In the main cities, we were spoilt for choice for food as there was a very wide variety of food courts and restaurants to choose from. Chinese and Asian restaurants were very common reflecting Australia's large Chinese and Asian population. There were also quite a few Japanese restaurants probably because of the large number of Japanese tourists who visit Australia. Whenever we could, however, we tried to eat Australian food including kangaroo, crocodile and emu - all of which are really delicious and healthier alternatives to beef. We even once had them cooked on that Australian culinary institution - the barbie!

Despite being British, we very rarely eat fish and chips when we are abroad but we heard that a popular fish available in their chippies, called flake, was actually shark, and so we had to try it and it was very nice (they also make proper British style chunky chips too).

I really like coffee and so it seems do the Australians as there was no end of delicious types of coffee as well as lots of coffee flavoured desserts so I was in coffee heaven during this trip. Another dessert that is an Australian speciality is Pavlova. This looks, and is, very different to what passes as Pavlova back home. The Australian version (they claim to have invented it) looks like a really massive mound of soft meringue (up to a foot high) with cream and fruit inside and is supposed to resemble a ballerina's tutu (in honour of the Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova). Neither of us was very keen on it though as there was just too much meringue in it.

One thing I was dreading was being given the opportunity to try witchetty grubs. These are probably the most famous item of Bush Tucker that tourists are asked to try. They are large caterpillars that are supposed to be eaten alive and I'm not sure I could do that (despite their claim to being very tasty) and so I'm quite relieved that throughout our tour we never saw this local delicacy on offer (as I would have had to try it if it had been!)

Quite a few minor disasters occurred while we were in Australia. When we were in Melbourne we heard that gale force winds were causing havoc in Perth (our last stop). We also heard that there was a parasite contaminating the water supply in Sydney (our next stop!) and that its water needed to be boiled for at least 1 minute before it was safe to drink. This was reported to have been cleared up but when we arrived in Sydney there was a warning in our hotel that the water was still not safe to drink and so they provided us with bottled water throughout our stay. We then heard that torrential rain was causing floods near Cairns (our next stop) but these rains stopped just as we arrived there. Finally, while we were in Perth (which had recovered from its gales), we heard that there had been a major gas explosion near Melbourne that was burning out of control for days (causing a state ban on the use of gas to conserve it for hospitals etc.).

The Commonwealth Games were held in Kuala Lumpur while we were in Australia and this really dominated the media. They are absolutely mad about sport in Oz and this obsession was reflected in the huge number of medals that they won.

When we left England, it was late summer but when we arrived in Melbourne, 27 hours later, winter was just about to finish. It was gloriously sunny outside, but not really warm enough for T-shirts. Sydney was warmer but we did have some quite rainy days. Further North, well into the Tropic of Capricorn, Cairns was hot, humid and still wet from the recent torrential rainstorms. However, once we were on our dive cruise the humidity went down to a much more bearable level. We had our hottest temperatures (37°C) in The Red Centre around Alice Springs but the humidity was low so this was much more bearable than Cairns. However, the nights were quite cool and we occasionally had to turn the heater on! The Red Centre is normally quite barren for most of the year but there had been some rain before we arrived and so the plants were in full bloom which was quite a treat. The area around Perth was abnormally cold and wet while we were there but luckily most of the rain fell while we were driving between towns and not when we were out exploring. Perth's weather prepared us quite nicely for our return back to England at the end of September!

This was our longest holiday yet and, if you've read this far, then you'll know that this is correspondingly our longest ever trip report. It took a very long time to write so we hope that you enjoyed it.

So far we have written eleven illustrated trip reports and this was the last one that was originally written in Word. As always, we're keen to know what you think of our efforts so why not send us an email - we'd be delighted to hear from you and (if you don't mind) we'd love to add your comments to our Readers’ Comments page (we promise not to include your full name or email address). We welcome any suggestions or even criticisms that you might have and in return we'll let you know when we add other trip reports.