Current Mood: Tired

Well actually it gets down to minus 15 degrees, but that’s where we went last night with a few friends of ours from Horsham who we met up with here in Sydney.

Em and I went out on our own yesterday to have a chilled day doing nothing apart from relaxing and meeting a friend of ours (Laurie) from Horsham.  We met her at one of Sydneys big outdoor screens where the Cricket is being shown and after a catch up drink and a chat we decided that last night we would go to Minus 5 – this is a bar where everything is made of ice, including the bar, glasses, walls, seats, tables etc etc… 

We met them at 8pm and went into Minus 5, really nice place where you get 30 minutes to chill (literally) in this bar.  Any longer and I imagine you would get uncomfortable as even with gloves my hands started to go numb at the end.  It’s part of a bar called Lenin’s which is a vodka bar, so the choice of drinks you get in Minus5 all revolve around vodka – I had something called a Frostbite and then one called a Husky – which after drinking it I can see why, it was made of Absolut Pepper Vodka, Absolut Lychee Vodka, Ginger, Lemon and a load of other bits and bobs – it certainly warmed the pallet!

After leaving the bar we decided that Karioke would be a good idea so hit a place called RedBox – with 14 People we got our own room and for two hours blurted out such songs as “Hotel California”, “All That She Wants” and “Delilah”!.  A good crack indeed…

At 2:30am this morning we said goodbye to Loz, Big Ginge, Nat and Becs to make our way back to the hostel – the girls were visiting the Blue Mountains today so hopefully they aren’t too tired.  We may catch up with them again in Melbourne, but for now it’s just time to chill and conserve pennies.

Current Mood: Esctatic & Tired

We’re here in Sydney and apart from having to sell a major organ everytime that we have something to eat, or partake in an excursion it’s been alright.  The weather has cooled off dramatically since we came down from Cairns and I’m even going to have to buy a jumper and Jeans to keep myself warm in the evenings – shock horror!!!

Our hotel is really nice but a little way out of the hustle and bustle of City Central so we are relying on buses and taxis for us to move around.  Sydney is unlike London in terms of ease of moving around, buses are annoyingly infrequent and then you have no idea where they are heading but jump on anyway.  Taxi drivers are hard to flag down even when they are empty and displaying the ‘catch me’ light, then when you catch them they have no idea whatsoever of where you want to go!  But – hey, who cares!  We’re in Sydney and its cool (weather wise!)

For New Year we were booked onto a boat called the Jerry Bailey, with 9 of us it was going to be a good laugh – then we got told about the dress code, Scatt was not aware that there was one, until she checked the confirmation – then we were told it was cocktail dress!  So my cropped jeans, T-Shirt and trainers weren’t going to cut the mustard.  Blast…  Luckily for Chrimbo I was fortunate enough to get money from several people (you know who you are – thanks loads and loads!) So 30th/31st December was spent in a mad rush/panic to try and find myself some threads – thanks to the boys at Roger David I was properly sorted out by Lunch time on the 31st and although now skint think I did pretty well. 

Lucy was camping on the floor of our hotel that night as Scatt was in with Darren and the Gang, so she joined Emma and I in the hotel room to get changed.  We were all ready, suited and booted ready for our cab to pick us up at 5:15, but like I said earlier, they aren’t very reliable so come 5:25 we flagged on down and headed over to the Quay.  We first jumped into a bar to have a quick pint or two (actually a Schooner which is slightly smaller!) then the others came and met us – everyone actually looked quite good, which is a bit of a shock to the system after you have been backpacking for 2 months!

When the Jerry Bailey pulled up, we all mocked it a bit as it arrived at the quay with 2 giant, brand new Catamarans flagging it.  But once on board it was quite a cool little vessel.  What really did annoy us all was that some people obviously hadn’t read the dress code and turned up in Jeans, Trainers and T-Shirts – and they were let on!  So, all our money had gone a bit to waste – still we were enjoying ourselves.

Looks don’t count for everything you know and our little Jerry Bailey flew us out to a perfect spot in Sydney Harbour – we were at the front of all the other boats and had prime position for the show ahead.  The tit-bits and finger snacks stating making there way round the boat, all of us snapping it up like it was the first meal we have had since arriving in Oz and washing it down with a quick slurp of Tooheys!  The night was young so we were chilling and chatting until 9pm when the family fireworks started – now I’m not great with words so I won’t try and describe these, I was also on a rocking boat, so my pictures are also not that great, but holy sh*t were they good.  They went on for about 10-15 minutes and when they ended the whole boat erupted in clapping, whooping and every other appreciative sound you could imagine – bring on the new year ones!

Between the 9pm fireworks and the midnight ones a lot more drinking, festivities and dancing went on – with Scatt and Alison impressing everyone with their MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice impressions…  Em and I were upstairs and managed to get prime position on the boat for the 12 pm fireworks.

Right, this is even harder to describe considering I can’t even get my tongue round describing the ‘tame’ fireworks!  I guess simply WOW!  If you EVER get the oppurtunity to come to Sydney for the New Year, do it – they demolish everywhere else for sheer Firework enthusiasm and skill!  New York, London, Paris – everywhere could learn a lesson from these Aussies!  They had fireworks making hearts in the sky, fireworks that exploded and left trails all the way to the floor.  They went on for about 20-30 mins and just left everyone awestruck – the finale consisted of lighting the whole Harbour Bridge up and then sending about 100 rockets up into the sky together, everywhere you looked towards the bridge there were fireworks! Click HERE for a Low resolution Movie of them!

