people are travelling by themselves, and they want to make friends too. Typically you'll meet friends in hostels, but also on organised trips. The kitchen, and over a cup of goon in the evening, are typical places to meet people. The friendships you make are strangely intense, but often short lived. Even so, I've kept in contact with a few of them to this day. - Wait -- what's this goon stuff you speak of? It's the only alcohol you'll be able to afford. It's 4 or 5 litres in a bag-in-box, and it costs around $14 for a box. Fruity Lexia is the most palatable, but it's still an acquired taste. If you're struggling with the taste, try adding lemonade, juice or squash for "magic goon". Thinking of buying vodka instead? Ok, but it's $40 for a 750ml bottle . . . How will I get around Australia? There are a two main options: - Campervan (as discussed previously) -- it's one main advantage being that it gives you the ability to get off the beaten track more. - Bus - OzExperience offer a hop-on-hop-off backpacker bus up the East Coast and across a few other routes. However, I went with them from Byron Bay to Cairns and found that it didn't quite live up to all the marketing hype -- certainly I never made any friends on the bus, I made them all in hostels. There's also only one bus a day which is surprisingly annoying if you're