Ian shell's Adventures

14th November 2007, Abel Tasman.

2007-11-30T08:23:00.000+01:00

So got up today, pretty early, most people had already gone i must admit but i got up about 9am. which isn't bad for me at the moment.

So had some breekie, which was actually just an apple that i had brought the day before but i have to do something about those pies don't i.

so had my apple, which doesn't taste as good as a pie, but was nice for an apple it was a granny smiths apple. nice to know they have quality out here somewhere. then off for my walk. all alone, but thats not a problem.

The sun is shining it is a really nice day, took my camera and headed into the national park. Found a beach or two, actually the first beach i found was rather pleasent ;) why you ask, because i looked down the beach from the track didn't see anyone and thought well lets have a look. got onto the beach and there was 2 people on the beach. two topless women as a matter of fact, both pretty and nice and brown. so mmm what to do. stayed there for a little while. i wasn't perving honest. And no, no pictures again this time Michael, sorry mate. Although now i have my camera i suppose i could of...mmmm next time mate.

So basically i just walked up through the national park which was absolutely beautiful you follow the coast line and see some great views, located a few beaches on the way, nothing as good as the first one ;) , but they were rather nice for beaches. managed to take my top off and sit on each beach for a while, reading my book.

all in all i spent about 5hours, walking and sitting on beaches, i noticed it was getting a few dark clouds up in the sky, so i decided to head back as i was about 4 hrs into it then. Surprisingly it didn't take as long to get back but i suppose i wasn't taking pictures and sitting on beaches.

Ok got back to the hostel, chilled out with a few friends i had made from the stray bus. had a few drinks with them, well it would be rude not to won't it :)

Pretty much played some more guitar in my room, had dinner and went to bed.

nothing to exciting, it would be better if i wasn't on this pony pc and could attach pictures you would see why i walked and stayed on beaches for most of the day.

13th Novemeber 2007. Kaikoura to Abel tasman.

2007-11-30T07:41:00.000+01:00

OK jumped on bus today, Graham and the posse is still doing my head in, and this is a long day, actually most of these bus journeys seem like a long day.

OK this bus is not just a bus from this town to that town, it actually does a tour aswell, and stops in interesting places and you get commentary all the time about the places you are and the things you see around you.

So we stopped at a seal colony which was just up the road about 30mins from Kaikoura, seals are kind of cool, they are just lazing around on a rock, which is alright for some. guess when i think about it that it what i am doing lazying around on a big rock we call a country. nice :)

so there was about 20 seals on these rocks, as i said just chilling out. as they do. jumped back on the bus. the east coast looks very nice, kind of reminds me of the great ocean road in OZ, but not as beautiful. we are driving right on the coast up, the sea and lots of rock formations are to the east and inland to the west is lots of mountains, the distant ones have snow on them, but mainly they are just grass mountains.

so anyway did a few more stops, where we was able to take some lovely views of the coast and surrounding areas. Then we went off to picton, which is where you get the ferry over to wellington which is the north island. however i am not going on there yet, i have the rest of the south to explore.

Some good news though, that dick head graham is getting off here, good good. So about 5 people got off here and we ended up picking up about 15 people from the north island. From here i lost the current guide a woman called Nads (yeah nice name, she as ok not a great guide) But we now picked up a guide called bagginz (yes like lord of the rings) he seems pretty cool, rather chatty and jokey so this could be fun. then we went along to Abel Tasman which is a national park at the top of the south island.

The hostel we are staying at is called "Old Macdonald's farm". mmmm nice name, it is actually a farm fully working but has some huts in the middle somewhere where they have put in bunk beds. bit disorganised if i say so, as the guide paid for the rooms with everyones money and just put a bit of paper up with all the rooms we had to choose from. I didn't mind really as i ended up on my own in a three bed room. sweet, nice and peaceful.

By the time we got to the hostel/farm, it was 7pm, so by the time everyone cooked and there was only 4 hobs between about 20 of us, i finally got to cook at 9pm. so had dinner, chilled out played some guitar in my room. got some sleep.

Looks like a lot of people tomorrow are doing a 4 hrs hike through the national park then getting a yacht back. some are doing the other way round. one is doing a full day sailing on a yacht.

however i have decided i will just go for a walk, try and save some money.

12th November Christchurch to Kaikoura (dolphin swimming, oh yeah babe)

2007-11-29T09:35:00.000+01:00

So taking my first stray bus journey today, off to Kaikoura. Bus seems a little quite, there is only 9 people on the bus, that holds 45 people.

And there is a group that has been traveling together is seems round the south island, and dam they have an annoying bloke called graham with them. He is from peckham in London, and is about 40 years old, but still thinks he is about 15. And he has a way of changing all conversations into a cheese sex thing. not very nice to be around and i hope he isn't with this group for very long not sure i can hack someone like him for long.

So the way to Kaikoura we stop for breakfast, which is just a little cafe in the middle of nowhere. i got a pie, and yes it does look like i have been eating alot of pies, thanks you very much (especially Mr Roche) and to be honest i probably have been, they are so tasty over here.

got to Kaikoura, seems like a nice little town, not very big but then i hear most places in NZ aren't big. This is where they catch alot of crayfish which seems bloody expensive round here, for a whole one it is like $80, or i think thats what the sign says.

so on the stray bus they pass around an activity sheet which has a selection of activities that you can do in the town we stop at, and i have seen they do dolphin swimming, how exciting, i hope it isn't like the dolphin "swim" i tried to do at ocean park in HK.

so i booked it anyway. By the time we got to Kaikoura we had to go straight to the dolphin centre after checking in. so the bus dropped us off. Got to the dolphin centre had a quick video advicing us what the dolphins are like and that they are wild and they may or may not come close to you blah blah, show me the dolphins.

So got the wet suit and all that stuff on again. Got on a boat and it took about 40mins to get out to where the dolphins are. wow i have never seen so many dolphins about, there is about 200 here and they are all wild. So got ready to get in the water, the alarm sounded and we were told to get in the sea and the dolphins are over to the right.

Got over to the right and i see 4 dolphins swim rather fast past underneath me, about a metre or 2 away. and then they disappeared, well this kept going on for a while. basically i felt there was too many people in are good, don't get me wrong i really loved it and i saw the dolphins and they swam near me, but you got to think these are wild animals and there is 15 people jumping the i the water after them they are scared so the fuck off really quickly. and we spent most of our time chasing after the dolphins, getting back on the boat back off when we was near them and that continued for about 40mins.

After that we had to go back to the land, and that was really good i got to see some really cool dolphin jumps and stuff. and got some really good pics.

But i am glad i did the dolphin swim was really nice to be in the water with them.

So for the rest of evening i went back to the hostel, got some chips from the local chip shop, which is meant to the best around here, well it was no Chinese chips but they were pretty good.

So then i had to have an early night so went to my room and read my book for a bit, finally got to sleep.

11th Novemember 2007, Christchurch, White water rafting.

2007-11-29T06:16:00.000+01:00

Wow really looking forward to this day, i have white water rafting, and i can't wait. About time i got myself doing some things again, it seemed like i didn't do alot in OZ.

OK got picked up from hostel, taken to a place just outside Geraldine, to a lovely place, built of wood in the middle of nowhere, but next to a lovely river. some great scenery again.

So had some free tea, got into our wet suits, boots, fleeces, jackets and everything else they gave us to keep us warm. had a briefing, we are going to start off on a couple of number 1 grade rapids, work and work our way up to, grade 5, which is the highest you can do out here, well that the law will allow anyway. sounds great, can't wait.

OK had a little 10min bus ride to the top of the river. Have been put into a group of 6 people and got a guide called Kam. Seems pretty cool, but i guess you would be with a job like this. All jumped into the boat. this is all pretty calm here at the top, we first have to practice rowing in sync, forwards backwards. while the guide steers. yeah he doesn't row just steers, anyway it looks like its gonna be hard work, i hope its not as hard work as surfing.

So down the river we went, i was at the front typical, no one else would do it, so Ian to the rescue again.

wow what fun i had, i didn't fall out, but the guide made 2 other english guys fall out, which was quite funny. Not really sure how to describe the rafting, was wet great fun and knackering. Being at the front there was quite a few waves that went straight over my head, so a few time si thought i was drowning, but obviously survived.

Oh at the end of the rafting we had the opportunity of jumping of some cliffs, one at 5m, and the other at 10m. Boy my group loved me, well most people jumped off the 5m, but again no one was will to go first, but the way i see it i would rather go first then sit up the top and think about it. So Ian to the rescue again. da da da d da, super length..... lol

So anyway i volunteered to go first, and i was going first all my other group had to jump next before everyone else as they were taking pictures of us jumping, (they took pics all the way down and yes i did get a copy, but they are int he room, sorry still no pics) so they were like thanks ian, thanks very much. So did the 5m, and then 3 of my group including me did the 10m, again i had to go first, well didn't have to but as i said i don't wanna thing about it. 10m is quite a height and we was advised if you don't land right then you could really hurt yourself.

well he who dares rodder's he who dares. :)

10th November 2007, LOTR rohan. (christchurch)

2007-11-29T06:03:00.000+01:00

First off sorry for no pictures, i am on a PONY PC that will not expect my memory card or pen-drive. but alot of people want this updated so enjoy.....

Im rather excited today i get to go see where they filmed Lord of the Rings Rohan scenes which was out of film 2 twin towers.

Got onto the bus it takes about 2hrs to drive out there, and the bus is full so i had to take the front seat. thats ok with me, i get a better view of the country side. So we got commentary on the way, things like how the discovered the place. apparently it was peter jacksons scouts was flying a plane around and didn't find what they were looking for, but on the way back they flew over this valley and they called peter he came down and had a look and they filmed there.

Well there is a little more to it then that, other things we were told was, that it took 8months for them to build the town, which was mainly out of polystyrene they then filmed the scenes only the outside as the inside of the hall was done in a studio in wellington. the filming only took 8 days to do, and then they took it all down, apparently the government said peter could do all this work in NZ as long as he left it the way he found it, bummer really it would of been nice to have the town there and actually walk round it.

Anyway, got there and wow it was so amazing. the valley they choose is really really spectacular, got plenty of pics, we first of took pics from the distance then took the 6 wheel jeep over the streams, only just making it mainly because the driver forgot to engage the wheel nuts, anyway we made it, stood on the hill thing that the town was built on and stood around for a while taking lots of pictures, was there for a good 30-40mins. Still can't believe the scenery was so amazing.

then had lunch which was free, we had sandwiches, wine and cake. nothing special but was good enough. then back to Christchurch, we i vegged out for the day, watched another film sorry people, but its either watch and film or something or go out drinking and yes i have done enough of that.

P.S sorry for the late updating this, but when traveling round New zealand with the stray bus, there is not much internet available plus i am on and off the bus pretty much everyday. the places they did have internet it was $5 for 30mins, where i ususal pay $3 for an hour. sod that.

9th Novemeber 2007. Christchurch.

2007-11-19T05:01:00.000+01:00

OMG some people are so fucking rude. mister american arsehole im not gonna introduce myself and be a big fat cock all my life. Decided he is getting up, i think going to work, anyway at 6:30am. but instead of being nice and quiet im gonna slam bathroom doors and wake up the whole universe.

Thanks.

So i finally got up as i was not gonna be sleeping. decided i would change rooms there is enough rooms in this place so i can find one that i like surely. would like some good sleep for a change.

So changed rooms to one with just 2 women in it. american women, but nice enough or seems it anyway. No i didn't wake them up, they were actually rather impressed i managed to come into the room, take a shower and move about without waking them up.

so by the time they actually woke up it was infact around 12pm, we had a chat and that. then they were going for a cheap lunch. $5 for a curry. Well im game for that sort of price.

So they invite me along we go for some curry. wasn't bad. well was pretty good for $5. They seem like nice girls they are traveling together have a car, and are going out tonight and want me to come along. Well ok twist my arm, you know me never like to drink much, but being the gentleman i am, have to escort these lovely women out for the evening. its a hard life.

so i left them there were gonna walk round the botanical garden and do some shopping or something (don't get me started again. lol )

so i left them to it and went to the information place. to book some stuff. So looks like there are a few things to do around here. first off i want to do a lord of the rings tour, i get to go see rohan. which should be pretty good booked that for tomorrow, and the next day the 11th i will go do some white water rafting.

Oh yeah also booked my bus tour round NZ, wow i just spent lots of money in a matter of minutes, not good, but will be worth it, i hope.

so took a walk round the town and botanical gardens, got back to the hostel and had some dinner, then watched another film. went to bed

8th November 2007, Christchurch New Zealand.

2007-11-19T04:53:00.000+01:00

Hey i am so excited off to a new location and new country which is a great feeling after being stuck in sydney for 7 days. and those at the end where pretty long days.

So left Sydney at 9:30am and arrived in Christchurch at 2:30pm. i am now 13 hrs ahead, and looking on a globe it appears i am pretty much exactly half way round the world. wow scary thought i think. but pretty exciting at the same time.

So the sun is shining weather is sweet. Not a really hot day, but still sun is better then bloody rain. Yeah i bet a get a few comments about it, seen as i have been rubbing it in for england. wonder if it is still raining there.

So got to christchurch, i am in a hostel called cokeys, which my sister informs me she stayed at, says it is a good one, lets see. First impressions it looks old, but it is big.

So did the usual went round christchurch, did the walk around thing and get to know the place. went to a information centre, there quite a few things i wanna do round here, like the lord of the rings city rohan was filmed round here and they do tours, white water rafting and a few others.

at the moment i just got some leaflets, to give me this evening to look over them and decided what i wanna do.

So treated myself and got a KFC for dinner, went back to the hostel meet some room mates, not sure there name now, some koren guy and some american which didn't actually introduce himself anyway. well nevermind.

Went down to the bar, had one beer to celebrate getting out of oz alive. lol. Then got kicked out the bar as there wasn't enough people in there to keep it open. how shit is that.

So went to the TV room, meet a lovely women called lorry ( i think) she was a american chinese women, with dreads, not seen that before, she has had a heavy night and was watching movies all day. anyway watched another movie with me, and i went to bed pretty much after that.

7th November 2007, Sydney.

2007-11-19T04:49:00.000+01:00

Still raining. but today wow the diving card has turned up. Bloody hell it was no easy task though. I called the head office to see where it was they told me it is in glebe post office. i went to glebe post office. they told me it wasn't there. I asked them to look. they spent all of 30sec's taking a look. Sod this phoned head office again from in the post office, they confirmed it was still there in the post office, told them that the people here didn't look every hard.

the person i spoke to on the phone was gonna get the officer who dealt with my query to call me back in 5mins.

Anyway while waiting for the officer to call me back. funny enough the post office actually found the parcel, it was there all along.

Told you Oz post was as good as english post.

OK well Tania left today for bali, so i went and changed my flight out of here for New Zealand for tomorrow. yippee i can't wait. I hear NZ is better the oz, and people are more friendlier.

Lets hope plus i am bored of sydney now.

6th Novemeber 2007. sydney.

2007-11-19T04:48:00.001+01:00

Still no diving membership. Again didn't do anything, i have run out of things to do, i do go back to the opera house and took a few more pics with the new camera.

Nothing to report appart from still raining.

5th Novemeber 2007. Sydney.

2007-11-19T04:46:00.000+01:00

Didn't actually do anything this day. just walked around, im waiting for my diving membership to arrive from home to the post office in sydney, it was guarantee to be here by Monday. oh look at that this is monday. Bloody oz post office is as bad as englands. Pain in the arse.

By the way it is still raining.

4th November 2007 Sydney.

2007-11-17T09:55:00.000+01:00

Well its bloody raining again i have never seen so much rain in oz, in all my travels. Might of bloody well stayed in england. nah !!!!!

So what to do when it rains, well the girls again wanted to do more shopping this time in actually shopping centres, not paddys market. Dam i have not got a lot of options there isn't that much to do round here when it is raining.

so spent most of the day, talking to david, thank god for some male company, cheers dave. While the women again walked round all the shopping arcades and didn't buy anything. bloody women, but hey i have been they will not repeat myself.

After this shopping nightmare, we had a walk round darling harbour. which was pleasant it was still raining so nothing special. check the imax out to see what they were playing, nothing i am interested in. i know caroline wanted to see harry potter, because the last 20mins in a imax are in 3D, may of blagged me to go and see that but they have stopped playing it now. Although they have beowolf coming out soon which is is 3D or so it says. but not out yet.

so anyway got back to the hostel and got a box of goon between the 4 of us, this should be interesting as Tania says she has never been drunk, turns out she has, but she thought drunk meant you didn't remember anything and was really silly. sorry babes, it just means you are drunk.

Anyway this night we played games, we played trival pursuit, it was the 20th anniversary addtion, so we thought it would be easier like the english version, but we forgot we was in australia and it was gonna be about the last 20 years in australia. Needless to say we were all pretty shit with the oz questions, some sciences ones and film one we were ok with.

So after that we decided to play Jenga, which was pretty good fun, we actually got the tower to 32 ful levels. which i think is a personnal best. certainly didn't get that high wheni was playing with just my mouth in pi pi island.

3rd November 2007 sydney,

2007-11-16T09:03:00.000+01:00

So the weather is a bit brighter, well it isn't raining and from what we hear that is gonna be the best day we will get for a few days.

Today the four of us, decided to go down to bondi beach. Plus i get to try out my new camera.

got a train over there and then a short bus ride. Well not as big as impressive as i thought it was gonna be. not sure what i expected, but i have definitely seen bigger and better beaches, Maybe it was the weather maybe it wasn't.

As lucky would have it we are there just in time for a college sculptor display. There was about all in all about 30 sculptors. some where good some were to me pointless. However we wanted to walk from Bondi beach to coogee beach which is meant to be a very nice 2 hour walk. and the display was on the beginning of the hike.

Did the walk it did actually take 2 hours, was some nice scenery, i have seen better, but defiantly worth the walk, yes it was worth the walk.

got to try out my new camera, which bloody hell has a zoom on it any man would be proud of at a beach ;) lol.

sat down in coogee beach for a while, didn't do alot. Got back to the hostel, made some dinner, chilled out. watched some TV. house was on, which is a class tv program.

2nd november 2007. Sydney.

2007-11-16T08:51:00.000+01:00

So i can't believe it is raining today, bloody great. So today, the four of us, David, Caroline, Tania and I. All went shopping !!!! well lets be honest now, Tania and Caroline went shopping, David and i watched and sat outside shops and talked alot.

Dam i like Tania and hanging out with her, but its like having a girlfriend sometimes, but not having any sex. well yeah ok its like having a girlfriend !!!! lol.

So i only agreed to go shopping as it was raining and it was raining heavy. So we went to Paddy's market, which is just a big market full of stalls that sell everything. Walked around there for the morning, i didn't buy anything and im not sure anyone else did as a matter of fact. lol women.

So found a food court that sold cheap dinners, it was only $8 for a pretty big meal. Had lunch. I think we then went shopping in a arcade, which is a shopping centre or mall. So its still raining, but at least it is nice to be hanging out with a man, at least i get someone to talk to while women are "shopping". how the hell so women do it, shop for hours and don't buy anything, i suppose it is one of the worlds greatest mysteries. like why do women always have to have there mouth open when applying mascara, or why stairs are called stairs inside but called steps outside.

So i am getting my camera back today, well i thought i was. I got a call about 4:30pm, telling me that the camera was really broken, and didn't just have sand in it like they thought. It was gonna cost me like twice and price of what i paid for it, which i don't see how the hell that works. anyway, the bloke on the end of the phone also told me that i had to pay $50 just for them to have a look, but if i didn't come into the shop to pick it up, then they couldn't charge me. mmm nice of him to say.

so left the camera there and went looking for a new one. Couldn't find one that was a cheap as the one i just brought, maybe that is a good thing seen as it broke after 7months. So i ended up buying a Fuji finepix s5700, which wasn't the cheapest, but was by far the best and was only $50 more then the cheapest one. so i got that.

David wanted to go for a beer then, yeah it wasn't me honest !!!! ;)

So there is a pub near the hostel called nagshead, yes just like only fools and horses, i think it did actually look a bit like it. Went there for 1 beer.

Got back to the hostel and chilled went to bed.

1st November Sydney.

2007-11-12T05:20:00.001+01:00

ok today i split up with Tania, went to a converse shoe outlet, just outside sydney what she wanted to do, but i wanted to go and take pictures of sydney opera house and stuff, which she has already done.

So went to the botanical gardens today. yes i may of been to alot, but the price is always right, free. plus this time if you go to the end of the gardens it has a viewpoint to take the picture that everyone takes when in sydney. see pic 3.

So got into the gardens, it was rather pleasant, i must admit the best botanical garden i have been to is still melbourne. but these are rather nice. Has some nice lakes, and water features, again i felt compelled to take pictures of flowers, yeah i must be getting old.

So got to the viewpoint, which i thought was really really nice. as you can see from pic 3. i probably took more photos then i should of done, but hey i am only gonna be hear once, will at least in the new few years anyway.

I then walked over to the opera house and had a little look around it, didn't go inside. One thing i did notice is that there is a wire mesh over the opera house, which i didn't expect, did also take a close up but didn't add it to this, it maybe on facebook. However i was going from the Sydney opera house back to the main street, which is george street, just to see what else i can take pictures off.

AND my fucking camera broke. couldn't believe it, i have only had this camera 7 months. Dam it. So found a shop that will send it away for repair, but it will cost me the same price as i brought it brand spanking new for. dam it. so to him to go ahead.

but i know have no camera, shit. Well walked around for a bit more, meet up with Tania, at the hostel, and chilled out that evening. didn't so much.

Two of Tania's friends have joined us, a nice couple, bloke David is welsh, and his girlfriend, Caroline hussey is from Ireland.

So spent the evening talking to them, and as luck would have it they have also got into our room, so its nice to have a few more people to hang out with.

31st October 2007, Sydney.

2007-11-01T05:03:00.000+01:00

Ok got off bus today in sydney. I didn't have a bad sleep, not a great sleep, but better. I think it was well worth investing in this travel pilloow. wow.

So anyway located our hostel it is just outside in Glebe, quite a nice hostel. There is another dutch girl in our 5 bed dorm, so Tania can practise her Dutch, she tells me she is struggling after speaking english for the past year.

As always with a new town, we went into the centre, actually we walked into the centre, it only took about 30mins. Not a bad walk. although it is a walk. dam im getting lazy(er)

So explorer the main street in sydney which is george street. Tania has been here before so that helps us out. she needed to go and collect her mail that has been building up while she has been traveling. Did that. I located Qantas office to change my flights out of this place.

then i wanted to walk through Hyde Park. yes Hyde Park. Was a nice little park, not much there really, a few statues, a pond. but pleasant park indeed. Basically i just wanted to say i had been through hyde park.

