Australia Diary

Sydney and the start of the East Coast

Australia pictures here

And so, after a flight shorter than most of the bus journeys we'd done in the last three months, we arrived in Australia, and Sydney, the first place to remind us even a little bit of London. This was also our first opportunity to catch up with some people we knew (Dave's parents and sister) and one we didn't (Dave's new niece, Ella). And given that the four of them were based in Paddington, we got to hang out in the haunts of Sydney's chic crowd for six days. Of course, we also did our customary marathon walks-about-town, taking in the opera house, Darling Harbour, the rocks, some millionaire-spotting in Watson's Bay and bronzed Adonis-spotting on Bondi Beach. We got to eat barramundi and wagyu beef and discovered the chocolate delights of Max Brenner. We also got to meet (quite literally in some cases) some of Sydney's incongruous innercity wildlife: sulphur-crested cockatoos, Australian white ibis and the botanic garden's very own flying foxes.

More annoyingly, we discovered that, having reached the most expensive country so far, our debit cards had both inconveniently been disabled by our respective banks. Useful.

We left Sydney with a very good impression of the city, and a feeling this could be somewhere to make home one day. Having said goodbye to Dave's family, we headed up the coast on the Greyhound (our weapon of choice for this country, after much research), and to our first stop, Port Macquarie. On the way there, we got to experience the first in a series of surreal roadhouses, this one housed in a giant papier mache model of Uluru (Ayers rock).

Upon arrival after dark in Port MacQuarie, we discovered we had booked ourselves into more of a Butlin's style resort than a hostel, and also had our first taste of the particular breed of "traveler" that seems to be ubiquitous on the East Coast (we had been warned). Think long skirts or very short shorts, piercings, and lots of hippy speak.

The next day we had a fry-up at Nonna's, sorted ourselves out with an Ozzie SIM and went on our way to Byron Bay (stopping this time at the giant prawn roadhouse, having driven past the big banana). Here we discovered one of the biggest hostels we'd seen, and our first dorm! However we had possibly the most ideal dorm partners: a couple of middle-aged Israeli women, quiet as mice and keeping very respectable hours. Almost everyone seemed to be sporting a perfect tan and carrying a surfboard.

Our first day, apart from managing to book our Uluru tour and flight and reactivating both our cash cards, was a wash out, and once we were convinced the walk we'd planned wasn't going to happen, we retreated to drink bottles of VB in hammocks and (as we later discovered) get eaten alive by mosquitoes. On a more positive note, we spotted our first cookaburras! The next day was much more successful. Having tried to book a tour of Fraser Island and discovering most are self-drive (which didn't appeal to us, both being unlicensed and generally suspicious of others' driving skills), we took the advice of our new Israeli friends and went down to the Peterpans office to inquire. There we met the wonderful Tegan who, not only understood exactly what we needed (relative luxury), but insisted on sorting out all our in-between travel and hostels too. She basically booked up the whole month for us. Feeling triumphant, we finally got to do our walk up to the lighthouse, where we spotted a couple of whales basking just off the coast, as well as a kangaroo in the woods. We walked out to the most Easterly point of Australia mainland and then spent the afternoon watching hippies go by. That evening we tried out our new Peterpans cards (promising freebies throughout the country) and claimed a free dinner at Cheeky Monkeys, a very popular local night spot that specializes in bikini contests and wet-T-shirt competitions. We ate our free food and left. Besides, there was electro-techno-didgeridoo live music to be had back at the hostel.

The next day we packed up (David discovered a cockroach in his backpack) and left for Brisbane. Our hostel had overbooked us, but had kindly reserved a room for us instead at the hostel next door, which turned out to be better anyway. Tired and hot, we put off exploring town until the next day and just mooched around the centre for a while (quickly appreciating why Tegan had said we didn't need three nights here – Brisbane isn't the prettiest of cities and seems to be largely under construction). We ate an award-winning pie and chips at the Caxton for dinner and got ourselves and early night. The next day, we took in as much of the town as we could, bearing in mind that several main squares seemed to be temporary work-sites and the botanic gardens were largely off-limits due to preparations for a huge gig the next day. After a snooze in the afternoon, we ate another excellent cheap meal and took ourselves to bed.

