>Signed up today to Travellers Contact Point for a mail holding/forwarding service for the rest of my stay in Australia. It gives me a single point of contact for companies and beaurucratic things whilst I am on the move in Australia. Not bad for a yearly fee of $50 [Mum/dad, paid by credit card so please feel free to settle the bill until my return – THANKS].

Once I had this address I set about registering for my TFN (Tax File Number, Australia’s equivalent of National Insurance). Apparently it will take 28 days to process but I have an application number to give employers in the meantime (if i ever find one) so hopefully I will not hit the 47% tax bracket from the outset.

After some lunch (I made a healthy pan fried beef salad at the hostel) I read a little (on my 3rd book already – Lee Child’s ‘One shot’ is my current read) I took a stroll through town and headed for the pool. Managed to do 14 laps today before feeling the need to work on my tan some more on the sun deck. I proceeded to undo the good work of 14 laps with a packet of crisps and a bounty, at an astonishing cost of $4.20!!.

Alex flew to Adalaide this morning so now it’s Amarone and myself in our dorm who communicate (the rest say hi but that’s about it) and a German guy who had been in our dorm but switched rooms, ‘The girl’ (his girlfriend, but he always refers to her that way) and his other German friends. Perhaps we’ll go out somewhere tonight, who knows. Guess I’ll find out when I head back to the hostel. Will perhaps meet up with Alex in Adalaide if I make it there before he returns to study in Sweden.