Hello everyone.
First let me apologise for not writing anything for ages. I hope you've got a cup of tea and biscuit at the ready as this should hopefully be a lengthy read. Actually we haven't been up to that much as the weather here has been totally crazy - Sheffield-esque in terms of the downfalls.
As I'm sure I've mentioned before there is some major weirdness going on with the climate here. There was previously water bans and restrictions due to the fact the dam level have been at there lowest for 10 years with some at less than 30%. There just hasn't been any rain for ages. Then about 4 weeks ago it started - and it hasn't stopped. The Hunter Valley looks like the Northeast of England in terms of the flooding and I've not been able to do very much cycling due to the bad riding conditions on the road to work. Now all the damns are bursting and everyone's panicing about disease in the water supply because of strange algae blooms appearing in the rivers and lakes. Also the temperature has been as low as 7C which is not pleasant. There was even a tanker washed up on the beach of Newcastle! Fortunately it reminds me of one of the main reasons that I left Scotland and reinforces the thought that we have done the right thing.
The ski resorts have also been seeing the brunt of this weather. There are blizzards up in Threadbo and they are expecting a bumper season due to all the big dumps. There's even been snow in the Blue Mountains and roads and rail routes up there havae been closed down because of it. We have thought about going for a day in the Snowy Mountains to try out the resorts and see what Aussie snow is like but we've decided against it. There is no way we could afford to rent absolutely everything and then hire a car to driver 5 hours to Perisher then stay for a couple of nights and drive back. For the same price we could go to Fiji for a week.
So although we've not been up to much we have been planning out trips round Australia. I couldn't take any annual leave for the first few months of my job but now I've put in for all of my leave. We've got 2 weeks at the end of July, 2 at the end of September and 1 in November which is when the folks are going to be visiting. It'll be summer then and I'm looking forward to showing them the sights of Sydney in the great Australian sunshine (when you'll all be freezing! Ha ha!)
So the weeks at the end of July are shaping up nicely trip-wise. We fly up to Cairns first on the 25th July where we'll spend the night. The next day we are going out to the Barrier Reef with a company called
Reef Magic. I've heard good things about them. They have their own enclosed pontoon in one of the outer reefs away from a lot of the commercial tours. It means that we can get undisturbed snorkeling and diving around some better quality coral. The also have glass bottom boat tours and other activities that you can do out at the reef so should be a good day.
We'll head back to Cairns that night and the next day we'll be picking up our hire car which we'll use to drive down to Brisbane - not in one go of course! First on our road trip will be Airlie Beach where we will spend a night. As I recall there's a real dive of a bar on the main street that has a karaoke night so lets hope it coincides with our arrival. I'll need to brush up on my
Paradise City and
Sweet Child soon so that my performance isn't embarassing!!! From Airlie Beach we are going to take a 3 day sailing trip around the Whitsundays. We're taking a catamaran round some of the Islands and at night we'll be mooring off Molle Island which is a big resort where we are allowed to use all the facilities. I can't wait. Last time I did the East coast I only spend 1 Day at the Whitsundays and it was a major regret. This time we'll be doing it properly.
Heading south from Airlie beach we are going to see Yepoon, Rockhampton (very quickly!) and Bundaberg. I'm looking forward to seeing the distillery and hopefully there'll be a tour on although since we'll be driving we'll have do just buy some run for back in Sydney! Squirrelcheeks, do you want me to pick you up a bottle on the way down to Brisbane???
Our next stop will be Hervey Bay where we'll be going over to Fraser Island to do a Safari of the Island. I've done this tour before and it's a fantastic day out. Most people recommend that you do a 2 day 4WD tour of the Island and spend a night camping there but unfortunately we just don't have the time. 2 weeks to do Cairns to Brisbane is a pretty tall order if you want to see everything but we'll try.
Our penultimate stop is going to be Noosa which will be a pleasant place to stop of before hitting the city. There's a really beautiful national park there which has a great walk round most of the park and the coast line. Mind you Noosa's also pretty famous for the shopping so it'll be a tough call as to what we end up doing. We should reach Brisbane on the 5th August which only gives us 3 days there but I spent 5 weeks there in 2000 and so I've seen most of it. I think Isla is thinking of heading up that way in December and so she can see the rest of the city then. We'll catch up with Dave hopefully which will be great as Skype just doesn't quite cut it.
So that's the trip for July. I'll fill you in on the September trip nearer the time.
Well that's all the news to date. Tonight we are going to see Priscilla the Musical which should be... interesting! At least it's one for the 365 Challenge and also it's in the Star City Casino which is somewhere we've not been yet. It starts at 8pm so we should have a bit of time to look around the Casio and see what all the tate-related hype is about.
So I hope that makes up for being so remiss lately. Will post the Priscilla chat on the 365 tomorrow.
Z
Just got back from the cinema. I swear that the bloke who works the ticket counter during the early morning shift thinks that I'm a pure weirdo. Every time I go to see the latest release during my days of during the week, I always get the same dude behind the glass looking at me like I'm a freak. 
