East Coast
We flew into Cairns from Ayers rock and spent a couple of days there before heading down to Airlie beach. The Cairns esplanade along the water front was very plush!
Airlie beach had a party atmosphere that we were too tired to experience. We had just spent 11 hours on the greyhound bus! Oh we forgot to say that we bought a tent in woolworths Cairns for $30 so we spent the night in Airlie beach in a tent. We spent the night flicking off ants, I think we put the tent up on top of an ants nest!
In the morning we set off on our sailing boat called 'Mandrake' with 12 other passengers and our crew of 3. The Whitsunday Islands are beautiful, we sat on deck burning in the sun enjoying the gorgeous views. We moored the boat and took a dinghy ride to a very popular island called whitehaven beach. We walked up to the lookout points where we could see rays swimming in the bay, another thing that we could see were big black evil looking clouds! To sat iot rained was a slight understatement, we don't think we have ever been that wet before! Our captin picked us up in the dinghy, it was jumping off of the waves in a scary way, we headed out to sea with no sight of the boat, it was raining that hard! Back on board, after making a hazzardly jump to get back on, we decided that we were so wet we may as well sit up on deck with our wetsuits and yellow macs. As thunder lightening and lashing waves continued we drank wine and toaste the elements! We felt like pirates! Oooh arrrh jim lad! After the storm there was a beautiful rainbow and sunset, it was so gorgeous!
Turtles kept popping up to see us and the diving and snorkling experience was awesome. It felt like someone had dropped us into the middle of a tropical fish tank. We even saw some 'Nemo' fish again! Jon took a couple of trial dives and went down to around 12meters deep. It was quite a scary experience breathing underwater but was very exillerating as a batfish swam with us for some time!
Nat would like all to know that she has had this photo placed here under protest but I think its the cutest!!
The following day she was a little sunburnt - not that you could tell.

Kakadu - Woo Woo Woo
We set off at 6:30 in the morning, 8 of is in the back of a 4x4, and journeyed to the outback.
To sat it was hot was an understatement. Humid and sticky. 38 degrees. Phew.
Our first stop took us to a little creek where we swam in a pool that had a sign saying 'danger crocodiles'!! We trusted our guide and jumped in. Very refreshing. Apparently there was a waterfall above and below the pool so it was guaranteed there'd be no crocs. Anyhow the Kakadu park has to put these croc signs up by law.
In the afternoon we took a walk to another plunge pool which had a rocky wall that could not be climbed out of. The only exit was to dive down 1.5meters, through a hole and into another pool. Very cool!! There were also some high rocks to jump off which was fun.

We slept out two nights in swags. It was still 30 degrees at night which made sleeping very hard. When you look at the Lonely Planet Australia guide under the heading 'Dangers' there are several pages of animals which you could be bitten or stung by. Australia has the most venomous snake in the world and 19 of the top 23 most venomous snakes. They also have the most poisonous spider, toad and jellyfish! We were worried about finding these in our swag. The only one we were pretty sure about not finding was the Jellyfish!
Both mornings we had cereal and flys! Mmmm meaty!! It amused us to see the Germans that we were travelling with had fly nets. We resorted to wearing a towel over our head. Mmmm attractive!!

Doing any form of exercise other than swimming was very tiring. So on our second day we walked up a very steep rocky hill, climbed bolders and scaled rock faces! Not the most refreshing day but amazing none-the-less. On route we visited the Jim Jim and Twin falls, neither of which run during the dry season. They were both still pretty impressive.
Nat has two tops now with a permanant reminder of her rock scrambling experiences. The red soil just dosn't want to come out! Oh dear we are going to have to go shopping - what a shame!

Our guide was really enthusiastic about the aboriginal culture. We loved looking at the aboriginal rock art. The stories they told were thousands of years old, in fact some were as old as the pyramids. It was quite amazing to think that these would have been told to the ancient aboriginal kids.


We went crocodile spotting in a tin can (as they call it here) on the Cooinda Billabong. It was pretty scary as there were lots of crocs around poking their beedy eyes out of the water. Especially when we were told to get out of the boat and stand on the bank to look at the wildlife on the plains!!! Scarrrrryyyy!


We loved Kakadu. An awesome place, full of history, culture, creatures and scenery.

A Big Rock
We spent some chilled out (read crashed out) days in Alice Springs.
Whilst there we held a very heavy python, a skink and a large spinny gecko at the Reptile Center.
Ayers Rock excusions were looking expensive so we decided to do it in a day. We visited both the Kata Tjuta and Uluru Rocks (Ayers Rock) which were awesome and Jon climed Uluru which was a tough climb but well worth the views at the top. We finished our day with an scrumptious Aussie bbq watching a beautiful sunset over Uluru. We were the youngest people on our tour by about 25 years. Everyone was lovely and we had some great conversations.

