The End of the World (Travels) as we Know it...

I'm not going to write too much this time...

Just going to share a video of some of the awesome people that I have met over the last 3 years of my life...




If you want to see what I have been up to this last month or so, just check out these two albums...

Leaving Australia, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Pattaya and Pai

Mostly Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai. Also Burma

Australia day, Birthday, and back to Asia!

Hey guys.


I feel like it has been a long time since I last wrote my blog! In fact it has been just over a month, but a lot has changed in my life since then...

My current life...

For a start I have left Australia for good! I can't say that I feel too sad about this. It is a great country, and I met many awesome people there, but two years is a long time, and I feel like I got my moneys worth out of Oz...

The last few weeks in Oz were mostly spent trying to find a few days of work to supplement my meagre resources. I'm not sure if I mentioned before, but the plan upon leaving Australia was to go to South America, see the carnival in Brazil, and to generally tear it up around South America for half a year or so...

Unfortunately this wasn't to be. Mother Nature, along with some girl called La Niña, scuppered my plans by blasting Australia with record amounts of rainfall! You may have heard about this on the news... Happily I wasn't caught up in the epicenter of the floods in Queensland; but we saw enough rain down south, at just the wrong time, to make the cherry season, normally very lucrative, into a washout...

This, combined with various expenses incurred in the course of the year, meant that my funds couldn't stretch to getting to South America. A one way ticket to Argentina from Australia seems to cost from $1800 upwards!

Anyway... back to the story... I eventually found a weeks work thinning pears near Shepperton. This was pretty good work, and I managed to add some much needed cash to my reserves. After this I made my way down to Melbourne to meet my sister and her boyfriend, and sell them my van. This worked out nicely a few ways. For me it meant that I didn't have to run around in the week before leaving Oz trying to sell my van. For them it had a similar advantage, as well as avoiding having to pay for a safety certificate... We found out that it is quite difficult to haggle with family members though!

I left Australia on Australia day... Which I thought was particularly fitting... During the day my sister arranged for us to go to the Australia day races... which were very nice, even though the races were called off due to kangaroos on the course! Very Australian!



From Melbourne I flew to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia... I had been here before, but i was staying with a friend that time, so I didn't feel like I saw the city from a travellers point of view... The return wasn't disappointing! I stayed in a hostel near chinatown. The food was excellent everywhere i went, every meal was completely different, and I never felt the need to "cheat" and have western food. A particular favourite of mine was the roti, curry and sweet tea combination that was the normal breakfast for the Indian locals.

I also celebrated my birthday in Kuala Lumpur. Needless to say I got very drunk. Had an awesome time, in part thanks to Murry winning the semi finals of the Oz Open, and in part to two Norwegians called Kristin singing me a Norwegian birthday song!

Two Norwegians called Kristin...

Since then I have moved north into Thailand. I spent a few days in Bangkok, where I caught up with various people and enjoyed getting back into Thai food again! Thai food is great! Chinese New Year also fell on my visit to Bangkok, so I made my way to Chinatown to check out the festivities that were happening there...

Now I am on Koh Pangnan. An island paradise most famous for its full moon parties... I'm not really in a partying mood... so I am here when there isn't a full moon, and at the opposite side of the island to the party beach. It is very, very chilled out here. I almost like it as much as Koh Tao...

And that is it for now... In another months time I will be thinking about my return home, so the next blog will reflect that a little... be sure to check in for that one...

Happy New Year!!! Well... kinda...

First things first, I'd like to apologise for the tone of this post... It should be cheery, but I think the overall mood is quite melancholy...

The second thing I want to do is to wish all of my friends out there in blogland a very Happy New year. I hope that 2011 brings you all of the things that you need. And some of the things that you want...

Next I will recount for you the tale of my New Years Eve celebrations...

I was kinda planning to spend my new years eve in Orange, have a few drinks with a few friends, and then maybe even go to work the next day. My need for money right now is that great!

Instead of that, I decided at the last minute to head to Sydney and experience the celebration there. "After all," I thought, "I'm only 250 kilometers away... and I'm not going to get the chance to see the fireworks show in Sydney again anytime soon..." (scroll down to see the video I took of the fireworks...)

There are a few places in the world that have world class New Years Eve celebrations... Two of the main ones are Edinburgh and Sydney... Having lived in Edinburgh for several years as a student, I am well acquainted with that celebration, and I felt the need to see this one, if only to compare the two events...

So, it was with a feeling of excitement in my heart that I set off from Orange at around noon on the 31st of December 2010. It was only a week since I had made exactly the same trip to celebrate Christmas in Sydney (see previous post). I made excellent time and arrived in Sydney at around 4pm. I was expecting lots of traffic, as everyone for 500km descended upon Sydney, but clearly most people were rather more sensible then me...

I parked my van outside Jo's house, and then went inside to prepare myself for the celebrations... This mostly consisted of mixing some rum into a coke bottle so that it would pass a minimal bag check, and putting on some shoes...

Jo herself was going to a party with some friends, and the picking her parents up from the airport at around 10pm. I have no idea why her parents chose that day of all days to fly.. but that is another story. I could have joined her friends, but I decided to go for the Sydney experience... after all, that is why I was there!
 

Little trev poses for a picture...

At around 7pm I made my way into the city, accompanied only by my travelling companion little Trev and a bottle of rum and coke. I took the train in. The packed state of the train gave me my first clue as to what the rest of the night would be like... That was nothing however to the sight that greeted me when I got off the train at Circular Quay! There were people everywhere! It took 20 minutes just to get out of the station!




Once I got out of the station I received some bad news! Circular Quay was full! They weren't letting anyone in or out of the viewing zone! I took action and walked up the hill towards the botanical gardens, only to find the same story here! You could get in here with a ticket, but not otherwise... Then I heard something on a loudspeaker...