This is a New Year I will never, ever forget!

Also, it was a right treat to get to speak to our families and our friends Sarah and Steve at the end of the evening!  We hope you guys and everyone else reading this had a brilliant New Year, here’s to 2007!!!!!!! 

[zp]new-year[/zp]

Current Mood: Cool

“Get off your horse and drink your milk!?” Or whatever they say in all the spagetti westerns!  Emma, Lucy and I had a Back Country and Beach Horse Trekking adventure thing today and loved it…

We’re in Magnetic Island at the moment, a little place just off the North East Peninsula in Oz.  Really quaint little place where you can’t really get lost as there is only 1 main road that stretches from the South to the North of the island along the East coast.  Because of this we decided to hire out a mini-moke, sounds pretty cool doesn’t it!  Well trust me I felt like a camped up Graham Norton as the girls decided on what is called a ‘topless’ car, basically a little Daihatsu thing which has had its doors and roof removed and a little section added in!  Doesn’t sound too bad – how about I add it had some bright pink panels, furry pink steering wheel cover and bright pink furry seats with hearts sewn in!  “Suits you sir!”.  Anyway, as Scatt decided that she was better off on two legs, rather than four so while we were on our horse trek she would pick up the ‘topless’ car and take herself on one of the many treks around the island.

So it was just Lucy, Emma and I who were going on the horses so early this morning we walked up to Blueys Ranch – guess they were trying to be like Dallas as the owners were in their ten Gallon hats, smoking Marlbora and walking around with the whole kit and caboodle on – minus the spurs!

I signed myself into the Novice group, while Emma went into the Pippa Funnell wannabes and Lucy went into the intermediates – a diverse range of levels then.  Em was given a horse called ‘Popeye’, Lucy was given a beaut called ‘Matilda’ and I was given a biggun called ‘Mischief’. 

We were shown how to get the horse to walk and turn left and right which seemed easy enough, so I jumped up into the Advanced section of the group :).  Really nice just walking along in the bush as we saw a whole load of wild Wallabies and stuff.  We stopped to do a girth check ;) (oh err!) and then we started trotting along (a kind of power walk in human terms).  It was really good as I got the hang of what is known in the trade as a ‘rising trot’ really quickly so managed to maintain my cover as advanced.  Next was a ‘Canter’ (Jogging quickly if he were human) – this is far easier than the trot as it leaves your man bits intact.

[zp]magnetic-island[/zp]

So we cantered and trotted, trotted and cantered along through the undergrowth and stuff until we reached the beach – here we had a walk along the waters edge in slightly more crowded numbers than a Mills and Boone novel, but you could still imagine the old slow-motion image of yourself as you trot along the beach.  They pulled us over into this little bit at the top of the beach and we all had to don the lovely ‘stinger’ suits as the waters contain Box Jellyfish and something called a Ikujandi or something like that.  Next we actually took the horses into the water – Bareback!  Don’t think I’ll ever have kids after that, but was really nice for both the horses and us – no matter how big Mischief is, he would still struggle with a lump like me on him! 

We returned to shore, put on our normal clothes and rode back to the ranch again.  What an animal, they are so placid and lovely.  Gonna have to get mi’self one of them when I get home ;)

Click HERE for a short/small video of me on horseback!!

Current Mood: Happy & Sad

“Freedom, Freedom, this is Mollo, Mollo, please respond!”

Well we’re back from our adventure on the Whitsundays, and truly, it was an adventure! We had Lucy join us in Airlie Beach ready for the rest of the trip and it was sooooo nice to see her. She is such a character and had us in stitches with her million voices, my favourites being Donkey (from Shrek) and Scuba Sam (from Big Daddy).

Anyway, we got to the marina to jump on our boat Mollo a catamaran that is about 20 years old. But comfortable and skippered by the Steve Irwin of the boating world – a dude called Jason. The crew basically consisted of Jason (the Skipper) and a girl called Sarah (the cook!) who was on her maiden voyage with Mollo.

We set out into the blue and Jason had us laughing with his sheer enthusiasm on the trip and Christmas. Sarah was already slaving away in a kitchen that must be like working inside the oven! The weather was so hot ans the sun so strong that throughout the journey everyone was cowering in the shade of the sail to stop themselves burning (apart from Scatt of course!). We made it to a place called White Haven Beach at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon and spent 2 hours on the island – wait till I put the pictures up to see what it was like. So hard to explain, but it was bluer than blue in the sea and whiter than white on the sand! Loved it.

That night (Christmas Eve) we all set up bed on the from of the boat and slept under a cloudless sky! It was really nice just laying there looking up and watching the stars, everyone saw a few shooting ones which was pretty awesome.

Next day (Christmas Day obviously!), Jason went to start the boat! tick tick tick, natta, nothing… The engine on the portside had decided to pack up for Christmas and was too stubborn to work again. So with less that one engine we limped along the ocean, looking at the various islands as we passed. Awaiting pickup by another boat called Freedom! When it came along and began towing, we lifted our voices and had a little bit of a singing competition, pumping out such great hits as Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer – they sent us a message that read “You all suck!”, we really didn’t! We partied into the night with some ingenious games such as Tally-Ho and a beer shotgun made out of a mask and snorkel – crazy people these Aussies!

