Mon 20.02.12 – Thursday 23.02.12: Monday morning and I arrived in Sydney bright and early. After picking up a $1 coffee from 7/11 (I live off this stuff when I’m in Oz) I headed over to Summer Hill to see Benython (my agent) and talk shop. I’ve been a bit cagey about talking about the prospect of a second series of Graham’s World on this blog as there’s been a load of not very interesting behind-the-scenes shenanigans going on, chief amongst which is the closure of Lonely Planet TV in Australia (they what produced Series 1) and its relocation to San Francisco. The upshot of which is that we’re now dealing with a whole new bunch of people, all of whom need persuading that another series of my drunken misadventures in countries nobody has ever heard of is exactly what The Doctor ordered. Tomorrow we should…

Sun 12.02.12 – Sun 19.02.12: After a spot of brekkie at Mandy’s mum’s gaff in Ballarat, Mand and I returned to Melbourne and caught up on the BBC’s Sherlock (more about that in a moment). Monday morning chores included taking my video camera to the fix-it shop to get the screen sorted and then going to Bunnings Warehouse (Australia’s B&Q) to buy stuff to decorate Mand’s old office, a job I’ve been roped into do in return for all the awesome stuff Mand sorted out for me over the last few days. That took up most of Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by the Peacock Pub Quiz with our old friend Hayden. We came third (as always) but then my team is banned (by me) from cheating. Thursday involved wrapping up at Mand’s old office and finding somewhere that could do a date recovery job on my…

Wed 08.02.12 – Sat 11.02.12: The bus arrived in Melbourne at 6.30am, so I got to surprise Mandy before work with my presence. For Mandy’s sake I tried not to go on too much about how awesome the cruise was, but it was pretty goddamn awesome. What’s even more awesome is that as a surprise for my birthday at the end of the month, Mand has bought us both tickets to go see Tim Minchin vs. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra tonight. My timing couldn’t have been better. After watching the show I was inspired to write to Tim asking him to write me a song. I (typically) got no response, but here’s the gist of what I wrote… Dear Tim, How’s it going? I’m Graham Hughes, professional adventurer, TV presenter, Guinness World Record holder and general pain in the arse. I’m this fella >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hughes and, as…

Mon 06.02.12 – Tue 07.02.12: As dawn broke over the eastern horizon, the Sea Princess eased herself under the Sydney Harbour bridge, bringing to a close the mini adventure I’ve been on since I last passed under the bridge on P&O’s Pacific Pearl. I had stayed up all night with Joseph, Joey, Richard, Sarah, Jacinta, Rachael, Niki, Andrea and Angiee and my fatigue was starting to show. I did the customs thing and then returned to my cabin, only then remembering that I hadn’t even started packing. I was met off the ship by David Jones, the head honcho at Carnival here in Sydney, as well as a Channel 7 news team. After a quick bleary-eyed interview David took me to the Carnival head office where I was scheduled to conduct a short talk with the staff about my travels. Condensing three years of travel into…