"This area is full, ticket holders only will be admitted." no good news so far, "there is limited space in Circular Quay West and the Rocks. Accessible from George street"

No-one else seemed to be listening, but I jumped into immediate action! I made my way as fast as I could to George street, and headed to the north end of it, where I figured the entrances were likely to be... It was as I was walking up George street that I noticed a large crowd to my right... At the front of the crowd was a man, stood on a gate, shouting at everyone to get back. This looked promising! Eventually the crowd was stood far enough back to satisfy the man and he ordered someone to open the gate and in we streamed! I was in!! With alcohol!!!

Inside the area seemed pretty relaxed. There weren't too many people... yet... I wandered around the area to get a good idea of the lay of the land, and where would be a good place to watch the show from... It was about 8pm by now, and the place was rapidly getting more and more crowded. I decided to pick my spot for watching the 9pm family show. It was around this point that Edinburgh scored its first point (other then the fact that everyone can drink as much as they like at the Edinburgh NYE celebrations).

The thing was, it was very boring! There was literally nothing to do, or to see, while the fireworks weren't on. In Edinburgh they have processions, jugglers, clowns, acrobats, street performers... generally lots of things to do and to see. It is a party! In Sydney nothing like that happens. They don't even play any music (even though they could... They played music while the fireworks were going off...)!  The most entertaining thing that happened was a sky-writer writing "Jesus" in the sky... What Jesus has to do with NYE I never found out...

Most people weren't even talking... There were some playing cards... I saw a few guys and girls playing on PSPs... In short it wasn't really a party atmosphere... more like the atmosphere in a very long queue...

The family fireworks went off at 9pm (preceded by a lone firework at 8.45... which made everyone stand up, quite excited, and make lots of noise). They were pretty good. Some impressive fireworks technology was on show, including some that exploded into a heart shape!

After the family show there was some general confusion, as some familys left, and they opened up the gates to let more people in. I took advantae of the brief extra space to have another wander arund. It didn't take too long to get crowded again though so I made my way back to my spot... This wait was even worse then before! The kids were gone, so their infectious joy wasn't around, just leaving all the adults, crammed into the little space, with nothing to do but wait for the next 3 hours!

It probably wasn't as bad as I have made out... Certainly if you were there with friends it wouldn't have been so mind numbingly dull (you'd have had someone to play cards with for a start...).

Finally the midnight show came... And how! This part was excellent. The fireworks were well coordinated, and for the fireworks they played music to go along with them. (why they didn't have music the whole time is beyond me...) I was slightly surprised how short the show was... but you can't have everything...

Once the fireworks were finished everyoe let out a loud and heartfelt cheer of "HAPPY NEW YEAR". This is the last time that Edinburgh beats Sydney hands down...

In Edinburgh (I won't even mention that the fireworks go on for much longer there), once the fireworks are finished there is a huge cheer, and then everyone spends the next 2 hours wandering up and down the street wishing everyone they meet a happy new year! Good times are had by all! In Sydney, there is the huge cheer, people wish the people they came with a happy new year, and then everyone heads for the exits as fast as they can!

I have never felt more alone then I did in Sydney, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people, at the new year... Not one single person wished me a happy new year! I joined the general exodus to the exits, and onwards to the train station. This was a little surreal... thousands of people, walking in the same direction, through the deserted streets of sydney... Kinda cool to see that.

I got onto my train (packed of course) and took the 10 minute train ride to Jo's nearest station. Once I got off the train... finally... I got wished a happy new year! I think 3 different people wished me a happy new year in the 10 minute walk to where the van was parked...

Somehow I felt kinda melancholy from all of the lonliness, so I wasn't in any mood to go to sleep... I decided to go to a local park, and sat there for a while.. looking out over the water...

Eventually my mood passed and I walked back to the van and went to sleep...

So in conclusion... Don't go to see the Sydney fireworks on your own! I'm glad that I saw them... It was an amazing show... But it is friends that make new years eve (or any party) worth celebrating...

I look forward to seeing some of you, my friends, in the coming year... And here is the video of the fireworks show!






:)

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2010!!!

First of all I'd like to wish all of the important people (ie, the ones that read this blog! ;) a very merry christmas, and seasons greetings for the new year...

And now for a quick update on my travels, as I know it has been a while since I posted.

To be honest I haven't done very much since the last post. I have been living in Cudal, in New South Wales. Just in case you haven't heard of it (and, lets face it, why would you?) Cudal is a tiny town, population roughly 400, that is about 30 kilometers west of Orange. It has a post office, a pub and a caravan park... It used to have a general store... but it closed down. Just about the only kind of shop that seems to survive are garage sales, which I assume sell all of the things that the other stores left behind when they closed down...


View Larger Map

What I have been doing in Cudal is mostly picking cherries. Let me tell you... If anyone tells you that picking cherries is an easy way to make a lot of money fast, then they are lying! To be fair, some people make a lot of money very fast... Maybe 5% of people manage this... the other 95% though make a little bit of money. I was one of those people. On a good day I could make around $120... which isn't bad I suppose, especially when my fixed expenses are so low...

Recently however I have started making real money! I am finally on supervisors wages! This means that I am responsible for checking the quality of the cherries picked, and in return I get $20 per hour! I think that with the exchange rate being what it is this is the most hourly rate I have ever had! (As a side note I recently found out that an 18 year old swimming teacher in the UK also makes more money then I was making as a university educated designer... but that is another story...)

So, now it is christmas. I have a few days off. Then I am going back to work for the next 4 weeks! If you have read my other blog, The Real Man Project, you will know that my plans have changed recently. I cannot afford to go to South America and do it justice, so after Australia I am going to hop back to Asia, before returning home to the UK. Once in the UK I am going to start up a business, and re-start my life. I am also going to get back into my salsa, as I am horrendously out of practice! I went dancing last night, and my available repertoire is a shadow of its former self!

Anyway, enough about me...

Merry Christmas to all of you out there once more!

Life in panoramic detail...

Awesome views are like subtle aromas, or closer to home, they are like travelling. Easy to appreciate in person, but almost impossible to convey to someone else using words. It is almost impossible to capture an awesome view with a regular camera. They always feel like the view has been cropped, and much of the grandeur is somehow lost...