My thoughts were with my family the whole of the day though and I was desperate to give my Dad a call and give him my love, his Dad (My Grandad) passed away Chrimbo Day last year and I know how low he must be.  Eventually I got through and got to speak to my Dad, Mum, Cousin Charlie and Brother before I eventually lost signal again!  Shite!!!  Well, I’m  thinking of you all if you read this and love you all loads…

We settled down in our positions at the front of the boat and on a humid Chrimbo Day evening, laid back and fell asleep under the stars.

The next day I woke with the sun already on my back, Em had laid a sarong over my neck to stop me burning, but by rolling around on the net it had come off.  Little bit of a rosy tan on my upper neck but nothing too bad!  Boxing Day was spent cruising back into the Marina, totally relaxed and chilled out, ready for a quick dip in the Inland Beach Lagoon – no Stingers!

[zp]whitsundays[/zp]

Current Mood: Esctatic

What a wicked time we have had at this place, about as crowded as an old wild west town and as friendly as sitting round your family table for Christmas Lunch – its great here. The hostel we’re staying in is tiny with only 1 x 10 bed dorm, 1 x 6 bed dorm with 2 x bed double rooms and 2 x 4 Bed Dorms, none of which have locks, none of which are completely sealed from the outside world but all of which have individual character. Emma and I got one of the doubles for a couple of nights and the side wall has a huge window only covered by an insect net. Means that the room never really gets hot and there is a breeze throughout the night – fine by us as this place rocks!

The people here are super friendly and we’ve made good friends with a number of the travellers, some of which we are meeting in Airlie Beach in the next couple of days. Some dude keeps us all entertained with his juggling skills – 5 balls at once! While we all lounge about in the hammocks and chit-chat about where we have been and where we are all going. Strange thing being that a lot of them have been in the exact places we have been before on the same day – pub quiz in Brisbane on the 5th December for instance!

Yesterday, Emma and I did what’s known as the Scooter-Roos tour – recommended by her friend Claire from work. This dude picked us up (Rod!) who was a take off of Paul Tuttle Senior, just without the bulk, tash-goatie thing and scariness!

We got taken to a little place just outside of the town where we pulled into this big yard, first thing that we all saw was about 35 choppers lined up with different paint-jobs on. The whole van was like – whooop, yeah, wahoo + more exciting words!

We all hopped onto the bikes with our open face helmets and knee pads which offered about as much protection as a piece of crepe paper, so Em and I didn’t worry when (as the only ones with Bike Licences) we gave them up to people who had never ridden anything above a push bike before.  Then it was time to hit the road and it provided the group much amusement watching each other pull away, with the handlebars up by your ears steering was a little different and everyone wobbled like a weeble (wobbling, but not falling down!) all the way out to the highway.

[zp]1770[/zp]

The next 3 hours passed so quick with us all in a mass convoy riding around the streets and outskirts of 1770/Agnes Waters, everyone laughing and having a good time.  Cars and vans would pass, hoot and wave at us as we rode past them and the kids in the caravan and camping ground all came running up the bank to wave at us as we passed.  Everyone in the convoy acknowleded them with a toot toot on the horn.  We ended the tour with a stop at the beach where we all lined the bikes up, got some wedges from the cafe and took a place on some rocks where the sun slowly set!  Amazing and something I will remember for a long time to come.

I love this place and leaving here today is a hard thing, I could quite easily stay here for a lot longer.  So thanks to 1770 Backpackers, Louise, Louise, Carolina and of course Rod from ScooterRoos for making our stay here quite so memorable!

Current Mood: Cool

I’ve put loads more piccies onto the Website, feel free to have a browse and leave comments!  Haven’t had anytime to add titles or descriptions yet as Em and I are now catching the bus to 1770.\

Will add more details later :)  Cheers all!

Thanks to everyone for your emails and comments since my post about missing home.  I was so down in the dumps that nothing seemed ‘fun’, if that’s the right way of describing it?  But when I came to read my emails and find loads of new messages telling me to keep my head up, that you’re thinking of us and of course the English Weather, it really perked me up…  I’m trying to get round to emailing everyone, but inbetween this site, burning piccies onto CD, checking funds, organising future accommodation and booking transfers etc. I don’t have a lot of time (that and the computers are crap!). 

So, basically – just Thanks, it really did help and I will be emailing soon – Promise!

Paul x x x

Current Mood: Happy & Tired

The day came to leave Noosa and head upto Hervey Bay to go on our Fraser Island Adventure.  In the rush to get dressed I stuck my hand up to put on my T-Shirt and got it smashed by the Fan!  Ouch…  Had a nice flap of skin hanging down on my middle finger, still nothing Em and her first aid kit and large bit of plaster couldn’t fix!

We got to Hervey Bay, the most backward place I have so far experienced in Oz.  Resembles a real life Eerie Indiana. Still, all we had to do was pick up our Landie Defender and away we went to Fraser Island.

