An update then i go offline for a couple of weeks !!!

First flight out of Coolangatta (6AM) meant an early start and heavy rain meant instead of a nice walk i had to catch the bus to the airport !!!.
Arrived in Melbourne and 9:20 and then Skybus to Spencer Street Station, have never been on such a crowded Skybus, driver was getting people standing to push further back and eventually we yelled out there was nowhere else to to go !!!!.
Train to Lilydale and was interested to get out at the station and find many people standing at tourist buses having a smoke and drinking beer (many looking wasted at 11 AM ???? !) found out later it was the "Grape Grazing Weekend" at the Maroondah Valley Vineyards. Was picked up by race organiser Robert Boyce and later helped mark some of the course with him and Andrew Hewatt, probably ending up running 10K's in the late afternoon in theory an ideal workout !!!.
I'll write a race report after i return to Australia, but i'd be honest and say i wasn't happy with my time of 5:37:20, felt real good for most of the run (except for the first 4Ks where simply i was too cold and was wasting energy trying to stay warm and then the next 3Ks where now with blood pumping into fingers was getting a bad feeling similar to "rush of blood to the head").
Really not sure why i ran so badly, i hate making excuses and sadly could think of quite a few plausible ones but that does not make me me happy about my performance.
Still it was great to catch up with many runners who had come from near and far and later went back with Robert and had some beers and food and watched the cricket on TV as well as working out Badwater plans with Brendan Mason (over from Hong Kong and flying back a similar time to me as well being also accepted for Badwater).
Some of my best ever navigating by Melways as Brendan drove us to Tulla, no idea where we were through the wilds of Warrandyte but it was like a rally through the backblocks as we took the shortest possible route through to the ring road - kangaroos and all !).
As for the flight to Thailand, most uncomfortable plane i've ever been on, just couldn't stretch out at all and physically impossible to sleep (at least i have now seen "The Simpsons Movie") and was thinking jealously of Brendans upgrade to First Class on his flight to Hong Kong !! , dawned on me i had two hours at the new Bangkok Airport but honestly needed all that time just to get from my fligh to the Phuket one (talk about non moving Queues - quite a few from my flight were making jokes about it to kill time).
By the time i'd booked in at Karon Beach all i wanted to do was sleep (something like 36 hours without a sleep) and slept like a log for 14 hours waking up just before dawn.
Ran 2 and a half hours today (after all i can't drink from taps here as water is supposedly not drinkable so i did wear a watch), up the hill and around Patong Beach and then further out another hill, even was joined by a girl jogging with an mp3 player for a while along Patong but i think the hills out worried her so never had much of a conversation will have to see if i can pick up any more runners along the way tomorrow (only other non vehicle i ran with was an elephant train a couple of K's out of Patong - now there is something i'm not used to seeing).
Only on internet today as i noticed had some replies to request for Badwater crew (and knew it would cost a fortune to email via phone), so unlikely to about the blog until i return home to Australia (this trip has nothing to do with running :-) although i'm sure i'll still be out there working up a sweat most days !).