After that we went to a Art gallery, the price was right at 0 pounds. Well not sure what to say about this art gallery, it has art in it. Some good some/most crap. Im not really an art man, i can appreicate some art and the talent some artists have. but some are really crap and looks like a kid has done it. Bit like Aborigney art really.

It has now started to rain, so we was gonna walk up to the botanica gardens, but can't be arsed int he rain. So went back to the hostel. It is film not here tonight, so made dinner sat down to watch a film. Dam it what was it. mmmmm. had ewen Macgregor in and was really a strange film. it was about him leaving a town where we was the greatest to see what he can make of himself. quite an old film. big fish or something like that. anyway if you have seen it you may understand what i mean by strange film. not sure if i liked it or not.

Well i hope the rain stops for tomorrow. but anyway i don't let rain spoil my fun, it just mean is i get wet.

30th October 2007. Byron bay. to Sydney

2007-11-01T05:02:00.002+01:00

Well its no ones b'day today, well not any one we know so guess what, weather was absolutely beautiful. Just like penguin !!!!

We have the bus to get in the afternoon. And Tania really wants to see hairspray, well at least it is cheap today. So we both went to the cinema again, i know i probably shouldn't of but i had nothing else to do. didn't want to go to beach or do surfing as i have packed my bag and don't wanna take wet clothes in my bag to sydney.

So cinema, i really didn't want to see hair spray she Tania went on her own and i watched Michael Clayton. mmm not really sure what to make of the film, very hard to explain. a kind of confusing film. it was good but was shit at the same time. i know im not making much sense, but Tania asked me after the film what it was about and if i liked it. i confused her as well so don't worry.

getting one that takes all night and we get here in the morning. i know it is hard to Hung around till the late afternoon to get the bus to sydney, it is "only" 13hrs. so i suggestedsleep on buses but we save a "whole" nights accommodation money. yippee..

So got on the bus, managed to get two seats to ourselfs, which is always good when you have to sleep. plus i get to try out my knew traveling pillow, which worked out beautifully thanks for asking. i hoping that put a film on in the bus as they do on big journeys. Asked the bus driver and he confirmed this. forgot to ask what it was but hey they all seem to be shit it was just something to watch.

BUT OMG i didn't think it was gonna be the first ever series of "on the buses" my god how shit is that, its still in black and white which i know isn't a main problem but my god it was so so so so so so so shit. The really big problem was for some reason this driver had the TV so bloody loud i couldn't even listen to my ipod without hearing the TV. which is again sods law, as i have had a film on this type of bus before in oz, yes it was shit but it was half watchable, but the driver had it so low i coulnd't really hear it.

So anyway i think i managed to watch about 7 episodes of on the buses. OMG i want to jump under the bus by the time the first episode had finished let alone by the seventh.

Anyway one think it did do was remind me of my parents next door neighbour, which looks so much lke olive, from on the buses. Which come to think of it is not a good thing.

nevermind hit sydney tomorrow lets hope thats better then these episodes.

29th October 2007 Byron bay,

2007-11-01T05:02:00.001+01:00

So today is Tania's birthday, she has hit 20 years old. ahhh just a pup. i think i can remember back when i hit 20. although not sure at my age. might of been a bit of a haze anyway.

So Tania thought that since she was in australia she might actually get a day with sun as she has never or since she can remember have had a sunny day on her birthday. Well law of the sod says if you wanted it to be sunny it won't be. and my what a shit day it was raining all day all night. Was gonna do a few things on this day like hire out a surf board. i was still gonna do it, as yeah i going to get wet anyway. but decided against it, i couldn't leave poor Tania alone on her b'day.

So we actually didn't do anything during the day i think we sat in a internet office for a while, we did go to the cinema in the evening, as that is what she wanted to do. Oh she also wanted Pizza and cake for her b'day. Well you can't let someone buy there own b'day cake or pizza can you. So i treated her to both. i mean really buying you own b'day cake. Not on my watch darling.

she thanked me for both and we went to the cinema, she wanted to see Hairspray, but that isn't on in the evening. so we went to see Good luck chuck. It wasn't bad, chick flick. quite funny. there is a fat bloke in it that was quite funny he was just blanant with what he said and didn't care how rude it was.

So that was that day. i had a few drinks in the evening for Tania, i think she had one, but yeah i had a few someone needs to celebrate. lol. any excuse.

28th October 2007 byron bay. Nimbin.

2007-11-01T05:01:00.002+01:00

OK today we booked a trip to Nimbin, which is Amsterdam in Australia, which basically means its where loads of hippies are and all they do is smoke marijuana all day everyday.

Well first part of the trip they took us to bungalow which is a town in this area, it has a huge market there. Im not too interested but Tania is and they take they there anyway if you like it or not.

So got to the market, had a look round, managed to walk round the whole thing, it was pretty big, it took us 1hr and 45 mins to walk round, lets just say if i was on my own it would of took me about 20mins. but we all know what women are like. she brought some beads to make a braclet with, and that was it. in an 1hr and 45mins and god knows how many stalls she brought just beads. oh well thats women for you. i brought a hotdog. thats men for you, lol.

So got to nimbin, its not very big we managed to walk from one end to the other in 5mins. so that shows how big is it. We only got offered marijuana about 7 times in that 5mins, No i didn't buy any. neither did Tania, which is surprising she is from holland. lol. no she is a good girl.

Nothing really much there we went there just to experiance Nimbin for what it is a hippy town with hippys all over the places. We did walk into a "museum" which was a house with four rooms talking about how the place got to be a hippy place. nothing to interesting. one of the rooms had people sell pot again, another room had classes on how to roll a splif. so yeah nothing of interest to either of us.

Tania brought some tea from there, not sure she really realised it was made with hemp or something but she is excited about it. To be honest i wasn't really listening to the man when he was talking about all these types of tea and what they "do" for you. some BS about helping medical conditions or helping you to get erections. i don't know. anyway i told her after we left the shop that she would properly get high from drinking it and may not want to take it through customs, although the man did say they are legal. Yeah i suppose selling marijuana on the streets is legal too, No is it not anyway in australia.

anyway i hear she has sent it home, and her mum is interested in what it tastes like. they could be fun to watch. Go Tania, please tell me what it was like and if you and you mum got stoned off it. lol.

Anyway on the way back we was taken to a waterfall, sorry that should be a "waterfall" australia is having its worst draught for 10-20 years or something, so there was not alot of water over this waterfall. had a nice view but nothing i had not seen before.

So got back to hostel, decided i needed an earlyish night, spent evening playing cards and reading. No tell a lie we watched a film with an italian guy. Which makes me laugh really because he was "working" there, well not a the moment as he has hurt his foot. he is aloud to have the keys to the TV room after hours and sit in there and watch films. As always its not what you know its who you know. that reall annoys me those types of things, if he can do that then everyone should be able to. anyway we had befriended him a few days before and we watched it with him anyway.

27th October 2007.Bryon Bay

2007-11-01T05:01:00.001+01:00

Walked up to the light house today, it is the further eastern point in Australia, which is pretty cool. it was a nice walk up there, the lighthouse is situated on a pinnacle. Took about an hour or so to walk up there, we went from the hostel up to the beach and walked along the beach. too the scenic route up to the light house.

what was really excellent was when you are up at the lighthouse you can look out to the sea, and we actually saw wild dolphins, whales, sea turtles and string rays. i tried to get a picture of the dolphins, you can just about make out some shadow in the water where they were. i was quite far up. anyway.

After that morning of walking we got back to the hostel decided on going to the beach. this hostel also has free body boards, so took a couple of them, no i don't mean 2 for me, im not that fat thankyou. i mean one for Tania and one for me. thanks you.

Went down the beach did some body boarding, was much better at it this time, then i was in surfers, this is a different board. oh shit how do i put this without soundly like a fat bastard. these boards are sturder and better made. no that didn't work.

so topped up me tan again. this is hard work this topping tans up ever so often. mum i never knew you worked so hard lying outside in the garden whenever there is sun. :)

So got back to hostel, made some dinner. Got back to room. Natalie and Ella the two english girls from our room are going out tonight. So they twisted my arm to go along.

Went out to a place called cheeky monkeys, yeah i did fit in rather well. Actually i thought it was a shit night. Went out, they got chatted up by blokes and got them to buy them drinks. bloody women, cheeky if you ask me. anyway i thought well sod this and left them to it, i wasn't going to hang around on my own.

26th October surfers paradise to byron bay.

2007-11-01T05:00:00.004+01:00

So got the bus today, just as it says in the title from surfers paradise to byron bay, doh.

Have heard lots of good things about bryon bay, hope they all all correct. OK got off the bus, hostel is hear to pick us up, but the bus they own is being repaired, great start, actually you dont really need a bus as it was only a 5min walk, buti guess that isn't the point. actually got to the hostel and the own was just going to pick it up after being repaired.

nevermind. so put bags down, this place looks quite nice has a pool. meet the 2 girls in our dorm, so again yes its me and all women. the other 2 girls are from england, seem ok. Tania says there not her type of people. but i think they are ok, i get on with most people.

So as usual first day so im not doing much. had a walk round, getting my bears. chilled out for the evening in hostel.

25th October 2007. Movie world.

2007-11-01T05:00:00.003+01:00

So off to movie world today. Got there around 10am, not as big as Tania and i had hoped, but till looks like something to do for the day. There are 2 main rides here, Lethal weapon (lol, need i say more !!!) superman escape and wild wild west falls adventure.

now so start with wild wild falls is not working, great. So we went straight onto superman, which is not bad, no upside down bits, but it propels you from 0 to 120KMH in 2 sec's which is pretty good. so basically it was a fast ride.

from there we went to lethol weapon, which was really good, you do 2 loop the loops and 3 cork (haha nearly wrote cock then) screws.

Then we went to see shriek live show, that was ok, nothing special more for kids then anything, it was just a little story about fiona wanting to have a concert in the swamp and shriek didn't, they all sung and danced and shriek joined in. but was ok, plus we got out of the rain, and by the time we got back outside it has stopped.

After that i think we took some lunch, nothing special i had a bat burger i think, something like that. From there we went to shriek 4D (same one as in orlando, if you have been there) but actually ended up in police academy special stunt thing. Well to be honest with this one, both Tania and I thought the best bit was the police bloke at the begininng entertaining the crowd while everyone got to a seat, he was taking the piss out off alot of people that walked by did some balloon tricks there where funny, and generally clowned around. the show was ok, they did sokme stunts nothing i haven't seen before. spinning cars round, blowing them up, they even had the fake person from the crowd they kicked about the place and stuff.

anyway from there, i think we then went to the shriek 4D show, which was good, again as i had done orlando one i knew what to expect, but good seeing Tania hadn't seen it before. Like the sneeze and the spiders personally, (sorry i dont want to spoil it for anyone that has not seen it)

After that we did the scooby doo scarey ride. which i thought would be crap, but was not bad, the first bit was a little shit, just like a ghost train but then you climb up and it speeds up and you go round corners really quickly.

there are two batman rides there aswell, batman 1 is just a straight up in the air and fall down, i don't like those really, so we did the batman 2, not knowing what it was. Well it was shit, it was just a simulator nothing great at all.

Oh yeah we watched the parade at somepoint, which is where all the pic's come from. that wasn't too bad. catwomen was very nice to see :)

Just added the pic so you can see what i mean :)

after all that we had a little walk round, then back to the lethal weapon ride, as it was the best. managed to get on that 2-3 times in a row as it was closing time which was only 5pm, thought that was a little early nevermind. still had fun.

24th October 2007, Surfers Paradise,

2007-11-01T05:00:00.001+01:00

OK well, feeling pretty tired today, thought i would have another lazy day, plus tania is coming down to meet up with me today, we will travel the last few stops down to sydney together.

So they hire out free body boards in my hostel, so i grabed one of them and headed down to the beach, pretty much stayed there all day, did some body boarding which is alot easier and less knackering then surfing i will tell you.

So stayed on the beach till it got dark, then just went back to the hostel and chilled out, watched some TV. Tania arrived at around 8pm, we stayed up chatting and deciding which amusement park we are going to go to. We have decided to go to Movie world tomorrow. Hope its fun.

23rd October 2007, surfers paradise.

2007-11-01T04:59:00.006+01:00

so got up today, it seems strange boy from the room did bring my film back so i guess that is some points for him at the moment. although he sleeps alot. thats pretty much all i have seen him do so far. watch TV and sleep. anyway his life.

there is a few things to do around surfers, but i had a call from Tania the dutch girl i meet in cairns who is also traveling down to Sydney, like most all people that start in Cairns. anyway she wants to meet up and travel the last few places together, so i said i would hang around surfers for a bit for her to get here. actually she should get here tomorrow afternoon. it just means i can't do much until she gets here, as she may want to do those things as well. Basically there are some amusement parks around here.

So today i have a surf lesson. mmm what to say, well i did stand up twice in my first lesson which i thought was pretty good. it is only a 2 hour lesson so i thought it was good anyway. Well i say stand up that means staying up for aroudn 5 sec's, which is good i don't care what you think, and i don't think i should get any comments unless you have actually tried yourself. yes that includes you Mark R, plus i think if you did try the board with sink with that belly of yours ;) lol.

So surfer, well that has to be the most knackering thing i have actually done on this trip, yeah definitely. wow i can see why all these full time surfers have muscular bodys, hey maybe i should take it up. get rid of this so called beer belly i have had comments about. :(

so after that, i went for a pint, yeah im sure real surfers dont do it. but i really needed one to quench my thirst. surfing was really good i hope to do more on my travels and maybe more when i get back to england. i can't get the spring straight up onto the board but hey i think i did well getting up on the board twice in a 2 hour lesson.

So the rest of the day was resting. on the beach topping up my tan. eating and sleeping very very well. very very well.

I didn't actually take any pics of surfers paradise sorry about that people of england, whoever reads this. at the end of the day it was a beach. a nice big beach but just a beach.

22nd october surfers paradise

2007-11-01T04:59:00.005+01:00

so took the bus from brissie today. Said goodbye to Zara, as she was going further down then me. way hey !!! not like that people.

Anyway said goodbye, i got off at surfers paradise. sounds nice. Well all in all it was very very nice and looked alot like paradise but had a city backdrop, which kind of spoilt things a bit.

Anyway arrived booked into the hostel. actually found out that indy the american F1 was here over the weekend, and i should of come a day or 2 days before to see it. dam that would of been quite sweet. they race around the streets and stuff, like F1 does in Monaco.

anyway i mess that, all i got to see was the mess they make and all the stands and stuff they had put up, as i believe it takes them weeks to take them down, just like the british works these boys out here, i guess they learnt from the best !!!!!! it takes them ages to do anything, but i main difference instead of drinking tea all the time and doing nothing else, the boys out here just drink beer all the time and do sod all else.

So my hostel is a little out the way, about a 10min drive, but they provide free buses in and out of surfers main town centre.

so as most new days i walked around got my bears of the city, sat on the beach for a while. Booked a surfing lesson for tomorrow, i have been waiting to do some surfing for a while, but this is really the first place that has decent waves. Beach is nice enough much like the other ones, however it is probably much bigger. looks like it goes on for miles. and i also see some more boobies here, which is nice i guess ;)

so got back to the hostel it was movie night, so had dinner and chilled out in the TV room. watched road of redemption, i think. it had tom hanks in it and wasn't bad something i hadn't seen before. yeah i think it was that film.

anyway went to bed, leaving other people to watch my Die hard 4 dvd that i brought in china. My room mate will bring it in when he has finished. He seems ok a bit strange not quite sure what i mean, just a little strange.

21st Brisbane

2007-11-01T04:59:00.003+01:00

Ok still in Brisbane this is my last day, i leave tomorrow for surfers paradise. that should be a bit more interesting.

So today i we found out that we can take the ferry up and down Brisbane river for only $4. so we decided we would do that. Also meet up with Zara's friend (sorry forgot her name, an irish girl) picture shows Zara on the right and friend on the left.

So again didn't do anything, just went up and down Brisbane river got off on a few stops and walked around there is not much here to see.

A city is a city is a city.

In the evening, meet up with Zara's friend and her friends sister, went into town, Had a few drinks, they wanted to go clubbing, but the only club we found open on a Sunday was a gay place. i was not "feeling" that place, so i left early and left the girls to it.

sorry this is a little boring but thats what i thought of Brisbane.

20th October 2007, brisbane.

2007-11-01T04:59:00.001+01:00

OK checked brisbane out a bit and it seems there isn't that much to do around here, so basically walked round the whole of brisbane, well the whole of the city centre, didn't actually do anything.

OMG i nearly forgot yes i did. MR ROCHE i finally got a haircut, hows that. blimey i nearly forgot to say that. well i best add a picture i suppose otherwise you will not believe me.

Well i look a bit gorless in the pic, but i guess thats me :)

What else did Zara and i do. mmmmm. oh yeah we went to the cinema, we want and say rogue assassin, new film with jet lee and jason bloke from transporter. Not a bad film, rather twisty and has you thinking through the film, but i expected more marital arts, which i didn't get.

not much else to say about this day really

19th Noosa beach to Australian zoo to Brisbane.

2007-11-01T04:58:00.001+01:00

So had to get up today pretty early, as i have booked a trip to the australian zoo, which is steve urwins zoo. well i guess that should be was his zoo, all his family still live there. His father actually started the zoo, and that is where steve grew up and got his passion for animals. I watched a film on the bus on route to his zoo.

Anyway got to the zoo, not as big as i thought, but there are a quite a few animals here. so walked around went and saw all the animals. Best animal i think was the wombat, which was the first time i had seen one and is in the 2nd picture. I thought they were really cute and i want one. never got to stroke one but that doesn't matter.

So what else did i see, tigers, kangaroos (normal and red) koalas, wombats, snakes, crocs, lizards, komado dragon, elephants. and lots of other things i can't remember. sorry need to check out the photos on facebook if you wanna see, i made sure i took a picture of every animal, well nearly the only one i didn't see or take a picture of (obviously silly boy if you didn't see it !!!) was a Tasmanian devil. which i was interested to see, i have seen one before on TV, but not in real life. well i guess i have more time in my life to see one.

So im glad i was moving on straight from there to brisbane, because the bus they arrange for you from noosa and back, you don't pay for but you arrive at 10:00am ish, and they dont pick you up till 4:30pm. That is a bloody long day to spend in a zoo, especially when it is not that big.

anyway i had finished looking round the whole zoo by about 13:30. and i had booked a greyhound bus from here to Brisbane for 14:50, so i didn't have much time to waste i basically left the zoo sat outside in the hot hot sun (hahaha england :) ) and read my book. blimey it was really really hot that day, i got even more brown then i was, which is pretty brown well for me.

so got on the bus, it took me only about an hr or 2 to get to Brisbane. checked in to the hostel which is just outside the transit centre of Brisbane. Then got a call from Zara asking if i was in Brisbane yet. so meet up with her, walked around Brisbane for a while, just to get some bearings. Went back to the hostel, made some food, chilled out and went to bed.

18th october 2007 Noosa Beach.

2007-11-01T04:18:00.000+01:00

Ok got up today, had a look what there is to do around here, There doesn't seem to be alot here to do. the hostel hires out kayaks which i think we will do today. check out how far the beach is, but you need to get a bus and walk for a while. its a little to far to be honest.

So hired some kayaks out with Zara, and went for a little kayak straight over the river, we located a no idea what you call it, a little stream that goes into the island, and is only big enough for a kayak, i.e no boats, we have been told there should be some string rays and wild life around here. Actually on the way down the stream thingy we found a big bird, looked like a pelican, but it had a black beak, so i have no idea what it was. sorry this isn't working out to well so far is it i don't know the name of anything so far. well i know my dad should understand all these thingys and what-you-call-it's !!! :)

Anyway found this bird that was eating, so we stayed still for about 5-10mins and watched that eating, it was quite nice, nice and peaceful, no body around and no noise. tranquil if you like.

anyway once that bird had flown off, we continued on down the stream, we both thought that this would lead somewhere and but found out it goes to a dead end, and it wasn't really big enough to turn the kayak around in. some how we managed it.
and then on the way back we actually , located some string rays, which was nice. i think we found around 9-10 string rays. just floating along on the bottom of the stream thingy.

got out back to the river, kayak'd around for a while. got tired so headed back to the hostel.

Walk around again, this time went down to the proper town part, OMG this looks posh, lots of toffs walking around. oh well. We went down to the nation park which we did a walking trail round. didn't see anything special. well saying that i found 2 people that i did whitsundays with that i also saw on fraiser, nice to see them again. kevin and barbara.

got back to the hostel it was dark by then. chilled out in the bar area and had a laugh with a few people. played some table tennis, well i tried. and yes you know me and fell right over and cut my knee open, apparently as usual it was rather funny or so jason tells me. anyway a few more drinks and laughs later. decided it was time for bed. Got back into my bedroom. with another drink and two women decided to walk in and join us.

all got chatting and jason and i said we would go out with them to a club or something. yes they were both fit.
so got changed ready and went back to there room, so sara could finish her goon (sorry goon isn't actually wine it is fish eggs and has no grapes or anything in it, don't ask any more as i dont know anymore, but it gets you pissed)

so got back to sara's room, sat there for a while with a few more people, having a laugh, then realised we were not going out anywhere, so sodded off back to my room as they were a bit boring. and yes i wasn't gonna get anywhere with a room full of people.

18th October 2007, Hevery bay to Noosa Heads

2007-10-31T03:17:00.000+01:00

OK, got up today, well tell a lie, got woken up today by oliver. saying it was 9:30am. Zara and i had booked a bus down to noosa beach that leaves at 10am. oops.

Literary staggered down to the mini bus that takes us to the greyhound terminal. Got on the greyhound. tried to sleep most of the 4 hrs down to noose beach. didn't do to bad, but they put a film on, no idea what it was i was trying to sleep. But how rude are these buses, it's like 10:30am, im trying to sleep and they put a bloody film on, well i never !!!!!

So finally got to noosa beach, feeling a bit better then when i got on the bus. So HAd to call the hostel we had booked because for some reason they weren't there like the rest of the hostels. thats not a good start surely.

anyway got to the hostel its quite a nice hostel, nothing bad from what i can see. they hire out free kayak, so will give that a try some time.

So because both zara and i was so knackered, we did nothing today, walk around the town, had a nice chinese meal as we both didn't want to cook and hey you can treat yourself ever so often.

Got back to the hostel, actually it was strange the whole of our dorm, which was full. 8 people were all in bed and asleep by 9pm. i have never seen that before, apparently the night before was a full on mess and the guys in the dorm had a party going on till the early hours and have now had a bollocking and if they do it again they will be kicked out. which is good for me as i want sleep, sleep sleep.

17th october 2007 fraiser island, back to hervey bay.