Driving off the barge, I lowered the tyre pressures to deal with all the sand tracks and stuff and set off to Lake Wabby, the deepest lake on the island.  The driving was so much fun, everything bouncing everywhere and the girls screaming over the smallest of bumps.  We were sliding and slipping all over the place! A little bit of deep sand, no problemo, slip it into Low Range stick it in second and we’re off again! 

Lake Wabby was amazing, a massive Sandblow is slowly engulfing the lake and it will be totally gone in 70 years time – but for now it’s lovely, cool and fresh water!  We had a little dip with the catfish and swam around, always wondering whether there were any freshy crocs hanging around.

Next was Eli Creek and our first bit of beach driving, the sea on the Eastern side is manic, the waves crash into each other at stupid angles, the beach is lined with washed up Jellyfish, both Box and regular, sharks are known to live just off coast and the rips are enough to drag cars out to sea, let alone people.  I know Russ rescued someone just off this coast and it really is an eye opener when you see for yourself what he went into!  Shit this coast is crazy!!!  Still, the beach driving wasn’t and we flew up the beach at 80Kph, only slowing for the foot deep washouts. 

Eli creek was super relaxing, you wander up this freshwater washout and then lay back down at the top, a natural lazy river, you get taken slowly all the way back down to the beach again.  Em and I were like little kids, running back to the top and floating all the way back down again – Scatt does what she does best of all and relaxed on the Beach while em and I went again and again to the top!

We didn’t have long until High Tide so we set up camp just off the beach by Eli Creek, two tents (Em and Scatt in one as Scatt was worried about the dingoes, me in the other) and our cooking, eating stuff.  We started to boil some water and then a couple of Sydney Ozzies pulled up next to us as there tent was set up.  The guy came over and introduced himself with a beer, the best way, and we all got chatting – he’s an italian ozzie, built like a steam boat and reminded me of a bleach blonde Don Corleone, with dyed blond hair, his missus Debbie came over and said hello and we got talking – after an hour our stove still hadn’t boiled the water so the couple asked us if we wanted any of their BBQ. 

Then at about 7.30, just before the Dingoes’ were due to show we felt a few drops of rain, so we got up to get some of our stuff in the tents.  Then it was like someone upstairs had turned on a giant fan and walking round the back of the Landie, we saw our tents were now flat against the sand, blown down by the wind.  Then to make matters worse, him upstairs must of unzipped a few clouds and thrown in a bit of electrical stormage to amuse himself.  It was torrential…  BOOM, CRACK, BOOM!  The storm was directly above us and the Landie was shaking in its boots :(.

Come 10pm, the storm was still raging and we were snuggled like rectangles in a square box trying to shut our eyes.  Don’t know how long it took, but I was asleep on and off until I woke with a crook neck at 3am.  I looked over the front seats and saw Em leant against the side door and Scatt spread across the seat so shifted into the boot so Em could spread across the front bench seat.

The weather had all but passed at 3:30am so I took my sleeping bag and tarp out the van, stuck the tarp over the sand, climbed into my sleeping bag and shut my eyes.  From then until sunrise I could of had a dingo come and pee on me and I wouldn’t of known anything about it, I was out for the count…  The sunrise, was pretty amazing and I was rather pleased with myself for sleeping outside.  The girls woke and we packed our rather mullered tents away.

 The next day was spent driving up to Indian Head to see the sharks – we couldn’t  see as the water was too murky – typical.  They we went to Lake Mackenzie, a jaw droppingly stunning place, with sand as white as Micheal Jackson and the lake as blue as, well you get the idea ;).  So we decided to skip some of the other places and just stay here.  So we camped at Central Station, Em and I in a tent that was made up from the non broken parts of the original two and Scatt in the Landie.  Here we had hot showers, decent toilets (I had to poop in a 50cm deep hole I dug with a spade before here!) and a pre-made camp ground with running drinking water.

Then when we woke, we had another whole day at Lake Mackenzie.  What a wicked day – loved every minute of it.  But, now we’re back in Eerie Indiana and awaiting our bus to 1770 /Agnes Waters.  Scatt is staying here while Em and I move up as her fella Darren is arriving here.  We’re meeting up back in Arlie Beach/Whitsundays!

Sorry about the lack of blog, but I was out of civilisation the last 4 days!

I’ll be putting pictures up as soon as I possibly can.  Laters all!  :)

[zp]fraser-island[/zp]

Current Mood: Happy

“Crikey! What a beaut this place is…”  took a trip out to Australia Zoo and have had an amazing time even though the late, great Steve Irwin is no longer around to oversee it.  The place is like a shrine to him with his images all over the place.  The memorabilia of Steve is everywhere and there is now a museum in his honour showing stuff like the largest croc he has come across, pictures of him as a kid and videos of him and his outstanding personality…

Got there a bit late as due to our luck, our bus broke down and we didn’t get there until 10:30.  Still the first thing we did was go to cuddle possibly the cutest species on the planet – the Koalas.  These things are great, they cling on you like your there mum and are reluctant to be taken away from you. 

Then was the croc show at the crocosseum and shit me these things are massive, we got to see Mossman doing his stuff, fresh out the wild this guy hadn’t lost any of his predatory abilities and swam under the water without making even a tiny ripple.  Not bad for a 14 foot croc!  He did a verticle leap to get his food from the Zoo staff member who had to hold it out and must of got a good 7 foot upwards, then with a massive snap his jaws locked around the lump of meet the guy had.  My shorts were brown, so I have no idea what colour the croc keepers were!