The next morning, we opted to get an earlier bus than planned so as to arrive earlier in Noosa. We felt much more at home here (though in need of thousands of dollars if we were to appreciate everything properly). We spent three days relaxing, taking dips in the sea, sunbathing, walking through the national park, playing ping pong (yes, ping pong) and drinking ice cold beers at the hostel bar. The highlights were probably the animals, and our best spots included glossy black cockatoos, monitor lizards, a shoal of dolphins, a variety of parrots, osprey, kangaroo, snakes, more cookaburras and, of course, the elusive koala, who took days to discover, and then when we did find him, just slept up in his tree.

This was also where we got very confused about the clocks. Suspecting that the clocks had gone forward onto daylight saving, we asked a passing waiter if the clocks had changed and ended up in a full-on ten minute discussion on the subject. The short answer was that yes, they had changed, in some Australian states, but not in here Queensland, where the cows take precedence and dictate that the time should remain the same. This, as you can imagine, makes things somewhat difficult in terms of national bus schedules and making arrangements. We are just going to leave our watches be and hope everything turns out ok...

The East Coast - Fraser Island, The Whitsundays and Cape Tribulation

Pictures of The East Coast - Fraser Island, The Whitsundays and Cape Tribulation here

We've had enough time in Queensland now to get ourselves used to the increasingly tropical feel of the place, and the unpredictable nature of Queensland's spring showers. We weren't blessed with the best weather during our two-day trip to Fraser Island, but booking ourselves onto a proper tour (as opposed to the "self-drive" camping option) at least meant we kept dry and maintained some structure to our days. Fraser Island is the biggest sand island in the world, apparently containing more sand than the Sahara Desert, and, once we'd been eaten alive by sand flies during the ferry crossing, our German military-style four wheel drive bus did us proud.

We spent our two days exploring the different types of forest, driving up the beach (the island's 47 mile-long beach is classed as a highway with a maximum speed of 100kph!) climbing dunes, swimming in lakes, wading in creeks and keeping our eyes peeled for dingoes. We also saw flocks of cockatoos, brahminy kites, honey-eaters, a scorpion and a sea snake. We walked around the eerie and still-sinking Mahino shipwreck and climbed to the top of Indian Head in the north of the island to spot whales, dolphins, sting rays, turtles and sharks.

And despite our hard-sided accommodation, we didn't get too much sleep, seeing as a drunk Scot from another tour group decided to fall off his first floor balcony at 3.30 am, causing a lot of noise and fuss and requiring a helicopter to be called in from the mainland. To give you an idea of how remote and unpopulated this area of the country is, this incident made the next day's paper and warranted a film crew in the morning.

The remainder of our time in Hervey Bay was spent literally passing the time, though this was made easy by us having a whole apartment in the hostel practically to ourselves. People come to Hervey Bay specifically to do Fraser Island and there isn't a huge amount going on otherwise. In fact it's a bit of a weird town. We held out until our night bus to Airlie, which proved to be extremely uncomfortable (and they managed to show us K-PAX again!) and we were exhausted when we arrived. Again, we found it was a matter of biding your time until you were due to sail – everyone comes to Airlie for the Whitsunday islands and otherwise, the only thing to do in town is drink beer and listen to one of the many one-man-bands that seem to congregate in the pubs.

We realized we were in full-on stinger country when we noticed the enormous signs all along the beach giving instructions on what to do if someone is stung by a jellyfish. They also have bottles of vinegar stationed along the beach for this purpose. Luckily there weren't any incidents while we were there, but the season is still just beginning.

So we were relieved when the evening arrived when we got to board the Anaconda III, were handed a glass of wine (and a stinger suit) and set sail. We spent the next three days snorkeling the waters around the islands, beach hopping, eating, chilling out on deck and trying to walk around as elegantly as possible despite the choppy waters (the Anaconda III is a 102 ft-long sailing boat, and the swell is a little more noticeable than on your average ferry).

