Well, hello again everyone. I haven't been doing much in the way of touristy sightseeing, as I have been trying to plan the next leg of my trip. I will attempt to make a very tedious story as short as possible. First off, when I arrived in Australia I discovered that I had been issued with a 3 month visa instead of a 6 month one. My original flight to New Zealand was booked for 25th March, but my visa expires on 12th February - oh, what to do. I basically had 3 choices - leave by 12th Feb, fly out to NZ and back to get another 3 month visa, or pay $300 to get an extension without leaving the country. This would also have involved having to prove that I have sufficient funds to support myself for this period of time. This decision was put on the back burner in the wake of the tsunami, as I thought long and hard and decided to volunteer to return to Asia and help out. I have received training in mass disasters and body recovery and identification as part of my job as a Senior CSI. Having exhausted all the aid agencies and the Foreign Office, including speaking direct to the temporary British Embassy set up in Phuket, it appears that my skills are not required anywhere. I think mum breathed a huge sigh of relief at this point. So now I have to choose from my original options, all of which I am viewing with a certain amount of apathy. It's hard to explain, but when I spoke to the British Embassy they seemed really keen for me to assist the forensic team already out there and so I had spent all my time mentally preparing myself for that eventuality. Anyway, I'm not doing a very good job of keeping this short and sweet, am I? The upshot is that my budget is fairly tight and so I've decided to fly to NZ on the 12th February and save the extra money I would have to spend in order to remain in Australia beyond this date. I will now have to sit down and decide exactly where I want to visit on this side of the country. Apart from this decision making process, I had a lovely weekend. Friday night was spent in a bar called Zanzibar in the suburb of Newtown. Saturday was spent quietly recovering and watching The Bourne Supremacy on DVD. On Sunday we drove to The Newport Arms, which is up the coast about 45 mins from Sydney and had lunch here with Aunia. On the drive back we stopped at many beautiful bays and jealously gawped at all the multi-million dollar pads on the seafront, before finally arriving in Dee Why (I love this name, although I don't know why?!). Here we stopped for coffee and cake and arrived home at about 2000. Richard and I then went to the local for our Sunday night backgammon competition. In the pub we met a friend of his called Kim and we all went home and drank Baileys, until someone had the bright idea that we go into town. From here it gets a bit messy, but we ended up on Oxford street in a bar called Shift. From here we moved to Stonewall and finally the Oxford, where we stayed dancing until the sun came up. I am so glad we don't have 24 hour bars in the UK, as you lose track of time and the only signal to leave seems to be the daylight, which hurts your eyes. We stopped for a kebab and coffee for breakfast (classy!) on the way home and got to bed eventually at 0930. Suffice it to say that Monday was a bit of a write off, but it was lovely to spend some time on my own with Richard as he was not working. I'll let you know where I'm headed next, so until then...........S xxxxxxx