We went to the Animal Hospital that was Steves last great achievment, it handles 5000 cases every year and is expanding soon to be upto 6 times the size.  We saw a koala awaiting surgery on the bed under anisthetic, still looking awesomely cute and cuddly.  The majority of them in the hospital have either been hit by cars or mauled by dogs, sad what happens when somewhere becomes built up.

We did get to see the cutest Koala of the day here though, his name was Joseph and he was a baby Joey koala, his mum had died in a car accident so he was being cared for by the zoo.  Soooooooooooo Cute!!!!!!!

[zp]australia-zoo[/zp]

Anyway, the day was full and filled with some really strange creatures and some really cute ones (Wombats!). But we didn’t get to see Harriet as she died in june aged 175 and a half! 

Off to Hervey Bay now and then our 4×4 adventure in Fraser Island!  Felling better in myself now as well.

Current Mood: Sad

This was the worst night and day I have had here…  We travelled from Byron Bay to Noosa on at first Premiere Coaches and then Greyhound, it took eight hours due to a delay at Brisbane on the crossover – we got into Noosa at 5:30pm in the evening and then walked over a big hill to our accommodation for the night “Koalas – Noosa”.  They wouldn’t pick us up as they told us on the phone as we were late (due to the delay!), so knackered we arrived at their doorstep. 

“Sorry, we don’t have your booking and we are fully booked!”…  What the hell!!!!!!!!!!

It turns out that when we didn’t arrive at the time they thought we would be there they cancelled our booking.  After much arguments, they advised they had 3 beds but in two rooms.  I was in a 7bed mixed, while the girls were in Female only 7bed dorm.  It was a shit hole and to get out of there we went to the pub and had a meal followed by the Cinema to see Borat.  Borat was wicked and I recommend you to go and see it.

We got back into our rooms at about 11:30pm and hit the sack…  About half an hour later a girl came into my dorm, straight into the bathroom and was promptly sick in the corner of the room followed by the toilet.  I was trying to ignore it, but when she started crying I thought I should see if she needed some water – I ended up holding her hair and patting her back for about an hour!  Afterwards though she crawled into bed and passed out…  Until her friends came in and poked her until she woke up, which made her spin out and run to the bathroom to be sick again, this time though she slipped and banged her head causing much crying and vomitting.  I was soooooo tired and just wanted to sleep – but the puking lasted about another half hour then those three crawled into bed!  Thank God.

An hour later, I was back to sleep again until 2 teenage piss heads decided to come into the room and sit on my bed which included me!!!  I was not amused, but stayed calm.  Eventually, I shut my eyes about 4.30am!  Tired, pissed off and a bit lonely.

The girls didn’t have the best night either, Scatt was woken at 6:30am by a Cockroach crawling over her – so a few screams and jumps later and Scatt was out the bed and with the help of her whole dorm, shuuing the cockroach out the door! 

We left at the crack of dorm and headed to our new accommodation – a 2 bedroom apartment which is amazing, like a proper house with TV, DVD, full kitchen, lounge, double master bedroom and twin bedroom.  Scatt was quick to dump her stuff and make her way to the beach, so Em and I sort our stuff out and I had a few tears.  The previous day really took it out of me and I felt lower than a snakes underbelly!

Still we have a nice place now!  Bring on Australia Zoo….

Current Mood: Esctatic & Tired

Byron Bay…  As previously stated is bloody lovely!  The beaches go on forever, the town is quite oldy worldy with nice wooden buildings and unshaven women walking around.  I love it, so where better to go for some surf lessons.

Our instructors for the day were Dan and Paulie.  Paulie was a stocky fella with a shaved head and freckles while Dan had his head in the clouds and looked similar to Matt from Lands End – between them they were a tag team who could take on the two ronnies for amusement.  They had us in stitches, which didn’t help when your trying to jog down the beach and back as a warm up – then it was stretches which is hard to do when your belly is wobbling with laughter, trust me, I tried!

1st Lesson was sand bound and we were learning the fundamentals of surfing, board position, weight distribution, using wax, rip tides and all that kind of gumph!  Next was the Big Jump, or pop up as Point Break calls it – but this was just for show, we actually had to get up in a four step approach.

Out in the water with our Red rashies on, we either look like lifeguards or complete surfing amateurs as people started to watch us which was quite intimidating.  I was first up and this time Dan pushed me into the wave – Knee, back leg, back foot, straighten – SURF!!  Wahooo, first wave and I managed to ride it all the way into the sand, loved it as I had such a rush.  Quick, no stoppping, paddle out again!!!

Em was next up and stomped it first time (and every other time come to think of it!), she was a complete natural and had all of us looking at each other in astonishment – she even began walking down the board trying to hang her toes over the front, I mean wtf!!  Well, as you can imagine, the instructors were well impressed and got her to begin doing everything on her own, paddle, pop up, ride.  Quite the surfer chick! 

Then we have Scatt, ol’ crazy herself…  She began by screaming like a small child and coming a cropper at the first ripple, her arms were all over the place and she loved looking back at us lot every time she tried to get to her feet.  But then, halfway through something clicked – and in she rode!!!  All the way in…

What a rush and something we are all going to hopefully continue as we go round Oz…  I love Byron Bay and will really miss it when we move onto Noosa!

