A must see destination in Australia

Advantages: amazing lakes, sand dunes, brilliant camping experience
Disadvantages: get dirty and smelly but that really doesn't matter when you're having such a great time!

...Fraser Island is a must see destination in Australia. You can get to the island from Hervey Bay or Rainbow Beach which on the Sunshine Coast just above Brisbane, although Hervey Bay is closer and offers a larger variety of tours to choose from. Different tours are available - you can either go on a guided tour where a guide drives you round and does most of the stuff for you or there is the self drive tour which I have to say I think is the better choice. On the self drive tour you are in a group of 10-12 people and are left to do everything by yourself. Although this might sound a bit daunting it really was one of the best things I ever did. If you are 21 or over and hold a driving license you are able to drive the van but if you'd prefer not to you don't have to. The road are bumping paths through the forest or the long beach which is...

frankiefromings13 17.02.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Fraser Island (Australia)

GAP YEAR - Working in Australia

Advantages: You get to work in and see another country
Disadvantages: It can be stressful

.... There are other networks maybe that are cheaper, yet again I did not check this out. Next point of call is getting work. I needed to make sure I could get to work either by walking, public transport or I could have bought a car. Personally I used trains as I lived only 10 minutes away from the city centre by train so it was very handy. The most sensible thing then to do was look for work in the city centre (everyone called it the CBD - Central Business District), I'd never heard this term before it was all new to me. Right so where to look for a job was my main problem at the start. The city was so big and there was so much information everywhere I was totally lost. I would advise people wanting to get a job in Australia to try the newspaper, sign up to recruitment agencies in person and there is recruitment website (an example is www...

DeniseKelly40 11.01.2008 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Gap Year in Australia

Its not so Lonely in Australia!

Advantages: So much information
Disadvantages: Slightly bulky to carry

...+ Lonely Planet - Australia + The lonely planet Australia book is a must of you are travelling around Australia. It gives you lots of very useful information about the country, things to do and see, currently and lots more. As I was planning my trip and didn't have a clue on what there was to do and see in this large country so I decided to get this book and I was very pleased with it. + CONTENTS + This book has everything imaginable that you could need to try and plan an itinerary by yourself. At the front there is a map of Australia which gives you an idea where all the towns are, where train stations run and a key so you can work out distances. It is quite detailed and gives you an overall feel for the size of this country. Highlights - this section will give you some highlights of Australia showing some stunning...

DeniseKelly40 17.01.2008 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Lonely Planet Australia - Lonely Planet

Gateway - the Final Frontier?

Advantages: Great characters and cleverly structured
Disadvantages: The domestic violence bit sticks out like a sore thumb

...interspersed with psychiatric consultations of just several pages. The reader is never given the opportunity to get bored using this format, and it also provides Pohl with a way to avoid the science-fiction writer's worst nightmare: the info-dump. When you've built up an amazing futuristic or alien civilisation, you have to find a way of communicating the basics of it to your readers so they understand what's going on. Too often, this tends to result in characters slowing up the action for pages at a time while they tell each other things they already know. Instead, 'Rob' and his fellow prospectors learn about Gateway and the alien Heechee in training for their exploration. And to avoid labouring these sections, the psychiatrist helps fill in the rest of the blanks ('why don't you explain it to me in your own terms?'). The characters are all...

Olly_Plimsoll 22.05.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Gateway - Frederik Pohl

Travel to the top of The Gateway Arch Mork-style - in an egg.

Advantages: Elegant architectural icon. Magnificent vies and photographic opportunity.
Disadvantages: Lenghy queues. Only partially accessible for disable visitors.

...The elegant Gateway Arch, reaching up to 630 feet dominates St Louis? skyline. Standing in the Jefferson Natural Expansion Memorial Park, the arch symbolises the role St Louis played as the gateway to the west. Shortly after the Second World War in 1947, a competition was privately financed to find a suitable architectural centrepiece for the park. The aim was to commemorate Thomas Jefferson?s vision of the spread of freedom and democracy from ?sea to shining sea? and his commissioned expedition in 1804 to the west coast headed by Lewis and Clark. Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen and structural engineer Hannskarl Bandel?s design of this graceful tapered stainless-steel catenary arch won over the 171 other entries. Construction of this remarkable structure took around three years to complete. Pictures of the construction can...

