Belated Happy New Year!

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Hi everyone - sorry it's been a while since the last update - but I've been moving along at quite a pace and not much time to sit in front of a PC!

Hope the new year has got off to a good start for you all.

Alls well with me.

The last time I updated I was heading off to Cambodia. I took the overnight bus from Ho Chi Minh to Phnom, which was nothing like I'd expected. Cambodia is a beautiful country and contrary to what I'd been told I felt completely safe there. Visiting the killing fields and torture centre in Phnom Phen was an extremely moving experience and Angkor Wat, the ancient religous site in Siem Reap was amazing. It's spread over a huge area with amazing temples and other religious ritual sites. From Cambodia I flew to sanitized Singapore for a few days before flying to Perth. Spent a few fun days (and nights!) there before heading across to Melbourne to spend xmas with Karen who I'd been working for in Vietnam. After xmas we both left Melbourne - Karen back to Hoi An and me to Sydney to catch up with friends I'd met on the safari leg of my travels. Sydney didn't start well for me - the hostel I was in was awful but being the build up to new year everywhere was full (apart from the most expensive hotels) so no chance of moving. I was supposed to have a room to myself but was definitely sharing it with a fair amount of bed bugs! To make matters worse, on my way to meet my friends on my second night I got mugged by some junkie who took my phone and the little bit of money I had on me. I didn't argue with him - he looked completely out of it and I wasn't confident that he would back off if I stood up to him. It took me a couple of days to get over that but it didn't put a damper on my new years eve celebrations which were fantastic - thanks to a friend of a friend I spent new years eve on a yacht in Sydney Harbour with an amazing view of the fireworks. I also spent a lovely day on a tour of the Blue Mountains, which are very beautiful - and they are the memories of Sydney I've taken away with me.

I left Sydney on the 4th of January and have been travelling up the east coast on the greyhound bus, stopping off at the regular haunts along the way. After the traumas of Sydney I decided to treat myself to a hotel in Newcastle - about an hours drive north of Sydney. And what a treat! My own luxury room with a huge bed, fridge, bar, shower AND bath! No room mates, no bed bugs, no noise - just me! From Newcastle I took a bus to Port Stephens where I met a really nice guy Roger, who is the production manager for the BBC's Holiday Programme and had been working in Sydney. He was travelling up to Byron Bay and offered me a lift in his car which I snatched up! We stopped in Port McQuarie and met up with a really good bunch of girls who were also travelling on to Byron Bay, and would be staying in the same hostel. By the time we got to Byron, the girls had also met other people at stops they'd made along the way and we ended up with a group of 10 which made for a really fun time. We all loved Byron so much that we decided to stay on for a few extra days. By that time I'd caught up with a girl, Chris, that I'd met in Bangkok back in August last year. She lives and works in Brisbane during the week but has a house in Byron which she comes back to at the weekend. She kindly put me up in her beautiful house in Byron for a couple of days while she was working in Brisbane and then I stayed in her apartment in Brisbane when she was in Byron for the weekend - what a treat!

From Brisbane I headed to Hervey Bay, the gateway to Fraser Island. I'd booked myself on a self drive 4 wheel drive tour of Fraser. There would be 11 of us on our truck and I met the rest of my 'team' the day before we left for the island. I was delighted to discover that 2 of the guys, Sam and James, from the group in Byron were on my team. Fraser Island is lovely. The 2 highlights for me were swimming in Lake McKenzie - a beautiful freshwater lake - which was a nice change from the salty ocean, and watching the sea life up at Indian Head, which is at the north east end of the island. You aren't allowed to swim in the sea on Fraser and from the high point of the head we could see why as, thanks to the amazingly clear water, we quickly spotted several sharks and huge numbers of lethal jelly fish! We had a great view of everything that was swimming around - as well as the sharks and jelly fish, we also saw several groups of dolphins, a few solitary turtles and half a dozen sting rays. Incredibly, despite the warnings there were people prepared to take the risk of a swim. We actually saw one guy casually walking out of the sea blissfully unaware of a shark about 100 metres behind him! The only downside to the trip was that we managed to burn out the clutch on our truck (I wasn't driving!) and had to wait for 5 hours for a replacement to arrive. A burnt out clutch also meant that we automatically lost our $660 bond which was a bit of a blow, especially to some of the group who were at the end of their travels where every dollar starts to count.

From Fraser I travelled here to Airlee beach where I'm currently waiting to go off on a 3 day sailing trip around the whit sundays which I'm really looking forward to. It's extremely hot here and I'm enjoying the days doing nothing but lazing about by the lagoon, reading my book and deciding where to go for dinner! I've met up with a really nice girl, Amber, from Canada and we've decided to hook up together for the remainder of the trip to Cairns. Our plans are to visit magnetic island along the way, which is supposed to be lovely and then we've booked on a 3 day jungle tour of Cape Tribulation, just north of Cairns, followed by a few days chilling out back in Cairns before going our separate ways - me to Darwin and Amber back to Sydney.

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