We either snorkeled in the shallows off the islands' beaches (which, instead of being sandy, are made up of millions of tiny polished beads of coral) or were taxied to a specific location on the reef by one of the ship's motor dinghies (there was one incident when our dive instructor Pat took 12 in the boat instead of the usual 10 and four had to jump out half way there because we were rapidly sinking, despite the efforts of one optimistic Dutch passenger at bailing us out).

Unfortunately, we both forgot to invest in any under-water disposable cameras, so you'll have to imagine us floating out in the middle of the ocean over the reef "bombies", very aware of the fact that, where the coral ends, the sea wall drops to about 60 metres' depth or more. The current is often very strong and hard work to swim against (to help us out, our crew would put a rope out the back of the dinghy and tow us along, which was hilarious fun). And there are sharks. They're only small, but they're still sharks. Anyway, needless to say, it was absolutely beautiful, and we saw all kinds of weird and wonderful coral and fish, including huge, brightly-coloured parrotfish, batfish, reef sharks, all sorts of angel fish, and of course the obligatory cloud fish (aka Nemo). In the shallows, they are particularly friendly and swim right in front of you. On several occasions, our crew members fed the fish for us, and then they'd gather in their hundreds and go completely mental, not caring if they crashed into us in the process. There was a particularly friendly gathering of large black and white bat fish and other big fish that would linger at the rear of the boat while we were anchored, together with a spectacular Maori wrasse measuring 1.3m by 1m and 6 inches thick, who would peer at us with interest and occasionally let us stroke him.

When we weren't in the water, we'd chill out on deck with a beer, spotting dolphins, flying fish or the occasional turtle popping his head up. It was very relaxing to drift along, basking in the sun (that is, when we didn't inexplicably lose our steering for twenty minutes while a container ship ploughed towards us). Dave had a go at Scuba diving. It was a full moon during our trip, which made for beautiful night-sailing, and a few people went on a night dive (which sounded very scary.)

The trip was a lot more active (and exhausting) than we'd thought, and along with the draining effect of the sea sickness drugs we were taking, it was all we could do to stay up for the party back at Airlie with our fellow passengers and crew once we were back on dry land. But the large python we found outside our accommodation did a good job of sobering us up!

We were up early for our 9am bus the next day, only to find it was running two hours late and having to wait in a sudden rainstorm. The 12 hour journey was only just more bearable by day than it had been by night just a few days before, but we managed to make up the time to arrive at Cairns at 8.30pm in the pouring rain. Feeling a bit dejected, we shared a takeaway pizza and went to bed.

We had another very early start the next day to make our 8am pick up for the two-day Cape Tribulation tour. Luckily, this turned out to be quite a laid-back affair, with just a few stops on the way there to go croc spotting and walk through the rainforest, before arriving at the Ferntree lodge and having the rest of the day free to explore more rainforest and beaches (carefully avoiding all the places our hostel receptionist warned us could contain nasties). We even managed to have a meal in a restaurant (for the first time in weeks and weeks), and though we didn't manage to see a Cassowary, we did spot a huge stick insect and some very amusing crabs.

On the return journey, we visited Alexandra Range (where Steve Irwin did his last dive), Mossman Gorge and the very chic Port Douglas, where we had just enough time to have a coffee and balk at the prices. We also learnt a bit from our tour guide about the indigenous communities in the area, which was the first time anyone had really talked to us about the Aboriginals. We have already noticed how different Australia is from New Zealand, where the "settlers" have really embraced the Maori culture and give you a constant stream of information about the Maori heritage.

When we arrived back in Cairns, we decided it would be worth upgrading from a double room (which you have to go through a dorm to get to – not very private) to a proper private room, which turned out to be a huge studio-type room with a huge double bed, private bathroom, kitchen area and balcony. Perfect for a well-deserved rest. We were, however, persuaded to take part in that night's killer pool competition with 16 others, in which I somehow managed to come second, winning us a free jug of beer!