Anyway, back to me trying to convey the awesomeness of travelling using only words...

I think that the last time I posted I was in the middle of my New Zealand trip. I have to say... New Zealand is a beautiful place. The Kiwis are a friendly people that don't seem to be able to see a large cliff without putting a platform at the top for people to jump off!

In New Zealand I went scuba diving, sea fishing, shrimp fishing, climbing mountains, walking in forests, black water rafting, bungee jumping... in short... had an awesome time with my family!

But all good things come to an end. After returning to Australia I have paid for a new passport, paid to have my van fixed, driven about 800km, seen the blue mountains and waited for a job... At least the blue mountains were nice....

The good about waiting in Orange is the library. It has unlimited free wifi, and all the magazines that you could wish for... also free power!

I have used the time here to create panoramas of some of my pictures. I like panoramas... They capture a whole lot more of the grandeur of awesome views. Of course the problem then is to share this grandeur.

To this end I have decided to use Picasa. I chose Picasa because unlike facebook it doesn't shrink down your pictures, so they can be appreciated in their full glory. Here is a slideshow of some of the most awesome views I have seen in the past year. There will be more pics added regularly, so keep posted....

The Trails and Tribulations of Traveling...

It has been a rocky couple of months since I last posted... I have experienced emotions from the deep depths of despair, to the red hot rage of anger and the exhilarating heights of excitement...

So... do you want the good news or the bad news first?

I guess I'll start at the beginning. My last few weeks in Gayndah were pretty uneventful... though I do look back on those times wistfully as a time when I was surrounded by good people, many of whom I hope to stay in touch with. All good times must draw to a close though so I left Gayndah on the 20th of September, planning to have a nice relaxing trip down the coast to Sydney, from where I would fly to New Zealand to meet my family...

My plan was destroyed after only two days when I left my van for an hour to use the internet at a MacDonalds in Surfers Paradise and returned to find that someone had broken into my van and stolen a bag containing, among other things; two hard drives, my speakers, all of my power adaptors and cables, some notebooks, and my passport! Obviously my passport was the most urgent issue, but the thing that hurts the most are the two hard drives... They contained ALL of my photos from over two years of travelling, a huge collection of ebooks, over 300 films, about 15 full TV series, a large selection of porn and various documents including the originals of all of these blog posts! As you can imagine this hurt tremendously... especially the photos... After all, most of that stuff can be replaced, but the photos were unique, and I'll never see a large number of them again... Luckily I have uploaded a large number to facebook, but the quality just isn't the same, and I was hoping to print out some of these photos when I eventually return back to England and use them to decorate my pad...

I cannot describe to you how losing all of this made me feel... There is a kind of internal dislocation that takes place when you lose something like this. Something that you have had for a long time, and that you have always assumed that you would always have... Your brain has to adjust its whole way of thinking, thoughts you never even realised you had will lead straight to anger as you realise that part of your world has been violated...

As for my passport... obviously this would just have to happen days before I was due to fly internationally! I reported the theft to the police, and they gave me the phone number of the British consulate. Speaking to them I realised that my plan of a leisurely trip down the coast was out of the window. I would have to race to Sydney and get to the consulate buildings by 10 am on Friday in order to get my emergency passport arranged. If I didn't make it on time there would be no way to get an emergency passport, and no way for me to make my flight on the Sunday! All I could do was hope that my van could withstand the 1000km+ journey that was required...

I set off down the highway, undergoing my own version of therapy... This mostly involved turning my music up very loud and singing along to it at the top of my lungs while shooting down the motorway... This seemed to work... After a couple of days I was more or less back to my usual, laid back self.

To cut a long story short I made it to the consulate on time, got my emergency passport, and made it to my flight... Next stop... New Zealand!

I've taken up a lot of space with that story, so I'll just give you a brief run-down of the New Zealand experience so far.

For a start New Zealand is beautiful... The landscape really does look like Hobbiton in the lord of the rings, with rolling hills and grass covering most available surfaces... While I've been here I've been sailing, climbed mount doom, jumped off a bridge (actually a cantilever... but who'se splitting hairs?), been scuba diving and been to some thermal springs. Check the links (click on the underlined words) for the pictures.

It is all as awesome as it sounds!

(Especially the jumping off a bridge, see my realmanproject blog for how that experience was.)

Two years on the road!

This month marks two years since I left England to travel the world! So far the trip has gone pretty good I would say!

The map above shows my route as I have made my way to various locations. The yellow lines are the flights, and the red lines are the overland routes.

1. I started off in England. It was pleasant enough there, but travelling was something that I felt that I had to do. So I said goodbye to all of my friends, and set off to pastures new with Sharlene... My new friend who I met around two months before setting off!

2. My first flight took me to Cyprus! I have to confess that I wasn't really travelling in the pure sense of the word... In fact I was staying at my parents holiday villa! It was very pleasant all the same and I did some scuba diving there. I also got involved in the local salsa scene, and went to the Salsa Jam in Cyprus. I also took a boat over to Turkey from here, and spent a long weekend looking round Alanya.

3. Also from Cyprus myself and Sharlene took a side trip over to Egypt. There I met some very good friends, Alaa and Rero, that I knew through facebook! We went inside the pyramids, smoked a hookah and I went diving in the red sea... which was amazing!

4. Sharlene found herself a job in the Czech Republic, so I took my leave as well... only waiting to see my parents for the last time in a long time! I headed over to Nepal... I was trying to get to India... but no-one told me that I needed a visa BEFORE I arrived there... this led to a pretty exciting adventure... A pretty good way to start my proper travelling. In Nepal I went trekking in the Himalayas, met some people and saw some animals. The trekking was an amazing experience that I will never forget!

