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...


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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....

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...

Merry Sunny Christmas 2009!!

First things first...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

That is to all of those of you that are following my travels. Thanks for your support. It means a lot to me whenever one of you tells me that you are reading this stuff...

So, on with the travelling update...

At the end of the last update I had just started work in Kunnunura. I liked it in Kunnunura. The people were friendly, the work was not too difficult and easy to find, and though the weather was very hot, and very sweaty, it didn't rain too much... We also saw our first wild snake here!

Pictures of Kunnunura can be found here...

Eventually we had to leave Kunnunura and head west... again! We left on the 4th of December... I think... Whenever it was, we left just in time. From what we hear, it started raining in Kunnunura just after we left, and hasn't stopped since...

The journey west was fairly uneventful. We arrived in Derby 2 days later and made ourselves comfortable. There wasn't too much to do in Derby. We got some fish and chips, and checked out the sunset. We also checked out the jetty, which was pretty around sunset...

Broome was next after Derby. Broome was mostly about Macdonalds... Our first Macdonalds in over a month, and we were mostly interested in te free wifi... In fact we spent over 5 hours in Macdonalds, eating only an ice cream and an apple pie...

Broome also had a chinatown, and Roebuck bay... It is somehow the most popular tourist resort on the west coast... but I'm not sure how....

Heading furter south we came upon 80 mile beach... The name is a little misleading, as the beach is actually 220 km long... It was absolutely exquisite. There were very few people around, and the beach was also a turtle hatchery... In fact we saw turtles laying eggs there the night that we were there! Very cool!

The next place we stayed couldn't have been more different... Port Hedland was a dump... It had 3 caravan parks. All of them more expensive then we were used to paying, and all of them without the facilities that we were used to... There were flies everywhere... all the time... The peak of Port Hedland was the Kmart as evidenced by this job advert we saw...

We left Port Hedland as early as possible (about 5am) and headed onwards to Point Samson. This was fairly nice, with some historical sites nearby (historical by Australian standards anyway). I liked honeymoon bay as well. It had some crazy rock formations in it, as well as one rock in particular that sent me into a little zen trance. There might be more to follow about that on my blog...

It was also near Point Samson that I had my surgery! I had an infected sucutaneous cyst which had to be sliced open. I only had to wait for 3 hours in hospital, and they dealt with it there and then! Very efficient...

After the eventful Point Samson we headed south to Exmouth. This is in te Ningaloo national park, and is mostly notable for the snorkelling. The coral reef comes right up to the beaches here, and we took full advantage of this. The pictures of this snorkelling will have to wait though, our underwater camera takes films, so we have to get them developed somewhere...

Coral bay was next. This is a beautiful little town also in the Ningaloo national park, and also with excellent snorkelling. Highlights here were seeing a sea turtle and also some rays. There is also a reef shark nursery in the shallow water just offshore, so we got to see sharks as well!

It was in Coral Bay that we heard about the cylone that had been following us down the coast! Cyclone Laurence is a category 5 storm and had visited Darby, Broome, and 80 Mile beach less then a week after we left. It is currently heading inland, so we managed to out-run it, but if we'd have set off even a week later it would have caused us lots of trouble.

That brings us to where I am now. We are currently in Carnarvon. It has some cool beaches... of course, but we are mostly here for the shopping. We are currently stocking up on food and presents in preperation for christmas. Later today we are setting off to Shark Bay, which is where we plan to spend christmas. It is also supposed to have great beaches, and awesome snorkelling. We have a cabin booked for a couple of nights over xmas, so we will be very comfortable.

I'll let you know how it went next time, but until then, have a very merry christmas, wherever you are... and be sure to let me know how it went... :)

Trev x

An update on the last month of travelling...

Hi guys.

Its time for another update on how my travels are going. At the time of my last update I was just finishing up in Munduburra and waiting to set off on the next phase of traveling... (at least thats where I think I got up to...)

Anyway, eventually we successfully set off on the road again. The last few of my farming pics went up ( http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=107687&id=673491291&l=fe0b06808b ), and a whole new album was started!

The pics from the new album are here ( http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=120860&id=673491291&l=3ca85267a9 ) though I haven't finished uploading them yet (the internet is a bit patchy around here!)

So the first couple of days were a bit of a slog. We travelled over 1200 km over these 2 days! Skipping over large parts of the middle of the coast of queensland. Our first major destination was Airlie Beach. From here we took a cruise to the Whitsundays. This was expensive, but worth it! And it also warranted an album all of its own! ( http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=116649&id=673491291&l=54f9fd2d1b )

After this we took it fairly easily... heading up the coast until we reached Townsville. We took a couple of days out to explore Townsville... and also took a diving trip to the SS Yongala shipwreck, which was an amazing experience all of its own. There were huge fish down there (as big as a car), rays, sharks, turtles, sea snakes... pretty much anything you could wish for!

