We're staying at Nick Maesepp's house in Brisbane. Instomatic pic of a motorcycle ride courtesy of Conrad... thats me riding it. Sorry Mom. And Dad. I'll never ride a dirt bike again. Probably. This is published 1 hr tops after the incident, thanks to Nicks top notch technology center.

We finally decided not to buy our friend's van but still haven't really decided on traveling vs staying in sydney. In the meantime, we met up with our English and Scottish friends Rachel and Joanna we met on the Mundaca boat in Fiji, hired a car for a week and worked our way up the coast towards Brisbane. We made it to Byron Bay on Sunday where Charlie and I spent his 28th birthday (also our 4 year anniversary!) at the fantastic Music Festival, followed by two nights of camping in Rachel's friend's backyard in a town that would have been at the center of a volcano 20 million years ago; and finally another homestay at yet another fellow Mundaca crew member's house in Brisbane! It's been a nice little road trip apart from all the rain. Next stop is either back to Sydney or some camping/fishing/surfing on some isolated beaches.

We'll, you get behind on the posting for a little while and it becomes impossible to catch up. But we've moved on to Australia from the last posting. We recovered some of our diginity by staying in a nice Marriot on the executive lounge courtesy of Karen's hotel points. A week was spent in Melbourne, a most cultured and dignified city. Makes you want to just settle down there, just walking around. But Sydney called, so we hopped in a van with Wiz, an English friend, and headed up the coast to camp illegally on beautiful beaches, play card games, and imagine buying the Toyota Hiace and live out of it on some surf beach like Wiz has done for the last 6 months.

Sydney is great, supported by excellent hostpitality of Karen's Aunt Ronnie and Uncle Geoff, and our New Zealand friend Lara who has put us up, dragged us hiking and surfing, and fed us excellent food. Next ? Perhaps Byron bay, although Sydney is so nice we've considered coming back and spending a month here. The current plan is no plan.