[zp]byron-bay[/zp]

Current Mood: Tired

… And his buddies, out in the bay today!  We’ve moved to Byron Bay now for the next 3 nights and I must say I love it.  I’ll apologise now for the lackage of emails and blogs, but this place is amazing.

We’ve spent the last 2 days checking out the town and have so far found nothing at all bad about it.  Our hostel is a place called Byron Bay Holiday Villas and we’re in our own little dorm which we share with 3 others, got our own shower, kitchen, living area! 

Rented out bikes today and rode up to the local lighthouse, nightmare ride there as I am obviously the unfittest out of the three of us – felt like I’d run a marathon when we got up there but was glad that I had done it, from the most Easterly point of Australia we sat for about an hour just watching the Dolphins play off the cape, they were accompanied on the other side of the rocks by about 5 turtles that were lounging about in the shallows.  Felt sorry for the Kayakers who we could see sitting the wrong side of the rocks – they paid money and we were the ones watching the dolphins… 

The ride back down to the beach was a lot more fun, we basically put our heads down and flew down the hill.  Tried to go a bit too fast and managed to run off into the grass, but thought that I better not lean the rental bikes over too far (excuses, excuses!).  Went to Wantego Bay and watched the surfers playing around in the waves, you can tell the tourists from the experienced by the fact they have bright red rental Long Boards and go for every single wave going – however, we are all going to be joining them tomorrow when we have our first Surf Lesson!  :)

Em and I managed to find an outdoor swimming pool (50m!) and while Scatt lay in her spot on the beach (where else ;) !) we went and did some lengths.  Em managed to do 30 in the time I had done 16 and she was just chilling!  Crazy girl, I know who would save who in the sea…  They are advertising for Swimming teachers out here, I wonder….

Right, this was a really quick effort!  Pictures of the end of Thailand and Australia to be posted soon and I will get round to emailing you all.  I’m tired now, so night night!!!

Current Mood: Mischievous

Nice place, but not sure why they call it Paradise – unless you like to surf in the shadow of the highest residential tower in the world with about 200 other like minded people.  Still, it would be wrong of me to say I didn’t like it here – it was a blast. 

We went from Brisbane to Nerang on the train with about 20 school kids camped on the floor of the carriage, its winter break at the moment and they were all heading to surfers to chill out after they finished their equivalant of GCSE’s.  Train wasn’t a problem, but when we all tried to fit on the bus it was like a Thai motorbike in the way that you had to basically sit/stand anywhere you could.  Crazy peeps!

Stayed at a place called Trekkers which is a really small and friendly hostel just off Surfers in a place called Southport, this intimate little place provided much amusement as we were lucky enough to share with some right characters.  Most of the first day was spent down at the beach watching the bright red tourists fighting for the odd wave with the locals while the swimmers crammed in between the flags. 

Night time saw the Trekkers BBQ where everyone was due to go on the weekly pub crawl.  Me without my jeans however cannot get into anywhere so we chilled back at base with some of the others.

Up early the following morning though as we were earning $25 (10 Quid) for sitting on a bus for the oz experience, we basically had to climb on and sit there for an hour as they went and weighed it at the nearby breakers yard.  Money for nothing really!  Need it though as everything is a little on the expensive side out here… 

That night we earnt our keep putting up xmas decs in the hostel, they provided free punch and we provided the decorating skills – still a surreal experiance putting up decs in your boardies and vest, although Em got everyone to stick on a Santa hat and I managed to find a Santa costume, didn’t last long as it was like strapping a sweat suit on!  A few of us then had a real fast paced drinking game where you threw 1 dart in the board and the lowest drinks – remind me to never take part on bullseye as Jim Bowen would be most dissapointed with me!

Only there for two nights, but at the end of the stay it was a sad farewell to some friends and onto the next leg of the journey…  Byron Bay!!!!

[zp]surfers-paradise[/zp]

Current Mood: Playful

We’re here, the main portion of the Trip – Australia!!!  Sadly we had to say goodbye to Alex, our travelling bud of three weeks, but I think she really wanted to get home and see her mum and her fella Andy so I hope the flight and everything went well. 

We had an awesome flight over with Qantas, for a start my knees weren’t battling with my chin for who has right of way and the entertainment was onpar with a Multiplex.  Caught up on a few films, watched the Brits beat the Australians in the World Cup and then something on Boxing greats!  Before I knew it they were turning it off for landing – no sleep, no boredom the whole flight.

Getting into Australia meant having all our bags checked by sniffer dogs and customs officers, but it’s more or less routine here so didn’t take long.  We jumped on a bus with a cool dude who Emma thought looked like Steve Irwin (he was Australian and Blonde!), he was very amusing – just a quick example but this Chinese woman came over and asked him something, I was sitting next to him and asked him if he knew what she just said, his reply “F*ck knows, just smile, say yes and agree!”.

The hostel is excellent, highly recommend Tinbillys for anyone else who goes travelling (Thanks Nessy and Claire for the recommendation!), we chucked our stuff in the room and had a quick browse around Brisbane while Scatt caught up on her sleep.  Some brilliant shops around including one called Off Yer Tree, went in and next thing ya know they’ve only gone and put a stud through my lip –  never even noticed them sneaking it in!  You should see where Emma’s had hers…  (only joking Mandy!)