2007-10-25T12:32:00.001+01:00

Ok got up today, at around 7:30am, i actually only got up because i thought i heard the voices of my group, however on getting up and checking it out they were the voices of the other groups. oh well.

this time i cooked my own breakfast. fuck everyone else. no bloody thank you's or nothing.

So finally everyone else got up, steve's turn to drive again, not sure i would want to drive in the morning. lucky i don't have to. this time we are off to lake wabby. Parked up had about a 30min walk to the lake. nothing special it is another clear water lake, so nice not to have any salt water. hang around there for a while. Got back to 4x4, made some lunch, actually we had the dinner we never had on the first night, so roast beef sandwichs and mash potatoe's. does the job.

Next i we went off to eli creak. yeah they even have creaks over on this island. i hate to think how many creaks i have seen or gone over in australia, there are thousands, every little bit of water is a creak. anyway walked down this creak took a little over 10mins. got to nothing. didn't see anything, just got my legs wet up to the knees.
checking the itenerary, it says it should take us an hour to drive across the island, however we all think it will take more, so we have given ourselfs a good 2 hrs. to make sure. dont wanna miss the ferry if we do it is a $250 fine. yeah ouch !!!!

this time i drove again. still love driving on sand, good fun. got to the ferry port, about 40mins earlier so thats quite good. had some left over food while we waited. Got the ferry back to hervey bay.
I drove to the garage where we got the 4x4 from. how strange to drive on roads again. mmm.
got to the garage had to clean out the car and get all the stuff down, then we noticed that the camp stove we had, was somehow broke the metal had actually broken nearly in two. not sure how that happened, but i think we were lucky. Lisa and philly worked at the hostel i am staying at and got to know these guys that loan the 4x4 to us quite well, and the bloke said "i didn't see it" as he took it into the garage. which is always nice.

not sure they would of been as nice if lisa and philly weren't they. Well at least those two were good for something i guess !!!!! (oohhhhh bitch :). )

so got back to the hostel, had time to chill they give you a room with everyone in. Oh i forgot to say the irish girls started drinking at 8:30am this morning, they felt they had to finish off the supply or something. i don't care i had my fair share, plus i was driving, not a good idea to get back to the garage smelling or goon (that cheap wine to you and me england, and no it doens't mean arsenal Mr roche )

So anyway we had to pay nothing which is great, i hear while we was away, some group got salt water on there engine and had to pay $200 each which was the deposit we put down when you take the 4x4. i also understand they were not happy and started a punch up with the bloke, claiming they hadn't done it. not my problem anyway.

So chilled out in the hostel, everyone want to go out and keep drinking, well the irish girls did anyway, i guess they were already on there way, so what did it matter.

We all got pizza delivered to the hostel played the drinking game again, i think it's a hit. must play it a few times when i get home, if i get home. not thats more likely when i get home.

So went out i thought we were going to a club, but ended up going to another hostel that has a big bar. played some pool, drunk some beer. had a chat and a laugh with a few ozzies that were there, strange they are the nicest ozzies i have meet.

anyway got home around 4am in the morning not sure what happened to the irish girls they left early. can't handle the pace i guess, typically irish all mouth no stamina. lol.

16th fraiser island.

2007-10-25T12:27:00.001+01:00

got up today, impressed my self actually, i was first one up, and was last one to bed last night. oh well. these kids of today, just dont have the stamina that i had in my younger years. ohhhh must be all that TV and computer games, well when i was a kid we were lucky to get a stick and a stone to play in the streets with. my god they don't know how lucky there are. hold on thats not me, mmmmm.

Anyway !!!!
i started cooking breakie this morning, that got everyone up once they had smelt the sausages i was cooking. funny thing was, not one person said thanks, which kind of annoyed me a bit, well actually one did but she didn't need to as she was a veggie and cooked her own food. nevermind. hangovers i guess are a mother****er.

so oliver drove today, we went down the beach north to indian head, apparently you can see dolphins and whales from up here, but i think we are a little too late, i thought they normally come out early morning or late afternoon. anyway we didn't see them.

so then it is a hour walk to the champagne pools. wasn't bad, but i dont think it was worth the hour walk, you can drive up to them, but our insurance for some reason doesn't cover us past indian head. Basically it is a little pool the otherside of sea rocks. (pic 2), and when the water comes over the rocks i guess it looks a little like champagne, it wasn't deep though you can't even swim in them. Basically we are here till 2pm, due to tides again, so we had 4 hours to waste. Sat in the pools, talking to people for most of them time then took a slow walk back. had something to eat in the 4x4. waited around, playing cards with zara for a while. haha this time she isn't irish and i won something like 6 games to 1. hahaha. (bloody irish, yes thats you paul!!! lol)

this time we went for a little drive about, then got back to the camp before dark. yeah we was able to get some firewood and stuff in the light, so much easier. And i had an axe, so i was chopping down trees. it felt really manly too. Got back to camp decided to let other people so some work as the bloody women were doing sod all as usual. god knows what would of happened without 3 men in the group (yes i am a man before i get comments thanks:) ) well as i said no one can start a fire, i watched for abuot 20mins, then decided they had, had enough and helped out, they were putting may to much wood on the fire to start with and wasn't using the correct type of wood to start it with.

so finally got the women to do something, well actually it was dora and julie, which also helped to get some wood, they cooked dinner this time. spag bowl. which was ok. all food is precooked before we get to the island so there isn't alot involved really.
the Aborigines came along that own the camp and told us, that however build the biggest fire gets to have the Aborigines dance round it later tonight at 930pm. However 30mins later they came and asked us for a lift into the local town to get some supplies (and what made me laugh that included marajuana. mmmm not sure how Aborigine that is but whatever.

So because we took them to town i thought i would blag that they dance round our camp fire and we wouldn't have to go to someones elses. which i did. go Ian :)

So we had dinner, actually feed other campers from our food, as there group was messing around with fish they had got of a fisherman on the island or something, i wasn't realy listening, too busy drinking and talking to my group. but there was plenty to go round.

So everyone want to play the drinking game again i introduced them to yesterday, bloody group twisting my arm to drink and then play drinking games, im not sure how i am ever going to survive this traveling thing, It is such a hard life (or yeah england hows the working life going, lmfao (thats laughing my fucking arse off, for the older people that don't know, i won't say who they are ;). )
So played the drinking game again, everyone was still alive and well i was gonna say sober but that would be lying, still awake thats better.

Aborigines came to do there dance around 930pm, which was really really good. however my camera decided to die on me and i thought or was told we was gonna share photos, but it seems no one has, thanks zara for offering to send me some, when i actually get to emailing you.
so they were amazing, can't really describe it really, lots of foot stamping, banging woods together( no not my wood thanks). and singing, well sort of hopefully you know what i mean.

Oh yeah i forgot to say there are two rules when around these guys you can't whiste and you can't spit on the fire, it brings evil spirts. so come on people guess what ian did when they stoppped one of there dances, yep that right, gave a nice big whistle of appreication. boy did i get some looks from them and told very sharply not to whistle. oh well i am still alive and didn't see any evil spirts. plus lets be honest if they had come when i was a sleep my snoring would of scared them off, a Michael (hope i spelt that right this time).

so finsihed the night off by more drinking games. then a zara oliver and myself wanted to go down to the beach to check out some stars. wow there are more stairs here then in the outback. it was so beautiful. by the time we got back everyone else was asleep, no sorry sally wasn't she didn;t want to sleep alone and got me to sleep near her so she was not scared. Boy did she pick the wrong person to sleep near and she found out and proceeded to tell me in the morning, ian you snore !!!! :0 oh do i sally sorry must of been the drink. lol.

Bloody hell thats alot, i must be getting back into the swing of this writing thing. hope my writing is gettting better for people to understand i am trying to not miss words out. hopefully. hope everyone is well :)

15th October 2007, fraiser island.

2007-10-24T04:12:00.000+01:00

ok up and away we go. Got to island explorer which is the company lending us the 4x4 car for fraiser. did all the usual contract shit. if we brake this and that we pay, got extra insurance for the underside of the car.

Got the 10am ferry over to fraiser, stephen is driving at the moment, looks like fun driving on sand. So we have an itinerary, which should take us to the best places and miss all the high tides, as we definitely dont want to hit any sea water and mess the engine up. big no no !!!!

So from the ferry we went to lake mackenzie. Wow what a lake, the best i have ever seen for a lake. and it was so strange the lake had spring water, it feels strange to get a mouthful and not have salt water in your mouth. absolutely brilliant. We stayed there for a few hours, played a few games in the water, had a few races in the water. People were quite shocked how long i could hold my breath for underwater, espeically being a smoker. oh well !!

so this is all that was on the itinerary for today. was meant to get to the camp site before dark, however we decided to stop at the famous ship wreak on the beach which we had to go past to get to the camp site. Oh yeah i was driving.

Wow how cool is it to drive on sand. the beach was ok, just had to adjust to the soft sand which would send you in the tracks of our cars whereever they went, which was ok. just turning into the turn (if that makes sense !!!)

however when not on the beach you are on sand tracks, which are all soft sand that is a good 1f soft sand. most interesting and definitely worth the experiance.

So by the time i actualy got to the camp site. everyone was well on there way to being drunk, as they started just after we left lake mackenize. me driving, well i didn't get drunk, but i was drinking. my co pilot was also my personally cup holder thanks lisa, she did a good job :)

so we got there it was already dark, found some tents that were not occupied, although they were alittle out the way, which was properly a good thing, we were the noisest group in the camp site. come on ireland/england.

So i went and got some fire wood, which was too easy in the dark, when your told there are lots of dangerous snakes around and be careful, plus i was the only one with a torch. well done guys/girls.

so got some firewood, i was surpirsed to know that know one else can start a fire, so i did that aswell. by the time that was all done, most people were pretty much pissed, and couldn't be arsed to cook. so we all had a liquid lunch instead and got pissed.

Played the drinking game i had learnt on whitsundays, which everone seemed to enjoy. zara went to bed about 7:30pm. me and steve carried philly to bed around 9am, she was in a sorry state, dam !!! :) lol.

And i think everyone else went to bed around 10pm. i stay up till about midnight, i had some drinking to catch up on, plus i am not driving in the morning, oliver is. nice one oliver, as i don;t think most people will be ready to drive. We are meant to leave by 730am.

We will see how that goes !!!!!!!!!

14th October 2007, Hervey bay.

2007-10-24T04:07:00.000+01:00

So got booted out the hostel at 10am. Decided to walk to the other one, doesn't seem to far on the map !!!!
Yeah anyway took me an hour to walk to the next hostel, this is nothing special it has a pool, but doens't look like much. Room is ok, again it is just me and 3 women. god must like me. actually these women are on my fraiser island tour.

Did nothing hung around the hostel did nothing all day again. Had our briefing for fraiser island at 6am. There is 3 guys and 7 women. 3 english, zara sally and i. 7 irish, oliver, stephen, lisa, dora, julie, philly and sue. Looks like this is going to be a piss up with that many irish.

again chilled in the evening have to be up at 7am to get to the 4x4 and have another briefing and get all the stuff ready for our self drive tour of fraiser.

13th October, down to hervey bay.

2007-10-22T07:04:00.000+01:00

So was on this bus heading down to Hervey bay. bloody hell how annoying is this bus driving, for some reason whenever he stops he feels the need to tell everyone, surely he knows if anyone is getting off. so at 2am he stopped to let people on, and then stopped at around 6am aswell.

so didn't get too much sleep. Anyway got to hervey bay, actually forgot i had 2 free nights in hervey bay, as thats what i got when i booked the tour to fraiser island. So got to a hostel anyway that i payed for, it was ok. nothing special it was run by a family with a few kids so at least, i knew it was gonna be quite.

did nothing went down to the local town, which was about 5min walk. got some food went back to hostel and hired a couple of DVD's from the hostel itself, which are free. chilled in my room which had a dvd player and watched them. There were both films with val kilmer in, nothing special, i can't even remember the names of them, but it was nice to just hang out in my bed and do nothing.

booked on my tour for fraiser island, i can't wait this should be fun. It is the largest sand island in the world and i have booked on a self drive tour, basically me and 9 others get given a 4x4 jeep and let loose on the island. I want to drive never driven in sand before, sounds like fun.

12th October, whitsundays, back to airlie beach and onto

2007-10-22T06:40:00.000+01:00

so up today. wow feeling that drinking game. think i was first up though. only because the yacht starting moving and i can't stay downstairs while the boat is moving, makes you feel so sick.

so didn't do anything today, i did volunteer to be on the ship for a week and and do general cleaning, they started saying yes to me, then just as we were getting off phoned to say there wasn't enough people to warrant 2 volunteers. i could stick around they and they will let me know. sod that, im not sticking around for 3 days just to be told they don't need me again.

oh well, back to dry land. got to the hostel and realised my next destination, Hervey bay, is like 14 hrs away. so it is best get an over night bus. checked the timetables the bus leaves at 11:50 heading for hervey bay.

so did nothing for the rest of the day, just hang out, nursed the hangover.

so i had to leave the hostel at 10pm, as that is when the office closes. im not loosing money i had a free night in this hostel. so got down to the bus station sat around talking to a few people while we waited for the bus.

11th October 2007, Whitsundays.

2007-10-20T13:31:00.000+01:00

OK, got up with major hang over, today. can't wait to get into the water, always helps the hangover.

So we got dropped off on white haven beach, which has to be the nicest beach i have ever been to, can't believe how white the sand it and how clear the water is. its just a a shame we can't really swim much out here, again there are jelly fish all over the place.

so had a little stroll around, as you can see we located the lookout point. how nice are these pictures. well you can more when i get home, or i have some more on facebook.

after we chilled on the beach for a while, well i actually located myself a rock from everyone else round the corner of the main beach and just sat there, thinking. feeling alone on a desert island, it was a really nice feeling you know.

anyway got back on the boat, got told we would find a place to do some diving, well i was looking forward to this, but once we got there, the qualified divers had to wait for all the intro divers to have theres, this took about 1.5hrs, not much fun really the beach wasn't even sandy. apparently there is a storm coming in and they can't take us to the normal place.

Well diving, what a load of shit, we could only go down 5 metres and there was nothing there a really really really really big let down. most upset about that and all the other divers were aswell. well thats a lie the intro divers liked it, but hey what do they know.

So got back on the boat and we went to a bay. anchored up for the night and played drinking games, this time everyone joined in.

we played slaps, for a while, then played kings, which is the same as the other game i played yesterday where every card has a different mini game. but this time if you get a king you have to pour some of your drink into the a mug in the middle and the forth king that is out the person has to drink the concoction that has been made, then the game stops. Other then that the only other difference is we had a gimp. yes a gimp. if you pull out an eight then you have to wear a dive mask and you can't talk only grunt. if you talk then you get spanked by a flipper. and people get to order you around. that was quite funny. we made a guy pole dance and do other things.

anyway we played that till the early hours and all got very drunk and went to sleep.

10th October 2007, Airlie beach, whitsundays.

2007-10-13T07:26:00.000+01:00

Well got up reasonable time today, had a walk round the place in the light. found the lagoon, again you shouldn't swim due to the stingers, (Great) chilled there for a bit, i think i prefer the cairns lagoon.

went to my hostel to book a trip to whitsundays, they actually have a deal that includes fraiser island aswell. so i took that deal, only thing is the whitsundays either leaves today or friday. Well i dont wanna hang around airlie beach till friday. sod it i am going today.

had to go book into the whitsundays thing at around 13pm, did that. then was told i have to get to the docks for 3:30 ready to board at 4pm.

ok so didnt really do anything except pack a little bag for the 2 night sailing trip. got to the docks, all of us are waiting to go. another english guy, 3 german women, 1 malaysian women, 2 chinese women. 1 austrian guy, a swiss couple, and irish man and women and a ozz women.

the yacht is called Romance, and is a 23m sailing yacht, with aircon. (sorry about the pic i was on it so didn't get a good one and this is the only one i could find on the internet )

I am doing well women out way men again. So got onto the boat, meet the crew, headed out towards whitsundays. pretty much just seeing lots of beautiful islands. we dont land on main islands, just the main one which i believe we do tomorrow.

tonight, we just sail out to a bay past lots of islands (pics of a few above, there are 74 islands all together) , chill out have dinner. have been told that we had to bring our own beer as they dont sell anything like that on the boat.

However we got to this bay, as it was just getting dark. There is a resort on the island, and we could go over there to the bar. Personnaly i didnt want to i came to sail on the yacht, and i brought beer with me. It seems i am the only one that thinks like that, actually me and an irish guy stayed on board while everyone else went over to spend money in the bar !!!! whatever.

so me and the irish guy kevin, stayed with the deck volunteer who washes the dishes and bed stuff, and general dogs body, and wow what a body. i can see why they picked her, a beautiful blonde norwegian women. yummy.

Anyway stayed on there with her and the chef chris. basically we had our own party and played a few drinking games, one called slaps. where you start by slapping your legs. the starter person asks everyone "whats the name of the game ? " we all say "slaps" he says "whats the name of the game?". we say "to get fucked up".

right so the starter hits his left of right shoulder and says one, then then goes round in a circle which depends on which side of the shoulder you slap, left or right so you can change direction at any moment. When you hit seven, instead of hitting your shoulder you have to but you arms out hoiziontal and seven. then when it gets, sorry if it gets to ten, you have to say "get fucked" and point to someone, and they drink. Not a bad game but we really needed more people.

when ever you fuck up you drink.

next we played horseracing. which was the jacks are horses we bet on a horse then turn cards over, what ever suit comes up that horse moves forward. whatever horse wins, the person/s who bet on that horse can give drinks out to people. again not a great one this if you ask me.

whoever the last game we played i thought was excellent. not sure what this one was called. imagination or something like that.

ok, you get a piece of paper and call cards means something. one's like drink 3 gulps, give 3 gulps. make up a rule, start a story. one called pussys (i.e all women drink) one called dicks (all men drink) lots of different things. sorry i can't name them all. so we played this for a while. story one person says a word and the next has to repeat and add another word. that was ok.

the best one was chris the chef had to make a rule, you have to say "up the arse" after ever sentence for the duration of the game. now as you can imagine this was rather hilarious, and we actually went through the whole deck with 4 people, so plenty of drinks. but it was so funny as you said things like, who's turn is it up the arse. mine up the arse. i want a card up the arse, and several other things. so we was laughing all the time. and plenty of drinking with all the other games.

so when everone else got back we were still playing, and after every sentence we said up the arse, didn't we get some funny looks. oh well i had a good night.

lets see what tomorrow brings im told, beautiful beach, diving. and more beachs and sun.

9th october 2007, townsville to Airlie beach.

2007-10-13T07:21:00.000+01:00

Got a bus to airlie beach, kerry tells me she drives there sometimes in abuot 2.5hrs, however the bus i am getting takes 5-6 hrs. oh well.

Arrived in airlie beach, doesn't seem alot here really, again just a beach but the real reason i came here was to do some sailing in whitsundays. told it is paradise. we will see.

little disappointed with the hostel and my room mates. i am in a dorm room with 7 other people. its full. however they all went asleep about 2hrs after i got here, at aorund 8pm. not sure what they have been doing, i know one or two of them work.

so i sat outside the dorm most of the night had a beer and read my book. now two dorms down seem like they are having fun. a bit too much if you ask me, when i finally decided to go to sleep it was aroudn midnight and they were still partying on the step of there dorm, shouting, and i mean loudly, morning, and then singing songs as loud as they could.

maybe i should of joined in, but the bus ride has me knacked abit and im not just walking up to a group of 10 people, hi i am ian. well not today anyway.

so i did actually get to sleep i was impressed howmuch the sound goes down it you are in the hostel.

7-8th October 2007. Townsville.

2007-10-13T07:09:00.000+01:00

Nothing really worth noting, chilled out around the house. played games with the kids. chilled some more, watched a film.

6th October, Magnetic island, back to townsville.

2007-10-10T05:02:00.000+01:00

So got up nice and early today, actually i was woke up at around 5am by lots of animal noises. But i got back to sleep which is good.

We hired a topless moke today. kerry tells me they come in different colours but hopes we get a pink one. only because i said i would never buy a pink top and wear it. i think men should not wear pink, well unless the obvious.

and guess what she booked it in her name and it was pink. great thanks kerry. So now i am driving round the island in a pink topless moke. (oh yeah a moke is just a little mini/small fiat car thing) hard to explain and it looks like it didn't really get a good picture of one, sorry.

didn't actually do much today, i wanted to swim in every beach there was on the island, just like a 30min swim or something and yes we managed it. Other then sat laid on the beach and topped up the tan. getting rather brown now. yeah baby !!!!!

We took a little trip to the place wear the rock wallabies are. this was the last thing we did as when we got there early during the day they were no where to be seen.

So took the boat back to townsville. Kerry was going out in the evening, i was thinking about going but they were going for dinner then clubbing and i decided to stay at her place, and just chill in the evening. actually spent most of it on the internet doing different things.

kerry got home about 6am, and i was still up for some reason, so went to bed.

5th October, Magnetic Island (refered to as maggie)

2007-10-10T04:50:00.000+01:00

Kerry was kind enough to acompany me to magnetic island, which has koalas living on there. which is good i have not seen a koala yet. kerry was actually been several times but seems to enjoy it.

got the midday ferry over to maggie, it takes only 30mins. I wanted to say at the koala sactuary, kerry had never stayed at it, but always goes to the tour they have there.

so we got there, nice little place. might me a bit noise has it is a koala sactuary and has lots of different animals. oh well it is only one night.

a tour was set for 15:00 so we just chilled out in the bar had a drink. Went on the tour, which had baby crocs, koala's (pictured), blue tongue lizards. another type of lizard (pictured above), white paraket, rainbow birds and wallabies. The tour took 2 hrs, you could have your picture taken with a koala hanging onto you, but i decided against that. i like koalas but not paying the same i paid for the tour, just for a picture with me it in. why would i want my ugly mush to ruin and no doubt scare the koala. but i think i got a few good ones of them anyway.

After that we walked down to the beach, got some food and sat and watched the sunset, think i am getting the hang of this picture stuff. this time i used my sun glasses to take the sunset. i think it came out really really well.

So just back to the hostel a few more drinks and then to bed.

4th october townsville.

