As I've said before, I liked St Kilda. Thought the tram ride was going to kill Ange (won't go into the details, but an old boy wouldn't let her sit down even though she was sick because he was saving the seat for his wife who was already happily seated at the front of the tram), and when we got there it was blowing a gale, but in the end it all turn out for the best. For a start, Ben and Jerry's were giving away free ice cream, and secondly the wood fired pizza we had was very tasty. You've [View Full Entry]

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Just back from a weekend in Melbourne and I can confirm that they do have trams, tree lined streets and a dirty great cricket ground. Wasn't sure what to make of it at first: it is a lot different to Sydney (as people never tire of telling you) and the wide boulevards do make it feel a little more European, but it's all a bit more complicated than that. I guess it's true that it's a more stylish place (I fitted in wonderfully, obviously) and the food was good, but there's something above and beyond all that that slowly creeps up [View Full Entry]

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Guess by now most of you will be bored to death with pictures of the dust storm that hit last week, so, just to annoy you, here are a few more. By all accounts it took most of the top soil from what’s left of the Australian farming industry to create this. The cloud stretched right the way to Brisbane apparently and at one point they thought they’d be having red snow in New Zealand because of it. It was pretty freaky; at 6am it looked like we were going to have to put up with a few years of nuclear [View Full Entry]

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Back home and on the Broads for the first time in what must be couple of years, I guess. Seemed really quiet to me, (the boat hire companies must be struggling). Even on a beautiful day we virtually had the place to ourselves. Makes for a better trip that way, so it was good news for us and I expect good news for the Broads too. Don't think I've ever seen terns diving on them before, or as many lily pads, so, maybe less traffic and the long running clean-up process really has improved the water quality. Things seem miles better [View Full Entry]

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We had to do something special for the folks' last weekend in Australia, so we decided to bundle it up with my birthday festivities and get a hotel right in the centre of town for one last run around in Sydney. Worked out very nicely too - apart from Crum falling off an escalator... Had one magical ferry trip over the harbour on the Saturday night, which, I can honestly say, was the happiest I've ever seen the old dears. They looked so excited by it all and it was great to be able to share that with them. Everything just [View Full Entry]

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Or you'll keep getting told off like I do. They are in fact the children of very hairy parents Australians force to live in trees until they go bald and end up playing for the Rabbitohs. I guess the first thing their folks must tell them is make sure you're highest in the tree, because, if the ones we saw are anything to go by, a poo on the head is pretty likely otherwise. The good news is that all that eucalyptus dries you out, so they bounce off in an very amusing fashion rather than making a sticky mess, which [View Full Entry]

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Jervis Bay is a pretty special place. It's got (offically) the whitest sand in the world, stunning blue water, a resident population of bottle nosed dophins, sea eagles and, in the winter, humpback whales. Forget exactly how big they said it was, but it was one of those stats involving how many times you could fit Sydney harbour into it. It was about three and a half times or something, so big by anyone's standards. We stayed at the north end at a place called Callala Bay, which, when we did the dolphin watching trip, was pretty much were we ended [View Full Entry]

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Yep, they're here and causing trouble. Arrived just in time for Easter, which seemed a tad suspicious, but we were mug enough to fall for it and bought them chocolate blibies anyway. They were so damn cute it seemed a crime to break into them, although Crum soon changed her tune the second the fruit 'n' nut ran out, caving the poor little thing's head in with out blinking. The monster. They've discovered the joys of the all day City Rail ticket and like to spend their time zipping back and forth across the bay watching the world go by. A [View Full Entry]

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Yep, we finally got there. And it was worth the wait. Got lucky with the weather again and had a perfect day for it - no throwing up on the way over - so the city looked its stunning best from the water. You get a fantastic view of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House when you leave Circular Quay and it takes some believing that you're just on public transport and not some fancy cruise. It takes half an hour to motor the length of Port Jackson to Manly, so you get to see the whole harbour pretty much: Fort [View Full Entry]

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If you're short on mates or just need your faith in humanity restored, get yourself a wheelchair and head for Sydney on New Years Eve. The world and his wife will want to shake your hand and girls who'd never normally look at you twice will be compelled by pity to kiss you and wish you a happy new year. I'm not kidding, we couldn't go 30 seconds without something like this happening. And all thanks to the wonder of narcotics. Marvellous. We had to leave things a bit late, as usual, and didn't book the hotel until midday Old Year's [View Full Entry]

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