world. This was one of the places I was most keen to visit since reading about it in bill Bryson's 'Down Under' and it didn't disappoint. Three quarters of the population of this sizeable desert outpost live underground to escape punishing temperatures which range from 1 to 50degrees. In homes, s...

17 Dec We flew to Adelaide on 14 Decemember and checked in at the rather unsalubrious Blue Galah hostel - which had sounded ok in the Lonely Planet and was bright with lots of facilities but has its downsides too: noisy twenty-somethings coming in at 3am, small rooms, and a kitchen permanently packed with Asian students who are there long term and are nice enough but do LIKE to cook. All rooms are off a wide central staircase up from the main communa...

Sheila writes: G'day from Southern Australia (Adelaide to be precise). We've had a wonderful camper van trip through the outback of Western Australia - visiting the Karijini National Park in the north, with its wonderful sandstone gorges - and even managing a refreshing dip in the pool at the bottom of the Fortesque waterfall after an early morning hike around the rim of the Dales Gorge, with fabulous birdsong. Camping overnight in Karijini was uncomfortably ...