Welcome to my first editorial. You may well ask why its taken so long for me to get round to dropping a line but I've been busy travelling around Australia since last summer. Life as a backpacker doesn't solely revolve around Kanagaroo steak barbeques at the beach and flirting with hot French guys over jugs of ice cold beer...OK, some of the time it does.

Savings and frugality will only get you so far around Australia before you have to give in and get a crappy job. And I had to get one as soon as I got here thanks to my budget flying out the window some where around week six. So far I have cleaned houses, hostels and 5 star hotels, picked tomatoes, waited tables and sold glo-sticks at a fireworks displays all so I could stay down under just a little while longer.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't all beaches beer and shitty jobs. I have done and seen some amazing things in Oz. I have snorkelled in the great barrier reef, sailed the Whitsunday islands, watched loggerhead turtles lay eggs on a beach, climbed a canyon in the middle of the night to watch the sun rise over the outback, cuddled a koala and played with baby kangaroos. I even had an early morning close encounter with a wild dingo on Fraser Island and it is these amazing experiences that make the many hours of scrubbing toilets worth while.

If I've given you itchy feet and now you want to hit the road for an adventure of your own make sure you load up your MP3 player with some tunes first. When you're stuck on a Greyhound coach for 10 hours you NEED good music to get you through.

Well that's it from me for now. You'll hear form me a again when I'm back in Blighty, sad and depressed and pining away for the open road.