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Yesterday tourists at a Northern Territory caravan park woke to find a 1.5-metre croc splashing and stretching ready for the mornings scheduled water aerobics class.

The freshwater crocodile adamantly refused to leave the pool to allow other patrons exclusive run of the scheduled aqua aerobics class and so Rangers were called to the Howard Springs Holiday Park, about 30km southeast of Darwin, to remove the reptile.

“The crocodile gave one of the crocodile management rangers a bit of a run-around, having to chase it around the pool,” NT Parks and Wildlife senior ranger Tom Nichols said in a statement.

“The crocodile did not have any markings so we believe it to be a wild animal,” he said.

“While we can’t be sure how it got there, it’s likely it came through the swamps that join up from the Howard River.”

Now I don’t know about you but it was only a lil freshie not a big saltie…. perhaps there’s a new fitnes craze here? Any thoughts on how we can spice up the daily fitness class?

Pic and more on ABC news

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This is a pretty impressive number in a year where many were pondering the effects of the GFC. But the market penetration remains below the UK and North America, with just 1.7% of Australians choosing to take a cruise holiday in 2009.

The South Pacific stayed as the most popular region, with 38% of passengers.

The biggest growth came in New Zealand cruises, with numbers rising 75% from 20,230 to 35,329. Cruises of between eight and 14 days accounted for 44.9% of the market, while journeys from 15-21 days made up 16.1%.

I have family doing cruisies to Scandinavia and Gt Britain this year.
Anyone else planning a cruise vacation in  2010?
Where is your favourite cruse destination?

Sweet Cruise art by Slide showBob on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/27466406@N00/

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I’ve posted about travel and the worlds best coffee before here about travelling in Vietnam and here about travelling in Italy and to me it’s always been a great place to meet the locals and get a sense of the society. But and it’s the defining but, however good the social experience is it always comes back to how good the coffee is.

It comes back to how good the grower is, which is why free trade is important, how precise the roaster is and how much the barista cares at perfecting the grind and extracting the precious oils that are contained in the coffee bean. For these reasons I rarely* drink a flavoured coffee. I mean why have all these people do their utmost to make a perfect cup and then throw vanilla, hazelnut or other flavour in it.

The one flavoured coffee that I class differently is The Chilli-cino. This little pocket rocket was first made for me by Ashley Miles (he happens to be a cousin, talent it seems runs in the family) at a local coffee shop called Full of Beans near Manly in Sydney.

If you’ve never had chill and chocolate together try it, they are a great mix. You get the whole sweet and spice balancing act (you can eat spicier food if it is sweeter - which is why in Thailand you get sugar at the table with your chilli)

Ingredients: (I’m not a Barista feel free to correct me if any of my terms are incorrect.)

• 1/2 Teaspoon good quality powdered drinking chocolate ( you could use high quality chocolate as long as you don’t mind the milk and fat solids affecting the crema when they melt)
• 1/2 Teaspoon sugar to taste ( I prefer raw sugar and as we are doing a short espresso shot or Macchiato 1/2 teaspoon should be plenty)
• One fresh Birds eye chilli (not dried) about 50mm ( 2 inches) long - long enough to use as a stirrer.
• One espresso glass or demi tas glass

Chilli-cino ingredients

Process:

1. Put chocolate in the bottom of an espresso glass
2. Add sugar to taste
3. Extract an expresso shot of coffee
4. Add a teaspoon of milk (can be hot and foamed or cold to finish the Macchiato
5. stir with the chilli after we cut the last few millimeters from it to allow the hot coffee to flow up into the chilli to extract some of the chilli’s heat and flavour.

Make your shot of coffee

There you go - stir for as long a you dare!

Warning: Do not drink with a weak heart !
Seriously there is some wierd chemical thing going on here with chilli and chocolate.

Try and let me know how you went.

Pics on the way - they’re here somewhere. Found pics and updated.

( *oh, okay I might flavour a late evening coffee with Baileys but as that’s booze it’s completely OK)

Want to go on a amazing vacation? Try an amazing vacation search

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From Computerjokes.net

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We’ll be sending out private beta invite in waves but if you’d like a sneak peak? Request a beta invite here

Licensed Tour Operators, Wholesalers & Tourism Organisations can also Register.

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Sydney, Australia, October 20th 2009 - Tourabout (http://www.tourabout.com), the company launching the Social GDS (currently in private beta) for the travel industry, has been selected to be featured at The PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit. Senior analysts from PhoCusWright evaluate and invite just 30 companies globally to demonstrate at the event (held November 17, 2009 in Orlando, Florida) that showcases the year’s most compelling travel technology innovations to senior industry executives.

“This event is for innovations that PhoCusWright believes will significantly impact travel so to be invited is a great stamp of approval” said Ben Jackson CEO of Tourabout. “We look forward to demonstrating the Web3.0 travel platform that will fundamentally shift the way travel companies connect to and engage with travellers in the future.”

“The live demo of The Social GDST will focus on how the platform’s interlinked social, media and product technologies help operators and organisations connect and engage travellers in real-time early in the planning process to demonstrate expertise, build social equity and increase bookings.” added Mr. Jackson.

At The Innovation Summit, the audience will judge innovators live by voting after each demonstration to send four finalists to the coveted “Five Minutes of Fame” presentation during Center Stage at The PhoCusWright Conference later in the week. This will place the top four innovations squarely infront the most influential travel industry executives where one will be named the Travel Innovation of 2009.

“Many travel organisations struggle with The Social Web so we’re very confident The Social GDS will capture the attention of attendees as well as the travel and technology sectors in general.” added Mr. Jackson. “Partners we talk to are very excited about how it overlays commerce and community to help them to engage and influence potential customers much higher in the booking funnel.”

Ends.

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About The Travel Innovation Summit.
PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit presents the next wave of innovation in the travel industry and analyzes the ensuing impact on the travel business. Thirty innovators from around the world demonstrate applications, mobile technology and solutions that significantly impact travel planning, purchasing and memorializing.

About PhoCusWright Inc.
PhoCusWright is the travel industry research authority on how travelers, suppliers and intermediaries connect. Independent, rigorous and unbiased, PhoCusWright fosters smart strategic planning and tactical decision-making.

PhoCusWright delivers qualitative and quantitative research on the evolving dynamics that influence travel, tourism and hospitality distribution. Our marketplace intelligence is the industry standard for segmentation, sizing, forecasting, trends, analysis and consumer travel planning behavior.
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About Tourabout:

Tourabout helps tour operators, wholesalers and DMO’s engage travellers and sell product with a range of emerging social, media and product technologies delivered B2B and B2C.

With over 30,000 products from local, international and multinational tour operators as well as destination activity companies, entertainment, attraction and events providers Tourabout is one of the world’s largest land product GDS’.

Tourabout’s land product sale and merchandising tools are currently used by over 4000 travel agents including Flight Centre.

Previously: The principals of Tourabout developed travel technology (whereto.com.au) - acquired by Travelocity in 2001.

Tourabout is a privately held, privately funded company based in Sydney, Australia.

For more information visit http://www.tourabout.com/corp

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Pic by Pirate Alice on Flickr

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