JLS Travels

Dickie beach - our first stop on our queensland adventure! We arrived a few days before the parentals and settled nicely into our first campsite. Every morning we were awoken by the dawn chorus of what would appear to be a thousand turkeys, kookaburras and some sort of crow! This was usually 5 or 6 in the morning! Happy camping (thumbs up camping friends). The weather was a bit drizzly but this didnt stop us heading to the beach of course and finding lots of sea slugs in a rock pool! I had to dare Jonny to touch one, only to be told later they are quite poisonous - oopsie!! (Jonny is still alive for those wondering). We also had a nightly visit from a friendly possum - happy to eat carrot out of Jana's hand! ... read more

After much anticipation we arrived in Byron Bay. Byron was a place we were all looking particularly forward to but unfortunately Cyclone Oswald hit there and we were stuck inside for days! Initially we were meant to camp in our tent but we were given a site underneath a large tree. Having decided this was just a tad precarious we booked into a cabin in the hope we wouldn't drown or get hit by falling trees. A decision well made as the following morning we had a look at our allocated site and the said tree had toppled over! We all counted our blessings that morning! Byron wasnt even hit as bad as some other places but we experienced black outs, flooding and debris all over the roads. The supermarkets even lost power and had to ... read more

After Sydney we flew down to Melbourne for a week and stayed in a private room in St Kilda. It was absolutely luxury compared to Sydney so we were all very happy. The hostel itself seemed a lot more relaxed with guitars scattered around for anyone to use, a courtyard for bbqs and a nicer bigger kitchen. We spent a few days wandering around St Kilda - imagine 1950's seaside town with lots of cake shops (heaven). It has an almost hippy feel to it and was a good spot to stay for the week. It was also home to the massively overpriced 'Luna park'. It was like Thorpe park but absolutely rubbish and expensive. So we didn't bother naturally! On the Sunday we woke early to head for the St Kilda markets along the beach. ... read more

Phuket! Lovely stinky phooey Phuket! It wasn't actually that stinky or trashy at all, not in the rubbish on the floor kind of way anyways. After a quick ferry over from Koh Phi Phi it was a short bus journey to Patong beach, and to the best accomodation we have had so far, and I had my own room! Merry Xmas to me or to Jonny and Laura depending on how you look at it, no doubt I had been annoying them these last couple weeks but I was sure they were missing me, they just never mentioned it! As soon as we arrived we headed to a nice little Italian for lunch, not authentic Thai I know but me and Jonny enjoyed another top notch pizza, they really do make good ones over here lol. ... read more

Hi all, So we left Koh Phangan at 6 in the morning in yet another torrent of monsoon like rain, on our way to khao sok national park, one of the oldest rainforests in the world. We had to take a boat across to the mainland and a bus ride to get there. In what seems to be the Thai tradition there were a few unscheduled stops along the way and what was supposed to take just over an hour it took 3, but we arrived at our jungle tree house safe and sound. When we arrived we were greeted by the owner and her daughters and our heavy bags were soon being whisked off to our cabin by these very slight Thai girls. To myself and Sean's delight we were informed that " men no ... read more