2007-10-09T10:51:00.001+01:00

Wow what a great sleep, i remember waking up at around 9ish. and all i could hear upstairs was " can we wake ian up yet kewwi". so i thought i best get up before i was jumped on, actually the kids are very nice and pleasent so i dont think they would of jumped on me.

so had breakfast, kerry took me and the kids, ok yes the three of the kids she was looking after now (craig, juilette and me) down to the beach area, called the strand it has a water park for kids, so we had a picnic by the waterpark and then i got taken into the waterpark with the kids. there are some jellyfish things, which is basicaly a toadstall that has water coming out of it, but as juilette told me it is a jellyfish. has a few of them. some water cannons, which i had to let the kids get me with. (this is so much fun, kids are great. for start i am the same height as them, and they keep me amused.) there is a climbing frame thing with a slide, and water coming out of it all over the place, and on top there is a bucket that fills up with water and every min or so drops lots of water and everyone around it.

then we went down farther and went to the beach had a wee swimin the sea, actually no i didn't kerry had juilette and i had craig and we were jumping waves. there is to many waves to let the kids go in on there own, although they can both swim, they are only 2 and 4.

next we built a volcanoe in the sand, i will say mine and juliettes was much better then craig and kerrys. hahaha. then juliette decided that was enough and destoryed it. we then proceeded to bury kerry, then the kids one at a time. (actually i have a good picture, but as normal i haven't brought my camera out with me, next time)

after the beach, we took a little stroll in the botanic gardens in townsville, where the kids went to a little maze and we located them. i took a picture from the gardens of castlehill, (picture attached, i thought it was very artistic, maybe)

after the gardens we took a drive up castlehill, saw the sight from there which was pretty good. walked round the top of the hill.

got back to the house, had some dinner, kerry put the kids to bed, then we just hung out again in the evening. it is nice to relax. and to be in a house again.

3rd October cairns to townsville.

2007-10-09T10:44:00.001+01:00

Saw got up at around 8am today, got to get a bus down to townsville at 9am.

bus takes 6hrs to get down there, bus is nothign special, just a normal coach, does have a TV but that wasn't working !!!! typical, so i slept some more on the coach, and finsihed reading harry potter (the last book) which was pretty good, should be a good film when it comes out, and i found on a coach i can read, which i was a little surprised at. sweet.

so got to townsville, around 3pm. kerry white (girl that use to live in my road at home and we kind of grew up together) was lovely enough to come pick me up with one of the kids she looks after craig who is 5. Was really nice to see a friendly face, it felt a little sureal actually meet up in townsville in oz. very strange.

she was also kind enough to let me crash at her place. we went and picked up the other kids she looks after juliette who is nearly 3.

we all went for a swim in there swimming pool, and i am so impressed with juilettes swimming and it is realy nice to be around kids again, they keep me entertained.

we had to jump in together and play around in the pool, being a life guard and stuff. had dinner, plently of talking in the evening over a few beers. and i got to stay in a nice king size double bed, how nice that was i can't explain, normally i am in a bunk bed (yes always the bloody top stil) and now i have a huge double bed all to my self. this is heaven.

2nd october cairns.

2007-10-09T10:38:00.001+01:00

Diving really takes it out of you. so i tried to sleep for a while, but a fucking bloke, and yes i think he was french again. woke me up at 6:30am, to tell me i was snoring. this time i wasn't so nice and just said so fucking what, what can i do, then proceeded to swear into my pillow about being woken up at 6 fucking 30 in the morning. i did manage to get back to sleep, although took a while.

went and booked my greyhound bus, which takes me down to sydney, i get unlimited stops all the way down to sydney and can get on and off where ever it stops. the ticket lasts 6 months, it was about 300dollars, which isn't to bad, at least now i dont have to pay for buses and things like that. i can just spend money and not have to worry about it. i have to book my seat they say 24hrs before i want to go, but you can do it via internet and phone so thats easy as pie.

what did i do for the rest of the day, thats a good question. i think i just chilled out really. i am getting very lazy, there are such nice beachs and so much lovely sun, pretty much always at 30c. and i did so much in all the other countrys i desive some well earned r&r.

went to dinner, read some more. the day went pretty quick actually. i meet 2 welsh people who i hang out with in the evening, just general chit chat.

29th september - 1st october, great barrier reef.

2007-10-02T06:46:00.000+01:00

So diving for the next three days, wowthe great barrier reef is amazing. I thought for some reason it was one big reef, but it is infact lots of reefs. On the 3 days we dived at saxon reef and norman reef. and sorry i can't remember the other reef. i am getting bad for not updating this as i am having so much fun and i seem to have forgot a few things. oops.

So the diving was unreal, i saw lots of different fish and this time i know what they are called, saw my first turtle which was really cool. i actually now have seen about 5. i saw a lovely cuttlefish, which was i think the highlight, my buddy didn't see it as they are really camaflauged, not sure how i saw it really, it looks like a rock, but something was different with it. anyway it turned out to be a cuttlefish and my buddy got closure to investigate and got a little to close, and we saw it change colour from a rock colour to white and then to like a blue colour as it was swimming off, wow truely amazing sight.

Saw lots of damsel fish, parrot fish, angel fish, sharks this time white tip reef sharks. cuttlefish, turles, im pretty sure i saw an octopus aswell, but i can't be certain it was in a dark hole looked like it, i will say it was just because i always wanted to see one.

so i actually did 11 dives in total. had a few different buddy, did a night dive, which again i thought was crap. actually i thought the bloke said we need to have a guide with us that cost $15 dollars, but it turns out you didn't if you had done one before, so i complained as the diving blokoe didn't understand what i was saying. so they told me i could have a free guide during the day.

so i took this guide when i had my camera, i thought it would be a good idea and she would show me some good stuff, but how wrong was i, it was the worst dive i had. she was just so quick, like she was just going to the end of the reef and back. there was no time to look at anything, so so disappointed. and when i got back to the boat and one of the intructers asked me how it was, i told him straight, absolutely shit. the guide just really wasn't interested in on the dive. really strange.

anyway 2 dives out of 11 being shit, isn't bad if you ask me. the first dive was at 06:30 in the morning, which i think is the best, all the night fish are still out and going back to there hideout, and all the day fish are waking up. glad i got up early each day for them. other dives were 9am, 11am, 4pm, and a night dive at 7pm.

the boat i was on, was simply amazing. couldn't fault that. the inside was so posh i really enjoyed it. they had a lovely bar with suade sofas, a big 50inch plasma screen. i was in heaven.

because diving takes it out of you, i didn't do anything in the evening, watched 12 monkeys one night, mostly read the others. and slept.

28th cairns lagoon.

2007-10-02T06:44:00.002+01:00

so today i thought i would have another chilled out day. this time went down to the beachfront in cairns it's selve. pallm cove is just outside.

you can't actually swim in this area much as there is loads of stinger, jelly fish to us english. so they have built a lagoon. which is pretty impressive. it is just a big big swimming pool. with lots of green grass on one side and some sand on the otherside.

chilled out there for the day. only thing interesting, well sort of interesting was watching two women have a fight. lad's come on women fighting in bikini's. all i needed was some whipped cream or some jelly to complete it. yes there was boobs flying everywhere, and i must admit for a nice change both women were hot. lovely bodies. nice boobs. can't be bad. there was a couple of punchs mainly hair pulling as you can imagine.

seen as i have been chilling alot lately i decided i would book a diving tour on the great barrier reef. i book a 3 day liveon, on a lovely boat. this is for tomorrow. i can't wait.

27th september 2007 cairns.

2007-10-02T06:44:00.001+01:00

Right, sorry people is it not that i have forgot what i have done but the next few days will be rather boring.

someone in the hostel told me that the best beach around here is palm cove. so managed to get the bus to palm cove. yeah i know bloody amazing isn't it, i can get a bus somewhere, instead of paying through the nose for a tour. wow. i like this.

so got to palm cove, it is just a beach, but a rather nice beach. must admit i have been on better in the travel, but the nicest beach i have been on in oz.

lazied about in lovely 30c weather, topped up my tan, and pretty much did nothing. swam for a bit.

back to hostel. nothing exciting there. went for my free meal with tania, a dutch girl in my room. back to the hostel.

26th melbourne to cairns.

2007-10-02T06:29:00.000+01:00

Got up at around 5am this morning, flight it at 7am, and bus to the airport is 5:30am, nice.
had arranged for the night manager to book me out so i can get my key deposit back, however, i tried to wake him up, by knocking on his door, then knocking louder, then near enough kicking his fucking door down. but still no answer.
actually i am not surprised, because before this day i had found him, smoking cannabis outside the hostel. i also heard someone say there wasn't manager at the moment just an assistant manager, which makes alot of sense, as there so not meant to me any alchoal in the hostel, but every night there are people getting really pissed right outside my room. nice isn't it.

so no key deposit back. so i left them a rather "nice" message and left it on the recpetion, whcih i hope they got, yes there was a few swear words in the message and said thanks for the fucking key. i didn't actually take it because i was worried they might charge my card for a new key or something even though they have a depoisit, but i didn't leave it on the repection desk either to make them think i hard. fucking night manager prick. i can't believe he didn't wake up, i mean i nearly kick the door down, i was worried at one point then i had, when i kicked it. fucking stone head.

sorry to keep going on, but that did really annoy me (yeah you may of guessed that one !!) what is the point of making arrangements twice with the day staff if he isn't going to get up and book me out.

anyway, flight was ontime and was ok, nothing special. budget airline, jetstar, so was a little cramped but nothing to worry about was only a 2.5 hrs flight, so maybe not even that much. anyway i near enough slept the whole way, not a great sleep but one of those, close the eyes and time goes quicker ones.

landed in cairns. wow sun is shining weather is sweet yeah (thats a song incase you wonder) it is much better weather up here. down in melbourne it was only about 18c, still sunny, but up here in cairns it is only a meer 30c. hahaha, hows the weather in england then. hahahahaha

so got a free airport bus to the hostel, hostel seems ok. same as usual. decide i would head out of the hostel and just have a walk round the town. the town centre is about a 10-15 min walk. yeah walking again i miss sam ( the wicked camper people !!!) but it is nice and bright so i don't mind. located the town centre, nothing special. a shoping centre is right behind the hostel which is good to get some bits and bobs.

locate the lagoon, i was told they built a lagoon for people to swim in because the sea is not safe. soo many stingers, which i guess means jelly fish to the real english speakers, bloody ozzies with they thongs (flip flops) and i can't think of any other examples sorry. mess up our english langauge just like americans.. although not as bad.

chilled out near the lagoon read some more of me book, yeah i am reading alot, but it keeps me busy and i am quite enjoying the reading. and yes hopefully my spelling and writing my improve. lets me honest it can't get any worse.

back to the hostel, had an early night as i was tired. bloody getting up early is killing me now adays. getting old you see, 27, nearly 28. haha although not nearly 30 am i clair, lol.

25th september melbourne.

2007-09-26T07:43:00.000+01:00

So got up today, thought i would check out the botanical gardens as i was going to yesterday, got there and wow it was really nice, i must say it was probably the best botanical gardens i have been to, and big too. as you can see i thought i would try te be artistic again and took some flowers. i had never seen flowers like these one and thought they looked pretty (ahhhhh, what is happening to me, i do wonder sometimes, me taking pictures of flowers what the ****)

so walked round the gardens for a while, sat down on a bench near one of the lovely lakes, and got me book out. sat there for a while and reaslise it was really really hot, so took off again, back to the hostel to get some swiming trunks and thought i would head to the beach, st kilda. meant to be ok, just a beach.

so got all the way down to st kilda took the tram, made a mess of the payment, as they don't have people, just machines and it didn't have st kilda on there. actually i have noticed that they don't check either if you have a ticket or not, i mean i got down the to beach on a ticket i shouuld not have done, as i didn't understand what i was doing. shame :)

got there, located a fun fair thing, which is what the picture above with the mouth is about (bet you got that picture as well sis :) ) went through the fun fair thing, thinking i could get out the end it was a kids fun fair and nothing for us adults (all big kids at heart i know !!) and found out i couldn't so walked back through it, there was some yummy mummys i must say so worth the walk. its nice being in the sun :)

got to the beach which is the other end of the fun fair, don't know why they couldn;t just open up the other end, nevermind. then i realise it was bloody cold, because of the wind coming in over the sea, so i never did get into the water. i just sat by the beach front and read some more of me book. went back for dinner and just chilled for the rest of the evening. got a flight to get tomorrow to cairns.

bontanical gardens, st kilba.

24th september melbourne.

2007-09-26T07:41:00.000+01:00

got the sun is still shining, have been told i am lucky, a whole week before i came it was raining. so thats good for a change.

found out there was a human body exhibition was on, which displays the humon body with now skin and disects the body into pieces. it was rather expensive for what it was, but i found it so intriging and insite full, i was glad i went.

i was unable to take pictures, just like all exhibitions, although i was tempted to take a picture at the end of the tour and thought what would they do thrown me out, but i guess they would of got me to delete the picture, anyway i thought best not to.

so the exhibition, shows you about 8-9 different bodys that have no skin on them, and in different positions, its kind of disgusting but again interesting, to see the human body in this form. you then get to walk round basically all the bones of the human body that have been disected and on view for everyone to see. then there is a few human bodys that have been sliced up hoizionally and vertically. interesting i will tell you. should of taken a picture dam it, oh well. (located one on the internet for people to see what i mean, look above, doh !!!)

i do remember it was on in london at somepoint, but i never went so glad i got the opportunity here.

after that i just walked round again. i was going to go to the botanical gardens, as it is the right price (free as all botanical gardens) and i was told it is meant to be one of the best in the world.

but on my way i meet up with paul, who had moved on to leave in a house while he works for a political party (sorry paul forgot the name of it), and he was walking back to get his bags. we decided then we would go to the cinema later, so he departed to get his bags.

then i remembered i had made arrangements to speak to a mate in england, mark walker, hope your still well if you actually read this, i don't think you do, nevermind. and by the time i had finsihed talking to him, finding out how his daughters b;day went it was nearly 6pm and dinner time.

left him, went and got some dinner, meet up with paul and we went to watch "superbad", it is a another american pie rip off, but i must admit this was really good. and was funny. i wont give any details out incase people are going to watch it, but it does have a disturbing bit in it like american pie and drinking the sperm. so be prepared.

all in all a good film, rather strange story with the 2 cop's and i thought it was really wierd, but funny.

that was the day. take care :)

23rd september, melbourne.

2007-09-24T12:25:00.000+01:00

so had a little bit of a hangover today, but managed to get up at around 11:00.

paul wanted to go to the melbourne cricket ground, and im not interested in that, so i took this opportunity to go to, 20 years of pixar animation exhibition. wow that was truley amazing, it had all drawings, story boards scultpers from all the pixar CGI films. I loved this so much. Dad you would of loved this big time. hope it gets to england at some point, you should go.

there is also a zapthing, can't remember what they call it, it is one of those things that you spin and have a strobe light on it and it shows the models moving, im sure you know what i mean. but they built it for this exhibition, wow it had all the toy story charcters in it and was amazing. Shame you can't take any pics, as with all exhibits. shame i would of loved to of taken a few in that place.

after that i sat in fediration square and waited for paul to finish his cricket grounds tour, he said it was good, but he should of been able to go onto the ground itself but it is ready for a big match coming up soon. oh well. boring.......

after that we rested for a bit in federation square then headed into town, did a bit of shopping. nothing major i brought a t-shirt.

after that it was then 5pm, dam didn't realise it was that late, we both decided as we didn't get in till 5am this morning we would just chill out in the hostel. so back to the hostel read a book and went to sleep.

22nd september 2007 melbourne

2007-09-24T11:42:00.000+01:00

So dropped the camper off today, located the hostel that we wanted and they had rooms. paul asked if they had discount for YHA membership and they don't. but would give him discount for being irish. so i put on a irish accent but filled out the form as british, but she still gave me discount, only $2 but all count.

hostel isn't too bad. as nice as the rest seem to be in australia. So by the time we had settled in and stuff, we went for breakfast at blackjacks, not bad, but they wouldn't let me swap mushrooms for beans, which i thuoght was a little unfair, so i paid for beans, told them not to give me mushrooms, but did anyway. oh well not bad.

next we decided just to check out the town centre, didn't do much just walked round the city. its seems ok, like most big citys really. so didn't see much really. just got a feel for the city and where we was.

For the evening, paul had arranged to meet a friends of his he meet in darwin that lives in melbourne. so we meet up with her, julin, she is ozzie, but her parents are from malaysia. She brought a few people along, ross, amy, amy friend tim also joined us, and another girl joined us int he end, but i have no idea what her name was she wasn't every friendly from what i knew.

So went we for dinner at shanghai dumplings. which was under a $10 for everyone, we all got a main meal and also got about 32 dumpkings. so that is a good price.

so we went out for a few drinks, went to some shity bars and then ended up in a club called retro, which guess what plays retro music so all music from the 80's, it was ok, i prefer a bit of dance music, but as always i did dance.

21st september, hanging out around melbourne. Ramsey Street

2007-09-23T10:07:00.000+01:00

Had a nice lay in today, againt i don't think there is much we wanted to do actually around melbourne and there is no point going into the city centre where most of the attractions are, because we are gonna to be staying in the centre after today, as we have to take samantha (sorry maybe i didn't say that was the name of the camper) back to wicked campers tomorrow.

So i wanted to go see ramsey street which im sure everyone knows is where neighbours is filmed. im not particually interested which is why i don't want to spend money on a tour to see it, i just want to take a few pics of the street. checked the map and the road is on the otherside of the city, and is quite far out from the city centre, which is why i am glad we are driving there and not doing a tour.

was rather easy to find. i must admit it is not easy driving round melbourne is is a huge city.

as you can see got there took some pictures, paul wasn't really happy taking pics, as he felt strange, because it is actually a road, which you can see is called pin oak court. and actually has people leaving in them. however i didn't care i said they must get this all the time and got my camera out. funny thing was there is a security guard in the street patroling it. after a few mins paul got his camera out. sod them there are only oz's.

so after ramsey street and there is not a sign that says that sorry people. We was gonna take a quick look at a hostel in the centre, but after going on a freeway we shouldn't of been on, apparently i found out, you have to pay to use this freeway, although im not sure how we managed to get on and off it as there were signs saying toll's all around, but we didn't see one, i remember seeing a sign saying unless you have paied to use this freeway or have a voucher you will be fined $500 or something like that, so i quickly got off the freeway. was a bit of luck really no one caught us i think. again must be the luck of the irish as im a shell and some people will know they tend to have bad luck.

so finally managed to get to the centre after driving round for quite a while i stoped and asked for directions, as i could see the centre, but for some reason couldn;'t get there. yes i know a man asking for directinos what is the world coming to, next women my be able to reverse !!! lmao. (lmao = laughing me arse off, incase anyone doens't know, and lol = laugh out loud, i have released that there are some people reading this that may not know these new hip abbreivations. )

so found the city centre, but paul didn't want to stop as it was expensive to park, about $15 hrs. which i think is expensive i must admit, and as he said we are there tomorrow anyway.

so we didn't stay just drove straight out, this time not getting onthe city freeway thing that you have to pay for. got back to camp sight, didn't do muhc. had dinner watched the first half of the ozzie semi finals. not bad, although there doens't look like there is any rules.

played some more cards, and guess what happened, ian won the game, bloody hell not sure what happened there, maybe paul shit out that four leaf glover i was talking about. but ian won the last game of jin rummie. i said i won the championship but claims i didn't.

so got to give samantha back tomorrow, she has done us proud, never had any problems, never hit a kangaroo or anything.

20th Septemeber 2007, geelong to melbourne.

2007-09-23T09:58:00.000+01:00

Now we didn't actually want to get to melbourne this early, so we decided to go off course, paul wanted to see a exhibtion in ballaret called eureka, which is home of the australia rebelled againt there goverment and won independence or something like that.

so be honest i didn't want to go in, didn't really interest me having to read about all that, paul said he enjoyed it, i sat in the car and did more reading.

now we actually came stuck here a bit and had no idea what we was gonna do next. So we ended up going to melbourne, paul did want to see a big statue of ned kelly which was in a town north of melbourne, but we would not of made it up there and back intime to be in melbourne for saturday to give the camper back.

so off to melbourne, dam melbourne is bloody huge and we ended up staying in a suburb just outside melbourne, called maidstone. from there we found another safeways got some food, went to a internet cafe in a suburb called sunshine. bloody hell it was a shit hole, and i would not of liked to stay around that area on my own, it was rough as hell. and i mean rough as hell. we came out the internet shop and there was a car full of black people sitting infront of the camper, it looked like they should of been from compton or something in LA. very nasty.

so back to a camp site in maidstone, where we had dinner, watched some more TV. this time i watched ghost whisper, must of been a new season as well from what i saw back home. not bad, nothign special.

19th september - great ocean road. - apollo bay to geelong

2007-09-19T09:19:00.000+01:00

from the look of the map there is nothing to much now from apollo bay to torquay which is the end of the great ocean road, although i still haev further to drive before i get to melbourne.

so headed out of apollo bay, managed to locate more view points along the road, took some rather nice pics. and as you can see the road really goes close to the ocean, you get some amazing views while driving. yes i know i am meant to be looking at the road !!

so we found a waterfall that was a short walk off the great ocean road, took us about 20 mins to find it. which was pretty good, i believe there was more to see, but the walk was about a 3hr walk and we both decided we had, had enough. so got back in the car

this time we ended up in a town called lorne, which has a lovely view point called teddy's viewpoint. which is the 3rd picture down. Had lunch at the teddy's view point.

We also managed to find a beach, which i suppose isn't surprising seen as we are next to the ocean. the beach had a wreak on it of a boat from 19th century, but unfortunaly you can only see it when it is low tide. nevermind.

basically back in the car for more driving, got to torquay, was thinking of staying there but there was nothing there to be honest. although the population was 3700 which is bigger then some of the places we have stayed. we decided to keep on driving up to geelong, which only took another hour. as there wasn't that much to see after apollo we made good time.

stayed in geelong for the night, walked round the town, went to safeways, yes it is still called safeways over here. did some dinner, and chilled out infront of a TV for a change, nothing amazing, some shitting australian cops show and a american Tv show about videos on the internet, you know you tube and stuff.

played some more cards, yes i lost again. and no he doens't have a four leaf glover up his arse, or so he tells me. i still have me suspections.

18th september 2007, great ocean road, warnambool to apollo bay

2007-09-19T09:18:00.002+01:00

So again a lovely night sleep. started of in warnambool. although we have actually got onto the great ocean road. we didn't actually see the ocean till we got to the bay of islands. Bay of islands, although it is just rock coming out of the ocean, for some reason it seems more then that. we stood there for a while, admiring the view. (PIC1)

Then we went onto the grotto, was probably the best site i thought, it was different from the rest and gave an impression you was looking into another dimension, or something like that anyway. Plus the hair was done for a change. and no i won't get a haircut yet. (PIC2)

Next on the map was london bridge, which has actually fallen down, how ironic !!!! i beleive that called it that before it fell down like our london bridge, well that was burnt down wasn't it. close enough. (PIC3)

Then off to the arch, which was surprise surpirse an arch. i tried to capture the water going through the arch, think i did ok. but it took me a few attempts. (PIC4)

We discovered a place then that wasn't on the map, but we basically stopped at all every attraction we saw. This stop had 3 things to look at, thunder cove, blow hole, and a gauge. Blow hole was first, which was a tunnel that went under the floor for about 300m, you only get to see a part of it, a hole that the water enters. not sure why it was called blow hole. but that was rather pretty, (sorry can't add all the pictures to this, most are on facebook, if you have access). Went along to the thunder cove, ah now this time i can tell why it was called thunder cove, as the water goes into the cove, it sounds like thunder. quite interesting, something im not sure i have heard before. i also believe this was part of teh blow hole cave bit, i think it was the start. The gauge is just a gauge, had some nice view points, so you can see out to sea, and there was an island rock thing, just at the entrance which made it look beautiful.