Went down to the Tinbillys bar for some grub and got talking to a load of people, travelling here is so different from Thailand - everyone is so friendly and we ended up with a cool crowd on our table by the time the pub quiz started.  Our team – the Europeon All-Stars as we had a girl from Finland, one from Ireland and Alex our dorm mate from Belgium. 

The first round, general knowledge we sucked at and only got 6/10.  Next round which was Sport we got a stonking 9/10 only losing out on the “Who lost the 2004 FA Cup Final?” – no friggin idea!  Even with the wrong question though we came first and won a round of shots for the group and another Jug of beer.  Final round – Music and we were stonking, got every question right and ended up joint winners with another group of lads (Thanks to James the master of books, for the answer to a question in the quiz!) …  Tinbillys solution – a downing competition, the winner walking off with a $50 Bar card…

I was voluntered by the group to go up and drink, now I can do bottles but never had to do pints before so was suitably nervous.  The other guy was scary and we clinked glasses, the DJ said go and up went the pint – 3 or 4 gulps later my pint was gone and the other guy was still only half way – Russell and the Horsham Rugby Team would be proud of me!

So we ended the evening with $50 worth of free drinks, so yet another jug or beer and 2 jugs of cocktails were ordered!  What an unbelievable start to Australia – tommorrow we’re off to Surfers!  Laters…

Current Mood: Esctatic

Had a really good day yesterday, just forgetting everything and being a complete tourist.  Singapore has a lot to offer in a relatively small space, there is theme parks, aquariums, shopping malls, monuments and a heap of places of interest to explore.

We opted for the good old Singapore Post Office, being a man of slightly larger proportions than the average pee wee herman my clothes seem to take up a huge amount of room in my backpack.  So, I had to lose some of the items I didn’t think I’d use – including my fave green jumper and my jeans.  Emma also included some items she no longer wanted to lug around, so the parcel came to $120 Singapore Dollars which at current exhange works out at about 40 pounds.

Next Emma, Alex and I hit City Park shopping mall as Emma wanted a case for her Creative MP3 Player.  This is an amazing mall with anything a human could possibly want under one roof.  I picked myself up a wallet (my first purchase for myself this trip) and that had me famished - I needed to eat.  Now my favourite food is Sushi, but Em and Alex hadn’t tried it from a Sushi bar before, yet luckily for me – they agreed to go.  This was brilliant, I love the whole grabbing your own grub thing and the difference in taste between each item.  We racked up 13 plates of the stuff and all of us enjoyed our meals and walked out stuffed.

Sentosa Island next which we reached via a glass cable car – so you could see all the way round and down below your feet.  Actually gave me the heaby jeabys so I’m really dubious about whether I’ll be able to launch myself from a bungee jump!

We went up the Singapore Sky Tower and looked out over the whole of Singapore, not the most exhilirating ride ever, but the views were nice and it was really cheap.

Most fun of the day was the Luge run…  It was a bit of a battle to get the girls to go on it, but once we had paid they were quite up for it.  We strapped on our special helmets and got into our Luge karts.  Being the heaviest my luge started going first and they picked up speed quite quickly, I could hear the girls laughing and giggling behind me as we overtook all the slow pokes.  I was determined not to use the brake, but coming into the last bend I attempted the corner and my luge tipped a bit so the plastic touched the floor – erm, brake please!! 

On the way home I stopped in at a place called Simlan Square, as my MP3 player had broken and I wanted a new one.  My dad has an Archos thing which he uses for long journeys and he really likes it, so when I was in the Creative shop with Em, I looked at the Creative Zen Vision W, a 60Gb widescreen MP3/MP4 player, the 30Gb ones are selling for 250 in the UK, well here they are selling it for $699 which works out at 233 pounds.  I managed to barter the price in Simlan Square down to $605 (200 pounds) and am now the proud owner of one of these puppies – what am I doing while I write this, why copying Em’s music over to mine of course.

Flight to Brisbane this afternoon where we unfortunately have to say goodbye to Alex!  She will be missed…  3 of us now until we meet Lucy in Arlie Beach.

If you have been reading my blogs up until now, you will realise that the past two and a half weeks I have been spending 90% of my waking hours lying on a beach or near a pool.  Well this morning I was up at 5:15am to get to the airport and catch our flight to Singapore.

The flight itself was really good, I reckon about 30 people on the plane including the stewardesses and the pilots!  Managed to grab sleep through most of the flight by just going to the emergency exit seats and lying across them, bliss apart from I had crossed my legs to make them fit and woke up with no feeling in one of them – I kid you not when I say I walked to the passport control like John Wayne, ol’ limp leg!

Singapore, despite being only an hour and a half flight from Thailand is crazily further in terms of technology and culture.  It reminds me a lot of New York with Neon Liquid Crystal displays showing the newest products to the Singapore public.  They also speak English as their first language, so no more having to repeat myself 4 time before they understand the word rice!  I even treat myself to a KFC (slap on the wrist, yes yes…)

After watching the Bond Marathon nights in Thailand we decided to go to the cinema here and catch the new Bond – Casino Royale – if you haven’t seen it yet, go, now…  Stop reading this, chuck your jacket on (heard its raining there!) and go watch…  This film rocks man!

