British rugby coach Warren Gatland on being the Lion King Down Under

As coach, I'm leading the squad Down Under and will have some difficult decisions to make - such as choosing the squad and the captain. But picking Noosa as our base wasn't hard at all. We'll stay at the Sheraton in the resort, which is a 90-minute drive from Brisbane or a short flight from Sydney, making it the perfect base between the games against Australia.

Fans are being encouraged by the local tourist board to stay in Noosa, and I would agree with their recommendation. Noosa is surrounded by ocean, rainforest, river, national parks and bush. It is a Unesco Biosphere Reserve and famous for its year-round wonderful climate with an average temperature of 25C - about 77F.

And there will be plenty to do for both players and fans when we're not all focusing on the rugby. We'll be able to enjoy surfing and paddle-boarding lessons, kayak tours of the Noosa Everglades and great hiking and horse-riding tours in the national parks. And for a bit of rest and relaxation, there are loads of cafes, markets and top-class restaurants.

What is attractive about Noosa to a touring team is that, unlike some other places on the Queensland coast, such as Surfer's Paradise, it's very quiet. Lions tours attract an awful lot of fans, which is great, but it can also mean things get a bit hectic, so you really need somewhere you can shut yourself away and just have a little down time to escape all the pressure.

Not that we mind meeting the supporters. We all understand that Lions fans save up for a long time and spend so much on following us that it's important we give them time to meet and talk with the players.

I know Queensland quite well. I've been there a few times, for holidays and as a player. I've had great times at Kirra Beach and Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast, south of Noosa.

I'm a New Zealander and when I went to the Gold Coast - a number of years ago - it was a popular place for Kiwis to go on holiday. But not so much any more.

It's a sign of just how much Australia has matured as a holiday destination that older New Zealanders have moved on to other destinations in Australia - for example to places in the far north of Queensland such as Port Douglas and to resorts in Western Australia. Surfers Paradise, however, is still a very popular place with younger kids from New Zealand.

People often ask about the relationship between Aussies and Kiwis. I suppose we see the Aussies as kind of like our big brother - and we want to beat up our big brother all the time!

Mind you, things were different on Lions tours in the old days. In 1971, for example, when the Lions went Down Under, the tour started in Queensland with a match on May 12 and ended with the final Test against the All Blacks in Eden Park, Auckland, on August 14 - that was three months everybody was away from home, and that's a lot of time to fill.

This year's Lions tour starts with a match in Hong Kong against the Barbarians on June 1 and ends with the third and final Test against Australia in the ANZ Stadium in Sydney on July 6. When I was a child, family holidays were spent on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand.

We used to stay in a caravan at Raglan, a small beachside town about 30 miles west of Hamilton. Raglan is best known for its surf.

Now I've got a beach house on the eastern side of North Island at a place called Waihi Beach, a town at the western end of the Bay of Plenty. It lies about five miles to the east of the town of Waihi, at the foot of the Coromandel Peninsula.

Waihi beach has about five miles of white sand linking it to the small settlement of Bowentown. It's a popular beach with surf enthusiasts as well as with families. Our house is right on the beachfront, which is nice, and I try to get over there as much as possible.

My children are teenagers now so four years ago we built a couple of bunk rooms at the beach house so they can entertain all their mates there. They have a great time out in the surf and kayaking, or taking the boat out for water-skiing.

Remembering the way he postured on stage, and his astounding exhibitionism at the most decadent parties the rock world has witnessed, Freddie Mercury’s final days were poignant indeed.

Desperate to avoid his fans seeing how his once-muscular body had been ravaged by Aids, the legendary rock showman shut himself away in his London home with a coterie of friends and former lovers, and was only persuaded to release a statement admitting he was suffering the disease 48 hours before his death.

But Mercury’s paranoia extended even beyond the grave. According to his long-time personal assistant Peter Freestone, who was nursing him when he died in November 1991, he was so terrified that his last resting place might be defiled by bigots that he insisted the whereabouts of his ashes must never be revealed.

All of which explains the excitement this week after the chance discovery of a small bronze plaque, mounted in secluded gardens at Kensal Green Cemetery, West London, which appears to have been laid as a tribute to Mercury by someone very close to him.

Since the epigraph was signed simply ‘M’, the speculation is it was written by his girlfriend- turned-lifelong-companion, Mary Austin.

And as she took possession of the wooden urn containing his ashes after his funeral service at the crematorium in the cemetery’s grounds, it is felt she might have buried or scattered them there. This theory gained credence because whoever placed the plaque used Freddie’s real name, Farrokh Bulsara, and further obscured their identity by writing the message — ‘to be close to you always, with all my love’ — in French.

However, as legions of fans converged on the cemetery this week, forcing staff to remove the plaque into safekeeping, Mary told me it was ‘very unlikely’ the secret had been uncovered; and as Peter Freestone commented: “I’ve never heard Mary speak French.”