A 7.4K hike through this landscape – not really far, but hard going in the terrain and the heat. I’d come down with a cold a couple of days before and this was the worst day by far, trying to breathe through the dry heat while scrambling up rock slopes. So very much worth the views.

Last night in Sydney, before flying out to Alice Springs.

From the top deck of the Sydney tour bus. We had tried a tour bus the day before, but the heat and the jetlag just beat me down to sleep.

(It didn’t.)

Taken in the first few hours after arriving in Sydney, while we sat at the Opera House Bar. You can see the bridge climb groups as little tiny dots on the left-hand side of the arch. We climbed it a few days after this, too, although there are no cameras or phones or indeed anything allowed up there with you, for obvious reasons; it was sweltering hot and wonderful.

London to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Sydney. Twenty-four hours of airports and planes.

In the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

A train journey to London before flying out to Australia, and dinner at a pub across the river, where it rained and rained and rained. Great food, though.