Australia

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Hello one and all.

I come to you again from Australia, although that is not where i currently am, only where my current blog entry leaves me. I will try to keep this blog super short and fill it mainly with photos. This is for a number of reasons, firstly, the photos sum it up best, secondly it's quicker and there is too much fun to be had where i am now rather than sitting in front of a computer and thirdly because i have to say i didn't really enjoy Australia like i thought i would so really don't want to waste time talking about it.

As briefly as possible, these are my quarms with Australia:

*It is full of beautiful beaches.......however, you can suffer from beach fatigue after a while.
*other than beaches, it's pretty much desert
*There is not culture, other than a bit about aboriginals (which is actually pretty interesting)
*You have to drive a minimum of 6 hours to get from one place to another.
*it's too hot
*it's f$%king expensive
*Other travels aren't very interesting and have very little to say for themselves (not like me with my amazing stories of fighting disease in 3rd world countries, fascinating views on world politics and stories from 'nam)... i jest of course, but what i mean is that they tend to be 18 yr old gap students on a piss up, which is fine. Fair play. But now that i'm such a super sophisticated and grown up human being (hmmmm?) this doesn't appeal so much.
*There are too many ways to die: snakes, crocks, spiders, hicks and stingers........in fact to even go swimming in some parts you can't just jump in, no, you have to kit up in a full body stinger suit. Sort of takes to fun out of 'going for a dip to cool down'.

Having said all this, i'd like to get one thing straight. I did enjoy Australia and i'm glad i went. I saw some amazing things and had an activity packed time, I just think it isn't a place i'd visit again (other than melbourne and Sydney which i've heard great things about but i never got to visit).

ok hold on. one last point i'd like to make. Maybe i judged Oz unfairly due to the way i traveled. Since i was short on time, to use what time i had most efficiently and see everything i wanted to, i booked myself on tours. The problem with this being that if you have a group on your tour who you don't get on with particularly well, it can be a bore, this is what happened on all except one of my tours, the exception suprise suprise, being the one i enjoyed the most (Fraser Island). I did a total of 5 tours and only one did i have a group that i got on with well. It wasn't that i DIDN'T get on with people on the others, i just didn't have much in common with them so didn't enjoy it as much as i could of.
Anway, here's an example:

For trip to The Whitsundays on the East coast, i opted for the 3 day, 3 night option on an ex-americas cup boat. With 28 people sounds like it could be a good laugh right? Out of those 28 people...................24 were blokes. 2 of the 4 women were in a relationship and the other 2, well, best we just don't mention them. Ok, so that's annoying but not a big deal. But it is slightly more annoying when out of the 24 blokes.............18 were German. Don't get me wrong, i'm not racist, i've done a German exchange and everything....... lets just say it wasn't the barrel of laughs it could of been!!

Anyway, enough said. Check out the pics.

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Ok, basically i've got too many pictures of Oz and i'm getting bored of uploading them, so i've uploaded as many as i can be bothered at this stage. I will be hosting weekly photo sessions back home so don't forget to sign up for that (limited spaces available)

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