Canberra is a very bicycle friendly city, relatively flat with light traffic and ample space for bicycle lanes. Nearby hills such as Mt Ainslie also make for excellent mountain biking apparently, and the coast is only two and a half hours away if you hanker for a weekend on the beach.

In Australia, amaysim have been particularly good value although I only discovered their existence after considerable Internet research. A $10 purchase in-store sim card purchase gave us 1GB of data valid for 30 days plus $10 of pre-pay phone credit (90 day expiry). The network is provided by Optus, in common with most of the cheap prepaid sim offerings. There were a couple of issues though which I document here for future travellers.

• We bought the sim card in a Seven-Eleven. The website claims you can buy them in post offices but the one we tried did not stock it so the availability might not be great. The same pack contains a sim that may be used with either the normal or micro sim formats.
• Online activation claimed to work but actually failed because of my non-Australian address and credit card. You must call them to get your $10 purchase converted to a data plan. I have not tried to top up the credit yet but it makes me think that credit card top ups might be difficult. Buying vouchers works around this, but see the note above on availability.
• The sim we bought has been used in multiple devices. I can report that despite rumours to the contrary, a sync with iTunes is not required to change the provider on an iPhone (at least on iOS5). However some devices could not access the Internet until the APN had been set manually to “Internet”, others just worked, for reasons I have yet to figure out.

Having come to snorkel we also thoroughly enjoyed the inland expedition to Cheow Lan Lake. The highlight of this was a trip on the lake in a long-tail boat which gave us a close up view of the imposing limestone islands that rose vertically up out of the water and towered over our little boat. The limestone had beautiful red colouring too, complimented by the green of the trees clinging to a precarious life on a sheer vertical wall of cliff and overhanging the water. Some of the islands have developed cave systems and we visited one which had spectacular stalactite and stalagmite formations, the iron giving them a rich red colour that invited comparison to the marble cathedrals of Italy.

Although we were only in a small part of Thailand for a few days, we really enjoyed our stay. Thai people were universally friendly and genuinely welcoming of tourists. The absence of pushy street salesmen that are commonly found in tourist areas the world over was also very pleasant—I look forward to returning.

Since we had arrived directly after breakfast, we decided to delay walking the mile down hill to the lake itself and first take in the views from Orrest Head. Unfortunately the weather was not on our side and while the many different shades of grey-coloured clouds over the lake provided atmospheric views, the wind blew showers of rain at us frequently enough that we were not encouraged to linger at the top. The helpful lady in the tourist information had recommended an extended walk from Orrest Head so with the indomitable spirit of people who got up early and will enjoy their holiday in spite of the weather, we struck out over grazing land divided by picture postcard dry stone walls to reach the Lakeland Horticultural Society’s Holehird Gardens. The rain did not last and even I thought the garden was pretty impressive for its range of flora and colour.

Retracing our steps it did not seem long before we were back in the town of Windermere and warming ourselves up on some proper comfort food at Lazy Daisy’s café. Windermere was much less touristy than I was expecting, even for a working Thursday, although later I realised that this was probably due to it still being another mile from the lakeside! The lakeside itself was overrun by SAGA coach parties as expected, but there were some very quiet walking paths which quickly took us away from the hubbub to some pretty spots such as the Sheriff’s Walk, Cockshott point and Queen Adelaide’s hill.

When we woke the next morning the rain was still pattering down on the roof of our heated canvas tent-cabin. We were recommended the Mirror Lake trail as likely to be the nicer of the standard sights given the conditions and the rain stopped long enough for us to enjoy the walk, and see the granite rock formations appear and disappear from behind the foggy clouds. By lunchtime, the temperature had dropped and the drizzle had turned to proper rain but undeterred we set off for the large torrent of water known as Yosemite Falls, not realising that that the clouds hid a second higher stage which was even more impressive. The weather had worsened to the point that we did not feel like risking our cameras and as we headed away from the falls, rain turned to sleet and we decided a few hours in the visitor centre museum and Ansel Adams gallery were not going to cause us to miss very much.

Sleet turned to snow while we were in the museum and we were very grateful when the friendly people at Camp Curry upgraded our tent-cabin from just heated to heated <strong>and</strong> insulated since the forecast was for it freeze overnight. Fortunately we survived the night and the sun arrived the next morning when we were greeted by a glistening fairytale landscape of snow-covered trees and granite pinnacles. The strong sunshine meant the snow began to melt quite soon on the trees on the valley floor, but watching it drip from the branches was picturesque in itself.

After a morning walk taking in the glorious landscapes (albeit dodging the melting ice as it fell from the higher trees!), we had an early lunch and then paid another visit to Yosemite Falls. However as we approached the cloud closed in again and around the falls there was definitely some soft wet precipitation that seemed to be more than just spray from the snow-melt fuelled torrent of water cascading down from on high, so the photographs were still taken rather hastily! Fortunately the clouds only delivered a mild hail storm and we were able to exit the Park without any weather-related problems. It may not have been pleasant at times, but the weather definitely enhanced this visit.