A great night out followed, and an inpromptu dip in said freezing sea at around 10pm...all good fun. Yesterday (Tuesday) we decided, despite the freezing rain and cloudy weather, to head to the biggest and best water park in Aus. It was great fun - there were about 10 'rides' and they seemingly had catered for all forms of falling down a slide - some lying down, some sitting up, some head first. There was also a massive wavepool where I proceded to nearly drown - how ironic would that have been given the amount of time we've spent on the actual sea in real waves...?

The trip to the water park was not without event however, as Helen decided instead to go to the cinema and as she did so, she turned my phone off...when she tried to turn it back on she realised she didn't know the PIN. We'd already emailed though and we managed to arrange a place to pick her up...we were nearly down to 4 not 5...anyhow, a mad adash up the coast to Brisbane followed and we managed to find a space at a campsite despite it being the National Caravan and Motorhome show just up the road. They did stick us on an 'emergency' stand at first but when we realised we were on about a 20 degree incline (thus, no sleep) we managed to persuade them to move us...

The park was miles from anywhere so we settled down for the night with some of the Hunter Valley wine and Peter Kay - Live from the top of the Tower ('Garlic bread?, bread with garlic on it....') before bedding down for the night. The rain did not abait however and pretty much all of us had a broken night's sleep whilst the storm continued outside.

So 5 has become 3 - travelling with 2 others we'd previously not met (Helen & Rich) was for the most part great fun. I am sure they are looking forward to their privacy a little as I know we are...I don't think we annoyed each other that much although a couple of times the atmostphere was a little charged...hey what do you expect with 5 people in the space of a jail cell for 12 days!! Either way we're all still friends (I hope) and we've vowed to meet up in Cairns in about 2-3 weeks for some fun and diving. This afternoon, in order to kill time before our flight we went to see 'Old School' - funny in parts but no real storyline...it killed a couple of hours though, and we've now arrived at Brisbane airport for our 6pm (ish) flight. Next stop Melbourne where we meet with Luke & Flic (the most bearded man in the world and his Dentist friend - we met them in Chengdu), we are going to tour the Neighbours set, and also go to an Aussie Rules match, hopefully at the MCG on Saturday. From there we head off down the Great Ocean Road before winding up in Adelaide on the 14th in preparation for the trip up to Ayres Rock (Uluru). En route we are trying to fix up a 'dive with Great White Sharks in a cage' type thing...not sure where or when yet but apparently you can do it in Aus.

Oh and while I remember part 5 (or something) in a series of 'our faith in humanity is restored...'. We have received a cheque for 160 quid from CTS (China Travel Service) Hong Kong Ltd. for the flights we cancelled and we thought we had no hope of getting a refund for...yay! This means with BA's 300 we actually about broke even getting out of China. Certainly helps. Also we're now booked onto the Neighbours tour - going tomorrow - we will be going to Ramsey Street and will get to see Erinsborough High (whatever that is) and hear some new storylines...can't wait.