5. From Nepal I flew over to Thailand. I hung around in the north of Thailand for a while before meeting my friend Kathryn and spending a very pleasurable couple of weeks touring round Cambodia with her. We saw Angkor Wat, freshwater dolphins, a bamboo train and some awesome sunsets! Kathryn left for her home in Malaysia so I visited some of the Thai islands, did some diving, before meeting up with her once more in Malaysia. I spent a very pleasurable couple of weeks with her in Malaysia, celebrating Christmas there with Kathryn before...

6. ...heading south overland to Singapore and flying to Indonesia... Singapore was very clean, nice, anal, and expensive. The zoo there was pretty awesome! I met another good friend (from facebook), Elaine, there. Indonesia was a complete contrast to Singapore... Dirty, busy, hectic... I loved it! I went to a theme park in Jakarta, a volcano in Malang and chilled out in Ubud, Bali.

7. After Bali I flew into Sydney and the next chapter of the journey started. I had very little cash by this point, so a job was a priority. I tried to apply for the best job in the world... unsuccessfully! So instead I got the coach to Brisbane and found a job there selling electricity door to door. I met another good facebook friend here, Jan. I did this for three months waiting for Namrin to come to Australia. I had met her in Thailand at the Bangkok salsa congress. She had decided she wanted to come travelling with me and made it over by May. Together we bought a van and worked and travelled all around Australia. Fun times and good people... After a year of this however her visa ran out and she had to go back to...

8. Thailand! I visited her there for a month with my good friend Allan (not from facebook, from school!). We travelled through Laos, visited Chiang Mai (one of my favourite places), and took a trip over to Koh Tao (another of my favourite places). We also visited her second hometown of Ratchaburi...

9. Before too long though I had to return to Australia for the final time... I'm mostly working now, but will be visiting New Zealand soon for a mini family reunion! Life is still good. I'm hoping to collect enough cash together in the next few months to get to South America and spend some time there... but we will have to see how that goes...

Gayndah photos...

Those of you that pay attention may have noticed that my last blog post was a bit off topic... in fact I didn't mention my travels at all! The primary reason for this is that I have effectively stopped travelling for now, spending all of my time in Gayndah, and working every hour that I can! This doesn't make for a very exciting travelogue... 

I have taken some nice pictures in  this time however, and I thought I'd share some of them with you... They fit very roughly into four categories. Those four are animals, people, views and things I've done...

Animals...

No farm work in Australia would be complete without seeing some large spiders, and this was no exception! I found the spider on the right curled up in a leaf. It is a huntsman spider and as such is perfectly harmless..

The frog on the left is more obviously harmless... isn't he cute...



People

The people of Gayndah are very friendly, and people in the camp site are no exception to this. We have a group and we while away the long Gayndah weekends together, doing such exciting things as having fires, listening to music and getting drunk!

Views

As you can see, Gayndah can be very beautiful. Unfortunately most of the time this happens very early in the morning, and is accompanied by freezing cold weather!

Things I've done.

My van died at work one day, and Investigating I found that one of the terminals had completely dissolved! This disaster had a silver lining however, because the work involved in getting to the battery to replace the terminal gave me a chance to fit a hinge on the far side of the under bed area, making it much easier to take things in and out, and allowing much easier access to the battery in future.

Finally I've been working on a new project this last week or so. I'm not really sure if it is ready to go yet, but I'm going to launch it now anyway, and you can see it evolve and grow as I discover for myself what is involved in it!

The Real Man Project is an ongoing excercise in personal growth. It looks towards making the best of my life, and becoming the best that I can be. It also involves collecting resources together to help other people to achieve the Real Man ideal in a simple to understand, step by step,  process...


In order to achieve this I have launched a "Real Man Project" page on facebook (follow the links on my profile to access it) and I'm also launching a new blog that will chart my progress and hopefully help other people to achieve similar results!

I'd love to see you all over at the other blog, I have provided a link here and if you click on that it will take you straight there!

The Real Man Project

I've been hearing a lot about “Real Men” recently.

“I want a Real Man” and “Where have all the Real Men gone?” are phrases that most women seem to have said at some point. Women seem to know exactly what this means, even though they often have trouble articulating clearly exactly what the image is that is evoked in them by these two words...

Most men on the other hand don't have any clear idea what women mean when they say these things! The words “Real Man” mean as much to most men as the offside rule in soccer means to most women!

I have put a bit of thought into figuring out what women are getting at when they say these words, and here is my list of what a “Real Man” is...

What makes a Real Man is split up into two sections. The inside stuff and the outside stuff. First the inside...

A Real Man is calm, collected and confident. He is comfortable in his own skin, whether he is spending time alone, hanging with his friends, or meeting new people. In fact there isn't a situation that you can put him in that will make him uncomfortable. This isn't to say that he doesn't get nervous or scared, but he doesn't let the fear effect him, and acts in the face of it.

A Real Man is a leader. He is decisive. When it is time to make a decision, or take charge, he is willing to step up to the plate and do what needs to be done. He doesn't worry about making the wrong choice, or agonise for hours over which of two choices he prefers, when the time comes, he makes a choice and sticks with it. And if it turns out to have been the wrong choice he holds up his hands, takes responsibility and sets about making things right.

A Real Man has high self esteem. He respects himself and others. He is confident without being arrogant, and rightly so, because he knows that whatever situation is thrown at him he will handle it as best as he can, and even if he doesn't handle it perfectly he knows that he will have learned a lesson and the next time he handles the same situation he will handle it even better.

A Real Man takes action. If he sees something that needs doing he does it. If someone needs help and he has time and energy to give he will help them. He knows that the only true path to learning is through doing and doesn't sit around gathering knowledge and trying to be perfect before he tries to do anything.

A Real Man is motivated. He has a mission in life. He knows what he wants, where he is going and what to do to achieve these goals. He sets up smaller goals along the way, and congratulates himself every time he achieves one of these smaller goals on the way to the greater goal.

A Real Man is positive. He knows that people create their own reality and so he makes his reality a positive one to live in. He doesn't bring himself down with negative self talk. He may sometimes have days, when life throws him a curve ball, when he isn't on top of the world but when this happens he doesn't wallow in his self pity and he doesn't cling to his grief. He allows himself to feel it, allows it to wash through him, and then allows himself to get on with his life.