MAFARRIMOND 28.06.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of The Gateway Arch, St Louis, Missouri

The Final Destination in 3D - Death's final outing is a good one

Advantages: 3D is fully used, bloody like a horror should be, brilliant ending that wraps up the films well
Disadvantages: 3D is really the only standout feature, acting only okay, some dodgy effects masked by 3D

...As a fan of the final destination films I am pleased to say that the latest offering does not disappoint though I am sure a large measure of that is down to the fact that it is in 3D. In my opinion there is no question that making horrors in 3D works - there is no better genre to take advantage of 3D with various weapons, blood and guts flying out at you - and in this case they have used the 3D format exceptionally well. To give an example, and without spoiling any of the plot, when one of the victims has their head destroyed by a flying tyre the impact of the 3D is truly felt with the trye screaming towards you and then bits of her brain flying all over the place. The plot is, however, pretty much the same as all the previous installments though this one does end very well and in my mind ties up all the previous films - this has...

thepreacherman 01.09.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of The Final Destination

Please Make This *The* Final Destination

Advantages: Good premise
Disadvantages: Lack of elaborate deaths, no imaginative plot like others, doesn't live up to the hype

...While at the races, Nick (Bobby Campo) has a shocking premonition about a horrific crash that will happen and in turn will lead to all the other drivers crashing and killing numerous innocent people in the audience. This leads Nick to a state of panic and in this state he mistakenly hits another member of the audience, a scrap entails and security escorts Nick, his girlfriend, two friends and a group of other audience members out of the area. Nick tells them about the impending crash which happens seconds later. Unnerved by the events, Nick wants to forget about what happened and get on with his life however when the survivors begin to die one by one, suspicion is aroused that maybe the subsequent events aren?t just shocking coincidences and are something a bit more sinister? Being a big fan of the Final Destination trilogy I had...

Great_reviewer07 19.09.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of The Final Destination

Destination Death

Advantages: A gorefest, little details that bring the film together
Disadvantages: No story line to get my teeth into, some of the acting was a bit wooden

...although he doesn't know why. When everyone boards the plane Alex has a vision of the plane starting to break up in mid air and then exploding. He panics so much that he has to leave the plane along with five other students and a teacher, with those left behind thinking Alex is a total nutcase who's ruined their holiday. The plane takes off and then **bang**, it hasn't been in the air for two minutes and suddenly there's a fireball where the plane should have been. Obviously this freaks Alex out and when the FBI arrive on the scene they interview him as a possible suspect, although how they could possibly imagine a nerdy looking 17 year old to have the brains and imagination to create such a catastrophe is a bit weird. But then things get worse. The seven people who left the plane start dying off one by one and although he doesn't have any...

Fruity_Tart 03.11.2003 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Final Destination (DVD)

Deadly Destination

Advantages: A taut thriller with loads of scares
Disadvantages: The cast are nothing more than adequate

...Taking the horror genre to a whole new premise, Final Destination introduces the villain as Death itself. Devon Sawa stars as Alex, a high school student who is preparing to go to Paris on a field trip with his class. From the opening credits, all the signs point towards something sinister. And as Alex gets on the plane, he finds himself thrust into a mid air explosion. Moments later though, he wakes up and discovers that it was nothing more than a dream. However, convinced it was more like a premonition, he and a handful of students get into a brawl and are thrown off the plane. As they are rounded up in the departure lounge, they watch in horror as his premonition is realised and the plane explodes moments after taking off. The police are instantly convinced that Alex must be part of some conspiracy to blow the plane up, and as...

bilbob20 23.04.2007 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Final Destination (DVD)

The lives of others, a stunning film of life in the GDR

Advantages: Gripping, interesting and cleverly portrayed
Disadvantages: Quite long

...The Lives of Others (German title: Das Leben der Anderen) is an absorbing account of 4 lives in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) that is intriguing and subtly unsettling. The premise of the film starts with committed believer in the East German regime and stasi (secret police) captain Gerd Wiesler asks his former classmate and subordinate Anton Grubitz to spy on playwright Georg Dreyman and his actress girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland. The film focuses of the development of sympathetic feelings by Grubitz towards his subject and the entanglement of opposing loyalties, betrayal and the dreadful fear of living under such a regime are played out. For a thriller there is not a lot of action and the plot unfolds subtly and slowly. However, whilst not much is happening I was still on the edge of my seat waiting to see what happened next...

flyingllamas 06.07.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of The Lives Of Others (DVD)