Darwin Rocks!!
Aussie phrases we've heard so far: Have a good flight darl'. G'day mate. No worries. Gimme a ring as I could do with a good yarn.
Well we thought s.e.asia was hot - but not compared to this place. Its humid and hot. We enjoy moving from shop to shop finding the air-con. We're not going to be able to do that tomorrow though as we head out to Kakadu national park for a 3 day camping trip. We get to sleep in a swag bag under the stars - how exciting is that. However ... being under the stars might mean being attacked by bugs, snakes and crocs! Aaaaah!

We've met some really friendly people including Ron the flag-man and his friend Geoff who gave up some of his own time to give us a great tour of of Darwins harbour. It was beautiful and fantastic to see some of the 'local' Darwin. Ron runs a little flag shop in town and met him when we went to find our missing Malaysian flag badge. He was extremely friendly and offered to take Nat to see a local school. Having popped in this morning Nat's been offered a job as a relief teacher - the lovely head offered to rearrange my visa, give me guaranteed 2days a week and would contact another 2 schools on my behalf!! Supposedly relief teachers get paid more than the class teachers. Hmmmm. Pondering. Hmmmm. Thinking. Hmmmm. .......... Becky we may need you to go scrabbling in your loft for that QTS certificate!

Then over coffee Ron offered Jon 3 hours computer work - I was just compiling a list of schools and aboriginal community centers around Darwin. It was a good fun trying to pronounce some of the school names which I couldn't even begin to pronounce let alone spell for you!!!
After work Ron kindly took us to his RSL club for a pint (or shortie) and then dropped us off at the beach night market. What a lovely chap! We are going to his for tea on Sunday. I really hope us Brits are as welcoming as all the Aussies we've met so far.

Night market was cool! We watched an aboriginal artist produce a fantastic picture of a Gecko. You'll see it up on our wall when we get a new house - or maybe on the wall of a campervan!!!
Jon also had a go at whip cracking!! Yeee hah!!!

Got to go as its a 6:30 start tomorrow on our Kakadu adventure! Thats a bit early for us these days you know! Tada for now :-)

Perhentian - Late Update (12/11/05)
This is a late addition cos we forgot to add it in. We had a really great time here!
We stayed in a beach side bungalow where the monkey climbed on the roof, the coconuts dropped in the sand and fruit bats flew from the trees.

Our highlight here was the snorkelling. It was unbelievable! Our hands pointed madly at all the fish we could see. Nats tried to speak through her snorkell tube, she was so excited - not the easiest thing to do and resulted in frequent gulps of sea water - do'h! There were little Nemo's (clown fish), Needlefish, Damsel fish, Angel fish, Parrot fish, Reef sharks and loads of others that we couldn't identify. Turtles are common there but despite swimming out to the feeding platforms we didn't see any.

The island was beautiful and very relaxed - a real tropical paradise island. We loved it here!
Check out the photos ...


Singapore - tick, Oz next!
Hi there Blog watchers! How are you all? We are tired, packing up again and ready to hit the road - well the air actually! We've not had the best sleep in the last couple of days as we've had a bed that collapses in the night, one thats made of sponge that you sink into, and a swaying bed suspended above Malaysians on the night train. The room is still swinging 24 hours later from that one!!

We've pulled our trip forward and are heading to Oz tonight - woo woo woooo. We are both quite surprised as before neither of us were that excited about doing Oz but now we reallly are. We intended to spend 4 weeks in Malaysia but have done all the things we planned in 2 weeks. Due to our budget being low we decided to cut our losses and go (i'm a poet and I don't know it!).

We'll blog more from Darwin once we've done our Kakadu 4 day outback camping trip!!!! Bring it on!

Malaysia here we come!

Flew to Kuala Lumpur
Our lovely taxi driver, Emir, talked to us about Malaysia and Arsenal football club although couldn't find our guesthouse even with the help of 2 local taxi drivers, 2 local people and 2 hotel owners!!! So we got out at Pizza hut and found it ourselves!!! Jon and I decided that we would stay put in one place during our stay in KL. Casa Embon was very friendly and welcoming but a smokers paradise! We spent some of our time trying to watch pirate dvd's which seem strangely legal over here, although most didn't work even the so called dvd 9 quality.
Visited the Petronas towers, the tallest building in the world, which was awesome. The views of the city at 170m above street level were spectacular.
Went to Masjid Jamek mosque as advertised in Lonely Planet. Was uninspiring but had a giggle at Nat in her special outfit!
KL museum was full of information and school children - reminded me of school trips at home. It made us realise how multi-cultural Malaysia is. We still havn't worked out what Malaysian food is!