The Red Centre, The Ghan and The Top End

Pictures of The Red Centre, The Ghan and The Top End here

Our last day in Cairns was spent relaxing, getting Dave's hair cut, taking evening walks along the esplanade (we saw a groups of sixteen pelicans preparing to roost as the tide went out and then realized five or six professional photographers were sat waiting for a croc to come and snap one of them up – I guess it would make a good shot), and exploring the night markets. The next day, we made our way to the airport and got on our flight to Alice Springs. The flight is only a couple of hours, but it gives you a sense of the massive scale of this country as the plains get redder and redder and totally straight roads disappear into the horizon. We took a shuttle bus to our hostel, during which the driver told us about the area – that they never run short of water here even though the river is almost always dry (all the water runs under ground – there's even an annual boat race, the Henley-on-Todd, where competitors run down the dry river with boats made out of whatever they can find. If there is water in the river, the boat race in cancelled), and how a third of all people who come to Alice Springs (even the Aussies) think they can walk down to Uluru for the sunset (it's actually 5 hours drive away).

So we checked into Toddy's hostel where we had a cute little apartment with kitchen and balcony, and walked into town. We immediately noticed two things: that we were finally going to see some true Aboriginals, and that the flies were going to be a problem. We started swatting in earnest and didn't stop for the next 5 days.

We dropped in at The Rock tour office to say hi and pay our national park fees. While we were there (over an hour), we chatted to Rob about tours in Kakadu (Darwin) and Western Australia, and ended up booking a 3-day Kakadu tour and our Greyhound ticket for the West coast (we had popped into the Greyhound office on the way into town, and the lady there had failed to shed any light on the timetables whatsoever. We agreed we'd be able to sort it all out in time. How naive we were!). Then, after picking up supplies for the next three days, we went back to the hostel for a jug of beer and a cheap meal before turning in early.

At 6.15 the next morning, we were picked up by Dan, our tour guide, and set off with 19 others in our four-wheel-drive minibus into the middle of nowhere. We spent an amazing three days walking King's Canyon (including Heart Attack Hill, which didn't pose a problem as we did it at only 35 degrees C!), sleeping under the stars in the bush (on a cattle ranch 70% of the size of the Netherlands with only 12 people and 5000 cows on it), walking around Uluru and through Kata Tutja (The Olgas), catching sunset and sunrise over the rock (unfortunately with hundreds of others), riding prize-winning racing camels... And all whilst being looked after by a man who can produce delicious meals for 40 people (even though he was only cooking for 22) out of the back of a van, re-kindle two-day old campfires, make the Anangu's stories make sense to the totally uninitiated, heal cuts, warts and other ailments with the appropriate native plant, explain complicated geological formations to a group of people suffering from heat exhaustion and an aggressive infestation of flies... Honestly, if you're ever considering going to Uluru, go to The Rock Tour and ask for Dan. He even took us out for a Saturday night on Alice Springs when we got back, and got us totally smashed.

If anyone's wondering, we didn't climb the rock – we had decided not to long before we arrived and everything we saw and read only confirmed that decision. In the end, the climb was closed both days due to strong winds at the top (people have been blown off, just a few off the hundreds of people who have died trying to climb), but was re-opened one afternoon and we saw some people taking a stab at it. Even the base walk proved more challenging that expected when I managed to walk into a rock, breaking my flipflop, and had to do the last kilometer barefoot. We also visited the cultural centre and saw the "sorry book", a collection of hundreds of letter from people who have taken rocks and stones from the site and later returned them, either from guilt or believing themselves to have been cursed. Many of the stones turn out not to be from anywhere near the area.

We spent the Sunday after our tour relaxing and recovering from our hangovers, and the next day, took a walk up Anzac Hill and did a tour around the Flying Doctors' base to find out a bit about what they do. 8 pilots, six doctors and 8 nurses cover an area with a diameter of 1200 kilometers with three planes. Not including the population of Alice, 16,000 live in this area. Two of the planes were out when we were there. I had trouble getting Dave off their flight simulator! (he conducted a perfect landing, impressing a few other tourists).

