a travelog of sorts - by Gavin Tyte

(otherwise known as the boring bit that authors stick at the front of their blogs when you’re itching to get on and read the good stuff)

All I knew about Australia I had gained from television soap operas; The Young Doctors, The Sullivans, Home and Away, and of course, Neighbours.  I knew it was sunny, had a big red rock in the middle, and was infested with over-sized jumping rabbits.

The outside temperature was close to 30°C.  I was dressed in a woolly jumper, thick jogging bottoms and knee-length ski socks.  I looked like I had stepped out of an alpine lodge.

I had heard that scorpion fish are dangerous and not called scorpion fish because they listen to 1970s heavy metal, so I wrapped the fish in my T-shirt to remove the hook.  As I threw the fish back in the water it brushed against one of my fingers.

No one would expect a pair of smiling, white-haired grandparents to be murderous dingo-feeding maniacs?

The best way of seeing the Great Barrier Reef is to learn how to hold your breath underwater for 30 minutes.  Alternatively you can learn how to scuba dive.

As we approached the mid-point, the jeep started filling with water.  Water poured in through the doors.  The river was getting deeper.

I slipped off the back of the horse with one foot still caught in a stirrup as the horse dragged me fifty yards up the trail.

He didn’t say a word as the crowds parted like the Red Sea to let him through.  He was about six-foot three inches tall and nearly as wide.