A Real Man is always learning. He recognises that life is a lesson for us, that all experiences, good and bad, are learning lessons. He knows that he is always changing, and strives to make the change a positive one all the time.

On the outside...

A Real Man has strong body language and posture. He carries himself all the time as if he has just won a gold medal in the Olympics and his national anthem is playing. He has a steady gaze, and is confidently expressive.

A Real Man speaks clearly and confidently. His voice carries as far as is needed without him having to shout. It is clear from his voice that he is in control. His voice comes from deep in his body and is rich and expressive.

A Real Man is well dressed and well groomed. He recognises that his personal appearance is the first impression that he gives to the world, and knows that this is very important. This doesn't mean that he is necessarily the height of fashion, but he pays attention to his clothes and takes care of them. Similarly he takes care of himself. His personal hygiene is impeccable and he makes sure that his nails are tidy and his hair is well styled.

Finally, a Real Man has a good balance in his life between work and leisure. He fills his life with activities and would never be content to live a life of routine. He may watch TV from time to time, but he chooses what he watches, and when the thing that he wants to watch is over, he will turn off the TV and do something else...

These are just a few of my thoughts of what constitutes a real man. I'd be very interested in your feedback. What have I missed? What have I gotten right or wrong? If you know me, how could I live up to this ideal better?

My mission in life is to move closer and closer to the ideal above, and maybe even to help others to get to this place, all with the intention of making the world a better place.

The road to glory... 2010

The title is of course a reference to the world cup. Some of you will be avid supporters of your teams, some of you couldn't care less... I fall somewhere between these two extremes...

Don't get me wrong, I'm an England fan first and foremost (well, that and a Leeds fan!). If the national team does well, I'm in a good mood. If they perform badly (Algeria anyone?!?) then I am flung into a tiny little pit of despair... So on the whole I'm glad that England have gotten through to the knock-out stages of the tournament, if slightly fearful of the upcoming opposition...

Back to my story though... My last blog left off in Koh Tao. Which was just as I remembered it... a tropical paradise... I saw a bit more of it this time, chartering a boat to take us round the island to some of the more remote beaches and snorkelling sites...

Myself, Namrin and Allan all had a great time there. Even after Allans adventure of having his wallet stolen and then the next day managing to drop his phone underneath the floorboards of a beach-side restaurant!

All good things must come to an end however, so eventually we had to leave Koh Tao and make our way back to Bangkok.

Bangkok is big! And smelly! Well, parts of it are. We spent a day there checking out the temples and palaces had some excellent meals, and then before we knew it Allan had to head home! We slightly nervously put him into a cab heading for the airport and hoped like hell that he would be able to make it back home all by himself!

I was only in Bangkok for a couple of days after this. We did a bit more sight-seeing, went to visit Namrins second home town of Ratchaburi and saw a bat cave there. We ate some more excellent meals with some of my friends from Bangkok. We even found time to fit in a bit of salsa! Then suddenly it was my turn to head back to Australia!

I won't go into it, but the goodbye was long and teary... On the plus side we got to travel to the airport for free on the test run of the new airport connection train!

Back in Australia I stopped for one day in Sydney, and then started heading north... I was heading towards Bowen, via the Blue Mountains national park when I realised that I was passing very close to a small town called Gayndah.

Gayndah is little town in the middle of Queensland, remarkable mostly for the citrus fruit that they produce there. It is also the little town where myself and Nam had our first picking job last year when we were just starting our travels...

I figured that I may as well pop in and see what was happening there, and within a day I had a job to start tomorrow!

So that is where you find me now! I missed the first England game against the USA because I was on the road, but once I got to Gayndah I haven't missed any of their games (though it seems that the England players missed one!).

Gayndah is mostly full of French people, Germans and Koreans (apart from the ozzies of course). The French are of course the but of many jokes right now regarding their team... We go up against the Germans next, which should be interesting. I have a place to watch it arranged and a German to watch it with. If we loose I may have to have a one man riot! We English have a reputation to protect you know!

Or I might just go to bed....

Re-visiting the past...

Do you believe in déjà vu? It seems to be happening to me more and more these days. And especially this past month... It seems like everywhere I go I recognise parts of it, and sometimes I even know what is going to happen...

This is probably caused by the fact that I have indeed been to most of these places before... A very unsettling experience for someone that has been thriving on novel and unknown places for the last two years almost...

On with the story anyway....

So myself and Allan did our little road trip, heading north to the Gold Coast (been there before) via Giraween national park (been there before...). We met up with some of my friends and some of his friends in Brisbane, and generally had a good time... We then headed south back to Sydney via Byron Bay (been there... you get the idea...).

Road trip over we spent a couple of days in Sydney, most of which I spent repairing the van from Allans over zealous driving, and then flew over to Bangkok...

I like Thailand... I like it a lot... We didn't spend very long there though. One day in Bangkok (where we saw no sign of the troubles that are so widely reported in the news), then a train to Nong Kai, one day in Nong Kai; we went to the statue park there, which hadn't changed much since the last time I was there (before and after). Still well worth a visit though. Then we crossed over the border into Laos.

In Laos we spent a couple of days in Vientiane, which was nice. They have some nice temples there, and we got to see a buddhist monk baptism... or something like that. What I like about Laos (well, one of the things) is the baguettes, a hangover from the French colonisation, so we ate lots of sandwiches here.

After Vientiane we travelled north to Vang Vieng. This is a traveller mainstay on the Laos circuit, and as such hadn't changed even slightly in the 4 years since the last time I'd been there. Even to the extent that all the bars had exactly the same identical menus and even had the same Friends DVDs running on loops... One thing that was different was that my sister was there!

