What - Cairns already?!?

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How did I end up here already? It seemed such a long way off and now I'm sitting in an internet cafe in the wet tropics!

So any-which-ways, I left off with my flight brought forward. It was all okay obviously and I got to Kuala Lumpur which was a bit like a homecoming (in that I spent the whole flight slavering away about where I would have my lunch, and launched myself off the bus like a polaris missile towards a beautous and bountiful Veg Thali.... it always feels like home if you know where to get good food!!), before having a crazy race around the city trying to find where I could get the bus to Singapore.... the ripped out pages from Nick & Bev's guidebook lied to me, so consequently I thought everyone else was lying to me. But I did manage to find my way to Singapore, where a nice but odd man who seemed to own about 78 businesses doing various things kindly gave me a lift (in a company car, I'm not just leaping into random people's cars) and dropped me off at Nick & Bev's, whereupon I returned the aforementioned inaccurate pages (with corrections).

Singapore II was again a blessed little port of calm in the turgid and rapid river of my travels (what I mean I that I didn't have to spend money for sleeping, internet and such). I ate&drank N&B out of house and home (thanks guys) inbetween playing with Liza who I think is the most engaging 4 yr old I've ever met (apart from me but then I and me were never formally introduced....) and fretting abotu what to discard from my luggage........

The few days I had in S passed too quickly and before I knew it I was on another plane heading to Sydney, but to meet lovely HANNAH whom I was so excited to see, I was jiggling round in my seat and I couldn't watch a serious movie, I had to watch "Kung-Fu Panda". However, by the time Qantas succeeded in delivering me to Sydney, it was horrifically late and Han was already fast asleep, so staving off the urge to wake her, which was actually just as well because the person I thought was Han was, in fact, not. Close one...

We spent a lovely 9 nights in Sydney, most of the first day was spent planning the rest, it was just lovely and worthy or far more than the brief descriptions I'm going to give it here: 2 nights on Bondi Beach where we found a fantastic meze restaurant with half-price food on Mon, Tues & Wed, we went both nights we were there.... so nice!

We also bombed around the Blue Mountains in a hire car which was fantastic - lots of freash air and walking, doing ourselves all manner of good, before heading back to Sydney and commencing with nightlife and doing ourselves all sorts of bad!! We also headed out to another beach-suburb, Collaroy, which was like the tiniest off-season UK beach resort, the only positive thing about it was a lovely old 20s cinema with if not original then pretty old-schoool pluch velvet chairs, to watch Caramel - and AWESOME movie....! Watch it if you ever get the chance for def....

We also hit up the Jazz fesitval that was going on a couple of suburbs in, at Manly. That was pretty cool too, just sitting round in the bouts of sunshine, hiding in the shops in the bouts of rain....

Before I knew it, againI was heading on and leaving mah Hannah, to be enveloped in the familial bosom in Brisbane. I love my family there, Joan & Barry, my Mum's aunt & uncle, never fail in their Welshie nature of making family welcome. and I DID NOT WANT TO LEAVE, I spent some time with my cousins and the extended family, including one very raucous birthday-lunch in the company Kath's family - mostly consisting of tremendous, loud and warm Croatian ladies, whom I last met at my cousin Simon's & Kath's wedding the last time I was here. It set me up nicely to go on and fend for myself, even if I did I felt extra lonely casting myself out on my bottom in Cairns....

Meh, I'll tell y'all about Cairns as soon as I have a job, which, fingers crossed, will not be long...........

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