Next was the 12 apostles, although you can't see all of them. there was 2 behind me and the others i couldn't even see. still an amazing sight. well all of them was. truely amazing.

If anyone comes down this way in oz, you best do the great ocean road, appart from stopping at these beautiful sights, you get a view of the ocean, pretty much all the way down. and the roads are rather windy and really close tot he ocean. beautiful beautiful beautiful. (PIC5)

Other then those sights, there was just mainly places you stop and see a view of the cliffs and ocean, still worth doing, but once you have seen a view cliffs and beachs. they kind of look the same.

so we headed off to apollo bay. again didn't do much, played cards. and fuck me, i have heard the phase "luck of the irish" which im sure most of you have, but fuck me paul has won ever single game of jin rummie so far. im gettting a little pissed off. he is so jammie it is unbelievable, must be the luck of the irish i hear about. i wonder if he has got a 4 leaf glover up his arse!!!! mmmm maybe i will ask him.

17th september 2007, beachport to warnambool.

2007-09-19T09:18:00.001+01:00

wow what a wonderful nights sleep that was, no fuck wits in sight.

so leaving beachport today. still not at the great ocean road, that starts when we get to warnambool.

so toady we decide to take it easier, yesterday was a rather big drive. actually looking at the map it is about the same as today, by the looks of it.

so anyway i wanted to go to moutn gambier there is a old volcanoe that has been filled with water, its called blue lake. and wow we got there and it was really really blue. i have never seen such a blue lake like that before, i would like to say we walked round it, but we drove. yeah i got a car and im intitle to be lazy, i have walked all over china, thai, KL, singapore. dam you i will be lazy for once.

also in mount gambier we located another lake, called valley lake, this has a couple of lakes, a place called mutton leg, but that had no lake, not sure how it is a mutton leg, apparently it use to be one.

had a little walk round this lake. went into town and look for a few bits. got some jeans for 10 english pounds. not bad i thought.

Then back on the road, princes highway. went through heywood, missed portland, went through port fairy, up to warrnambool.. this is where the great ocean road starts, so decided to hang around here for the night. booked into another camp site, its ok, just $20, which is less then a tenner between two of us.

and we have lots to see and do as from tomorrow, we realised that the journey down to here wouldn't contain much, but it was still nice to see some of oz scenery.

16th september, victor harbor to beachport.

2007-09-19T09:17:00.000+01:00

so finally woke up today, after not much sleep, from wickedy wickedy, fuck wit.

anyway finally got off, and went to wellington where we got a short ferry ride over river murray. headed down to meningie and out down the princes highway, down through kingston SE which is where i saw the large lobster, down through robe and stopped at beachport for the night.

now instead of the lobster there really wasn't much to say abou this day mostly driving. the roads are bloody long and straight. they are so long you can't even see the end of most of them. nearesting to drive. most of the day it was pissing down with rain as you can see form the ferry picture above.

when we arrived in beachport, we had decided to book a campsite, so that we actually got a decent nights sleep and won't be woken up by wickedy fuck wit again.

nothing much to see in robe, kingston (appart from the loster) or beachport. stayed in the camper park, cooked some dinner, well paul did as i have been driving. and that was that.

15th september, Victoria Harbor

2007-09-19T08:37:00.000+01:00

So got our camper today, not the best looking one, as you can see it is aboriginal painted. which we are kind of fed up with by now, but never mind, still looks funky.

So we had decide to head out and we ended up in murrey bridge. there wasn't actually anything in murrey bridge so we head south to victoria harbor. Located an island just off the mainland called granite island. It actually has penguins living on the island. which i kind of thought was strange i never thought penguins can live in hot places, i thought they love the cold. anyhow.

To get to the island you can either get a horse drawn train, yeah it sounds strange to me aswell. why have a horse pull a train along. or walk over the bridge. just missed the horse thing it just pulled away as we got there, so had to walk. never mind have time to waste.

got to the other side, and went hunting for penguins. we did actually manage to locate one, which was hiding, i assume thats because of all the tourists. bet i would hide aswell, see my ugly face coming towards me.

So had a walk around the island. there was a few nice views, nothing special. got back into town, walked up and down the highstreet, most places are shut. this is the low season. Drove around the town for a bit, located a carpark next to a nice bit of green. thought this was a good spot, don't have to pay.

basicaly just hung around, played some cards, read my book. then went to sleep.

however at around 3am some kids decided to knock on the van pissed out of the head and start saying, wickedy wickedy wickedy wickedy, i want to rent you (this is down the back of the van), wickedy wickedy wickedy. this went on for about 15 mins. both me and paul obviously was woken up by this, but wasn't sure if we should say or do anything, not sure how many of them were out there, or if we had said something it would of made them be more annoying. so we left it.

they finally left as i said after about 10min. then around 5am, same thing. nice. maybe its not great to stay in carparks in towns.

14th september. Adelaide.

2007-09-14T13:20:00.000+01:00

Got up had me free brekie, im doing rather well, i have got up for breakfast everyday so far. nice.

went and booked a camper van, little more expsensive then what we had hoped for as all the lower vans have now gone so we have to get a deluxe model. meaning it has A/C and power steering. oh well it was only an extra 20 a day.

all in all it comes to 270 pounds for 2 of us for a week and we would spend more then that together staying in hostels and getting a tour down the great ocean road. this was it lasts a week and we can do it in our own way. can't wait should be good fun. paul has some cards so that should keep us enterained for some time anyway.

Decided as it wasn't a bad day to get down to the beach front. not been there yet and we have another day to waste. we did get the camper van by the way it is for tomorrow saturday for a week. so will write on here when i can. or when i come across a internet cafe.

Got down to the beach front called Glenelg. was expecting something better. well i was expecting something like we have in england, were the beach is full of shops and peirs with things on them to do and see. and there was nothing. well there was piers but they had nothing on them. just a boardwalk then i suppose you would call it.

the actually beach was ok, sandy and big. there was no shops, appart from one street leading off of the beach. the only things looking over the beach and out to see where appartments. nice.

no one wants to walk down appartments all day. nevermind, went and sat on a bench read my book for a while. didn't lay on the beach or go swimming to bloody cold. yes even for me. wind was the problem really, if there was no wind it would of been warmer and i would of gone swimming.

meet up with lizzy to swap some pic's. thanks liz. had a drink with her and kane, then went back to the city with paul.

got to this internet cafe i am in now to write up the days i hadn't done yet.

so nothing tonight, as i said off to get the camper tomorrow and then travel over to melbourne. so hopefully by the time i update this again i will have more tales to tell and better pics to show.

so until next episode of ian's travels, stay tuned and keep smiling. i know he is !!!!

:)

13th september Adelaide.

2007-09-14T13:06:00.000+01:00

so another day to waste here, i am so for a while, as paul and i are waiting for lizzy to decide what she is doing when her "special" friend arrives, paul and i want to live and get a camper van on the road so we can go to melbourne on the great ocean rd. but lizzy doens't know when kane her "special" friend is going to leave.

well i guess already that if he is coming all the way down from north oz, he will not be staying a day or two. anyway she meets him today so hopefully we will know what is going on soon.

So liz is off, paul and i decide to hit the museum and art gallery, they are free so the price is right.
I am so so glad there were free, the museum is pretty poo, it is the south austrlian musesm, so yuo would think it was all about south oz. well its not. most is aboriginal culture which is ok, but i have seen enough now. kind of like temples in china. enough is enough, there are only so many spears and tools you can look at. and there art, dam im sure little millie (she is 3 on 20th september) could do better. i think they are pretty shit. they are shitty pics made up of dots. sorry people im sure i should be more simpathitic, but i can't be. did i meantion they are the but uglest people i have ever seen in my life.

so anyway that was the museum, then we hit the art gallery, that was better. alot of portraits which i don't personaly like, but some nice scenic pics, and also some wierd ass contempory art, which again i can't get my head round, most of it actually looks like millie made it. sorry millie your pics are better.

again that was it, did a bit more walking around, nothing much to report there and finally heard from lizzy at 16:00 that she won't be coming, but they (meaning kane and liz) won't to talk to us about it tomorrow. well we told her we are booking one for paul and i today and went off to book one. mmm wonder what they (liz and kane) want to say......can we both come...... personal im not in favour of riding round with a couple, sorry "special" friendship.

paul and i got to the camper van place. www.wickedcampers.com.au if you are interested. and it was shut, great thanks liz. so paul and i will go down tomorrow.

meet up with liz and kane in the evening for a drink. nothing really to report there. sat there, kane was upset as liz and paul get on well. great jealousy and we have only meet him for about 30mins great. they did want to come along by the way, yeah we thought so. but we have told them no can do, we are going to leave saturday and there is no room for 4 only 3. they can get a camper and meet us later if they wish.

12th september. Adelaide, festival.

2007-09-14T12:52:00.000+01:00

So we decided to do something today, was gonna go to the festival yesterday the 11th, but i found out that wed is cheap day, we can get in for $11.

so took a little trip on the tram to somewhere justoutside adelaide called goodwood.

there it was a little walk to the fesitval, well they call it a show. but it is a fesitval to everyone else.

it had lots of farm yard animals to see and touch. the last pic on this post, is called a silkie. very strange never seen anything like it, it looks kind of like a chicken, but is actually bright coloured at the example shows. looks like they are dyed to me, but i guess this could be real !!!!

so after looking at all the animals, we went to the champion wood cutting tournament, which was pretty good, another first for me. the champion, got through a 40cm trunk of tree in 18sec's, which let me tell you is bloody quick and impressive.

there was a few rounds, the normal champions, then a over 60's champions, and then another one but im not sure what this one was about. all doing the same type of wood and same thickness. the over 60's were pretty impressive, most where over 70 that was competing, and i think the fastest one there was only about 30sec.

next we walked round the fair, there was some pretty decent rides. bigger then what we have in england, well ok basingstoke anywhere. and basingstoke is the centre of the universe !!!!

so i didn't actually go on any, as i was the only one willing, maybe i should of gone anyway but i really wasn't that bothered, been on bigger ride in USA so who needs oz rides :) lol.

then we stood infront of the cocacola stand which was had these 3 blokes from zimbabwe, or somewhere, doing a acrobat show. they were pretty good, but i had seen a acrobat show in china and these boys just didn't cut the mustard for me after the chinese show. good luck boys.

then strolled around for a while. spent pretty much the afternoon there, back to hostel for dinner. picked up some steak and chips on the way home at the supermarket.

then to bed. the only thing to do in the evening round here is to drink, and we all don't wanna waste i money doing that everyday. so sleep it is then.

10th & 11th september. Adelaide.

2007-09-14T12:50:00.000+01:00

nothing to report today. walked around, didn't see anything worth typing about. there are lots of strange wierd people in adelaide,. can't think of anything specify at this time, but there are some very strange. and its not like london where they come out at night, this is all day shit.

!@#$%^&*()&^%$#@%!%$@*%^

9th september groove grape day 2 - arrive in Alelaide

2007-09-14T12:28:00.001+01:00

so arrived in Alelaide, its a rather nice town, has some nice old buildings. arch at me what do i sound like, nice buildings. mmmm

so got here about 17:30, and we left at 6am this morning, dam i know it was 900kl away but this bus driver was getting overtaken my everyone, i mean everyone, juggerants the lot. i actually think miss daisy drove past us at one point, he was so so so so so so so so so slow.

didn't really do alot, had a quick walk into town, incase you wonder i am the prat on the right of the picture., there are two big balls ontop of each other in the main town centre street and this is the picture that was reflected back on us. mmm nice.

so got some dinner went back chilled in hostel, this one is called backpacker oz. not bad, about the same as the other hostels really nothing special.

8th september. groove grape tour - alice springs to adelaide

2007-09-12T12:19:00.000+01:00

So again up at the crack of dawn. the bus picked me up at 6:30am. wow we have 400kl to do today, have been told we get cooper pedy at 3-4-5-6pm so he has no idea then !!!

Not really much to say about the bus journey, it was long a hard, wait am i still talking about the buss. i mean the bus trip was long and boring, thats better. the seats were pretty uncomfitable, and there was no one talking on the bus. oh well im glad it is only for 2 days.

so finally got to cooper pedy at around 5pm. The lovely bus driver had arranged for us to take a tour of an old opal mine. wow what excitment. i read they actually charge people $10 for the tour, i am so glad there didn't try to charge me. it is a mine. the rooms before the mine were ok, it showed you how people did or still do today live underground. so at least it was kind of half interesting.

The place we were staying was ok, i was expecting it to be all underground but what it means is you stay in a dorm which has been dug out of a side of a hill/mountain. was bloody dark which really good for me as i sleep with my eyes open slightly anyway. but i had heard it makes snoring echo. oh dear i have been told i snore everso slightly !!! so better luck for everyone else then :)

Tour had arranged for us to have pizza in a local resturant, which was included in the price. not bad, i just didn't get enough, there was only 4 pizzas between 16 of us. that doens't seem a lot to me and wasn't at all. nevermind at least this is only a 2day trip.

7th September alice springs.

2007-09-10T06:47:00.000+01:00

Did absolutely nothing today, not even sure were the daytime went to. Paul and i hung out (no not like that you rude people) while liz went off with a friend of hers. paul and i sat in a internet cafe for a bit, walked round, didn't really do anything to be honest.

Liz got back we meet up with another girl this time an english girl called laura, (nice name but then im baised right miss Cordery :) ) went and got some food this time we, i say we but liz was meant to cook it but never had cooked anything in her life. not sure what these people did without me, as i seem to be the only one who cooks. so made spagbowl. was pretty nice, was only $3 each, so cheap and cheerful, just as us bums/backpackers like it.

there was a bowling alley next to the hostel, so we went for there for the evening. yours truely one of course, but i didn';t actually do to well for me, highest was about 130. nothing special. had to game and then back to hostel. i read some more and went to bed.

have to get up early tomorrow again, this time for a trip on the groozt grape tour, from alice springs to adelaide.

6th september.

2007-09-10T06:31:00.000+01:00

Ok got woken up by gale the french bloke, fucking idiot. woke me about 3am in the morning, and said (you have to do this in a french accent otherwise it doens't sound right) "i'on i canno slezp, your snooringg is keepin me awake, you have too dooo somezing" i appoligised and said "ok well you tell me what i can do and i will do it", i mean how fucking stupid do you have to be, you have to do something. no one else in the room was bothered or even heard me, just frenchy, hahah i actually like the fact he couldn't sleep because of me, that will teach him and his french people, to talk when the tour guide was trying to talk, fucking french !!!!!!

So im not sure what he did, i should of said, yeah i can do something come out here, took him outside and closed the door, that would of been funny. nevermind we always think of things to do after the event. plus it was 3am so i couldn't think at that time.

anyway, frenchy got his own back and woke me up again the morning this time about 9am, while he was packing his stuff, pretty sure he was being noising for the sake of it. oh well bye bye frenchy.

so went back to sleep for a little while, got up about 11am, did some washing and stuff, read a bit of me new book, its harry potter, not the new one the second to last one. i watched the newest film and really liked it so i thought i would read the two last books seen as i am away.

Then i woke up paul and lizzy as requested. booked a trip to adelaide that they are on, we are all going to adelaide and then they were off to melbourne so i suggest we hire a camper van and have a road trip, they seem well up for that, can't wait should be really good fun. we just take the piss and have a laugh. good people good people indeed. plus lizzy's a good looking lass so something to look at on the way, nice bum, and most of you know i am an arse man, i better rephase that a women arse man, if that makes sense. :)

so for the rest of the day we just hang out they did some washing. We meet a scottish women called nicky, she was a lovely women. So we all went to get some food and a dvd to watch for the evening, not sure how we did it but that took us about 3hrs, got back. i made a bbq for everyone. And there was this bloody italian bloke that was drawling all over lizzy and won't leave her alone, decided to follow us and sit with us while we were having a bbq, i suggest to liz, who is too nice to people, that i would tell him to fuck off, i don't care. no one wanted him there anyway, but again she is too nice wouldn't let me do that.
was rather funny actually, we did too much food, but paul and i was not going to give the italian bloke any, so we sat there going right, you eat this half i'll stuff this half in, bloody hell we were nearly sick but we managed it and italy got nothing. hahah england&ireland 1 - italy 0. lol

so liz want to watch wolf creek which is about some backpackers in west australia, who went to wolf creek and actually place you can go and they get into some murder thing, actually the film was really shit, was meant to be true, but i took it as a ozzie kind of blair witch thing. not very good at all. not even scarey.

next film was my choice, something i had seen before but they hadn't so i choose K-Pax, actually most people went to bed before this had finished, but paul and i stayed up, both agreed it was a truely amazing film, much much better then bloody wolf creek.

5th September kings canyon and back to alice springs.

2007-09-10T06:12:00.000+01:00

So up again at 5am, loving every min of it !!!!

had a short trip to kings canyon. as we had camped near there. So today we have a 3 hrs hike, first thing we have to climb heart attach hill. sounds pretty big, but to be honest it wasn't as bad as i thought. and it is so worth it this canyon and by far the best such nice views and beautiful rock formations. canyon itself is pretty impressive. we got to walk down one of the canyons, into the garden of eden, its strange there is not much to see in kings canyon until we got down to here, this looks like a little oasis, which is why i guess they call it the garden of eden.

So we get there, we were told we can take a swim in it, but it is cold. well im from england don't you know. use to the cold water. So there were about 5 groups of people rangeing from about 10-20 people in each group, but for some reason no one was jumping in. well ian to the rescue again. Actually nick the tour guide jumped in he does it everytime, and lizzy joined us aswell. blood hell it was freezing, we didn't actually swim, just jump in breath very heavy then and jump straight back out, but i was glad i did it. i am only here once so why not.

Everyone thought we were mad, but i just think they are boring. plus with the weather out here, you don't freeze, actually i was dry in about 5min, once i had climb back on the canyon and was in the sun. Such beautiful view here, up the pictures above do them justice.

so that was the three hour hike, we then had about a 6hrs journey back to alice springs. we had a few stops, once for lunch. a few bathroom breaks and we also stopped off, so people could have a camel ride. I wasn't really interested in a camel ride. watched lizzy and a few others take one. was only $5 but still im not interested. it a bloody camel !!!! was fun watching them on it, the camel actually gave a little run, which kind od looked fun, but would of destoryed my man hood !!!! so give that one a miss was probaly a good option, i would like kids some day.

At the camel place they had a dingo, which is a dog to me and you, not sure what the differeance is, doesn't look like much to me. There were some kangaroos, and wow they had some little little babys, i believe they are called joey. could'n't of been very old one of them, was only about 10inchs tall. pretty cute though, i do have pic, but can't fit it on here, check out facebook if you want to see it.

Then back to alice springs. everyone was meeting up for a $10 meal and a drink and some dancing in bojangals, wish i had read the signs in bojangales when i got there, as they saloon is on webcam they have about 10 cams, set up round the place and they are on 24/7. shame i could of text and few people, and they could of watched me rock my little socks off. i know you guys back home miss my dancing. !!!!!

the beer out here is pretty shit if you ask me, i had a few but didn't even feel tipsy, shame but not to worry i had a good night. So random pisshead ozzie bloke asked me were i was from, i obvioulsy said south england, that was it he was off on one, his best mate is from south england, and he went off to phone him to find out where he was from and he is knew me !!! yeah like there is only about 10people in the south of england and we all know each other. so next min i know im talking to a few people that where on the tour, and now all of a sudden this bloke wants me to chat to this english bloke. ok so hd a random conversation with an english bloke on this ozzie blokes phone. !!!!! ok then. not sure what we spoke about can't really remember. nothing special i think he was actually from midlands. but there you go.

4th september, ayers rock to Kata Tjuta

2007-09-07T06:20:00.000+01:00

got up, went to see the sunrise. it is just the same as the sunset in reverse. yeah i know stupid thing to say it is obviously going to be. so nothing really that special as i just say it last night. While we were watching that nick is making breakfast, which is toast or ceral. i had both. piggy me.

then it is a short ride only about 2hrs to Kata Tjuta, went to the Aboriginal Cultural Centre where we learnt more about the Aboriginal's and again the things they do on the sacred grounds of Kata Tjuta.

had a 2.5 hr walk round Kata Tjuta, was pretty nice, a think better then ayers rock. was some lovely views again they are all rocks. nick had a few talks, one about how Kata Tjuta was made, by earthquakes and stuff, then spoke about how the Aboriginies believe is was made, again it is madness, and to be honest i can't remember exactly how the aboriginies think it was made, something about a god sitting on ayers rock and throw some rocks, to form Kata Tjuta. as Kata Tjuta is about 5 large rocks in a dome shape. the all make up things to the aboriginies and are all spritual.

so this time we went again watched the sunset over Kata Tjuta , was nice. see some good views.

then went to another camping site, just out side of Kata Tjuta. this time it was better, we had a proper camp fire. man make fire. lol. nice. stars again amazing. had a nice little chat with everyone. had some dinner, this time nick cooked chili con carnie. really nice but i guess, most things are after a hard days walking in the hot hot sun.

again i was the last one up, but that is most like a good thing, a couple of people. well emily complained about my snoring. well i am in a sleeping bag, so i am lying on my back, and i had a few beers. not a good combo. actually it is quite funny, she thoght it was her husband adam, and he had just got to sleep when she kicked him and woke him up. lol i should laugh really but nevermind.

so this time she tells me she is gonna sleep near me so she can kick me and wake me up if i wake her with my snoring. she is a light sleeper. no one else has complained. (yes i know thats a miriacle michael !!!!)

actually i slept away from everyone over the other side of a car park. was nice. again up tomorrow. can't wait i love these early mornings !!!!!!!!

3rd september, the rock tour, day 1 ayers rock.

2007-09-07T05:41:00.000+01:00

got up about 5:30. went and had some free breekie, which is just toast and jam, but doens't it always taste better when its free....mmmmm.

Got picked up at about 06:10 our tour guide is a ozzie-greek called nick. actually the title he has on the list of names is nick the woggiest wog that ever wog'd the rock !!!! mmm interesting name, i guess its not the same way we would use the word wog!!! i did asked him in the end and it a wog is a greek bloke. so there you go learnt something new everyday.

