Australia

Let's face it...that long haul flight is certainly worth it.

Not only that, any Australian will gladly tell you that there is so much more to see and do than what you just see in the brochure!

That's why it's so important to get your travel plans sorted out properly - whether it's Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, or even the Great Barrier Reef - Australia has it all!

Title : West Coast Australia (Footprint Travel Guide S.)
Author : Andrew Swaffer
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : A useful guide to Western Australia

The guide's information on the places we visited was first rate and the information on eating out was particularly helpful. We took three guide books to Western Australia in January 2005 (one each) but soon found that the Footprint book gave the best information on restaurants. The restaurant reviews were very accurate and there was only one that did not live up to expectations.

Title : Living and Working in Australia: A City by City Guide
Author : Roberta Duman
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Excellent!

This book is an invaluable guide. It's packed full of useful info and tips on getting by Down Under - concise, up-to-date and beautifully put together. I have only been back from Australia a couple of weeks and quite frankly I wouldn't have survived without it!

Title : Dangerous Creatures of Australia (Michelin Green Guides)
Author : Marty Robinson
Rating : 4 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Don't visit Australia until you have read this book

Researching Australia for an impending trip, I heard all kinds of horror stories about how I could end up being injected with poison by innocent-looking toads, ripped to pieces by blood-thirsty tiger sharks or even have a couple of bites taken out of me by cute-looking caterpillars. What I discovered by reading Dangerous Creatures of Australia however, was that that is all they are; stories. In fact, on the first page the author's opening statement is 'Many people believe that Australia is full of dangerous wild animals. Although it is true that we have many potentially dangerous creatures, most of them are rarely encountered and indeed even hard to find.' Whilst he goes on to admit that 'Australia has more venomous snakes than any other country, both the world's most venomous spiders and the world's most venomous octopuses,' Robinson covers many pages on reassuring the reader via a table of statistics regarding accidental death, that you are more likely to be murdered, poisoned or even struck by lightening than you are to die from a snake bite. There is also material regarding precautions the reader can take to avoid being attacked by a dangerous animal and many maps showing the precise locations of the creatures' whereabouts.

The author splits the book into the following sections: Large land animals (including feral pigs and snakes), small land animals (spiders and scorpions), large water animals (sharks and crocodiles) and small water animals (jellyfish and octopuses). One thing that particularly enthralled me about the book was the strange and sometimes downright bizarre creatures that can be found in Australia. The sea snake, for instance, with its paddle-shaped tail, single lung and short (yet deadly) fangs. Fire coral, as the name suggests, is a type of coral which looks no different than the regular kind, yet one brush against it could cause nasty stinging.

I found the full colour photographs together with the information very useful, as I could get a clear picture of exactly what was being described, should I be unlucky enough to come across the creature in question. Those with a tendency for being faint-hearted should steer clear of the rather nauseating pictures graphically depicting injuries sustained from encounters with leeches and snake bites. Whether you are planning a short break in Australia or a backpacking holiday, the book is very small and lightweight, and therefore can slip into your bag without adding any significant weight. A down side however, is the price #8211; for a book so concise, I found the asking price a bit much.

Anyone with an interest in the fascinating country that is Australia may also like the wonderfully funny 'Down Under' (by travel writer Bill Bryson), or 'Wild Down Under: The Natural History of Australia' (by Damon Smith). Both are excellent, with the latter depicting the natural wonders of the country in hundreds of beautiful photographs. I sincerely hope that I won't bump in to any of the dangerous creatures shown in this book on my travels, but just in case, it's handy to have a copy nearby.

Title : Ashes 2005: The Full Story of the Test Series
Author : Gideon Haigh
Rating : 3 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Great writer but...

...it's a shame he's much more interested in the Aussies than England - there are whole chapters on Warne and Ponting and next to nothing on the likes of Simon Jones, Giles and Hoggard. Not even that much on Vaughan's captaincy or, most importantly, the fascinating way England, as a team, wrested the urn back, even after the disaster of Lords. He claims to support England but I doubt it on this showing. It would be understandable had he been writing for an Australian paper but most of this stuff was from the Guardian and Cricinfo.
Mine may be a slightly parochial view, mind you, and as I say, the man can really write.

Title : The Fatal Shore: History of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia, 1787-1868 (Harvill Panther S.)
Author : Robert Hughes
Rating : 4 Stars out of 5.
Summary : A history of The Convict Stain

From Captain cook's discovery of Botany Bay and The First Fleet's cargo of convicts this is comprehensive history of the transpotation system and the earliest days in the fledgling Australia. Factual and detailed the author desribes the gradual genocide of the primitive Aboriginal race, the precarious settlement of Sydney, the floggings and horrors inflicted within the harshest prisons on Tasmania and Norfolk Island. A tale of Britain's attempt to sweep an entire unwanted section of the communtity 'under the carpet'- which stopped only when they started getting rich on the proceeds of the newly discovered Australian goldfields. Wealth which could never quite remove 'The Stain' of a convict origin.

Hotel In Perth Australia and Australia online resources.