G'day g'day how's it going?

Just spent the last few weeks on a really cool adventure up through the red centre of Australia and across through the nothing that comprises so much of cenrtral Oz to Cairns and down the East coast to Airle Beach (which actually doesn't have a beach) and the Whitsundays.
Started in Adelaide, a funny "city" that's more like an extended wild west town fused with a small funky city centre with cafes and towering buildings at odds with the surrounding single or double storey flat roofed offices and shops. You're in the centre before you realize you're near a city! Got a bus tour (Adelaide to Alice 6 days) with the incredible Gaz (or Wombat to his friends, he really does look like one, and I don't mean this in a bad way). Gaz was bloody amazing, 100% Australian, or Tasmanian if you ask him. A walking encyclopedia on just about every topic, from lizards to beer to geology to sports and Australian history. The tour guide you can only dream of getting. Thousands of kms of open road, expanses of nothing but scrub, salt lakes, sand, and heat!!! Stayed in towns with populations of between 5 and 10 (including pets and children!). Went hiking in amazing scenery, Uluru was incredible, in 36deg heat, didn't climb it out of respect to the Aboriginal owners. And they don't let anyone in those temperatures anyway. We ate camel and emu and kangaroo (bloody good tucker!) and acheived my goal of eating a live Wichity grub, dug fresh from the ground, tasted like egg, crunch and munch, yum!! Slept in a swag under the stars, a thick canvas sleeping bag to keep out all the things with lots of legs and no legs that can kill you though statistically you're more likely to succumb to the heat... Gaz wouldn't let us come on the hikes without seeing us carry at least a litre of water for every planned hour trekking, and we saw people out walking with 500ml bottles in searing heat!! Madness!! It's not like there are taps in the desert... Saw kangaroos and emu and wallabies and lizards and a few too many flies!! Bloody buggers! One of the best tours I've ever done, great guide and great group of people!
Got another bus to Cairns from Alice (3 days) with a guy who most likely does the geriatric entertainment circuit, either that or the Christmas cracker companies hire him for the jokes he comes out with. Lots of fun and a lot of nothing to look at, surreal!! There's not much to say about that, it's 3 days of literally nothing, and I mean nothing!
Got to Cairns, met Regina for dinner and drinks, she was off to Kakadu National Park the next day, Clare over on Monday just gone and they're off down the coast as well I think? Me and Is did a 5 day PADI diving course, with 3 days of it on a boat with 30 other people staying out on the reef (Great Barrier Reef), though we did make a small detour back to Cairns to drop off someone with moderate decompression sickness... Honestly on the first day in class I was crapping myself cos of all the details given of nasty ways to die while diving!! But once we were in the water it was fab! Still scary but better every dive. Saw loads of fish, not much coral because of damage from divers most likely (though companies are restricted to designated sites to protect the rest of the reef). Went on a night dive which was really cool, saw sharks and a huge Moray Eel. Now fully certified Open Water :-) Saw Nemo too, gave directions to 32 Wallaby Way, Sydney.
We're down in Airle Beach at the mo, just back from a 3 day sailing trip around the Whitsundays, weather a bit crappy (forgot to book good weather) but amazing water and scenery. Snorkeling was brilliant, the most amazing coral variety!! Every shape size and colour. And I saw turtles!!!!!!!!!!!! Yea!!!! Not only that but as we were watching them a Blue-spotted stingray swam over it and when we turned around we saw a giant 1/2m long Bat-fish and then a 1m long Maori-fish!!!!! Cool!!!!! Had a brill trip! Back on land now and all set to head down to Hervey Bay to hopefully see some Humpbacks.
And so to the bad news, the end of the dastardly duo!! Derek has taken his leave of us... We both want different things from the trip and he's going to stay in Oz for the rest of it while we head over to NZ in a weeks time. All amicable of course, obviously a difficult decision but think we're both happier this way. I couldn't have had a better traveling partner for the time we spent in india and Asia and this in no way takes from the trip so far.
Der if you're reading this, safe travels and I'll see you back home for Christmas.
Mam put more brandy on that pudding!!