Whilst waiting for the kids to arrive, Gale showed me round the home a bit. They have a boy's house, girl's house, office, schoolroom/library, dining room/kitchen and music room/hall. A 5 minute walk away is the volunteer house, where we were staying, and the place has lots of outdoors stuff as well - climbing frames, a volleyball court and a football/basketball area. Our house is fairly basic, with a 1 out of the 4 toilets having a flushing mechanism, and 1 hot and 1 cold shower. The beds are basically a metal frame with a board across it, or simply a yoga mat on the floor. There are a few thin mattresses (about 1 inch thick) - I ended up folding one in half so it's not very wide but at least I can't feel the ... read more

I arrived in Bangkok at midnight as my plane was delayed - something about half the passengers on the flight were meant to be going to Heathrow, which was having issues with snow. As it was so late, I got a shuttle bus to one of the nearby hotels which was far too expensive, but it had a bed in it so alls good. The following day I headed into Bangkok central, in a taxi which only cost about B200, but the driver was mental - apparently seeming not to notice trivial details like white lines and red lights. Once at Th Khao San (backpacker road), I checked into a much cheaper hotel, and headed out into the city. I ended up spending most of the afternoon gong round the markets in Khao San, which were ... read more

add photos On arrival in Adelaide, I discovered that the Ashes were being held there, as well as a Guns N Roses concert. This unsurprisingly made finding accomodation fairly hard work, though eventually I found a hostel with 1 bed left. I spent the first day looking around the city, and doing boring things like applying for a Thai visa. My second day was quite a lot more interesting, as I went down to Glenelg. It was very sunny and so I spent the morning swimming and jumping off the pier with some surfer guys. Then as the tide came in and the sun started to get blocked out by clouds, we headed back to the beach, where I found a skim board being tossed about in the waves. I asked around, but as noone appeared ... read more

On arriving at Perth airport, I met Chris who I would be staying with for the week, and Melissa, his daughter. They gave me a lift back to Chris' place where I met Ilka (Chris' wife) and their dog: Ali. They were all really lovely people, and had all sorts of crazy luxuries, from a private room with a double bed, and a swimming pool, to conditioner and fluffy towels. That evening Ilka proved to be an awesome cook, making rice with 3 choices of curry, fish, and some weird things which I had almost forgotten about called vegetables. The next day I spent the afternoon in Perth where I ran into 2 girls who I had met in Cairns, and as I had nothing much to do, I went with them to see the new ... read more

Hi again, Seeing as I had about a week left in Cairns and not much to do, I booked onto a tour up to Yungaburra in the Atherton Tablelands. The Tablelands are basically a lot of green, gently sloping hills, all on top of the mountain range, about 1000ft above sea level. To start the tour, Paul picked us all up at about 7am, and took us on a quick tour of Cairns' industrial estate, where we saw some "native wildlife" - the workmen in trucks and working on the road. Paul explained how they can be identified by their hairy faces and florescent jackets (yellow=junior, orange=adult). Every time we passed one Paul would beep his horn and get everyone to wave. Following this we headed out onto the highway, past a "dingo" (pet dog) about ... read more