(rock tour photos can be located at http://www.therocktour.com.au/, click on photo gallery, then i was on the 3rd september tour, check them out. im told there are there to stay forever, but incase there not, check them out. and yes the ice was cold. don't ask how i got in that position !!!)

there was 6 people from toddy's being picked up. gale (french), marie and noemie (french) lizzy (american, in pic above) paul (irish, in pic above) and me (the legend!!!).

There is a total of 14 people on this tour. 6 above. matt (english) arnoet (french) takashi (japan, and no he doens't live in a castle i did ask him. !!! lol) ilres (dutch girl i meet on litchfield tour) sidrip (german), karrina (german), dominic (german) emily (american) adam (american)

****there is a group picture, but i will add it to another day as that was when it was taken) ****

so to start with we have a 6 hour journey to ayers rock (Uluru), we had a few stops. one to get some lunch. one to get some wood for the camp fire tonight, strange you can stop anywhere on the side of the road and just collect wood. everyone chiped it. then a stop to get beer. i was the beerman. i had to get everyones order and then sort out money. wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. we actually got a good deal, if we can get everyone to have 30 cans we can get a slab (thats a case of beer to you and me) and it turns out to be $2 a can. not a bad price at all. at the moment it is $2.44 to the pound.

so got the beer had a quick bite to eat, and off to ayers rock. finally made it, wow it is rather impressive and big. so nick the tour guide took us down the part called the mala walk. basically he talks at alot of different points to tell you what the aborignis do within this sacred place and how they believe it was formed. some crazy ideas if you ask me. crazy crazy ideas.

then if we want to we can climb the rock, but it is a sacred ground and aborignis don't like you doing it, i would of liked to do it for the view and to say i had done it, but aborignis don't like you doing it, so most well nearly all of us didn't out of respect. only one person did, and yes it was gale the french bloke. fucking hell he makes me laugh, when we spent a day together he tells me he doens't want to meet french people, he would like to practise his english and doens't want to talk to french people. what BS, we had a french guy and two french girls. fucking hell all he did was talk constantly to them in fucking french and i am constantly even when nick was trying to explain things. then fucking french pissed everyone off with there constant talking. bloody french, no wonder england isn't meant to like them. not sure i do now either, they are all rude, ignorant and selfish people. bloody french.

anyway. once we had done the mala walk and learnt all about the sacred place and what it is used for, we got to do a 1hr 45min round the rock. i was thinking nick was coming to explain things, but he went to get petrol or something while everyone except gale took a walk round. remember gale was climbing the rock.

So that was ok. i mean it is a rock at the end of the day, it is impressive the way it is in the middle of nowhere, and it is im told 360foot high. so rather strange in such a flat desert area. and its red. not much else to say.

from the rock we went to watch the sunset in a carpark, right next to ayers rock. i was told it changes colour every 2mins and it is specatular. i didn't see it change colour every 2 mins. i saw it change from a red to a dark red and that was that. was nice to see and a experiance i won't forget, but not change every 2 mins. while we was watching the sunset, nick was cooking food, it was some chicken noodles. very nice indeed. it turns out nick can cook rather well. nearly as good as me !!!!!!

after that we went to a camp site. made a fire with the wood we had collected. Shame actually the fire had to be made in half an oil drum. little dissapointing actually this camping, i was expecting it to be in the middle of nowhere and make a big fire and chill. but we were in a camping area, which electricity and a oil drim that we had to make a fire in. nevermind was still lovely to do. and wow i have never seen so many stars in my life. such a beautiful sky. nothing like it. wow truely amazing.

so chilled out, played some cards, shit head with the french. how ironic !!! and yesi was not shit head and they were, lol.

so i was the last one to go to bed, no matter when i get up i can't sleep till at least midnight. everyone else got to sleep about 10-11pm. so i had my ipod. and had a little dance to myself.

went to bed, have to get up at 5am tomorrow so we can see the sunrise over ayers rock.

2nd september arrive in alice springs.

2007-09-07T05:19:00.000+01:00

had a pretty good sleep on the train as i said i had 4 seats all to myself. so i could spread out.

Arrived in alice spring, at around 11:15. OMG we had the commentry again for katherine playing again, apparently they like to play it again even though we are nowhere near katherine, incase people missed it last time. Dam the voice is so monotone and annoying.

So got off the ghan train, i heard a french guy no the train say he was going to "toddy's" which is my hostel, so i got talking to him, i was calling him dale for a whole day, turns out he was called gale. nevermind he seemed to still answer me.

So we got to toddys, not a bad place, rather cleanish and has a nice little pool. Gale wanted to go pay for his 3 day trip to ayers rock, katatua and valley of kings. which is the same trip i am doing with a company called "the rock".

turns out he is going on monday tomorrow. i also meet a dutch girl on the litchfield trip who is also going monday, so i think i will try to change my day, as i already know 2 people.

went down to the rock tour shop. they are happy for me to change the day from tuesday to monday. sweet i go tomorrow. actually everyone in the shop about 7 were all going on monday. so i already meet quite a few of them, irish paul, amerian liz, seem really nice. rather friendly and look like they are up for a laugh. this should be a good trip.

So for the rest of the day i got back to toddy's stayed round the pool for a while. wow it is freezing, which is nice in this heat, but can't stay in the long.

got talking to an english girl linda, wow she is fine. is with her b/f doh !!!! also was talking to a tour guide who lives in toddys called jeff, he is austrlian. nice bloke.

went and got some sausages and chips with gale, had a little bbq. dam we neverhad 20 bucks between us for a saucepan so we did the beans on the bbq in the tin. Dam that takes ages.

but was rather nice, nothing special, but cheap, which is what i like. australia is expensive to asia. dam expensive, not england expensive but close.

Had an early night, actually watched diehard 4.0 again that i brought in china. haha 50 pence. sweet. not a bad film. it's die hard !!!!!

got to get up at 6am tomorrow. nice

1st September. Train from darwin to Alice springs.

2007-09-02T05:12:00.001+01:00

Had to get to the train station for 8am, as the train leaves at 9am. Got to the train station, wow not much of a station, it is just a metal shack, not a station as such. kind of strange, but i suppose i am in the middle of nowhere.

So got onto the train, there is only about 20 people in the compartment. so i managed to get fours seats to myself. turned 2 round to face the other two and had lots and lots of room. sweet as.

We got commentry from darwin all the way through to katherine. wow it was boring, you know one of them monotone voices that is reading from a script. not very nice. so i put some head phones on and just chilled. Finished my book odd thomas. Wow it got to me in the end, i felt so sad. won''t spoil it, but i would recommend anyone to read it. really touching book. got me thinking about a few things.

So the train was ok, as i said lots of room, there was a lounge area, but i had more room with my seats so sat there. didn't do anything. they had shitty music playing all the way through the trip which was rather loud and shit. then they put some film on, good company or something i was going to watch it, but couldn't hear the bloody thing, not because anyone was talking, but they turned down the sound, so they had shitty music playing that was too loud, but when they put a film on you can't hear shit. what is that about.

So played psp, went to sleep. The trip actually seemed quicker then i thought. oh yeah we did stop in katherine, what a shit hole that is. and i tell you what, aboriginies are the butt uglyiest people i have ever had the miss fortune of seeing in my life. there must of been some serious red neck stuff going on there. dam.

Thats all there was, not much i can say about a train journey. should arrive in alice springs tomorrow about 11am.

31st august, darwin. Litchfield national park, jumping crocs.

2007-08-31T12:07:00.000+01:00

So had to get up at 6:30am today. boooooooo. was it worth it.

So i was told the bus picked 6:50. then i found out the bus give that time to everyone he picks up, so the bus got to me about 7:15. not bad really, but i could of spent more time in bed. dam the ozzies.

Took a bus drive out to Adelaide river, where i got on a little ferry. they took us down the river not very far. and we came accross some croc's. the tour women, put some chops on a fishing rod and dipped them in the water. wow they must know what this is about, a croc came straight up out of nowhere. the tour guide teases the croc to jump out the water, makes the croc do it about 3 times before she give the chop to the croc.

this went on for about 40mins with different crocs. apparently they only give one chop to each croc each day. God knows who they know which is which, but i guess if you look at them day in and out you can tell the differeance. Mind you the first croc only had 1 eye so thats not hard to tell. most of them where females. Although we did come accross one male croc they called him NT. no idea why. he was about 9foot long. bloody big, but the guide did say they have been known to grow up to 8 metres. yes fucking 8 metres. glad i didn't see one of them.

So crocs were pretty cool, there was some bird of prey around, which the guide feed on the way back. i actually got some pretty cool in flight pics. (as above. ) there was about 40 of them around the boat. pretty dangrous aswell we were told. but hey ho we just feed crocs so how cares.

there were pretty impressive we got to see how quick the crocs were and they can jump, over half there body length out of the water.

Next we dropped two people of at croc world !!! thought was was quite strange. anyway we kept driving and had some dinner in a little cafe place in the middle of nowhere. i had a buffalo burger. wanted to have the croc burger but didn't want to pay and not like it. shame i will try one. just like china i will try some things out, watch this space.

So the buffalo burger, dam it was the best burger i have had in a long time, maybe ever. no hold that are sausage and egg Mcmuffins burgers. well i won't put them in the same catagory. so the best burger i have ever had. mmm i can taste it now. yummy.

So then down through Litchfield national park, we went to 2 waterfalls that we could swim at, they were Florence & wangi & falls. not bad, nothing spectatular. i mean the places there were in was, but the actually waterfalls are not that big, well not that much water going through them, i was told this is the dry season so, in the wet season they really gush. ok so with that in mind there were pretty cool. The scenerie around them was amazing i must admit. and how flat is australia, you can see as far as the eye can see, in some of the look out spots. yes i was in a mountain area because of the waterfalls but you know what i mean !!!! don't you ????

next we went to tolmer falls which we were aloud to swim at, you just see it from a distance, this waterfall is in a canyon and so could only see it froma distance, still really nice to see. great views.

next was the magnetic termite mounds and normal termite mounds. they were just mounds, some are pretty impressive, well over 2 metres, but just lumps of dirt to me and you. still i suppose when you think a little termite, well yes lots of termites make them, its pretty cool.

The magnetic termites look different and for some reason they face north, south, which i read Scientist can't tell why. which i think maybe bull because, hey they are pretty smart, why not.

Maybe i should study them and find out, Next time next year rodney i could be a millionare !!! lol

so that was the day really. was nice and productive and good to get back to doing things. I am writing this in the evening, and i don't think i will do much it is 9:14pm and i have to get up early again tomorrow to get my train to alice springs. then yeah i can't wait camping out in the outback at ayres rock and sleeping under the stars.

So i have a day off in between doing that, so will let you know what the trains are like. i don't think they will be as good as china, but lets hope so.

G'day and goodnight peep's. :)

30th August, Darwin.

2007-08-31T11:56:00.000+01:00

So got up today, had quite a good sleep. and didn't any any "strange" noises !!!!!

had a walk round darwin again today. went and located the beach right next to my hostel. nothing great not much sand and lots of stones. so didn't stay there

at all.

Found a nice park, which is right by the "beach". see photo.

Went and booked some tours today, which took most of the daylight to be honest. there are lots to choose from and the actually ones i wanted were not available. as i wanted it for tomorrow and i am not staying round darwin any longer.

So i booked a tour tomorrow for Litchfield National park and jumping crocodiles. i actually wanted to go to katherine gorge. but nevermind. at least i see some outback/park.

Next i went a book a train for alice springs and i leave on saturday and arrive sunday. I hang around for a day and go on a tour of Ayer rock and uluru which is a 3 day trip, i get to camp out sleep under the stairs and cook on an open fire. that should be good can't wait for that. then back to alice springs. then i think from alice springs i will book a 3 day bus ride to cairns. So don't expect to much to br written in the next week or so, i will do my best.

So rest of today i tried to get a sun lounger by the pool, but that proved harder then i thought, i could get one but in the shade. whats the point.

So i went to the park i found earlier (pictured) above and chilled out, got some much needed sun. need to top up the tan, and dam it is hot in darwin. i feel like a.... no i won't go there. I feel hot.

stayed there for a bit, then back to the pool for a dip to refresh myself. This time i managed to get a chair up stairs on the roof. which wasn't too bad, just bloody hot.

Again just chilled in my room for a bit, read me book. actually nearly finished. and its still pretty good.

nothing really exciting today. however tomorrow should be good and the next day week should be even better.

29th August Darwin - Australia

2007-08-30T09:00:00.000+01:00

So arrived at my hostel, i had heard horror stories of getting there outside normal times and not being able to get in.

But i arrived at the hostel about 4:30am, phoned the night manager, and he showed up in about 5mins. All good so far. he didn't seem to know i was coming, although i had made a reservation. He checked the PC i was willing to give him the referance number, as he said "that ain't gonna fucking help me" he didn't say it nastly or anything. i just just found out australians swear more then my sister !!! lol

So he also said i couldn't pay for the hostel yet either, so i didn't mind that, he just wanted some picture id to keep till i come down in the morning a pay. oh well ok, he told me how to get to my room. got to the room, it is a 4 bed dorm. i agian have the top bunk. I always seem to get the top bunk, im always last in the rooms.

So i did make a little noise and woke up a couple of them i think. most went back to sleep. i got into bed, not a bad bed, rather comfy actually softer then what i have been use to.

However i tried to get to sleep. and this is quite sick really if you ask me. i am dam sure the bloke below me was knocking one out. yes having a knuckle shuffle, yes meeting mrs palm and her five lovely daughters. well i guess thats what it was i wasn't going to check, but us men can tell the sound. dam so i put my earplugs in and went to bed. (im pretty sure he was, i was talking to the irish bloke in the room and he noticed some used condoms on the floor right by his bed. i mean i know us blokes have urges and stuff, but not when people are in the room. well ok with men in the room !!!)

got up around midday. instead of going down to pay i went straight out the front door. wanted to check out darwin first see what it has to offer, as i had booked 5 days. which was too much.

there are a few things to do around darwin, but most of them are 2-3 day trips, around the parks, they look good but are expensive and i don't want to do all of them.

so back to the hostel, paid just for 3 nights. Which again they couldn't find me on the PC, but the women that took the money of me charged me a dam site less then i thought she was going to so that good. i was gonna pay 105AUD for 5 nights, but for 3 i paid only 43AUD. good good.

so walked around today, just chilling out, found nothing interesting to be honest. found the supermarket. got myself a australian sim card. Im gonna be here a while so figured i better do.

did tried to find a beach that was near here, but it is just stoney and horrible. nevermind better beachs over the other side when i get there.
hung out at the tourist information place for a while, looking at all the different tours.

got some dinner and back to the hostel to chill. Spoke to irish bloke carl that is in the bed opposite, thats when he noticed the used condoms. not sure i am going to be able to look at the face of english man in the bed below me. haven't actually seen him yet. apparently he is working around here so, maybe i wont.

So carl was going to the bar, yes had to be a irish bar, i said i would come for one drink.
strange thing was i got there wearing flip flops (sorry thongs in australia) shorts and a sleeveless top. they wouldn't let me in. guess why. how irish is this, it was just the sleeveless top. the flip flops are fine and the shorts are ok, but not the sleeveless top. What the hell is that about. bloody irish. !!!! sorry mark roche !!!

so went in there, a band was about to start, they were pretty good, not see a band in a while, so maybe it was just that. nah they were pretty good, did 3 songs of there own, and then took requests. i thought it was strange they only had 3 songs of there own, not a great band i guess, but were able to take requests. only 1 they didn't do as they didn't know the words.

so had my beer listened to the band for a while, and got back to the hostel.

28th august singapore to Darwin Oz

2007-08-29T05:52:00.000+01:00

So have to get out of the hostel today by 5pm, and i have a flight at 10pm. great.
oh well i have nothing i want to do in singapore anyway, i have had enough. there are a few more things to do in sentosa, but i really can't be arsed its nothing great there is a few aquaiurms and things, but nothing i am too interested in .

so again did nothing, bummed around in the shopping area of bugis found a shopping centre called simlim that specialises in electronics, so had a look round there fora while. went had some dinner.

then went back to the hostel, figured if i was just gonna chill out then i may as well chill at the airport, as the hostel was gonna charge me after 5pm to stay there. sod that.

So got the the airport about 5:30pm, i was well impressed i was able to check in at that time with my flight being at 22:00. wow. impressive indeed.

so i hung around the airport, read a book, played some psp. nothing special.

wow got onto my qantas flight. was the best flight i have ever heard very impressive. there was not many people on the flight so i got a window seat and it wasn;'t over the wing. wow thats a first for me. actually its not the plane from KL to singapore i coudl choose my own seat !!!1

anyway this flight yuo get to choose from over 50 films and when you start them it starts on your screen from the beggining, so no missing the start or anything. Choices were good, i watched 300. Had food which was really good aswell, spagbowl with salmi. better then i thought it would be. got 2 free beers and not the little size you get the normal size cans. had some aftereight pudding thing which was sweet. And i even thought the coleslaw was excellient and i don't normally eat that.

so going to land in darwin tomorrow at 4:10am. lets see what darwin has to offer.

27th August Singapore.

2007-08-28T09:17:00.000+01:00

So got up today, decided i would go down to the beach area sentosa, Weather was great looked like it had been raining this morning and it was rather overcast. sod it i am going anyway.

Got down to the coast and you can take a monorail over to the sentosa island or a cable car. Now as many of you know me and heights are great, but i have been told the cable car doens't go that high.

Bloody liar's it was high enough for me to think shit and have to close my eyes (yes what a wuss) however i did manage to take some photos while i was up there. very quick photos, but i did it. yippee for me !!!!!!!

so finally mad it to the island. was quite a little paradise island, well the south of it, the north is a building site. there is quite a bit to do on this island, but i can't be arsed, i just wanted another lazy day by the sea. so ihave been told the best beach is siloso, so i went there. was rather nice, not as good as thailand beach's but it was still a beach.

Was there for about 1hr, and then the sun come out, which was good as i had already been in the sea. again didn't do alot sorry people who are reading. i am resting before i get to oz as there is alot to do there.

So read my book, dam it must be good i am half way through and i only started it yesterday. good book. odd thomas by dean koontz. so far i recommend it. Had a tiger beer in a bar close by. then back to the beach. topped up my suntan. yeah im getting brown again. Actually the night after i sit in the sun i go red, but by the morning i am brown. sweet.

hair not looking to great still growing it, actually i think i better get it at least cleaned up im looking rather traveler like.

so day on beach back to hostel and chilled out. want to get lots of sleep as i leave for darwin tomorrow and i take off at 22:00 and land in oz at 04:00. nice. the hostel i have booked into at darwin tells me i can get straight to me room at 04:30-05:00ish, so lets hope they keep there end of the bargin.

26th august Singapore...

2007-08-27T12:17:00.000+01:00

Got up decided i was going to go look at the chinese and japanise gardens. not sure why was going to go to sentosa as that is the little island of singapore where all the beachs are, but have been told it is a sunday and will get very busy, so i will go tomorrow.

These gardens are the futhers away i have been. it took me 40mins on the MRT to get there, then a little 2 min walk. just to find out that the gardens were closed, due to some stupid festival starting on the 5th september, and they need to prepare. dam i was not going for any reason just thought it would be nice to hang out in a garden and we me book.

Nevermind. Next stop was to check out the singspore science centre, not really sure why i was going , thought it would be a bit kiddy for me and when i got there it was. oh well it was only a stop or two up on the MRT to no biggy there.

So what did i actually do. sod all is the answer i went down to clarke quey, which is why the ministry of sound was, there is a waterfront there on a riverside and just basically bummed around. didn't do anything had a beer in a bar. sat next to the river and chilled most of the day. Then just back to the hostel and did sod all. collect my washing it was now dry.

thats it, sorry peoples not an exciting day. but hey, i enjoyed just chilling out.

as i said off to sentosa which is where the beachs are, so problem not much to report tomorrow either, we will see.

bbyyyeee 1!!!

25th august 2007 singapore.

2007-08-26T13:27:00.000+01:00

As i was out pretty late last night, i got up late. Nothing really planned for today, so i did some washing, yeah how exciting i know !!! it is free here just have to buy some washing powder, actually that was quite funny i guess, i was told to go out of here towards the MRT (monorail) and head straight then turn left at the food court.

Well i thought it was simply and i hear it should of only taken me 15 mins. however could old ian with a hangover went the wrong way and thought the hostel person meant go straight from the MRT but she didn't she meant straight past it, anyway by the time i found a 7/11 to buy some powder, i had already walked for about 30mins. then i thought i knew the way back, but ended up at a different MRT station the one down the road, oops so i got the MRT back to my MRT and did some washing.

After that had finsihed it was like 16:00 and i still hadn't eaten, so went to a food court again this time the chinese one near chinatown surprisingly. Then back to the hostel i was pretty tired and didn't do anything for the rest of the day. finished my book, velocity by dean koontz if your intersted, it was ok, nothing great i would shout about. (unlike this new book i am reading my him !!) played, well tried to play a little guitar and that was that.

day over, sleep time.

24th August 2007, singapore.

2007-08-26T13:15:00.000+01:00

so chris is leaving for germany today, he was said to go but happy to go home, if that makes sense.

Micheal is leaveing tomorrow so we have decided to hook up again and explorer some more of singapore, there doens't seem to be alot here though.

so meet michael at 11am, went to finf the raffles hotel, he seems to think it is legendary but i have never really heard of it, meant to be something like the ritz. However we got there, bit of a disapointment, see top photo, we was expecting something glamourous, but to us it was just an old building nothing special (actually since we wenti have been told it the inside which is glamourous hoever i would not get in, in flip flops) so we had a little walk round, went to mellion park which we were told is the most photographed place in singapore. again no idea why it is a little harbour with a crap view, the lion fountain (picture above) is the best bit. wow a fountain, thats impressive !!!!!

We also went searching for a guitar shop, and we found the mail with well we thought one shop, there was actually about 7-8 shops. one had some funky guitars (see above) there was some blue charater thing i have no idea what it was, there was also a machine gun gutiar above and left to that and another one to the right that was in the shape of an axe, pretty nice. nothing i would buy but i suppose would be good hanging on the wall if you had enough money and space for it.

So we decided to go see a movie, rush hour 3, wow what a great film. i know i have now been to see 3 films, but dam why is all good films coming out while i have left the country. anyway was a great film, i think jakie is getting a bit old now, as there wasn't much action and fighting from him like there use to be, this was more comedy but still funny as you like.

then again had a little walk round. found out where minstry of sound is in singapore. As we are going there tonight. can't wait should be a good night.

So michael and i depart to get some food and back to hostels to get changed and ready to party.

