old news	may 2004 news update 22 may 2004 we're writing this on saturday evening in airlie beach, the night before we go sailing round the whitsundays. we only left melbourne just over 3 1/2 weeks ago but it already seems like ages ago - especially when we think about what we've been up to... having said goodbye to melbourne, we had another fleeting visit to adelaide before starting on our trip up through the middle. adelaide is a lovely city - and definitely worth a visit. much more laid back than melbourne and with better weather which is why you'd move to australia. shan't try to write down every detail of our 7 day/6 night tour to alice and the red centre - but it was excellent, covering off all the must-see places through the middle: flinders ranges, wilapena pound, oodnadatta trail, william creek, cober pedy, uluru, kata tjuta, kings canyon. it would take far too long to explain everything but we slept under the stars in swags, wore the same clothes most of the week, didn't walk up uluru, just around (yes it's great), kata tjuta is beautiful, and organised trips work. thankfully our group was a mix of like-minded individuals (no pissed 18 year olds) and a great tour guide. Check out our gallery for pictures. we finally ended up in alice springs for 4 days of recovery, washing, chilling, and getting to know the place. and the first thing you notice is the greater mix of aboriginals to whites. not always a good mix and no real answer as to who is right or wrong or what's the solution. but it's certainly something that's not really talked about outside of australia. managed to do some exploring - visited alice's spring and even woke up one day to rain making everywhere green! our plans then took us to the east coast and hopefully to find our suntans. due to flight times we'd planned a quick quiet overnight stop in cairns before heading up into the rain forest and cape tribulation. however our quiet night turned into just 3 hours sleep, having caught up with an old school friend from essex (steven harris) who now lives in cairns with his wife and 4 kids. (more on those guys later!) the rainforest was excellent: so different from the places we'd just visited. green, lush, wet, full of bugs, snakes, feral pigs etc etc. three days of discovering about rainforests, living in tents, everything, being damp (nice for a change but definitely couldn't live there permanently. steve and fiona had kindly/drunkenly invited us to stay with them on our return to cairns, so naturally being the 'true' backpackers (haa-haa - have you seen the size of our bags?) we took up their offer. steve is now a very successful chef in a greek restaurant, with a lovely wife and 4 great kids. we spent a week catching up on old times, making up for the past 12 years. some folks never change and we hope to see them sooner than in another 12 years time. it meant that we experienced the different side of cairns with limited numbers of pissed 18 year olds in sight. saw the reef, found nemo, managed not to drown when snorkelling, visited the tablelands and kuranda and port douglas. cairns is beautiful, lush and green - this is why you move to australia. however it certainly didn't work out cheaper staying with steve and fiona, so we've just spent the past 4 days chilling out in a place called cardwell, 3 hours from cairns and off the beaten track. great for being cheap to keep and the gateway to hinchinbrook island. it's the largest island national park and only 40 people are allowed on the island at any one time. we went exploring on thursday and even managed to see some dugongs (sea cows).