...Hong Kong...

We then stopped off in Hong Kong for a few days, staying on my friend's junk and zipping around on the island's many forms of transport. I've said it before and I'll say it again: there's something about the hangovers over there...

Sydney...

After a frantic week in Melbourne shutting up shop, packing and saying goodbyes, we headed off to Sydney. The sun shone, the waves... did whatever waves do, and it was a very pleasant way to spend our last few days in Australia.

...And a Dannii New Year

For New Year, five of us headed off to Hayman Island in the Whitsundays. As well as drinking cocktails by the pool, snorkelling on the reef and helicoptering to Whitehaven Beach, we attended the New Year's Eve party. Dannii Minogue hopped on stage to sing 'Kiss' which was exciting enough (as Steven is a bit of a Minogue fan). But that was topped a couple of hours later, when I turned round to see Steven buttonholing the young lady. As he talked away into her left ear, she tipped her head back and laughed. Even the famous aren't immune to a bit of the old Steven magic.

An exceedingly merry Christmas...

Christmas was spent in deepest Queensland with our friend Jane, who laid on a magnificent day. It was a traditional Queensland Christmas - shrimps on the barbie, beers drunk through a length of piping, tennis balls shot out of a flame-throwing spud-gun and a 2am skinny-dip in the pool. With a traditional Queensland Boxing Day hangover to follow.