Another thing that had changed was the tubing experience... This is an essential part of the Vang Vieng experience (except for Allan who missed it due to feeling "a bit ill"). When i did it 4 years ago it was a simple experience, drifting down the river, visiting a few bars, enjoying the scenery... Now the top end of the river has turned into a resort style place! Bars either side of the river, pumping out music, and huge swings and slides for drunken travellers to abuse... It was quite fun, but I can't help but feel that part of the point of floating down the river has been erased... Here is the before and after pics...

After the hedonism of Vang Vieng it was quite nice to visit Luang Prabang again. Not much had changed here (before and after) but it was still a beautiful city, and a nice place to spend a couple of days... Worth noting was the Royal Palace, which I hadn't visited before...

After a couple of days in Luang Prabang it was time to move on. We took the slow boat to Huay-Xai on the Thai border. This trip took two days, with a stop-over in Pak Beng. Pak Beng was exactly as I left it 4 years ago (before and after).

One night in Huay-Xai and we crossed the border into Thailand. Some immigration checks and we were free to find our bus out of there. We took a bus to Chiang Mai from the border. A six hour journey, which was reasonably comfortable. It was nice being back in Thailand again, and able to go into 7-11 and buy snack foods without being ripped off.

Of course Chiang Mai is the biggest source of déjà vu. I have spent over 6 weeks in Chiang Mai, all told, and really like it here. If there is one place that I could see myself living outside the UK it is here. We vsited my friend Jangiraj, and discovered that I am used as a model in her advertising! We bumped into an old friend that Nam and myself knew from a farm in Australia, and had some drinks with him.

We also visited an elephant camp, and Doi Suthep (before and after).

Which brings us pretty much up to date. The next plan is to head south and re-visit Koh Tao, where hopefully I will find it similar to how I left it (one of the most beautiful places I have ever been).

Until next time....

One door closes, another one opens...

I write this from Sydney, having just said goodbye to my travelling companion for the last year... But I get ahead of myself... How did I get here?

The last post finished with me working on the potato harvest in Tasmania. That continued for another week, with a little gap for the harvest machine to break down and be repaired...

On the downtime caused by the machine breaking we did a loop round the west of Tasmania. We headed overland to the great lakes, then on to the Lake St. Clair national park, west to Nelsons waterfall and then onwards to Strahan. The next day we went north to Cradle Valley National park (very nice). In Cradle Valley the weather got a bit chilly, there was even a bit of snow!

Just after this we noticed that our tyre was deflating, with us miles from civilisation, and our spare tyre being the one that we had had to remove only one week earlier! We decided to call off the rest of our trip and head towards Devonport to sort out our van. We managed to make it with the help of a friendly Australian whose door we knocked on...

Once we had fixed up our van it was time to go back to our last week of work...

After the work was over we gave ourselves another week to tour Tasmania and headed south towards Hobart, stopping off at Mount Fields national park... Then we climbed (or more accurately drove up) Mt. Washington, and visited some waterfalls...

Next we headed to the East coast. We passed a spiky bridge and Swansea then continued north to St Helens. We visited the Bay of fires up here and a lagoon.

Then we headed back inland and returned to Launceton and Devonport. On our last day of touring we headed up the North west coast past Burnie, Wynyard. We visited the Gunns Plains caves and the Stanley "Nut". We also visited the most westerly point on Tasmania!

Then we headed back to Devonport and caught the ferry back to the mainland...

We took an overnight ferry, arriving at 7am, and the original plan was to take two days to drive the 1000km back to Sydney... At the last minute i decided to change the plan and we drove the entire distance in one day!

We spent most of our time in Sydney with Nam packing during the day and meeting up with various people at night... I also got to meet up with an old friend, Allan (more on him later).

Yesterday was Nams last day. The night before I cooked her her last good stake (stakes in Thailand aren't worth eating), and she spend most of the day cooking a huge pile of sushi! Then I took her (and her many, many bags) to the airport, where we had our fond farewell... not too teary, after all, I am going to go over there to see her in 11 days!

In the meantime myself and Allan are going to go on a road trip. I'm going to push his comfort zones. I'm not sure if he is fully prepared for the time ahead... you'll hear all about that in the next post...

A devil of a time in Tasmania...

Hi Guys...

Its been a long time since I last posted I know... but I do have an excuse...

It's Tasmanias fault... Not that I'm saying that Tasmania is backwards or anything, but it is certainly more difficult to get onto the information superhighway here... Add to that the fact that I'm working 7 days a week (weather allowing) and you can understand the predicament that I'm in!

(Note: I've been forced to post this blog without having all of the photos uploaded (damn Tasmania), but keep your eyes on this album for the rest of the pictures...)

However.... I've made it online now, so here is my story...

We left you last on our way out of Wentworth, having just finished working on a grape farm, and heading south towards Tasmania. Before we went to Melbourne we visited Wilsons Promontory for a couple of days, stopping off at Happy Jacks rest stop on the way... As we headed south we could feel it getting colder, and it seemed that this led directly to a proliferation of millipedes the further south we went...

Wilsons Promontory was very nice, with lots of beautiful views, walks and beaches close by, and absolutely loads of wild life including bright red parrots, a kangaroo called "dude" and wombats! Also giant mushrooms...

We stayed in Melbourne for a couple of nights... on the first night we met up with Phil and Ffion again (see last post), and on the second day we met up with one of Nams friends from her university days… we also saw a fashion show and went back to the museum of moving images and played with all of the displays, including making a rotoscope video of me knocking Nam about Matrix styleeee!

Early on the morning of the second day in Melbourne we made our way to the ferry terminal and prepared ourselves for the 8 hour ferry ride over to Tasmania! The ferry was pretty huge and comfortable, and we kept ourselves amused pretty well, apart from Nam feeling queasy for the majority of the journey!

The first couple of days in Tasmania we went around all of the job agencies that we could find looking for jobs. We were slightly apprehensive about this as we had been told by many people that it was difficult to find a job in Tasmania… Figuring that we had a few days to spare before anything showed up we decided to take a small tour of the island.

We drove to Port Arthur (very nice area of Tasmania with crazy rock beaches and a chocolate factory!) and promptly got two phone calls from different agencies offering us jobs! So much for work being difficult to find!