That evening, we collected our bags and took a taxi to the train station, where we boarded the Ghan (named after the Afghan camels that first made this part of the country accessible to Westerners). Not having the money to do things in the luxury we might like, we were in the "red" seated section, though we did manage to make ourselves more comfortable when we discovered the seats can be swiveled round to face each other. We got very little sleep, however, and were still a bit dozey when we arrived in Katherine at 9am the next morning. We took the shuttle into town and walked the length of the high street, took a look at the old railway, and then sought shelter from the heat in a cafe. There really isn't very much in Katherine. We spent another nine or ten hours on the train before arriving into Darwin, watching the termite mounds get higher and higher, and the landscape get a little more tropical.

Once we had checked into the enormous and very busy Melaleuca on Mitchell, we dared to try and cook in their kitchen, which turned out to be our first and last attempt. I have never been anywhere so hot, despite the five ceiling fans doing their best to move the air around. We went to bed early that night and got up to find people still in the pool (I'm sure it's never empty). Feeling a little bit like we'd returned to the non-stop-party style of backpacking we saw on the East Coast, we headed into town and to the Historical district, where we informed ourselves about the town's past. We then walked along the esplanade to the botanic gardens where we explored until defeated by the heat (despite drenching ourselves regularly in drinking fountains), and went back into town to treat ourselves to a sushi lunch. Surprisingly, things in Darwin seem to be slightly more expensive than anywhere we've been so far, probably because it is so remote and there is so little competition.

In the afternoon, we attempted to do some admin and planning for our journey down the west coast, but found the Greyhound office closed and had to seek out a travel agent who would help us without charging. Luckily, we wondered into Cheap Az travel where we spent over an hour agonising over timetables and electronic passes with the girl in there. It turns out the buses down the west coast are infrequent and run at ungodly hours, and we had to do quite a bit of compromising to allow for the fact that some buses only run once a week. After losing a few destinations, the Cheap Az girl advised us to get booking our accommodation, as rooms can be impossible to find in some of the mining towns, as the hostels are full of miners. We soon discovered this to be true after just a few calls back at the hostel. Bored and fed up, we decided to start anew the next day and went out to cash in our free meal voucher at the Vic pub (leaving before the breast-painting competition had time to get under way), and then having another drink at the Wisdom bar, where we disbelievingly watched a possum come to the base of its tree to be fed by the punters.

We had better luck next day and managed to get some accommodation booked (discarding destinations where engineering companies have actually bought out the hostels and fills them with miners), did a lot of admin, and walked out to the strangely deserted Cullen Bay for lunch. I even managed to feed the possum that evening back at the Wisdom.

The next three days were spent in Kakadu on safari with eight others, with an early start on the first day and then a jumping crocodile cruise on the river not far out of town. Having not seen anything on the croc cruise in Cape trib, we weren't holding out much hope. This changed, however when we noticed that Ginder our Aboriginal guide was chopping up chunks of raw meat and hanging them off the end of the stick. Sure enough, crocs started appearing (eyes first) and travelling nonchalantly towards us. What followed was fairly sobering: crocs staring each other into submission, leaping several feet out of the water to snap at the meat, and coming closer than we were really comfortable with. On the way back, for good measure, Ginder called out to the whistling kites, which came to tail the boat as he threw them the leftovers to catch.

We then drove to Kakadu national park and Ginder displayed his observation and hunting skills by stopping the truck and leaping out to catch a frilly-necked lizard from a tree, and then diving into a river to catch a passing turtle for us. We spent the first afternoon cooling off in the Maguk billabong, a large shady pool under a steep escarpment with a waterfall running into it. I have to say, after all the warning signs we'd seen on the walk about ‘salties' in the area, I waited until a few other people had got in and thrashed around a bit (we were the only ones there) before I felt safe enough to get in.

