The post arrived today… and it included both my passport and my PADI card. Whew. More relief than the biggest poop ever after the biggest curry ever. But less smelly. Thing is, I’ve reached the point where I’ve almost talked myself into staying in Darwin for another week to chill out as I’ve met a [...]

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As I’m writing this a huge weight has been lifted from my mind, but I’m still on tenterhooks. I finally got through to someone at the Indian Embassy today (after three phone calls and around 30 minutes on hold) who told me that my visa application has been approved and that my passport was put [...]

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 A late start today, only having to be up at 6:30. However, the tents were all transparent fly-netting so the sun woke us all at 5:30 instead. We’re definitely in the tropics now – the weather is very hot and humid. I’m remembering what Asia was like now! It’s surprising how quickly the change takes [...]

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 Our lie-in until the late hour of 6:00 didn’t happen. The birds in the area, including the turkeys, decided that 5:20 was a much nicer time of day to wake us all up. The noise was deafening, but at lest I know the turkeys will get what’s coming to them next month. That’ll teach them. [...]

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 Our 5:45 pickup arrived at 6:20 so I could have had another 30 minutes in bed. Never mind. Again, some of the people I knew from the Cairns trip, and some from Uluru were on this one as we set off on 1500kms of northbound driving to Darwin. We had two guides this time: Carl [...]

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 Another early start, with 5am being wake-up time. We were camped very close to Kings Canyon so it was only a short journey after breakfast to this enormous natural feature, where we engaged in a 3 1/2 hour long walk. A lot of it was little stops here and there as our guide pointed things [...]

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 Today was our earliest rise of the trek – 4am. We wanted to catch sunrise at Uluru, so obviously this entailed getting up before sunrise so we could be elsewhere when it happened. We got there and, as with sunset, the view was amazing. The only problem was that, for me, we were too close [...]

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 And another early start. Several of the group I arrived in Alice with were also on this trip, a three-day trek south-west of Alice Springs and around the nearby national park. Bleary-eyed, we loaded our luggage onto the bus and set off before our bodies registered what time it was and shut down in protest. [...]

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Pretty much slap bang in the middle of Australia, now that you ask. It’s surrounded by four deserts: Simpson, Tanami, Great Sandy (what a name) and Great Victoria (which couldn’t be further away from Victoria unless it took a holiday abroad). My hostel for 2 nights now and one night when I get back from [...]

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 The morning rise was an early one, actually before sunrise. We had to be on the bus by 6am as we had almost 1000km to cover. Cereal was munched, tea drunk and we said our farewells to Mary while trying to stop the pigs making off with our bags or getting onto the coach and [...]

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