Taman Negara Rainforest
Journeyed on local buses from KL to Jerantut. This was my favourite journey yet. It was lovely to be seated on a bus surrounded by chearful, chatty locals with the engine smoke blowing through the bus.
Caught the 3hr river boat to Taman Negara. On the way we saw beautiful scenery and some great wildlife. I even thought I saw a crocodile, although found out later it was probably a monitor lizard!
The accomodation was ok although we were woken in the night to the sound of gnawing wood coming from the ceiling. We couldn't work out what it was and decided that it must have been the very rare "Malaysian Wood Chewing Jungle Cat" which somehow made it much easier to sleep in the electricity-less hut. This is great when you've splashed out for a fan room to keep yourself cool!!!
The jungle canopy walk was a big achievement for Nat. We got very excited thinking we could hear monkeys but later found that this was just the queue of tourists and school children waiting to get on the walkway. This scared off any wildlife that might have been lurking. We then took a walk to a view point and got lost in the jungle on the way back. Being an hour deep into the jungle with no water was a bit of a scary experience. We retraced our steps and ended up walking a lot further but made it back alive! Phew!


Kota Bharu
Took the overnight train which was an hour late so didn't leave until 5am. Could have done with the extra hour sleep! Arrived to overly helpful taxi driver who insisted we should try the new ideal guesthouse. Then ripped us off taking us to the one we wanted to go to in the first place. On this taxi note please see Malaysian taxi description below. So far we've had ...
Taxi with only 1st, 3rd or 5th gear - very amusing for hill starts.
Machetes on the front seat.
No seat belts - apart from the driver puts one on passing a policeman.
No working speedometers - although the clocks work so thats ok!
No suspension - or foam in seats.
Doors which only open from the outside - useful in the event of an emergency!
All taxi's we've been in would not have been accepted in a UK scrapyard let alone passed an MOT.
Various bits of body-work that exist are held on with parcel tape or body filler
The best one - wobbly steering wheels which don't drive in a straight line - just a series of small curves!!!

Tonight we are going to do a Malay cooking course at the Tourist Information Center owners home. He's such a laugh with his British phrases - Lovely Jubbly, cor blimey love, lemon squeezy love etc Will let you know how it goes.

ps Just got back from the Malay cookery course. Had a lovely time and was a great laugh watching Roselan cook for us. We've written down the recipes so will cook for you when we come home!!

Check out all the previous posts as we've added a taster of photos!!

Well peeps sorry we've not been in touch - our budget and flitting around has meant we have not been able to update this site for almost two weeks! Wow where does time go!!! Although Nat thinks its been longer than 1 month that we have been away. So lets back track for Thailand ...

Koh Chiang
Moved down to Lonely Beach (which wasn't lonely) and stayed 2 nights in a bungalow with the best shower ever - and not even a Mira!! It had a really powerful spray and was open air which meant that there was no humidty - a treat here in s.e.asia. Fell in love with a little cafe where we ate for two nights. We now want to build a little outdoor banana leaf hut in our garden when we get a house! (and an open air shower although the nether regions might get a bit cold in the UK!!)

Bangkok
Bustling, busy, hot, humid, smoky, noisy, smelly.
Realised we have become old codgers as we were not ammused at the pumping music, sweaty mattress and 4am "who's stollen my ****ing wallet and passport" so moved to hotel following night with own swimming pool which we didn't get to use! Enjoyed the trip downthe river on the taxi boats, the reclining budda and the sky train. Didn't enjoy the pesky tuk tuk driver who got in a stop when we didn't spend 10mins at a tailors for which he would get commision. He promptly dumped us about a mile away from where we had asked to go, pointed and said "market that way" - cheers then!!
Jess and Dan were extremly kind in letting us stay at their lovely 15th floor apartment. They have some gorgeous views of Bkk which totally changed our perspective. Where we stayed the first two nights was the backpackers hangout and not really very Thai.


Some things we noticed about Thailand ...
There is only cold water, including for washing clothes. Hot showers are not that common.
Bare shoulders are considered not pretty.
Exercise, no make that moving, makes you sweat - or perspire for Nat!
Shoes stay outside.
Where does all the rubbish go?
Loo roll can't be flushed - so placed in a little open bin.

We absolutly loved Thailand - the people were wonderful, we felt safe, the food was great - we could easily go back for more!