I’m now ensconced in my new home for the next week-and-a-bit. I’m crashing in Mel’s spare room with wonderful free wireless, three dogs (including a spanky new golden labrador) and three cats. Once more I’m doing my “Dr Dolittle”. One of the cats is very much not a people person. I’m the only one it’ll [...]

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Plans are now afoot for the next stage of the Oz tour, and I’ve made contact with a huge bunch of people to bump into in the next few weeks. Much as I like Perth, I’m really looking forward to moving on to see them all! Tasmania’s pretty much planned out as it’s 99% organised [...]

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Well, my Tasmania trip is now booked and paid for thanks to my flexible friend. I’ve sorted a 6-day whistle-stop trek with Adventure Tours, the same company I did the Red Centre with. Tuesday onwards are going to be rather hectic! I check out of here in the morning and fly to Launcestone on Tasmania [...]

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I’m now in my fourth room at the Witch’s Hat, as I’ve been shifted again. My own fault for only booking a couple of days at a time! At least I’ve been lucky enough to get a room – I know people who’ve had to shift hostels for a day or two. Other than that, [...]

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I ended up in another new room when I got back to the Witch’s Hat, this time sharing with an Irish and an English girl. They went out about the same time I went to bed, but I slept rather soundly and only heard one of them doing her best to be quiet when she [...]

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I got out of bed around 7am, but I’d been awake since before six. Ah well. As I walked back to the hostel from breakfast at McD’s, the dive company rang me to ask where I was. They’d arrived at the hostel and banged on all the doors, and nobody knew where I was! Well, [...]

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I didn’t do a whole heck of a lot today apart from pack up and mull around, chatting to other backpackers. At lunchtime I dumped my laptop in reception for safekeeping, hoisted my (amazingly lightweight) rucksack and plodded the 25 minutes down to the main bus depot. There I checked in for the 13:15 to [...]

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I struggled out of bed at 6:45 and made it to the dive shop for 7:30, even though we didn’t set off to the boat until gone 8:00. There was only a small group going to Rottnest today: myself, a local guy originally from South Africa and a Swiss couple. The journey over wasn’t too [...]

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OK, that’s more dramatic and egotistical than it sounds. The girl I met at KFC the other night invited me for an afternoon out with one of her friends and her daughter. We were also joined by another girl from my dorm to make up a nice fivesome for a trundle over to Hillary’s Boat [...]

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OK, so staying up until 5am using the internet wasn’t the world’s greatest idea, but at least it means I’ve cleared one heck of an email backlog and got to chat to a few of you! I managed to get another package mailed home today. I hope it makes it. The last one I sent [...]

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