Blimey. Long time between posts, I know, but I've been out of contact for that long.

The outback is as orange is it is in all the photos. Uluru is immense (takes 4 hours to walk a circle round it), and well worth seeing, despite the shallow nature of the resort and the lacklustre exhibits there. No Aboriginies in sight though, which is a little odd. Then again, it is a desert.
The night sky there is unbeliveable, and well worth braving the freezing temeratures.

On to tropical North Queensland now, where the rainforest sits side-by-side with the Great Barrier Reef. What a place it is too. The rainforest stretches on for miles. From Cairns (the main town up here), you can get a  ski-lift over the canopy (they call it "sky rail"), from where you can watch parrots and cockatoos darting about. But it's at ground level that you truly realise the beauty of the place. Once you get over that fact that all the houseplants you have in little pots back home are growing outside and are 10 times as big! Amazing.

A weekend trip to the ripoff that is the Fitzroy Island resort was a necessary evil, as I met up with Stuart to undergo a "Level-Up" to a PADI "Advanced Open Water Diver" Certificate. All it really means is that I can go to 30 metres without getting nitrogen narcosis, and where's the fun in that? Still, the reef is mind-blowing. I've found Nemo several lime over, and have got over the fact that all these aquarium fish are swimming outside and are 10 times as big! Astounding.

I leave Cairns tommorrow for Hamilton Island,  and a few days sailing around the Whitsunday Islands on the "Anaconda III".  Sounds like an unwisly made sequel, but I'll wait and see it before I make a final verdict. Anywho, I'll be dropping out the loop for a few more days, so until next time; be lucky, oi oi!