G,day. Apologies all round for the lack of recent mails, but who comes round the world to sit in front of a computer all day ? Answer : Rich (How come he never did that at work Andy?), so I'm sure he's kept you all up to date.

We've been steadily working our way up the east coast of Oz for the past 6 weeks (which is nowhere near long enough) and are about to sail the Whitsundays, which is nice! I'll try to keep this brief, but I know I wont as I'm already rambling on, so here goes.

Sydney...

We started our first day intending to do all the usual stuff, but stumbled on to a beer, wine and food festival in Hyde Park. That was about as far as we got for the next 6 hours! We were having a pretty good time, listening to bands and relaxing in the sun, when a strange thought hit us almost simultaneously, "Have you noticed there are a lot of bald guys in the park Rich?"
I said, to which he replied, " Funny that, especially since you just shaved your head as well, we fit right in, don't we?
Another couple of baldies, eh?" True, we did look like everyone else in the park, two more bald men TOGETHER!

It was then that it also dawned on us that there were not that many women about, and those that were, were with other wome...FUCK IT, here we were, two bald guys, sitting at a picnic table in a park, sipping champagne, and eating salmon pate TOGETHER, in the middle of one of Sydney's biggest Gay festivals ! Honestly, there were no signs up to warn us, and although we're not homophobic, the Opera House now seemed a much better option (two bald guys going to the opera together, It's probably time to stop digging Nick).
Anyway, the long and the short of it was that Rich got lots of admiring glances, and was the belle of the ball, bitch!

Rather than make similar feux pas, we decided to stick to the tourist trail, and see the sights. Harbour Bridge, Opera House, Olympic Park, Taronga Zoo, Bondi Beach, Manly Beach, Sydney,s APM Tower, Kings Cross Red Light District, been there done all that ! Except for the last one, oops.

On the road again, we stopped off at a sheep station in Nundle where we sheared (not shared!) a sheep, and also sheared (not shared) a guy called Kerry. It worked better than Rich's clippers, but unfortunately one eared Kerry now has nowhere to hang his sunglasses.

Further up the coast we stayed in Byron Bay for 3 days, of which the highlight was the Melbourne Cup. There were thousands of gorgeous birds dressed like they were off to a wedding, seemingly all with there blokes, lots of punters furiously waving their betting slips, singing, laughing, and a strange aroma wafting through the crowds. This strange aroma apparently hangs about Byron Bay 365 days of the year, and is known by many names to the local populous. Smoked openly all day, by just about everyone there, it goes by the common name of Dope, and as there is a distinct lack of Police about, no one cares.
In fact, the neighbouring town of Nimbin is positively famous for it in Oz. The mayor was elected on a grow your own policy, got 95% of the vote, and spends all day outside the council buildings handing out flowers and "loving" people. Every word of the above is true, if you don't believe me, hop on the next death trap headed for Oz, and don't forget your Rizlas.

A few days further up the Sunshine Coast, we set our stall out in Maloolaba. The Sunshine Coast treated us to one of it's rare events by giving us front row seats to a 3 day thunder storm. It started as the coach pulled in, and finished as we put our bags back on. The visit was not in vain though, as Rich plucked up the courage to face the monster from the deep. I'm not going to slag off his choice in birds so I'll just say he went shark diving instead.

Next it was over to Fraser island, a 100 square mile sand bank full of lakes, creeks, dingos (killed a kid a few months ago), spiders, snakes, bats, jellyfish and all manner of nasty things. 3 days offroading did nothing for our crumbling spines, but the lake swimming gave us plenty of chances to recouperate. Any chances for a bit of the other were well and truly scupperred when we met our 10 travelling companions. Altogether, there were 5 other blokes, and 5 women, so it seemed there was a fighting chance, however it turned out that there were actually 4 couples, one other english lad called Liam, leaving one free bird.