That night we camped at the foot of the Arnham land plateau, where we were served up 'roo gonzales' (fajitas with kangaroo mince), drank more than a few beers and, seeing as it was Hallowe'en, spontaneously started telling each other ghost stories, and then jokes until Ginder ended the silliness and gave us a didgeridoo lesson. We slept out in the open without tents, though paranoia kept me awake for most of the night.

The ascent up to the plateau the next day wasn't any easier for the 50 or so beers we'd consumed the night before, but it was well worth it once we got to the top and saw the view over the gorge. As this is the end of the dry season, we were able to walk over the flat rock formation to a steep rock face that is normally a huge waterfall, and took in the view up the gorge from there. Then we found another spot for a swim before heading back down and driving back to the campsite for lunch. On the way down, we saw three chestnut-quilled rock pigeons, one of the rarest birds in the world. As it was one of our co-traveller's birthday, Ginder got us in the festive mood with party hats and music (including his own enthusiastic singing). We then visited the cultural centre, after which the girls were dropped at a pool while the boys went to collect firewood.

Dinner that night was a special birthday treat for Alec: roast chicken with veg, mash, gravy and garlic bread. There was even a cake and candles. And when we had eaten all we could, Ginder took us on a night walk so Alec could try and catch a snake. Though he failed, we saw a few huntsman spiders and cane toads. After more beers, we decided to use a tent that night, and slept much better for it.

Somehow, Ginder had managed to bake bread in the camp fire before we were even up the next day. After breakfast, we visited a rock art site, where Ginder explained to us the significance of many of the paintings (some were ‘secret business' and so he wasn't able to talk about them) done by the clan that lived in the area but have now been wiped out. The flies here were the worst we had encountered yet and tested our patience. Another billabong was our venue for lunch, and we swam, canoed and played ball games until it was time to leave and make the journey back to Darwin.

That evening, we met with our new eight friends for (another) free meal at the Vic pub. Feeling extremely tired, we intended to stay only a short while and head to bed to get rest before our extremely early bus the next day, but in true traditional style, we managed to start winning free beer (first Dave, me and two others in a pass-the-lemon-under-the-chin competition, and then when our Pole came second in a blow-up-the-balloon-until-it-bursts competition), and ended up staying for hours and getting quite drunk.

Needless to say, the next morning wasn't an easy one, but we managed to board our 7.15 bus to Kununarra, stopping again in Katherine (we really didn't need to) and some roadhouse in the hot, sweaty middle of nowhere, before arriving in Kununarra at 6pm. All day, there was not much to look at but flat expanses of land with sparse, dry bush (though the fat boab trees were quite fun). We checked into the Kimberley Croc hostel and have since been enjoying the luxury of our super effective air-conditioning, TV and pool.

Today, of course, has been spent watching Barack Obama get elected President (any excuse to avoid going out into the stifling 40 degree heat). Kununarra is a perfect little town to do nothing in, and given the clouds that have been building up for the last few days, we're holding out for a pretty big storm any time now.

Broome, Coral Bay, Perth and the bus journeys

Pictures of Broome, Coral Bay and Perth here

That storm never did break. So, after our relaxing stay in Kununarra and a promising new dawn for the US and the rest of the world, we headed Southwest to Broome, where we spent a week in the pool keeping cool (we weren't so lucky with the air conditioning as we had been in Kununarra), walking the 10k round trip to Cable beach for walks alongthe sand (no swimming allowed here because of the stingers, though some people choose to regardless) and for beautiful sunsets, playing table tennis, cooking ourselves nice meals and occasionally checking out the local eateries and drinking holes. We read somewhere that if you can't relax in Broome then you need therapy, but I think the person who said that must have somehow turned a blind eye to the constant unnerving tension between the Aboriginals hanging out on the central green and the rest of the town, particularly its policemen. It was also in Broome that we developed our addiction to iced coffee. We have had our morning fix every day since and I'm not sure how we're going to cope once we hit Singapore.

