We had a realy long drive yesterday, from Ailie Beach to Cairns, 750km, not far off the length of Ireland, and just like Ireland, it rained… and rained and rained… for the entire 750km, but its nice today and apparently will be for the next few days, which is good because we are going SCUBA diving on the Great Barrier Reef tomorrow… anyway, as I promised I did get some photos uploaded for your viewing pleasure… 34 of them in fact… Enjoy…

Me Surfing

William and I trying to surf

Heading out to catch a wave

William catching a wave

Port Maquarie

Some Distances to travel

Me Driving

Nearly at Byron Bay

Byron Bay

Byron Bay Lighthouse

East Australia

Alan and I at Aus most eastlery point

Surfers Paradise

Surfers Paradise

Lifeguard @ Surfers

5 foot long Python the Alan and I happened upon

Gold Coast

Q1 Tower on Gold Coast

Movie World

Movie World

Brisbane

Brisbane

Brisbane

Long way to Cairns

Steve Irwin Way

Australia Zoo

Australia Zoo

Noosa Heads

Things in the wather that can kill you

Airlie Beach

Airlie Beach

Shute Harbour

Whitsunday Islands

Driving…

I dont know if I will have time in the internet cafe here to put the photos I’ve uploaded on my blog today… I will try and put them up in the next few days, but If you are feeling impatient you can go see them on my Flickr

and i haven’t posted anything here, its mainly due to the difficulties of actually getting access to the internet… also because of the lack of availibilty of computers It means I have no photos or videos to display at the moment.

Anyway, what has the past week held, wuite a bit…

We have been to Byron Bay, and the most easterly point of mainland Australia, William and I learned to surf in Surfers Paradise (yes that is the name of a town), we have been to Warner Bro’s Movieworld Theme Park, we have been to Brisbane, saw The Dark Knight last Wednesday night, it was Jason’s 22nd birthday on thursday, and it was my 22nd on Friday, we spent those in Noosa Heads, where Jason and Alan learned to surf and William and I just hired boards and practiced, then on friday we were in Hervey Bay, we had planned to go out on to Fraser Island the next day, but unfortuntely things didn’t work out and we headed on, we have been travelling for a couple of days and have now reached Airlie Beach, and the Whitsunday Islands, hopefully we will be heading out onto some of the islands in a couple of days, really looking forward to that, after that it will be on to Cairns. Today was Lorraine’s last day in Aus… she is probably currently boarding her flight from Sydney to London, I haven’t seen her in 2 and a half weeks, but i will see her in 3 and half… anyway I will try to post some photos when I get to Cairns, and I will try to post again in a few days…

So we said fairwell to our friends we were with in Sydney, yesterday morning, we had done loads in Sydney, went up the sydney tower, saw the opera house and eveything, William and I climbed the bridge, we went to Manly, Bondi Beach, we went up into the Blue Mountains, and went to an Aussie Rules Game, and lots of other cool places, Sydney was really nice, but i think I preferred Adelaide and not just because I got engaged there.

We picked up our camper and have headed north from Sydney, we stopped for the first night in a place called Hallidays Point, nice quiet wee cove, we had gone for a walk along the beach and there were a pile of dolphins swimming across the bay, which was pretty cool, tiday then we drove up to Coffs Harbour, and have stopped with a friend of Williams for a day or two before heading on up to Byron Bay, it takes a long time to get anywhere here, because the distances are massive, anyway, i have uploaded some more photos for you to look at because my next update may not be so soon…

It really is proving difficult to upload photos, here are a few from Adelaide and i think only one from Sydney… the dark one of Lori and I (with a pier kinda in the background) is about 5 minutes after I proposed…

So I have no internet access readily available in Sydney, thats why the lack of updates since I left Adelaide, when I have a bit more time I will write a longer post, with lots of photos… this post is a very exciting post for me…

Let me introduce to you, Lorraine Fleming… my fiancee…

Lorraine and I got engaged last Wednesday evening in Adelaide, South Australia… pretty exciting and cool…

I have just discovered that this internet cafe wont let me upload photos so I will post again when i get some photos uploaded, maybe when I get to Coffs Harbour later in the week,

To be honest blogging hasnt been top of my priorities while I’ve been out here, that coupled with the lack of decent internet access has been the main reason for the very few posts… 

Just a wee update on what the craic is…

We have been in Adelaide for 4 days now, just really chilling out with Shelly and her family, and Lorraine as well. Adelaide isn’t a huge touristy place, its just a sleepy normal wee town, its pretty cool, I really like it here…

Yesterday we had a full day though, went up a mountain, went to a wee german type town, and then headed down through the wine country to the coast, a place called Victor Harbour where Alan and I had an Unfortunate experience…

There was a break water heading out into the water, with a sign on it that said ‘Caution, waves may Break over this breakwater at any time’, also the guy in the information centre had said that the waves had been breaking 20 metres over the wall the day before, but we, not so wisely dandered on out…

there were a couple of biggish waves that sprinkled us a little, then there was the mother of all waves hit the breakwater, William and Jason were far enough away, but me and Alan were right in its path. The thing crashed down right on top of us, and we were soaked… see the pictures below…

 
The breakwater

Picture of the wave as it hit

  Alan and I are inside there somewhere

We were rightly soaked…

It was kinda funny though… here are some more photos from the past couple of days

We are currently in Singapore Airport, in the terminal there is a place called the Rainforest Lounge, which we are in, it costs $25 (singapore dollars) and we have had a shower, and unlimited food and drink, mainly snack foods, and there is free internet and big comfy seats. much better than your average airport, I was going to upload some photos for you to look at, but the internet is pretty slow, it was uploading for about 25 mins then the page didnt respond and it hadn’t uploaded them, so I will get them up when I get to Australia…

Us at the Grand Palace, Bangkok

well not really, just a quick update, no photos or anything at the moment…

I’m sitting in a hotel lobby in Chinatown, Bangkok, its our last day here. Tomorrow morning we head to the airport to get a flight to Singapore, than on from there to Adelaide, South Australia.

We have done quite a bit the past few days…

• Royal Palace
• Wat Pho - home to the world’s largest reclining Buddha
• Wat Arun - Temple of the Dawn, we went at night and it was closed so we went back the next day
• Bowling
• Went to see Kung Fu Panda in IMAX
• lots of boat trips
• Chintatown
• Messed around in the pool
• Generally wandered around Kho San Rd

Oh, and I fogot to mention I got sunburnt on my first day here…

I will try an post some photos when I get to Australia…

Later…

So I arrived in Bangkok this afternoon about 3pm Thailand time, my flight was great, was on time, early actually… it was a really smooth flight, and I managed to get a bit of kip on board…

Just spent the remainder of the evening hangiing out with William, Jason and Alan. Jason and I had a great Thai Massage, then we headed to dinner on Khao San Road, Thai green curry is actually pretty hot… We dandered on up the road after dinner and Jason got his hair dreaded…  anyway I’m going to go and try and trick my body clock into thinking its time for bed… enjoy a couple of quick photos…

Oh and alastair, email me you Dublin address…