Back to reality

I'm back in England. I was away for quite some time. I officially left in July 2004, and was last back for a visit in October 2005. It feels good to be back, even though the sky here is not blue and the people are all pale and pink.

Last time we spoke I was very upset about the loss of my camera and 300 Thailand photos. Thank you to the folk who left nice comments on that blog entry. At Bangkok airport (the new one, which opened recently, and which is amazing) I bought a new camera. It is an Olympus 7.1 megapixel thing with a three inch screen on the back, with exciting features like auto-stitching of panorama photos and whatnot. Needless to say it was lots cheaper than the previous one, which was almost two years old.

So I have lots of photos of Oman, which we visited for four days after Thailand (for those of you who are interested, there are also some exciting photos of the flight from Oman to Heathrow).

Oman was interesting, but the hotels were all expensive and we got woken up at 5am every day by the call to prayer blaring out of the nearest mosque.

Now it's back to reality. Emily and I have spent the weekend updating our CVs and emailing them off in response to job adverts in London. Emily is currently in London and has three interviews tomorrow! I have had to make do with phone calls, just two of them.

Fingers are crossed.

No more photos

This is not a happy blog entry. It should have been; Emily and I have been having a fantastic time in Thailand, a country that has been far more exciting, varied and interesting than I had ever expected.

I had been taking lots of photos (as usual). Now, however, they are gone, about 300 of them: I lost my camera, off the side of a boat. It was in its waterproof housing, but would have sank without a trace since it was negatively buoyant.

Gone are my photos of:

• Golden Buddhas in Bangkok
• Assorted street scenes in Bangkok and Chiang Mai
• Images of Thailand's interesting train service
  
• Photos and video of elephants playing harmonica, throwing darts at balloons and placing a hat on my head, patting it into place
• And many, many more...

It looks like the travel insurance will cover the cost of replacing the camera, which is nice.

This was the first thing of value that I have lost in years. In ten years of diving I have never lost more than a cheap torch, and that was in 1998. I have always, always been fussy about clips and lanyards. The o-ring on the camera housing was lovingly cleaned and greased regularly to guard against leaks. The camera itself was normally housed in a nice protective cover so that if dropped (which it never was) it would hopefully survive.

On this occasion, however, I found myself at the bow of the boat, with the camera stuffed down the front of my wetsuit. I'd been going to clip it to my dive gear but the boat was busy and I could not get to it. Returning to the deck of the boat, I slipped and felt the camera pop out of my wetsuit. I did not even see it go over the side, just felt it.

This happened two days ago, and I am still so unmentionably mad at myself for not being more careful with the camera, and more significantly for now having burnt the photos on to CD before going on the boat.

7535km

Our time in Australia is now at an end. In total we drove 7535km in the rental car, from Cairns through Brisbane, Sydney, Broken Hill, Adelaide and Melbourne. Fun, but tiring towards the end.

Now we fly back to Sydney, then take a connecting flight to Bangkok, arriving at about 11pm tonight. Apparently it will be easy for us to get to our hotel.

Australia'd!

Our time in Australia is almost at an end! It's been fun and we've seen lots of interesting things, but I am feeling pretty Australia'd out now.

We are currently in Apollo Bay, staying at a YHA Youth Hostel that looks like the set from Big Brother. Tomorrow we drive the final 100km or thereabouts to Melbourne, where we'll be for a couple of days before flying on to Thailand.

Driving

We've been driving West since the Blue Mountains and are now in the "accessible Outback", staying in Broken Hill. We did the drive in a couple of days; 400km followed by 750km. Quite a way, but there really wasn't anywhere nice to stop en route.

Some stunning scenery though - I've uploaded some more photos to Yahoo. They are Twenty20 cricket, Blue Mountains and Broken Hill & Outback.

Broken Hill is an interesting old mining town that's re-inventing itself as a bit of a tourist mecca. I got to play miner for a morning and we also went to the nearby ghost town of Silverton. Bits of Mad Max II and other films have been shot out there.

It's been pretty hot here, pushing the upper 30's Celcius. Next up we are heading to Adelaide which is on the coast. I'm not sure if it will be any cooler there though. Sounds like an interesting city though.

Lastly, we've changed our flights a little bit. We're leaving Australia on the 28th, but then we'll be in Thailand for two weeks (not four as originally planned). Then we will be in Oman for two more weeks, returning to the UK on the 24th of February.

True Blue

Emily and I have now said our goodbyes to Sydney! Before visiting the city, I had noted that I had never heard a bad word about the place from folk who had visited. Having been there, I can see why.

Highlights included the Bridge Climb - walk over the arches of the Harbour bridge - and seeing the cricket (even though England got completely thrashed).

We're now in the Blue Mountains, about 150km West of Sydney. Walking tomorrow.

Then we drive another 800km into the Outback.

More photos

Emily and I are back at Cissi and Simon's house in Manly - one of the suburbs of Sydney. We had been commenting to one another about how the waterfront here looks very British-seasidey when we came upon a sign informing us that this area was modeled after Brighton! It certainly shows, and in a nice way.

After a couple of days rain the weather has reverted to glorious sunshine. Therefore I have spent the morning burning photos to CD and uploading a few. Check out Yahoo for the photos, and YouTube for a thirty second video of a Kangaroo minding its own business.