We were in Broome for six days and could probably have left a day or two earlier (though, actually, we couldn't, damn Greyhound!). Our next journey was the 20 hour marathon stretch to Coral Bay. I've been meaning to say something about the journeys we've been doing on the bus and now seems to be a good time as this is a perfect example. We boarded the bus at Broome at 8am and it was almost empty. For the first few hours we saw what we see on every trip: flat, red expanse of bush. That means low, dry, evenly spaced shrubs, dry red earth, termite mounds, nothing else. If you're lucky you might see a kangaroo (usually dead by the side of the road), some cows or a bird or two. I actually spotted a bustard that morning, which was a real event. We made a schedules stop at the post box. Literally, a post box at a junction. By junction, I mean a place where a dirt road turned off the main road. That stop was actually listed on the bus timetable. We then stopped at a roadhouse called Sandfire. If you look at a fairly low-scale map of Australia, you will notice that petrol stations usually warrant a dot on the map, particularly down the West Coast. That's how little there is. But a petrol station here is never just a petrol station (we've since stopped at a petrol station that had a sign in the window saying they didn't actually have any petrol that day, and it wasn't any less busy for it). A "roadhouse" is a restaurant, shop, social centre and other things besides, as well as being somewhere you might buy petrol. The BP garage in Katharine had a photo gallery. At Sandfire, we had a spot of lunch – all roadhouses have the obligatory unidentifiable orange fried food on the hotplate), were told about a huge King Brown snake lurking in the area, changed drivers and set off again. Our new driver, who said we could call her "granny", informed us it was 47 degrees outside and that she was going to put some fans on to supplement the aircon. Granny took us to Karratha, a mining town where we had a one-hour stop for dinner (choose between McDonalds, KFC and something called Chicken Treat). The place to hang out in Karratha seemed to be the mall, where there was a mix of bored teenagers and men in mining gear. We watched the sun set and the full moon rise while waiting for the bus to pick us up again (it was forty minutes late without explanation), and picked up some large, noisy families. Something else about the buses: every driver has his collection of DVDs, which I think they're secretly proud of. One driver tried to introduce us to the delights of classic Australian cinema. Too many of them have K-Pax in their collection. This one saw fit to please the kids on the bus with Monsters Inc, which actually succeeded in keeping everyone quiet for a few hours. The bus murdered a kangaroo that night.

We arrived at the Ningaloo Club in Coral Bay at 4am and, having not booked a room for that night, slept in the chairs in reception, one eye on the huntsman in the corner and one ear tuned to the wind whipping up the water in the pool. We spent six nights in Coral Bay and spent most of our time snorkelling. Coral Bay is a small collection of shopping complexes, resorts and a camping site. Everyone's reason for going there is the Ningaloo Reef, which lies just off the beach. We did as much snorkelling as possible, spending hours looking at incredible fish, unusually-shaped coral, and other marine life. I could describe them all, but that would take hours. The highlights were: snorkelling with a 3.5m manta ray – we went with a tour company that uses a spotter plane to locate them. We did two snorkels with the pregnant female, who just glided calmly along, ignoring us. We saw lots of turtles from the surface, spotted two bull rays (the unfriendly sort) and swam with two large grey reef sharks who were being cleaned by little cleaner fish (a bit like a car wash). We also swam with a turtle we happened upon on the last day, and who didn't mind us following him around for 15 minutes. He was about half a metre long. We saw tubefish, giant blue clams, angel fish and wrasse, and Dave was even stalked by a large spangled emperor. The coral forms in basins that are like little Japanese gardens and you can explore wherever you like.

We also spent quite a bit of time up at the shark nursery (not a man made nursery – it just happens to be where the sharks come in to breed), watching the reef sharks circle in the shallows just a few metres off shore. We watched researchers trying to "fish" for sharks for tagging purposes and even got to see shark surgery!

We are now in Perth (after another long, long journey) and will be relaxing here for a few days before flying to Singapore. This is the biggest town we've been in since Brisbane so it's taking a while to get our heads around being in civilization again.

So ends another continent! When we next write, it will be from South East Asia, probably after a few Singapore Slings!