We took a job on a potato harvester and have been doing that ever since, with a couple of days of for bad weather and a couple off for Easter, one of which we spent picking broccoli instead. We were told that the smallest acceptable size for broccoli was "about a C  cup"... so I spent the whole day groping broccoli... My psychiatrist may hear about this in the future...

Worthy of note in this time was staying in Poatina resort village, which sounds like it would be an expensive place to stay, but which turned out to be very cheap, and to have all sorts of additional bonuses including a maze and a Thomas the tank engine that you could ride round the village on!

The plan for now is to work for another few days, and then to tour round Tasmania and see the sights before heading back to the mainland and Sydney for Nams flight home… more on that in the next post…

The Rhythm of Life.... Mildura...

In the spirit of fairness I feel that I should add that I don't really like Guinness... But I do like this advert...

On to the matter of my travels.

This last month I have been settled down in one place, working once again. This month has been one of changes... watching the seasons change, watching some things grow up, and some things fall apart...

It doesn't seem like a month ago that we moved to Wentworth. The memory is still fresh in my mind. We had visited the farm where we would be working just the day before, and found that the nearest camp site was in a sleepy little village, about 10 km away, called Wentworth. So we arrived in the mid afternoon and started setting up camp.

The cast for our next month of life was already assembled. In the camp spot next to us were a Welsh trio, Ffion, Phil and Dave that immediately introduced themselves; one camp spot over from them was a French guy called Maxim, who we later found out was to be working at the same farm as us; paddling about were some tiny little cute ducklings; and though we didn't know it, sleeping in the tree just above our tent were a whole family of possums... the scene was set!

We enjoyed our time in Wentworth very much. Our neighbours were great. Phil and Ffion were a lovely couple... Phil was a very chatty guy whose twin passions were rugby and fishing. In fact he would spend up to 8 hours a day fishing on his days off... in spite of the fact that all that he ever caught were carp. Ffion was a bubbly girl who only ever stopped talking when she was reading or being artistic. Dave only stayed for a week, but in that time we came to enjoy his chat very much. As for Max... Even though he was French we found him to be a modest, inteligent, warm guy who was quiet at first, but really funny when you got to know him.

Every day the ducklings would come round, guarded by their mother, begging for bread; and then later on, around dusk, the possums would venture from their tree and get among us. Taking bread from our hands, and taking any other food that we were foolish enough to leave lying around overnight!

As for the work we were doing... We were both working on a grape farm, producing sultanas and raisins. Nam was doing the picking side of things (not too difficult work, though not very well paid) and I was a cart-man. My job basically involved riding around on the back of a tractor, picking up all of the buckets of grapes that the pickers had produced, and piling them onto the back of the tractor. We then had to tip all of these buckets of grapes onto racks so that they could dry.

The best thing about my job was that I got to drive the tractor! The worst thing was the bees that liked to hang out on the drying fruit, and don't take too kindly when we had to spread out the fruit so that it could dry better... I got stung 4 times! Luckily I'm not allergic! As well as the bees there was the usual assortment of spiders, flies, spiders, lizards, wasps and spiders... some of them deadly!

Now our job is drawing to a close... we are in our last week of picking... The ducklings have grown up and been replaced by new ducklings that are even smaller and even cuter... our neighbours have started moving away...

All in all it feels like things are winding down in Wentworth... I guess that is all part of the rhythm of life...

Zen Rock

The instant that I saw this rock it sent me into a kind of zen trance.

The first thing that it made me think of was impermanance... After all, the rock has the look of something ancient. It has clearly been in existance for millions of years. And long after I am gone and forgotten (barring human intervention, or barring sudden breakthroughs in longevity treatments in my lifetime) it will still be sat there, in the sea, being battered by the waves in much the same way...

On the other hand... the rock is clearly being battered by the sea. It isn't hard to imagine it being broken down into sand in just a few millenium. It just made me very aware of the impermanence of all things, and especially myself...

The second thought that came to me was how everything changes, but everything stays the same. For maybe hundreds of years the water had been splashing over this rock in much the same way, filling the pool at the top, and then running out of the pool back into the sea below. Unchanging for hundreds of years...

The flip-side of this is that no two waves, washing over this rock, will have ever been exactly the same... Hundreds and tousands of waves, all breaking over this rock, and each one slightly different from all of the others... Possibly due to the different timing, size or direction of the wave, or down to slight changes in the shape of the rock, or maybe even due to the presence of sea life on the rock, altering the wave slightly, making each one unique...

Melbourne to Sydney and the Sydney week! (Including my birthday!!!)

The last I wrote was to tell you about my day in Melbourne... Well, we left Melbourne shortly after that, but not before performing the obligatory pilgrimage to the place that every British ex-student in Australia has to visit... We went to …. the Neighbours Street!
 

It was exactly as awesome as you would imagine. The outside shots of Neighbours are actually filmed on Pin Oak Court. I made the pilgrimage early in the morning, and was rewarded by managing to catch the end of a tour that some people had paid to go on! The tour also brought a “Ramsay Street” sign with them! I of course took full advantage of this!

After that we headed north and east, towards Canberra. It took two days, of pretty uneventful driving, to get there. Freeway all the way! We made one stop-off at Glenrowan, which is apparently the birthplace of Ned Kelly.

Canberra was nice. Quiet... but nice. We arrived the day before Australia day, which seemed pretty fitting! We visited the War Memorial, which was very interesting, and then headed over to Parliament House for the free Australia Day concert that was being held there... The concert was fun. Lots of Australian bands that we had never heard of... but we chilled out for a while, and then headed to the front, near the stage to do some bouncing....

The next day we made the long trip to Sydney. Actually... it wasn't that long. We arrived there around 11am and as it was Australia Day we proceeded to do the most Australian thing we could think of... We had a picnic in the park! After this we headed to North Sydney to Josephine's house, which would be our residence for the next five days.