After this we continued our journey North along the coast... stopping off at various beaches along the way. There are some beautiful deserted beaches to camp on along this stretch of the coast.


The next major stop off was Cairns. This is a glitzy place, and very expensive... so we didn't stay for too long. We did stop for long enough to check out a jazz concert in the botanical gardens though...


North of Cairnes was Port Douglas... we stopped there, but only briefly. It seemed very nice, but time was pressing by this point so we continued north to Tribulation Point... We travelled as far north as you can get with a 2 wheel drive car, so we decided to head back south and start the journey west...

The atherton tablelands is the first place that you arrive at. This seems like a very nice area. Very green and lush, with lots of waterfalls dotted about the place. We had a day when we saw 4 waterfalls in one day!

Past this things started to get dryer and less populated. The towns that looked big on the map turned out to be a few houses and maybe half a general store. The economy of these small towns seemed to be supported mostly by the petrol stations...

Worth mentioning on this route is Gregory Downs. The official camp site here is not too impressive, but down by the river is a beautiful place to camp and go for a swim. People kept on talking about the crocs... but we didn't see any.

Another couple of days saw us cross the border into the northern Territory. The first impression of this place is of nothing... as far as the eyes can see... in fact we passed an information board that said that what the place was notable for was that nothing had happened there geologically for over 500 million years!

ding North once more the landscape became slowly lusher and lusher. The camping here was amazing. It seemed like every day we were camping near a thermal spring and daily swims seemed almost normal!

Finally we approached civilization again. Katherine was a bit of a disappointment. We were so craving a Macdonalds! If only for the free internet there! There was a thermal springs, so that kind of made up for it.

We took our time to the next few places, travelling a couple of hundred km a day, visiting places of interest, slowly making our way to Darwin.

That was a couple of days ago... now we are living on the mango farm... waiting for the season to start properly. Life seems pretty good here, and I'm certain that we will be EXTREMELY busy pretty soon... but that is all for the next update (and photo album)

Thats you all up to date now. Take it easy y'all.

Trev x

PS. If you haven't recieved your post card yet it is on its way. If you haven't requested one yet... then feel free to send me youre address, but it might be a while before I have enough time to sit down and write cards....

Update on the last 6 months!

Hi guys.

After a long time of neglecting my travelling group, I've decided to keep you up to date on what I've been up to recently.

I've now been in Australia for the past 6 months. It has made a refreshing change from Asia. Much as I love South East Asia, and spending time there, it was only when I arrived in Australia that I realised how crowded, dirty and, to be frank, smelly much of Asia is! Arriving in Sydney was like returning home, but returning to a much hotter home. :)

I attended the Salsa Congress in Sydney ( http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=74878&id=673491291&op=18 ) which was lots of fun. Then after a couple of weeks of trying to get a job I gave up on Sydney and deciced to head up the coast to Brisbane.

I was excited to arrive in Brisbane because it ave me a chance to finally meet the infamous Jan, a girl that I had spoken to a ridiculous amount over the previos year, but never actually met (due to living on the other side of the word...).

In Brisbane I picked up a job inside one week. It wasn't the most glamorous job ever, but it got me out in the fresh air, gave me plenty of excercise, and allowed me to improve my people skills. I was door to door selling electricity around the suburbs of Brisbane. ( http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=79336&id=673491291&op=12 )

I was doing this for around 3 months, in which time I found myself a flat to live in. It was a great job, and I met lots of interesting people, and even sold them some electricity.

At the start of may I was pretty excited because Nam was coming to Australia for the next phase of my travelling. We first met (in Australia) at a Latin Dance Camp in the Gold Coast. Loads of fun, and it was fun to be finally dancing again. :D

Then Nam came up to Brisbane and the last half of May was mostly taken up with trying to find a camper van to take us around australia!

We finally picked up this little van ( http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2327753&l=b3184bd13c&id=673491291 ) and it was time to start our adventure.... Well, it would be if it wasn't for the little matter of getting the van roadworthy and transfering the registration over to our names. Australians are crazy for red tape! It took us almost a month and a half to sort out these little bits of paper!!

Once we were finally free to travel we were just about running out of cash, so we decided to head north and start doing some fruit picking. And that brings us pretty much up to the present. We spent a month in Gayndah, picking and packing oranges. Then a couple of weeks in Mundubbura, thinning peaches.

Over te next few weeks we plan to head to the Northern Territory an do some mango picking. The weather will be even hotter, and sweatier, and the work will be hard, but it should be fun, and of course I will be taking lots of pictures to show you all what I'm up to.

Anyway, I really must be off. I hope you are all enjoying your lives as much as I am enjoying mine. :)

All the best.

Trev

PS. I will be sending out some post-cards soon, so if any of you want one then can you mail me with your address and I'll send one out to you as soon as I can.

2 months to go!!!

It is two months from today untill I set off on my journey...

I can't believe the time has passed so quickly...

It seems like only a few days ago that I was merely contemplating this trip, and work were hassling me to see if I could give them a more definate time scale...