Got to minstry of sound, have been told it is a house night tonight, however we get in there and there seems to be only one room, michael was told the place can hold 5000 people, this room wouldn't even hold 1000, and its hip hop. i like hip hop but not to dance too. so we hang around and they open another room up a little later, actually they is about 3 rooms, one big one with a revolving dance floor, which was playing house, and we stayed in that room all night. another room playing funky 70's stuff, i was happy with that but michael doens't like it. actually it was set out to be a 70's place with the egg shaped seats that hang up and stuff like that. pretty cool if you ask me. and the other one was a VIP room which had footy on it so lucky i couldn't get in there, not sure michael would of come away, i mean michael we are in a club for fuck sake, why would you want to watch footy.

So had a good night in there, showed singapore how to dance this time. and basically rocked my little socks off for the rest of the night.

23rd August, singapore.

2007-08-26T13:03:00.000+01:00

So got up today, i am meet up with chris and micheal the guys i meet in bangkok and went to koh pha nagn with.

The boys are back in town. we meet in china town, was nice to see them again. we took a walk around china town, chris wanted to see the chinese temple near by. Wow i was totally impressed it looks better then any chinese temple i went to in china, maybe because it is newer im not sure. but wow what a site. Micheal and i both got a talking to by the temple bloke after we walked in, we was both wearing shorts that didn't cover our knees, i mean can you imagine you could see our knees, what would buddha say. So we were told to pull our shorts down so they cover our knees, we both looked and felt like those kids that where they trousers far to low and was exposing our arses. I mean come on would buddha want to see my knees or my arse. hold on is budda a women, if so then yeah i can understand my arse is cute. yes i konw buddha is a man, or male god thing.

So the temple was nice, next micheal wanted to go shopping he is looking for a black paul smith shirt that he wants. No we didn't find it, we did find 2 paul smith shops but no black shirt. Oh well, we walk round alot of other shops just browsing, but nothing was brought.

Next we went to the botanical gardens, which was pretty cool, there was a nice lake, some waterfalls and some nice green grass. not sure what else to say really.

then we went and got some food in a food court, in the newton area, it was quite a big place, but people do annoy me, yes its hard to believe i get annoyed !!!!

well im looking round for some food and everyone just steps right up to your face and thrusts there menu in your face, i dont need that and i dont like it, i can see the bloody menu its above the counter. so that kind of annoyed me a bit. however i got a chinese, i must admit not as good as china, but i guess china has now ruined me for chinese food anywhere else. oh well. life goes on.

We was about to leave and a big rain storm came down, so we sat there for a while. micheal and i tried to convince chris to go out clubbing with us, to be fair he had to get a plane at 7am so had to be at the airport at 5am, so i understand why he said no. but we nearly confinced him.

So that was that day, short and sweet good to see the guys again. i believe we said we would have a reunion next year sometime. can't wait.

22nd august KL to singapore.

2007-08-25T14:55:00.000+01:00

ok had to get a bus at 12:00 today, it was actually a bus and a nice one at that. It only had 30 seats and they were like armchairs. very nice indeed. soooo much better then koh samui to puckets.

anyway the drive was longer then i had thought, it took about 7 hrs, mainly because the driver, who was an arrogant fucker, was dropping people off left, right and centre at random places. and again its funny everytime i get a bus that goes over a boarder into a different coutry, all these random people get off abot 500yards from the boarder, rather funny i think now.

so we stopped at a little stall thing, but no hot food, which i was pissed off with i haven't eaten today, yes i got up late again, and no i wasn't drinking. think i am still catching up from my 30 hrs session.

So we finally get to the boarder of singapore, and had to get off for immigration, that wasn't too bad, im sure they look at my picture and ain't sure if it is still me, i have changed a bit and look different with long hair. (i hate that picture at the top not sure why i put it on there. anyway!!!)

but no problems. then we got back on the bus, drove for another 10mins, and was told we had to get off again. this time we got given out bags. we had stopped at a place called woodlands. so we got off, had to do another passport check and had our bags scanned. again no problems.

so then i am wondering where the hell woodlands is, checked the "map" there is no MRT (monorail) there that i can see great i only know how to get to the hostel from a monorail.

so i walk down some stairs hoping it will help somehow, yeah how i don't know. and i find the bus i was on a min ago. apparently we are meant to get back on there and he takes us into singapore singapore. well it would of been nice to know, if there was an MRT i would of taken it. bastardo.

so back on the bus he drops me actually really close to the hostel i need to get to kallang MRT and he drops me just off of kallang road. i find out i still need to get an MRT down one stop but that is easy.

oh yeah i picked up a couple of germany guys who didn't have a place book in singapore so they are tagging along, i don't mind every germany i have meet so far as been really nice.

so get to the hostel and there is room for the 2 germany guys. although again te hostel wasn't aware i was coming, great, so i logged onto the internet and showed her the reservation. she is happy. so they don't have a bed in the mens dorm, so i have to go into the womens dorm.

oh what a shame. actually there really isn't a looker between them, two english girls were ill so maybe i let them off this time. but they are leaving in the morning aswell. i guess one night with the legendery shell length is enough for any women !!!! hahahaha

so decide that i haven't eaten all day i would get some lunch again germany guys are coming along, we decided to check out the resturants just below. it's indian and i didn't fancy any indian food, so i tell the germanys i am not getting here, but they didn't listen and got some food anyway, great so i am watching them eat, i am so close to tell them i am off. but the good in me, yes there is some decides not to for some reason, which i had.

so they finish we go to bugis to have a walk round and get me some food, it is now 9 fucking 30 and i still haven;'t eaten. well i find a KFC and go mad. yummie not had KFC for a while. i would just like the germany guys to go now they are doing my head in . they are only 19 and we are so different. so i want to get a phone, yes i have already lost the one i brought 4 days ago, if i loss another one, thats it, i will not have a phone and i will do without. i only use it for texting a few people at home and a alarm clock. so fuck it. i will get an alarm clock from somewhere.

so the germans for some reason tag along why i go in a out of a few shops, i tell them not to worry they can go off, (please go off) they are ok. nice. So i finally find a cheap decent phone, and i have to go get a sim card. finally find a sim card, and i have to go back to get a phone. The germans are now decided they want to go off. thanks the lord.

so i get a phone and a sim card and just head back to the hostel for sleep.

good night.

21st August. kuala lumpur. petronas towers

2007-08-25T07:22:00.000+01:00

So got up to go to the KL towers today, was told by a tourist that i should get there for about 7:30, but my hostel bloke told me it would be ok to get there for 8-9am. Should of listened to the tourist, as i got there for about 8:45, and the queue was bloody huge. so i lined up, took me 2hrs to get a ticket and they close at 17:30. my appointment was at 17:00 so i was lucky i think to get a ticket.

tickets are free thats why its such a big queue. mum i hope this is worth it, im doing it for you.

the queuing wasn't to bad, i was standing next to an irish women who i got talking to, she looked pissed as a fart from last night, and you would never guess what she did for a living, she was gwen stefani's tour manager. How random is that, so she was rather interesting to talk to. she also managers the red hot chills and a few other people. wow, gwen is over here doing a tour at the moment, doaaa this is her manager i am talking to.

So got the ticket eventually, 17:00 and its now 11am. So time to explorer and see what KL has to offer.

there isn't actually alot to see in KL. so i went down to the orchard gardens, lake gardens, butterfly park. however because i had time to waste i thought i would walk. ouch my feet still hurt from thinking about it .

so i finally made it to the ochard garden, actually was a waste of time, i wasn't impressed at all, looked more like a garden centre to me, maybei just dont like flowers, but i was expecting some really beautiful flowers with lots of different colours and thinks. oh well live and learn. walk pasted the bird park. apparently is the is biggest undercover one in the world. but to be honest i had went to one in hong kong which was free, and that was ok. this one you have to pay for. yeah i know its not alot, but sod that.

didn't actually find the lakes, found an old railway station which was ok, its just an old building.

wow where has the time gone, better get back to my appointment at the patronas towers.

got back to the towers went and had some food. got to the towers.

well you go to the exhibition centre read some stuff about the towers and how they built them, nothing to interesting. i did find out that petronas who own the towers as a petrol company, very big over here, i personnal have never heard of them.

next you get to see a cheesey 3d film about the company its really american, petronas as great we do this for the country and blah blah blah. waste of time, but i get to the towers so its ok.

got up to the towers, wow you do get a really nice view of the city. not as high up as the KL towers, but still i think it is a better view. better location. So we were on the towers for about 10mins. got to walk up and down it take pictures. OMG im not a lover of heights, but mum wants pictures, so i went to the middle of the bridge and there is a little bit you can walk out on. i took a picture up that was ok, and a picture down just to show the height of it. wow that made me go dizzy as hell. so i then left the bridge and stood by the end of it. what a tit i know, im 27 and heights mess me up. oh well we can't all be superman.

so that was the petronas towers. i wanted to get a picture of the towers at night as they look so beautiful. So i went round the shoppping centre at the bottom of the towers, dam its huge. got to about 06:45 thought ok the sun goes down about 7pm, so i went up. sat around. dam it the sun didn't go down till 8pm. so i sat around for a long time. wanted to get the pictures so i had to do it. could of gone back to the shopping centre but i wasn't actually buying anything so sod it.

Finally the sun went down, got the picture i wanted. and don't you think it was worth it, they look great.

so didn't really do anything else. got to a internet place. wrote some more blog, spoke to good old wez. (nice to speak to you mate, miss you !!!! lol )

then got back to hostel, hang out for a bit with 2 blokes a ozzy and a canadian man, who is abot 40 and is still traveling. he likes to travel. hope i a still doing it at his age, these are the best times of my life and i am doing and see so much it is unbelievable.

plus im not working. hahaha. im a bum. how cool is that.

Going to singapore tomorrow on a "bus" hope its better then the "bus" i had from koh samui to pucket. they bus people tell me it is VIP, which is what i asked for, only 30rm which is 5 pounds, not bad at all. we will see.

20th kuala lumpur.

2007-08-23T15:54:00.001+01:00

So got up today, had my free breakfast, which was burnt toast, because of me and some kellogs cornflakes, wow not had kellogs in a long time was rather nice though.

so i went to the batu caves just outside of KL with Meredith, a nice american girl. caves was ok, not very big like i had thought, well they whre tall but we walked through them in like 30 sec i was expecting caves like the onei went to in china. Oh well nothing ventured nothing gained. Also there was a shine in the cave, me and meredith both expected something really big and really nice, well it was nice but not big. there was people getting what i can only imagine was blessed by the shrine people. oh well.

What was quite fascinating was the fact that the wall to the caves had wild monkeys living there, they were going up and down the mountain side with such easy, that was properly hte best thign about the caves, which goes to show what they were like, the statue outside the caves was also just as impressive, but the caves themselfs, well not impressive, but it didn't cost anything so thats fine.

then we got back to KL city and had some dinner at a street stall near the bus park. that was ok, it was indian and it was a little spicey for me, but nice enough. well maybe it was malaysian, i dont know it was indian to me anyway.

So meredith was leaving that day, bey meredith nice to meet you.

so i was back to being alone which is cool. i know my mum would love to go to the Petronas towers , so i have to give it a go. got alway to the towers and found out it is closed on a monday. booo, typical oh well another day.

PLus there is another tower, called KL towers which is actually higher then the petronas towers. if anyway doesn't know petronas are a petrol company over here, they are hugh, i personnaly didn't know that. anyway.

so went to the KL towers, dam its not hard to see but hard to find the entrace you have to walk round a big foresty like area and guess where the entrance is and yes i even had a map. likey a women was trying, we all know what there directions are alike lol. (oh im gonna get shit for that one)

the KL towers you have to pay for only 20RM (ringgit) which is less then 3 pounds, but i here you dont pay for the petronas towers. wow you are really high, you do get such a view of the city ity is really amazing. nice place KL, just doens't seem like there is alot to do.

so by the time i had found the entrace to the KL towers and done the batu caves, that was really it, i walked round for a bit, got back to the hostel and again just chilled al the women i meet yesteday had left, booo. nevermind hope to meet more people now anyway. i was so tired i got to bed rather early.

night. plus im told to get up the petronas towers i need to get there early. ouch another early rise for the shell.

19th August pucket to kuala lumpur.

2007-08-22T16:31:00.000+01:00

So got a flight at 15:00 so went for breekie and just chilled out with jo, also packed my stuff. flight was great actually you get less room then on a normaly place, but that doens't bother us shells we are all lickle anyway. i knew it was good for something. well nearly off of us shells ah alan. !!!! lol only joking mate. but you do give me some shit aswell, plus you can't give it back on here so hahahahahahahahahahah.

so flight was ok, only took an hour and half i think, i was asleep for most of it so thats good. actually something i did notice was it took the plane ages to get above the clouds like his angles were wrong or something. but OMG wow what a view i have never taken off from a island so small before and it was one of the most beautiful things i have ever seen in my life (thats what i was thinking about the otherday wez when you asked) it was truely amazing wish everyone could of seen it, and it looked like we was following round the island for a bit, was truely truely one of the best sites i have seen, and i have seen a few.

WOW

so landed in kuala lumpur, interesting place, its a cross between england and thailand. kind of hard to explain but nice really, wasn't sure i was gonna like it, but i do. Went to get a taxi to the hostel as it was fairly cheeap and to be honest i just kind of like to get to the hostel the easy way to start with, can'tbe arsed with all that walking round looking for the place. so went to the taxi place to get a token. DAM it the road to the place i want to go buket bintang. has been closed. great so it looks like i will be getting a monorail and a walk. dam it how do i find the hostel from the monorail, shit didn't write that down, asked if there is internet place around. im told "NO".

thanks anyway KL. so i get a monorail. i know which stop i have to get to ask the women at the monorail for internet. "NO" ok then thanks very much.

so get off at buket bintang. im told there is one around here. actually wasn't to bad, found one, so i know have an idea of where i want to go, i have to find the KFC and turn there, go down two roads turn left and i will find hostel on the right look out for 2 red door. hold on its night now how the hell am i meant to see two red doors. !!!! i will find out.

so i start walknig down the road, thinking shit is the the way to KFC. so i go back, try to look down all the roads and and nice gentleman asked me if i am lost. tell im i need KFC, i think he things i am mad as i have all my big rucksake and little rucksake and a guitar yet i am asking for a KFC. anyway he tells me it was the road i was walking down to start with anyway .

so i find the KFC, go left after 2 roads, and down the road, get to the end and i didn';t see any red doors, shit its night. so back i go and i had just past it, did it see this time. nevermind.

get tot he hostel, got shown to my room. oh what a shame i am in a hostel with 6 beds and 5 women and me. oh what a shame !!!!! yeah, so 3 of them are going out and im sure one, actually the best one was either interest or just a post lady, as i dam well caught her checking out my package. oh i know she has heard the legends well if she plays her cards right and posts her post on time, she too might get to experiance the best dam ride in the world. not every women does. but she might.

so they do actually invite me out, they are goign drinking. i am so tempted to, but i have to be a good boy i have been drinking for to much latelying and i dont want to run out of money so like a good boy i reframe, anyway there is always tomorrow, lol.

so they go off, i take alittle walk round the area, actually i dont feel to safe here, not sure why looks a little dark and dirty to what i have been use to, anyway got back to hostel, did some typing of this blog, cause i got so much shit for missing a "few" days, sorry peps i am catching up and i am impressed i am remembering things.

So just chillled that night. lets see what tomorrow brings.

18th august pi pi to pucket.

2007-08-22T16:16:00.000+01:00

so got the ferry again bloody early, 8am. bastard bloody 8am. what person gets up at 8am on ther holiday. if it was diving yeah i can understand but its not.

anyway got the ferry back, weather looks fine on pi pi island,. im not going to be happy if it says fucing sunny just because i am leaving today. fucking god love me really !!!!!

so we actually got back to pucket and it started to rain, im thinking it was raining in pi pi island aswell, yes of course it was ian, whatever makes you happy. yes then it was ok !!!!!

went back to the same hostel i was in before it was rather nice and cosy. plus this place didn't have bed bugs, i think the pi pi island place had a mattress and pillor filled with coconut fillings, yeah i learnt they do that on my koh samui safari. thought it would be soft, but it wasn't that great. so back to pucket with nice beds and hot showers, yeah hot showers babe.

so didn't do alot, jo got some sleep, is he always sleeping or what, well not actually neather of us got any sleep because of the bloody bed bugs. but i cant sleep during the day, well not very easy.

So jo went to bed i went, where did i go !!!!! oh yeah i went looking for the sea gipeys. bloody hell i thought pucket town was small, it is if you go north but not south, and i didn't realy have a good map. so it took me about 1.5hrs to find them, to be honest im not sure what i was expecting it was just something to go and look at i guess, they are just shanty towns on stilts, not very nice to look at and they were all staring at me, i actually think i was the only white boy that had been there fore like a 1000 years and was the only one in a 100mile radicus, well it felt like it anyway, i defo didn't feel safe. Then just i was leaving a bloke, which looked like a taxi scooter then, come up next to me asking where i was going. i was like down hear, fuck sake i was on a scooter meself what was he going to show me i dread to think. anyway i speed up he did, so i stopped he couldn't stop quick enough. so he carried on and i was ok, but what a wierd thing to happen.

so went and meet jo, we just hang around got some food, and we decided to go see bourne ultimatum, wow what a film, loved it loved it loved it. However there is always someone that ruins it. Me and jo sat down and this french family, yeah fucking french, brough there 3 and 4 year old kid to an 18 film. well the kids were running riot, shouting screaming and running up and down the alses. fucking french (sorry i dont mean that really french people just playing the english part you know !!!) so me and jo moved because everytime they run past us they would kick our chairs, nice !!!

so we moved a few rows away, and i could still here them, well being a shell i shout out and actually i think it may of worked, after a few mins they shut up, bloody hell. impressive. so we watched the film,. wow it was great i would recommend it to anyone.

Thats it for the day. going to fly to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow as i have to get out the country of thailand, my visa is running out. dam where has the days gone, well i suppose i was on koh pha ngan for a week and learnt to dive for a week so i guess thats where it has gone.

so to KL tomorrow. flying on air asia that should eb interesting they are a budget airline like ryanair.

17th Pi PI island.

2007-08-22T16:06:00.000+01:00

woke up about midday, didn't actually have much of a hangover, but i remember reading at the little britain cafe i can get a proper english breakfast. wow and some proper english tea PG tips apparently.

So suggested to everyone about the english breakfast. abi wants her english tea and so do i. Down to little britain, it was PG tips but onnly half a mug. doh !!! still better then lipton which is all they have over here. the bacon was good it was english, im not sure the sausages were, they tasted better but not proper english sausages, oh well it shte best i can get for a while.

next we decide to explorer abit there is a view point on the island which you can get to see the whole island. ( dam i forgot the camera, ok next time again sorry pep's. ) So that was a hike and a half, dam it was like being back in china again all those bloody steps. but i made it. and yes it was worth it. what a view, trust me pics are worth waiting for. next i just basially walked round the island, found the two beachs, they were ok, nothing special, or no more then the other beachs in thailand so far. Apart from that i just strolled round.

oh yeah i did walk past a tatoo shop and saw a sign for piecings so i went and got my eye brow pieced not sure why, most women i know in england said it would suit me so why not i guess.
anyway it did hurt yes, but it looks good. i wasn't with anyone when i got it done, and guess what they didn't notice, i suppose it is quite small.

really that was it for the day, had dinner, sat around talking, didn't go out drinking, have to get up tomorrow and go back to pucket, was only on here for 2 days, and fucking pissed off i didn't get to the other pi pi island where the beach was filmed, dam dissapointed, but wasn't gonna chance it in a monsoon, actually not even sure if the little canoe boat would of taken us, i wouldn't of trusted him anyway. well i guess it gives me something to go back to.

yeah i will have to come back to see it another time, maybe not this trip, as monsoon season is around on this side of the island till october i hear.

oh well back to pucket tomorrow with jo, amy is staying on for a day and abi is off to koh samui.

goodnight england. :)

16th pucket to pi pi island.

2007-08-21T14:14:00.001+01:00

well we made the ferry and i am beginning to sobber up again. ferry was ok, bit choppy but we was inside anyway so not bad for us. free fanta as well, thats another little bit of heaven in my state. lol. found a bloke called flo from swissland he is going to join us, doens;'t talk much but does talk english pretty good, oh well no worries.

got to pi pi island, there is monsoon here, fun as we have no hostel. so went walking for a bit, found amy, sorry amy is a girl that joined our hostel yesterday and she was on her own, so she joined us and knew where a good hostel with a dorm was, the rock. we put our bags down outside little britain cafe, while she went to locate the hostel. good i am feeling a little worse for wears now, still now slept remember.

Amy came back, she has located another hostel that has 2 rooms for us. one for the boys jo, flo and i. one for the girls amy and abi. the room is 200 each so thats not a bad price, i was paying more in pucket and we are all soaked. so we got it.
wasn't too far, far enough in the rain and it was down a alley with building work going on, seems there is alot going on since the tsunami, so think we would get building work anyway.

so was bloody tired all of us, but abi, amy and i wanted food so went for some lunch, jo and flo went to sleep. pussies !!!!!

anyway had some food, yeah not bad had a pizza and a pretty good one at that, well lets be honest i would of found anything good at that moment.

2 of amys friends show up, ian and mark. they are from england and a right laugh, they are 2 mates traveling together and are actually at the rock, thing is they have one single top bunk to share, nice guys :)

they wanted to go for a drink, dam it i am staying up even longer, found a bar that was open most was closed at 10am in the morning. sports bar it is then. had a couple of games of pool. on the bucket of whiskey again, not alone we was sharing. found some jenga and some connect four, so broke the jenga out, that was great fun we did it normally for a few and had it the hightest i have ever seen, and no its not just because i am pissed.
then decided we were too good, so played jenga blind which didn't last long surprse surpirse but was fun. next played jenga with just our face, so thats the tongue and teeth then. wow that is hard and still fun at the time. must do that again sometime. must remember that game.

so still drinking buckets had connect four tournament that was ok, but i lost, came second so not bad. had a few more buckets.

decided at 14:00 it was ready for bed, i have been up for like 30hrs now and i am still pissed.

