When you book accommodation from the other side of the world, you're never quite sure if it's going to be in a convenient location...

In Sydney, Mantra 2 Bond Street is perfect.

5 minutes walk from about everywhere...



So get ready for Sydney! Here I come!

Ian's top travel tip for being away for weeks on end is...




Book accommodation which has a laundry!

Why can't they make automatic washing machines with the door in the front? Is it something southern hemisphere? They had these very 50s looking top-loaders in New Zealand as well.

Or is it us that's got it wrong...?

In the words of Madonna and Justin Timberlake "We only got four minutes to save the world... (Wikki Wikki Wikki)"

In the words of the Queensland Hotels Association, "You only got four minutes to take a shower..."



This is because...



I always like to read the papers when I am on holiday (national and local; and try to get The Guardian when I can - Nancy Banks-Smith withdrawal symptoms...) In The Australian, the debate about the water shortages continue.

Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland all share what's called the Murray-Darling basin - the two main rivers which provide water to the major east coast cities. Victoria and NSW have introduced stringent irrigation regimes to prevent the water being wasted, while Queensland has not. This is pissing Victoria and NSW off as they suffer for Queensland's decision. This means there is mounting (water) pressure for control of supplies to be taken under federal control.

In the meantime, huge billboards in cities and along the roads remind you about the state of the supplies and give you advice about how to conserve water. All the water features in cities bubble and gurgle and fountain without worries, but proudly display signs telling you they operate on reclaimed water.

Anyway, that would be fine, but there is a compulsion in hotels to use all the mini shampoo and conditioner and shower gel goodies that you've paid for, which takes way longer than four minutes..!

As we left the Kingfisher Bay Hotel and Resort Center Parcs Experience this morning (I added the last bit...), we finally got a look back at where we had been staying.

It's on the shoreline and hidden by the trees from further inland, so you can't get a good view of it from anywhere really. This was the best I could manage...



...and that's on the zoom limit of the camera.

You have to fill in a little survey card when you leave to say what you thought. (When I say "you have to...", I don't mean they feed you to the dingoes if you don't, or anything like that - it's just suggested.) Most of the stay was brilliant and so got ticks in the far left boxes (or the far right ones...) and the food in the Seabelle restaurant was the absolute best of the holiday so far, but I did find myself mentioning the birds in the breakfast room.

Swooping down from the rafters to pick at anything that was left on tables, or stealing bits of croissant from the servery, (of which unsuspecting guests then selected the remainder and ate), occasionally chased by waitresses with those hand-held plant spray things, I assume full of irritating bird poison fluid guaranteed to cause agonising death, but I suspect full of water. How water will deter them, I'm not sure, given that it sometimes rains...

Indoor birds seems to be a common phenomenon here. Lots of coffee shops have them, they are rife in shopping centres. No-one seems to give it much thought, nor pay any atention when they dive-bomb some scrap of dinner nearby, narrowly missing taking your ear off with their outstretched, gliding razor-wings. And perhaps it's only me that's bothered.