jetage, it is a sad fact of aviation i believe that charter operators can not recognise instructing time...who are they to say well you haven't earnt those hours because you were ONLY instructing!!!!
i think that is so wrong. good point though, maybe before you do the instructor rating you do need to think of which road you are heading down, it is tough though when you come to a place like darwin and can't get a look in because you have 300 hours, how do you get to 500 hours??? there aren't too many parachute ops up this way and those that are have 4 guys sharing the 10 hours flying they might do on a typical weekend.