The next day we pretty much chilled out in preparation for the next day.... My Birthday!!! For my birthday we did touristy things! We visited Paddys Market, and Darling Harbour and then we went to the Sydney Aquarium... This was amazing and we saw... duck billed platypuses, turtles, sea-horses, octopusses, jelly fish, eels, penguins, sharks, rays, crocodiles, dugongs, many many fishes and corals and other small sea dwelling animals!

After this I had my birthday meal! Which was a lasagne which I prepared personally... and it was excellent... if I do say so myself!

On the 29th of January we did more tourist things. We walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge, and took a stroll around the city. It was at around this point that I started experimenting with more artistic modes on my camera!

That evening we went out into Sydney with Jo and some of er friends. We went to a few bars (including a very expensive one on a 47th floor that rotated!!) and ended up in a bar playing pool. Nam and Jo proceeded to wipe the floor with a couple of guys that challenged them to a game!

On Saturday we went into the city to meet some of Nams Thai friends for lunch, and then Jo came and met us and we went for a little walk from Bondi Beach to... Tamara Beach, a few kilometres up the coast. This was a very nice little walk. After this we had to rush back to Josephines to prepare for the Sydney salsa congress that we were going to that night.

We arrived at the congress just in time to get a seat near the front and to the right of the stage. The shows were amazing as expected, though it seemed like there wasn't going to be any salsa for a while! The videos are all on my youtube channel here...

After the shows was the salsa party. This was lots of fun, as I don't get to salsa too often any more. I met up with some old friends, and danced the night away. We didn't end up getting home until about 4am, and didn't get to sleep until even later!

Sunday was a restful day. We mainly did some shopping and prepared for leaving Sydney. We got an early night and said our goodbyes to Josephine.

The next morning we got our stuff together and finally left at around 11am. We headed West, towards Mildura...

That pretty much brings us up to date for now. We reached Mildura... stopping off along the way to put our names in to various job offices. We now have a job to start tomorrow. I am going to be lifting buckets, and Nam will be picking grapes. This will occupy us for most of the next month, so don't expect too many updates in that time.

Hopefully I'll see you in a month, a bit more tanned, slightly healthier, and a lot richer!

Laters

Trev

Adelaide to Melbourne... Featuring The Great Ocean Road!!!

What a couple of weeks it has been... We have driven more then a quarter of the way round the coast of Australia, seen some amazing sights, experienced weather from 47 degree sun to 15 degree driving rain.

The last stretch was the drive from Adelaide to Melbourne which, though it is not so long in distance, more then makes up for it with the sheer density of things to see and beautiful sights...

The first day after leaving Adelaide we drove down the coast to Robe, where we stayed in the Little Dip Natural Park... Robe was very nice and felt very peaceful.

Leaving Robe behind us on day two we travelled to Mount Gambier. This was a very interesting place, being built on an extinct volcano, and having lots of sinkholes, craters and lakes... one of them a striking shade of sapphire!

The next day we crossed the border into Victoria. We went for a walk in Portland, all in the cause of seeing seals... we saw them, but they were very far away. It was a nice walk regardless... We finished the day in Port Fairy... Not a name I'd imagine the sailors liked very much, though it is one of the oldest ports in Australia!

Day four saw us arrive onto the great ocean road. It was going to be hard for this road to live up to the hype... but it somehow delivered... in spite of the intermittent rain. I also managed to get sunburned in site of the intermittent rain!

On the great ocean road we saw the Bay of Islands, the Bay of Martyrs, The Grotto, London Bridge, The Arch, Loch Ard Gorge (featuring the Blowholes, Thunder Cave and Razorback Ridge) and finally the Twelve Apostles...

We stopped the night at Lavers Hill and set off for the rest of the great ocean road... There were many amazing views on this day... though they didn't have names like the ones the previous day... We continued driving after the great ocean road, through Melbourne city, and all the way to Phillip Island... Phillip Island is mostly famous for Penguins...

Fairy penguins to be precise. They are the smallest penguins in the world, being mostly less then 25cm tall, but they still walk in a very amusing fashion. We saw the penguin parade and then headed to San Remo for the night.

The final day of our great drive we re-visited Phillip island to see the Nobbys... worth visiting for their funny name if nothing else. They also had a boardwalk over the cliffs with many interesting sights to see... including some seagull chicks!

After this we headed for Melbourne to our place of rest for the next few days...

And that is the tale of our trip from Adelaide to Melbourne... I hope you liked it...

Trev.







Epilogue...

I feel that it would be wrong to leave you without telling you about our day trip to Melbourne.. We set of early in the morning, in spite of Nams protests as I dragged her out of bed!

We took the bus, and then the train, into the center of the city, getting off at Flinders Street Station. We wandered around the city almost at random for a while, stopping off to check the internet and find things that caught our interest...

We ended up in the North of the city, near the Victoria Market.. so we decided to pay it a visit.

Victoria Market is a wonderful place. The non food section was ok. Just what you would expect from a market, but the food section of the market was a like a dream for me, with a vast array of food, from all over the world, all freshly prepared and smelling amazing. The only problem was that I was visiting it with literally zero cash to spare! If I had had any money, or if I lived in Melbourne, I could have spent a fortune in that place...

Leaving the market wistfully behind we resumed our wandering. Seeing one of the free tourist trams riding past we decided to take a ride round the circuit of the city. We saw many interesting sights around Melbourne on this before getting off pretty much where we got on...

We walked back south from here, down Swanston street. We visited Chinatown, which was less exciting then we thought it would be, and made our way to Federation Square, which was right next to where we set off...

Federation Square was filled with people watching the Australian Open tennis on a huge screen, and was backed by a huge striking building. This building turned out to be the Australian Museum of the Moving Image, so of course we decided to wander in and take a look...

This museum was lots of fun. Our only regret was that we hadn't spent the whole day there! We only had about an hour to wander around and play with all of the interactive displays (including some “classic” computer games!).

We left the Museum and headed back to the train station... satisfied with the day and thinking that we would definitely have to visit Melbourne city again some time... ()