Had a few hours kip. got up about 19:00 wasn;t feeling to bad must of been the pizza and water i drunk before bed. went to get some food for dinner.

dam it ian and mark found us again and yes we are going out this evening. went to a few bars, first was like a meat market, to be honest i didn't really like that too much. stayed there for a little longer then i wanted, but we had lost jo and flo, yeah that ryhmes, jo and flo, jo and flo.
anyway carry on ian......next we decdied we would go to the apache bar, however on the way abi decides she wants a piggy back of jo. jo decided he is going to fun in flip flops. yes it didn't end well. jo fell over, abi went straight over the top. i saw it in slow motion as you do. ouch it must of hurt and im sure abi will second that, her face started to ballon, so flo ran got some ice, ouch her face is totalled on one side. she still wants to drink. hardcare or what. we wouldn;t let her, sorry abi it for your own good babes.

however it must of been bad as we had to keep her out as it was a head wound, and yes we kept on drinking. got to the apache bar, that was good, was nice music to start with, little too crowded for me. and i was pushed to the back god knows where anyway else was. however flo did find me, god he is hammered, propera hammered (nice english ian). so greace came on, ok thats enough dancing for me, went to locate everyone. found jo looking around pretty dum struck or he looked it anyway. he was looking for me, he wanted to take abi home as she wanted to go. i had had enough anyway not had much sleep as it was.

got home.

15th pucket

2007-08-21T14:14:00.000+01:00

so abi and jo are goiing to pi pi island tomorrow, not sure i have the time, but i want to go so sod it, we are all saying we are gonna have a early night tonight !!! (yeah ok )

everyone was hang over today, so we hopped on the scooters and went down to tesco's. yeah tescos how wierd is that its all over the place. anyway there was a mac d's so went in there had a double big mac, good hang over cure that one, nice and yummie.

Actually went into tesco for a few bits, shampoo, soap you know the usual stuff. By the time we got back to the hostel is was getting on 15:00. Jo wanted to go to the beach but i had decided to go exploring a bit. abi wants to join me, but she has given her scooter bike, no worries she jumped on mine and we went looking for a waterfall and would meet with jo later at the beach.

Found the waterfall eventally after going the wrong way and ending up back at tesco's. waterfall was pretty nice, not the best i have seen but better then the one on koh pha ngan, dam that was shit, but this is ok. Problem was again monsoon, nice we abi and i got some cover half way up, stayed there chatting for a while, which was cool. she is a nice girl, full of energy and good fun. yeah abi !!!!

so once the rain had stopped we thought sod going to the beach if its gonna be like that so we went and found a temple, i had no camera abi did so sorry no pics of either as yet. (have actually added pics from yesterday tho, so check them out.) got back to the hostel just before dark. it was cool to have someone on the back, give me someone to talk to other then shouting at the fucking stupid thai drivers. :)

so went for dinner again just a little cafe, however we got a message from sandy asking if we were going out to contact her. oh well we couldn't let her down this would be the last night we were with her, so grabbed palao aswell and the four of us went out, or sorry Tim, Sandys friend came with us, he is amercian he joined the peacecore and is over in thai running a community centre for thai people to learn english through playing games and stuff. he was cool and has said i could join him at some stage if i want to live in thai for a while, which is a nice offer. you never know.

So went out again to putang, funny this time a lady boy started coming towards me so i grabbed palao and sandy said stay close to me. god thats all i need, abi wasn't sure it was a lady boy, but defo was he had too nice tits to be a women, you know i mean (sorry ladys).
the same one actually got behind jo and put his/her/his tits either side of his face. oh lucky that wasn't me, im sure jo enjoyed it really !!!! joking jo !!!!

so went and tried a bar this time, down a slizy (sorry uncle alan that isn't spelt right i know) alley, wasn't too bad, drinks were reasonable, plus we had already had a bottle of whiskey again frmo the 7/11 that is cheap. played a thai game where you use the wrong end of a hammer to hammer a nail into a tree truck. hard game but i one a few times till a thai girl stepped up, she hit it once and it was down, i normally take a good 3-4 hits. and i dont hit it first time. bitch !!!
again she played, fuck me first time again and then again. she isn't playing anymore.

was a good laugh though, even if the bitch one. it wasn't for money and we didn't have to pay so thats cool with me. next tried a club wasn't as good as the one yesterday so went back to that one, i like that one anyway it has air conn, and that is defo a gift from god.

so got back to hostel at 5am, shit i am going on a ferry at 7am, so i decided not to sleep and stay up better drink a beer otherwise i am going to fall asleep. abi is already asleep good thing as i had to cary her home. bless her she drinks like a fish.
jo was going to stay up but he fell asleep in front of the tv, and he was not drinking so i think i made a good choice.
so its now 7am and i woke everyone up just on time, shit i nearly forgot as i was talking on the internet to parents (hello parents).

so next day.....

14th august 2007. pucket.

2007-08-21T05:48:00.000+01:00

So got up reasonable earlier today, meet up with abi and jo, we are all going to go down the beach, so i hired a scooter.

Roads are pretty good here, better then koh tao and koh pha nagn. wow nice to drive on real roads. anyway we started to head over to ***** blooody hell i forgot is is monsoon season in pucket. dam it started in august. oh well i am here now.

So we were driving and a monsoon started so we all got into the nearest resturant. not a bad one, pretty decent and none of us actually got that wet, was rather a nice view we were up over a hill overlooking patong beach, which was rather nice. rain was still coming down when we finsihed dinner so we all got a desert each and shared them. Rain had started to subdue a little so we waited and hung around.

oh yeah this was quite funny, jo ordered some food he was after for a while, can't remember what it was, anyway it comes up in a pineapple and is filled with rice and meet and stuff, looked rather nice, but he also ordered a coconut shake, which comes up with a flower in it, he looked so gay it was funny as hell. plus the waiter was blanitly gay, so we had a good laugh about that, actually reading this is doesnt seem that funny, but you had to be there really.

So the rain subdued and we carried on to laem sing beach (i think) got there still raiing a little but sod it we were getting wet anyway, and so all jumped into the water. wow the riptides here are really strong. so we didn't go to far in, but it was fun we were the only people on the beach cos of the weater, we were there about 10 mins, before the life guard came out and put his red flags out, shame really he was the one suggested we go further down the beach due to the riptide, well i assume it was that.

So we got out, i suggested we go to the next beach and swim there until he puts the flags out, so we carried on. got to the next beach bang tao, wow that beach is big, i do have a picture but camaera not easier access at the moment sorry, i will try to remember to add. i will even add pic of jo and abi.

so the flags were already out, they must of got the call we were heading there, shame. so sat and had a drink then the sun nearly came out. so we walked along the beach nothing special but a nice walk.

went back to the hostel after that as we were hungary, Went to a little thai cafe jo suggested. we actually meet up with more people, who i had meet the night before, all sat and had dinner.

Then we decided to go out to head out to patong where all the bars and tourists are. Picked up 2 more people so it is now abi, jo, me and paalo (chille) and sandy (HK), actually we turned out ot have a really great nice, one of the best yet i have had.

Went ot the 7/11 got a bottle of whisky and stood around drinking it for a while, taking in some of the sites, wow this shit is scarey here, there are ladyboys all over the place, not that i am like this but some are actually pretty and if you were drunk you may go for it (dam this is gonna get some comments i know!!!) so found a few clubs. one had aircon, so we pretty much stayed there most the night, was really good everyone was up and dancing and you know me, the first one up as no one else would dance as there was properly 1 person on there.

sod it im game and will not see many if not any of them again. come on basingstoke. yeah.

So that was the night we all had a great night and had a few drinks. lets see what tomorrow will bring.

13th august 2007. koh samui to pucket.

2007-08-18T11:55:00.001+01:00

got up lazyed around the pool today. as i have to get a bus to pucket at aroudn 13:00. i was going to go to krabi, but they wanted me to get a 9am bus. yeah ok. asked what they had in the afternoon and pucket came up.

so off we go then. i booked a ferry off koh samui, then a bus down to pucket. or what i thought was a bus. anyway meet to guys on the ferry who were nice, they were off to bangkok. It was quite strange one was scottish and one was irish. so we near had the british isles. need a welsh, but did we really !!!!!

This trip was a strange one, i got a couple carrier to a bigger proper bus, but we went passed the ferry to get there, we then got on the bus, which took us to the ferry i just passed, like a 30sec drive. Then we had to get off the bus to get on the ferry, took a ferry ride. got back on the bus, for about 30mins. and was then thrown into a people carrier, which took me for about 5 mins. then into another people carrier, which took me abuot 10min to another one. Then this people carrier took me all the way down to pucket.

OMG i was like traped in a 8 person people carrier, which took me for about 5 hours. now i have a rucksack on my lap, aswell as my guitar. And fuck all room. it was a nightmare, then the bloke infront decided he wanted to put his chair back as he was at the front and he could already stretch his legs out. Well being british he wasn't comfrotable as i was damming my well anythign into his chair as he was making me even more uncomfortable. Then as if it couldn't get any worse the thai guy nexts to me decided he wants to sleep and will jam his knee into my leg.

What a great 4/5 hour trip.

anyway finally got to pucket and i am staying in pucket town. now i was told they would drop me in pucket town. nah not so easy. It turns out they are dropping me off at the tesco out side of pucket town. fucking great.

lucky i had written down a phase in thai that i can say to a taxi and that should get me to my hostel. Oh yeah did i say it is monsoon season down in pucket and its pouring down with rain.
anyway i got a taxi,. from tesco not as hard as i thought, and he took me to the hostel. yeah i have arrived.

so before i even got to the reception. someone is shouting ian ian ian at me. OMG it was micheal the bloke i went to the full moon party with. dam i knew he might be in pucket, but didn't expect to meet him this soon. and fuck me i am in his dorm with him.
how cool it that. Only problem is that micheal i only here for one night. nevermind nice to see you again micheal. and will defo hook up in singapore with you and chris get the guys back together.

so straight into a dorm rom which i have not been in for weeks now. And i meet two lovely people in the space of 2mins. jo from germany and abi from uk, we all went out for dinner, well tried to get dinner, but all the places where shut as it was now 11pm. so went to the night market next door, to our hostel for a few bits, of bbq chicken pork and no idea what it was. jo intorduced us to some sticky rice, which they cook in a bamboo. not bad but really sticky and sweet as hell, so i didn't have much.

oh well micheal is off tomorrow and i will be hanging round with abi and jo. they already have motorbike and i will get one. the roads on pucket look great compared to what i have been driving on.

12th August 2007. koh samui.

2007-08-18T06:54:00.000+01:00

Jungle safari today. weather is still nice. got picked up from the hostel at around 13:00. was taken to a remote thai house in the jungle. where i was taught how they make the famous thai curry. wow they put about 10 chillis in there curry. We put only 2. I was hoping that i was going to eat the curry i was making, but he did a blue peter move, and pulled out one he created earlier. was rather good, but still it was a little too spicey for me.

Next we were talked though the 2 different types of coconut you get, green and brown. the green is only about 3months old and then turns brown when it reachs 6 months old.

The green one is sweet and you can drink it, better then any coconuts we get at home. the brown one is used for cooking. also the outer shell of the coconut is used to make pillors and beds. it is rather soft. maybe i will get to try one out one day.

Next was a monkey show, they show you how they use the monkey to get coconuts down from the tree, we then got to hold a coconut and have the monkey climb on us and twist the monkey free from the grib. was ok, poor monkey but thats life i guess out here, he was chained up !!!!

then we got to go do some elephant treking, which was great fun, poor elephant i felt a bit bad for getting him to walk around the jungle with me on his back. he seemed rather pissed aswell, as he was walking sideways alot. oh well, i did still enjoy it.

Then we got to go into a jeep go and see a mountain view which was really really amazing, lovely view, maybe one of the best views i have seen in thailand. Then we learnt how they get rubber from a tree and was shown, as thailand is one of the biggest rubber exports around. or so the guide told us.

then it was free, well you know what i mean, i did pay for the safari, anyway dinner and watching the sunset.

Thats more like the days i should be having doing more and seeing things. great day. just chilled in the evening in my room, all alone. !!!!!!!

nah it was good, to get some space every now and again. and i am leaving koh samui tomorrow for pucket. not sure i was going to go and the weather should be crap over there, as this (east) side is good. strange really they are not far appart, but thats what im told by everyone, we will see. i have read it is monsoon season over the west side.

11th august. koh samui.

2007-08-17T12:48:00.000+01:00

so sorry england, i know i have been bad and not updated this for a while, hope i can remember everything i have done.

so i have broken my earphones for my ipod. dam went looking today for some new ones and it is harder then i thought. so i went down to tesco, thought they would have some.

result they do have earphones. and wow how big is the, if you have been to a big one in england this beats the shit out of it, it also has a shopping mail. in the tesco so that kind of shows how big it is.

So anyway i fancy a massage again. So went got one. wow they are so get and the massger is really nice, actually they were fighting over who was going to give me a massage. anyway this really nice women give me one her name was oik.
Actually she has invited me out to a thai boxing match tonight, so think i am going to go along. because again these are bungalows and i dont seem to meet people. so it will be nice to have some company.

So just spent a day round the swimming pool. boy it is hot. nice to be in a swimming pool. Normally i have been going into the sea, but this was cool.

So went to the thai boxing match. it was free, so it wasn't great boxing but it was fun. first there was a couple of kids come out, they were ok. blue one !!!
then some women came out to fight. they were ok aswell, but getting better.
Then two pretty fat guys come out, and they were actually pretty good i was thinking that as they were quite fat they wouldn't be, i was so impressed with how he got his leg up quite high. the "skinner" one won.
Then more women came out, they were good. Apparently the women that lost had a english husband and i was told by my thai "guide" (the massager girl) that she is quite a celeb in koh samui. Anyway she lost. not sure why it was rally hard to tell how was winning i must admit, she was kicking arse to start with but near the end she kept getting "knocked" well more pushed down which you can do, and i didn't know that. Anyway her english husband was not happy that the judges said the one girl one. said something like, you fucking on drugs or something, what fuckign match are you watching. i suppose he would think his wife one.
anyway then the main event. Dam the man that came out next were really good. and red got knocked out, i mean cold. the blue guy did a sweet kick right to the face. Good show.

Anyway went to a disco after that, it nice having someone that knows the place. and i was actually really really impressed with this thai women, she was not drinking or anything and i didn't spend any money on her, i was a little worried to start with, because i here they can be rather buy me this buy me that shit, and i was just going to leave her if was like that. anyway she was cool.

got home, yes alone and went to bed, i think she did want to stay but i didn't really want her to stay in my room. first she is a local and im not happy with have her there, and i wouldn't sleep with her because you never know what she has.

10th august 2007, leaving koh tao for koh samui

2007-08-11T10:41:00.000+01:00

Wow another hangover, i should be use to these by now. was going to go over to krabi to make my way to pucket, but checked the leaving times yesterday and they wanted me to get a bus at 9am, no chance. so i changed my plans and i am now going to koh samui. Its close by and the taxi/ferry for that is at 2pm. nice.

So last night was fun. and i did pull so thats always nice :). weather was really shit though, it was raining heavy most of the night, and due to that there was no partys going on, so we just stayed at the resort bar and had a boggie and a few beers, oh yeah and buckets. no wonder i have a headache.

Anyway today. mmm didn't do anything in the morning apart from slept. s0o just went to get some food. Then just hung around till 2pm, read me boook. dean kootnz, velocity. It's ok, not as good as his frankenstein series although i have only read book 1 and 2, it really gripped me. oh yeah babe gripped me nice and hard !!! thats about the only thing so far. lol.

So took the ferry over to koh samui, very nice ferry indeed. was really impressed. Got to samui, dam its hot again. got to the bungalow. shame it looks more like a fmaily place this one. so hey i will most likely be on my own for a few days, to be honest i could do with it.

Had lunch at the bungalow, sorry im staying at samui beach resort. its nice it has a swimming pool, not very big, but who needs a big pool when you have the sea on your front door. and there are some big arse waves here, which could be fun. hope there is some fish around, as i have brought myself a mask and snokel now that i am a advanced open water certified dive that swam with sharks.

yeah i know i keep on about it, but it was exciting and fun for me, so there. !!!!!

well lets see what samui has to offer tomorrow. i am just chilling in my room today, think i need some sleep. but first view there is a few things to do on the island. And it also has a tesco.
think i may look at the marine park thats near here tomorrow or at some point.

bye for now. :)

9th August 2007.

2007-08-09T09:37:00.000+01:00

2 more dive today and i am then a certified advanced open water diver. yeah babe.

So went to champorn today, did a deep dive. and guess what hang around there, sharks. yeah i actually dived with sharks today, saw about 5 of them and one im pretty sure came close, i am talking 2-3 metres which is close enough. the sharks are just reef sharks and are not dangerous im told. yeah ok they are still sharks and they still have teeth. they are down about 25m, and i went to 30m, yeah that is deep. Have been told you can act a bit pissed, but i didn't feel any different, maybe cos i have been pissed on koh pan ngan for a week, lol.

so last dive was back at the twins, and this time i did underwater camera dive. Not much teaching really, just been told to get close, turn off the flash and try. i did. took a few good ones. oh canada did take the camera down to the sharks so i have some pics of them aswell.

Yes i will add them, but i am just waiting for them to be put onto CD. and then i will add some. also add more to facebook if anyone wants to check out more. addres = http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=545185895

enjoy. going out 2nite to celebrate, although i am leaving tomorrow, not sure where i am going yet that is next on my list after i have finished this.

I am writnig this now as i said im getting pissed and then have to go somewhere tomorrow. if there is anything interesting tonight i will add it later.

Take care all, i was swimming with sharks.

8th august 2007, koh tao, advanced open water.

2007-08-09T09:34:00.001+01:00

, in a group of six. see above, we have wolfgang (my buddy, can yuo guess where he is from !!!) laura, hannah, roel, margreet (this is spelt right) , and me.
SO did a very little bit of theory today, just about bouyancy (hope that is spelt right, yes this does have a spell check, but it donly tells me if it is wrong not how to spell it, fat lot of good that is, when you have a retard like me typing)
So went and did 3 dives today, a bouyancy peak performance, navigation and night dive. Wow i only use 1.6KG now, i was using 4kg, and it is so much easier to dive, so much easier.

I can stay just off the seabed now with easy. Did a few tricks to practise like going between legs, hovering vertical instead of sitting posisition. then went for a swim, only thinig different this time was we saw a sea snake, that was pretty cool to watch. just like on land really but it was nice, honest !!!.

as i said then did a navigation which was ok, nothing special, use a compass go here go there, do a square, well i say it was easy but we did actually loose 2 people, roel and margreet. Anyway we carried on, and did some more nav, then it was down to wolfgang and me to go off on our own. thought it would be a little scarey without a instructer close by, but i much prefered it, not sure why.
So much for mum and dad telling me you will always have an dive master or instructer with you. Well i didn't !!!!!

Then got back had some food, and on to a night dive. Well i was expecting the night dive to be good. but to be honest there was not alot there, we did see 2 blue spotted stingrays out and about, which was cool to see. and 1 puffer fish, everything else i saw you can see in the day and at night they are asleep.

The instructor (canada, ex navy seal, better not take the piss then !!!) said it wasn't a good spot, the place he wanted to take us was to wavey and no boat would of goen there, shame.

7th august 2007. Koh tao, diving open water !!!

2007-08-09T09:16:00.000+01:00

So finished my open water today, joined another group that was doing the 3rd and 4th dive. OMG i had to join the group with the plums from the start of my course, actually correction, the women dropped out, not surprised at all. so guess who was buddy to the man plum. yeah me, and he still scared me. We where on the boat and he asked why we have oxygen. OMG does he not remember anything from the course.

Anyway, managed to complete it this time, which was good. got my certification, yippie.

Now off to another diving school to learn my open water advanced. which will allow me to go down to 30m. ohhh scarey.

went off to big blue diving resort today. Got a room, boo, they wanted 500 a night for air con, and 200 for fan, well i have been living with a fan for 3 days anyway, so whats 3 more.

However i got to the room, and i knew it was gonna have air con, but they kept the controller, so i couldn't use it, but low and behold there was already one in the room, sweet as, i get to have air con room for 200 baht. how sweet is that !!!! hahaha big blue hahaha.

So started my advanced tomorrow i want a rest. yeah ok they put me aboev the reggue bar, how much music. blah blah blah bass bass bass.

6th August 2007, exploring koh tao.

2007-08-07T10:20:00.000+01:00

hangover.... ouch. lucky im not diving. but thats what i wanted a day of.

So hired a moped again, bloody hell the roads are worse here then in koh pan ngan. nevermind still made it round, just extra slow and careful.

Still there is nothing on this island, i went to see the "whale skelaton", which wasn't that impressive must of been a whale shark skelaton, not impressive at all, so i didn't even take a photo of it.

Not much else to say, must be slowing down a bit, no its just there is nothing here, but white sandy beachs, blue skies and the big old sun. hahaha i here england has actually got some aswell, good on you england.

5th august 2007, more diving in koh tao.

2007-08-07T10:12:00.000+01:00

so going to do my final dives today, not got my book yet, but have been told we may get them when we get back. fucking lot of good that is. sorry to keep going on but this is a fuckiing joke.

anyway got out to shark bay today, this is where the sharks are !!!! doh !!!

however the sea is so fucking choppy we are the only boat out here as most boats won't go, but we have a bigger boat then everyone else or some shit.

Disappointed - i got all the way out there, and i didn't feel right, not sure what it was, a combo of things i think. diving in the big blue with no reef to look at, seasickness. and a new instructor.

anyway i didn't dive today, fucking shame, disappointed really, but i get to try again.

Everyone i have been diving with finished and are going out tonight to celebrate so i have managed to get my dive 3 aqnd 4 for the 7th august. Could do with a rest.

So went out to the irish bar, bloody hell i think everyone in the village is here, was a good nite i suppose nothing special i had a different diving group to these people i have not talked to them much. but beats sitting in my room.

4th august 2007, koh tao - diving.

2007-08-07T09:56:00.000+01:00

so still no book today, this is getting beyond a fucking joke now. 5 fucking star my arse, thinking on gonna complain to paddy.

Anyway did the confined water thing, fuck me i did get put with a couple, and they are a couple of right plums. instructor told us we ahve to keep breathing, obvioulsy, but they said why ??? then said we have to get rid of all our air if we were doing a cesa, (controlled emergency safety accent) and they said, how do we know when we have got rid of all our air.
I mean come on for fuck sake, i know some people have no common sense but that takes the biscuit.

Anyway was in the water 2hrs, and only did a 1/3 of what we should of, fucking stupid couple, the women does not seem convidant at all, seems like he is pushing her into it. actually she is french and i would't mind pushing her !!!!!!

sorry !!!!

Anyway, the instructer was happy with me, but has told the couple they should do the whole confined water thing again. and i will do the rest with him on the afternoon dives. The bloke wasn't happy but he is a plum and a half.

anyway, did the afternoon dives with just me and greg the instructer, which was really nice. he is a good bloke took it slow, but we had all the confined water stuff done in about 15mins.

So did a dive, again wow see some nice stuff under there, and had no problem with my breathing this time. actually used the same amount of air as the instructor on both dives so he was well happy.

used 90 bar in a 40 min dive. which is very good trust me.

So again been told i will get my book tomorrow. yeah ok. Got back diving is so tiring so just went to bed after food.