Hotel Ibis Wollongong

... dinner on Friday, we went for a walk on the beach where Shannon and Campbell showed off their fire twirling skills. After seeing how it's done Jo gave it a spin, and managed to not set herself on fire!

Saturday morning we had more visitors, the O'Connors came to check out the set up and have some billy coffee with some very nice muffins (supplied by the O'Connors ...

Brian here, Jill and I have been back in Wollongong for a week now. This is just a quick note to let you know how our last week in Cairns went.

After a great weekend diving on the reef (per last blog entry) we had a relaxed week in Cairns/Trinity Beach. I finished off my work on the engagement I was working on in Cairns with a pretty relaxed week. On Friday, I managed to get off a bit early to get a haircut and ...

... to study renewable energy engineering and she can't wait to get stuck in soon. It has been great to be able to settle somewhere and know that we're going to be in one place for longer than 6 months! Sydney is great (although it has been getting pretty cold here!) and we're really enjoying having our own place. Now that we are settled, you are more than welcome to come and stay so if you're ever in Sydney, let me know and we;ll come pick you up!!! Lots of love, Tom xxx

First night - its raining and freezing and colddddd! But we are snuggled up in the Kombi with the tv on. We are camped in the carpark of the City Beach, and we had boiled rice for dinner and are now enjoying some chocolate and a glass of wine. Havent seen anything yet - was dark when we got here so will check out things tomorrow. Accomodation - $0, Dinner - $5, Adventure - Priceless!!

On our way to Wollongong, we decided to stop at the Kiama blowhole. This was pretty good, especially when you felt the spray on your face. Wollongong was meant to be a city, so we fancied our chances of finding a restaurant open for dinner. We were staying in a place called Fairy Meadow, just outside of "The Gong"(that's was the Aussies ...

... he asked me what I was doing what my thing was and I talked about my Improdance course and what inpsired me about it he gave me all his attention and was hugely supportive. I explained that I am fascinated in the different ways we can perceive the world and how I'll be exploring these through, sight, sound, smell, touch and awareness, how in each workshop the group will look at one particular area and study it from different perspectives and see how these different ways of ...

... in all its glory. I will say that I definitely had the worst paint job of that company's fleet, based on the other ones I saw- and there were many. By the time I returned it I was very tired of every person who passed either laughing and giving me a thumbs up (like I had painted it or something- it says 'rent me' right on the back), looking at me quizzically like 'I don't get it', or giving me a dirty look for offending their sensitivities ...

We were supposed to be leaving on 14th Dec, but we ran out of money had didn;t really want to spend anymore time than we had to in cold and rainy NSW. The only flights we could get home were in 2 days time (today). So on our last day (yesterday) we decided to head out to Woolongong to visit some rellies. First stop was Donovan's Gran.... he hadn't seen her since he was a teenager so we were a bit nervous about whether she;d remember him or ...

... most highly venomous snakes in the world (I am crazy being here), it's also the only continent where the bad snakes out number the non-bad snakes. 65% of Oz snakes are venomous so I am really hoping that a wildlife centre is the only place I run into them. Luckly apparently only a handful are dangerous to humans and they're shy snakes so we're all alright then! Humph! It was quite a good place but it was a bit smaller than I had hoped, Lee did point out I was going to a ...

... the sunshine, as well as the alcohol, listenig to music and eating as much food as possible. This year was the first Christmas that Lee and I have spent together properly, from Christmas Eve to Christmas day. We've been together on Christmas day, when I've driven to the midlands but we've never actually spent Christmas eve together or Christmas morning. It wasn't ideal., sleeping on the floor and not even in bed together but it was ...