Our trip to Sydney was a very short one, perhaps made shorter yet by the fact that in the first evening we'd done & seen everything we'd planned to (dinner & drinks with an old mate of mine in a bar by the Opera House looking out on sunset on the Harbour Bridge and Circular Quay). All very nice, great photos, but what to do then? We opted for a quick jaunt out to the famous Manley Beach on a local ferry...another chance to see the big sights above, this time from the water, and also a quite nice beach within [View Full Entry]

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We'd heard a lot from various people we know about Melbourne being a "great place to live in", a "working city" or "a place you either love or hate", so we had high hopes for our visit. We were going to stay with some friends from London who'd recently moved out there so thankfully no hostels! First impressions were good - the city has a quite comfortable feel to it for someone from Ireland or Britain..despite the excellent public transport and decent weather. It feels like a UK city should had they had the chance to start again and do things [View Full Entry]

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Like many other places we've ended up this year, Tasmania was never on our original itinerary. However, after spending several weeks in Bolivia and Peru with a couple from there, we decided it'd be silly not to pop over for a few days since we were in Melbourne anyway, only an hour away. Arriving midweek, our friends met us at the airport and dropped us off at Cataract Gorge, giving us the chance to take short walk from there back into town with a few hours to explore Launceston that afternoon, which is the third oldest city in Australia (after Sydney [View Full Entry]

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From Cairns, a short hop flight brought us down to Brisbane to visit friends and meet their four month old baby for the first time. Luckily she seemed to take to us both well, so the next few days passed in a relaxed manner, helping entertain her and admiring her amazing ability to sleep 12 hours at night. The easiest baby-sitting assignment ever! Having visited Brisbane last year, we'd already ticked off the 'must-sees' in the area, so were more than content to spend time catching up with the gossip, relaxing in the outdoor jacuzzi (although the unheated pool was a [View Full Entry]

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Diving - Laura's experience: I love swimming, I love snorkelling, so it seemed logical to assume I'd take to scuba diving like the proverbial fish to water. Signing up for a 5 day PADI course was the main reason we went to Cairns in the first place, although we had to wait several days to get spaces on the ProDive course we wanted. Having both passed the medicals, although with reservations from the doctor due to Luke's propensity for nose bleeds, we spent the first few days in a mix of classroom and pool based training. The theory parts were easy [View Full Entry]

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From Berlin to London for 24 hours. A brief chance to catch up with friends old and new over a few beers and curry, then onwards, but not before we had time to be completely freaked out by the high prices of everything from fresh produce to transport. And that was just in comparison with Germany, not S America. Not sure how we're going to react to coming home later in the year. Another 24 hours later we landed in Cairns, via a few hours in Singapore. Thanks to a tip-off from the previous evening, we managed to find the outdoor [View Full Entry]

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Deutsche Bahn, the German railway, had served us pretty well for the previous 2 weeks or so - clean, fast trains speeding us across the country in relative luxury. Until the final big journey to Berlin... The train from Goslar to Braunschweig was fine enough - a slightly grotty local train, but only an hour's journey. Then the heavens opened on the platform in Braunschweig just as we learned that our train would be a little late. When the train arrived, it wasn't the cool ICE train we'd become accustomed to, but a somewhat shabbier IC train - a replacement due [View Full Entry]

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I hadn't been back to Goslar since 1996 when I finished my summer job there as a student at a local recycling firm, so our decision to head back there for a quick overnight stay had me wondering whether the place would still be the sleepy little town in the Harz mountains that I remembered. We arrived at the station fairly early in the day following our journey from Koeln and were pretty knackered, especially with the heat that day. Luckily, the Tourist Info office in town quickly found us some accomodation at a very central guesthouse (thankfully not the guesthouse [View Full Entry]

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After a short but relaxing visit to see friends and their toddler in the wine growing region south of Frankfurt, it was time to visit some parts of Germany which Luke knew but which were new to me. For obvious, war related reasons, there aren't many historical sites left in Koeln, apart from the cathedral. However, it's impressive enough to make up for it, with vast towering spires and immense stained glass windows. Inside there is an incredible feeling of space, despite the inevitably high number of tourists there at any given moment. The day we arrived was the day of [View Full Entry]

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Dresden 9 years after our first visit to Dresden, we were both expecting to see some changes to the old East German city. The last time we visited, the city was still suffering from History, most notoriously a British 'visit' during the 2nd World War - much of the old town was somewhat shabby and in need of serious repair. Today, whilst some work continues, progress has been made, and the centre of the city is now the bustling tourist mecca it's history deserves. We were staying in a hostel in the Neustadt area of town, our relatives in the city [View Full Entry]

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