As you know, alongside STA Travel and Very Gold Coast, we are raising awareness all about the Gold Coast by setting up a pretty exciting Wiki page to feature anyone’s and everyone’s experiences, from the best beaches to the hottest hotels! And seeing as Chris recently hit his 4 month anniversary in Australia, what better way to celebrate than to making his way to the Gold Coast?

So far he has used his photographic skills to the highest of their ability on their way to Newcastle:

“After a good nights sleep by the lake we hit the road again for a quick breakfast stop (well a supply stop at Coles!) in Gosford and then ploughed up the coast to Newcastle. On the way there we couldn’t bring ourselves to avoid an amusing photo stop at Mooney Creek :)”

Beautiful!

They also had a bit of a disappointing fishing trip in Forster:

“Our first stop was the beach side town of Forster. After a quick drive around we found ourselves at a little fishing spot just round the corner from the harbour. We busted out the lines and past the afternoon trying to hook some Spanish Mackerel for tea…the cruised around taunting us but we hooked nothing but annoying little bream ”

And had an awesome surf in Coffs Harbour:

“I was soon wettied up and headed down the shoreline for a surf. What resulted was the kind of surf I’d headed to Oz for, slowly peeling but with enough punch to get my turns out All with a headland backdrop and orange sky…. and it was made even better when I was greeted with a cup of coffee when I got out!”

It all sounds pretty amazing, and that isn’t even the start of it as:

“The road trip has well and truly begun…”

If you have any wonderful adventures about your travels in, to and from the Gold Coast, then get blogging, tweeting, snapping and podcasting all about it!

#ExperienceGC

Cut to Africa is back! From Dakar to The Gambia, advising us to choose the right guide book for travelling, climbing in Africa and many more adventures, he has returned.

His last few days being a nomad had ups and downs, such as the death defying transport they took in Cotonou:

“With huge backpacks on the handlebars in front of the drivers, and each of us clinging onto the back seats, we set off in an unorthodox convoy through back streets, across dual carriageways, through puddles of murky liquid and zooming across very busy junctions with no braking… At one point we cut across one lane of fast moving traffic, jumped up the kerb to the central reservation and hopped down the other side before cutting through another lane to the ’safety’ of the loose-sanded avenues. Terrifying!”

I’ll take your word for it…

The drama didn’t stop there, as Adam and his friends were nearly kidnapped by their floating tour guide in Ganvie:

“We couldn’t believe what was going on. Barney got up to stop the ‘gondolier’ at the back, who was still pushing us further out into the lake when we were asking to return. The ‘guide’ at the front wanted us to pay more and said we couldn’t go back. He eventually backed down after a lot of shouting and we headed off to the stilted village, not feeling particularly happy about the situation!”

But as a man after my own heart, he ended his epic travels lounging by the pool in the ‘poshest hotel in Benin’ before picking up some handmade suits. What a perfect end to an amazing trip.

Welcome home Adam, and welcome back to the grind…

TravellersPoint are looking to raise a whole lot of funds for impoverished rural communities around the world and with limited access to water, and to do so need your help.

The funds raised will be used to purchase hippo rollers,

“The hippo roller is a large drum that can hold 90 litres (24 gallons) of water and can be pushed along the ground, making it much easier to transport clean drinking water. It’s a simple technology that has the capacity to make a huge difference in places where water is scarce.”

The Hippo Roller Challenge isn’t about you handing over your cash though. TravellersPoint want your travel knowledge. They’re putting together a wiki full of contributions from people like you and as the wiki grows they’ll donate more and more hippo rollers. The land marks are character based and the first has already been reached – 15 million characters.

They’re aiming to get to 20 million characters in the guide before 31st March, which will see TravellersPoint donating 63 hippo rollers in total. All you need to get involved is on The Hippo Roller Challenge page on their site, so head over and add a contribution, whether on the latest place you visited or your favourite landmark, it all helps.