I know that the weeks are going to pass faster and faster up until the point that I go (and probably right up until the time that I return, but that is a long time away, no need to think about that!). It is starting to sink in now. Only 8 or 9 of each of my dance classes before I go. Only 9 more weekends. Only 7 more Monday mornings at work. The time is running out on my normal life!

Of course I have oodles and oodles of things still to be done before I go. I need to buy essential equipment. This includes, but isn't limited to a new backpack, a new mp3 player, a travel towel, some fold up salsa shoes, a hat (very important), some shorts, a leatherman, plasters, and other things too numerous for me to remember them all.

I also need to look into getting some foreign currency (the sooner the better given the way the pound seems to be going), get some insurance, possibly buy a ticket onwards from Cyprus. I need to book my salsa conventions, resign from work, possibly get a new bank account sorted, finish getting my innoculations and have a blood test.

Then there are the things I'm leaving behind. My friends. I need to say farewell to them all. (I still need some of their phone numbers after my last phone died!) My flat, I'm giving it up, but I need to pack away those items I want to keep, and find a place for them to stay (thanks to my Mum and Dad), and do something with all of the things I don't want any more...

I'm absolutely certain that there are numerous other things which I need to do before I go, I'm far too disorganised to think that I have remembered everything, and I'm sure that as the weeks go on I will find numerous things that I have forgotten. (If any of you can see anything, just leave a comment).

I was going to finish this post with a conclusion, but I can't think of one, so heres a quote instead...

"For my part I travel not to go anywhere but to go. I travel for
travel's sake. The great affair is to move, to feel the needs and
hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off the featherbed of
civilization and find the global granite underfoot and strewn with
cutting flint." Robert Louis Stevenson

Travel Itinerary

Thought that I'd post a rough itinerary of where I will be, and when.

If anyone reading will be in roughly the same places, at roughly the same times, we can see about maybe hooking up...

August 6th I fly to Cyprus. This is the only date that is set in stone at the moment.

I will be spending roughly 2 weeks in Cyprus (mostly in the Northern Turkish part). I plan to do lots of diving here. And lounging by the pool, and other such things...

Then I will fly over to Egypt (or possibly get a boat over), and spend 2 weeks in Egypt. In this time I will be visiting the Pyramids, possibly doing a bit of salsa, going to the Red Sea to do more scuba diving, and meeting up with some good friends I have over there...

After all of this excitement I will fly back to Cyprus, and do more diving,
and hanging by the pool, and whatnot, until the 12th of September when there is a Salsa convention starting (http://www.salsajamincyprus.com/).

Once the dancing has all finished I will be flying on to India. I'm not sure where I will be, but I plan to have a kind of flying visit of India, taking in a couple of towns for a couple of days and then moving pretty swiftly onto Nepal.

In Nepal I will be doing some trekking. I want to see the Himalayas from close up, and maybe I'll find a Buddhist Monastery or something and do some meditation on the top of the world. Nepal could take up to a month, and is one of the places I'm looking forwards to seeing the most...

After my calming time in Nepal I will be flying on to Thailand. Really there is too much I want to see in Thailand. I could probably spend 6 months just there, but among the locations I would like to get to are Chiang Mai, Pai, Bangkok (to visit some friends I made last time I was there. You know who you are ;^), Koh Tao, and a couple of other islands.

Somehow I have to fit all of this in before the 13th of November, when there is a salsa convention starting in Bangkok (http://www.salsabangkok.com/).

Once this is over I will be meeting a friend, and travelling with her to Cambodia. There I'm mostly interested in seeing Angkor Wat. But it will be interesting to see the culture and all that, and see how it contrasts to Thailand.

I'll probably pass back through Thailand after this, and on to Malaysia. Take in Kuala Lumpur and visit some good friends I have over there. Then check out some of their beaches (and maybe fit in a bit of salsa while I'm here).

Then on from Malaysia to Indonesia, where the plan is pretty much the same as in Malaysia. Visit some friends, see Jakarta, and then Bali, check out some beaches and just see what happens. It will be Christmas around this time, so I will either be spending Christmas and new year either in Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia. I'm not sure where yet, I'll just have to play it by ear...

Anyway, I have to fit all of this in in time to get to Sydney in time for the 29th of January (in fact, probably the 28th in time for my birthday!), which is when and where the 3rd salsa convention of my travels kicks off (http://www.sydneysalsacongress.com.au/). I'm hoping a good Australian friend will join me for this.

I think Allan will be joining me sometime about here, and we will travel around Australia, possibly doing a bit of work here and there (i already have my work and travel visa, and an Aussie phone number!). My Australian Visa lasts for a year, so I will take full advantage of this, and then depending on funds, I will see what I want to do next....

(But if I do have lots of money still at this point New Zealand looks nice, then South America for Mardi Gras and finally South Africa for the world cup. But we'll have to see about that...)