Anyway, bit off track there for a moment but it is really good.  Spent most of today trekking around the streets with Scatt to find a post office, her backpack is over 10kgs heavier than ours and I think she realises she may have a little too much stuff, so tomorrow a parcel will be winging its way home to England with some of her belongings.  I’m going to send one too as I really don’t think I am going to need my Jeans and jumper as it’s too friggin hot!  Anyway, tired now…  Take care ya’ll

Current Mood: Happy

Yippeeeeeeeeee – back in Phuket and to normality in terms of technology.  Yep this place is like Magaluf gone wrong with Ladyboys strutting there stuff in the cheesy clubs – but it has broadband and working computers and, well you get the message.

Emma and I have been in this place for around 2 hours now and I have managed to a/ upload shit loads more pictures and b/ write all the blogs for the past few days (if I can’t get to a computer I jot down stuff in my journal to catch up with!)

So – if you don’t get bored too quickly, have a catch up.  Keep sending those emails – I love reading them and learning about what you lot have all been upto!  Take it easy folks and I hope to hear from you soon…

Woke up this morning at 3am to find myself laying in a pool of water.  Nope, I hadn’t peed myself in the middle of the night – our Air Conditioning unit (over my side of the bed may I add) had decided to have a spasm in the middle of the night and was leaking water like a small incontinent child all over the lower part of my bed.  What a way to wake up!

I think I must of pushed it to its limits in terms of cooling ability, setting it at a rather chilly 18 degrees.  Taught me a lesson anyway – put Emma under the Air Conditioner next time :)

Had a wander over to Klong Khan Beach (or something like that) today, actually it wasn’t so much a wander as a bloody trek in the midday sun.  By the time we got there, my legs were killing me and not because they were tired.  I had made the mistake of going into the sea to cool off before making the journey, brilliant plan not quite executed properly – the sand had rubbed the whole way and the inside of my thighs were bright red…  Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch…

Nevermind, it was nothing that a long lie down and a Watermelon Lassi Shake couldn’t fix.  The beach was Massive (note the capital M) and stretched for miles, no wonder the locals and tourists alike had abbreviated the name to Long beach.  Some of the pictures of this place have really come out well and I’ll stick them up on the site soon.

The rest of the hectic afternoon was spent debating how long you can last before chilling off in the sea.  For me, thats about 5 mins tops – thus the reason I went home with Skin like a figs!

Had a couple of dives today, really good ones actually despite not seeing the elusive Manta’s or Whale Sharks.

The journey to the dive site was done in a really nice speed boat with twin Yamaha 200hp outboards, felt like something out of Miami Vice as we skipped over the water.  The sea is like an English lake with only the odd ripple here and there, in some places the consistency looks more like yoghurt it is that smooth.  Saw shit loads of Jellyfish on the way out which made me a little wary about jumping in considering I was only going to be in my Boardies and Rash Vest.  No worries though as the closer to the dive site we got, the less we saw.

When we got there we were the first of the speedboats to arrive, there were only 3 liveaboards there as well and they had all done there morning dives. 

We suited up and jumped in at Hin Muang first, the first thing that hits you is the colours – the sea might not be the bluest here, but the coral was untouched by humans nor the Tsunami and were really bright.  Think this was aided by how clear the water was as it allowed the sun to penetrate that little bit further down.

When we got down to the sand bed at the side of one of these reefs we were greeted by a massive leopard shark having a little rest on the floor.  It is a nice looking Shark with its trademark Leopard spots all over its body and although only about 5-6 foot in length its tail alone was easily 2 foot in length.  It was a real treat to see and made the rest of the dive just ordinary.

Hin Duaeng was also a lovely dive, more colourful even than the first although we didn’t catch any mantas or Whale Sharks.  Em and I spent 90% of the dive staring out into the blue, or over the drop off desperate to just catch a glimpse of one!

Nothing…  Sales speak, I hate it! 

Ouch…  Today I risked showing my belly to the sun again and this time he kindly resisted frying me like bacon.  Turns out that the ferry journey over to this place on the 22nd (when I fell asleep) left my sunken chest positively red and glowing.  Still I went to bed last night without the need for an Aftersun bath and I feel pretty good about it this morning.

Emma and I have booked ourselves a couple of dives tomorrow at a place called Hin Duaeng and Hin Muang.  They have supposedly seen a Whale Shark off this point 2 days ago and also have had a flock (is that the right term) of Manta Rays populating this area for tha last week – I think it’s just sales speak, but we’ll find out tomorrow…

Current Mood: Playful

Transfer day today…  Up early in order to catch the 11am ferry from Phi-Phi over to Koh Lanta, had to make sure that everything was packed into my rucksack and although I have already discarded two t-shirts, I seem to have more in my rucksack than when I started.

Last day on Phi-Phi and we find ourselves a lovely little bakery, cleverly disguised as a full blown restaurant so picked up some of these lovely little pastry things for Brekkie – jam packed to the brim with fresh (I hope) pineapple and bananas.  Stuffed to the max I sling my backpack over my shoulder breaking my only pair of sunglasses (lost the arms to my Oakleys the day before!) which was great considering we were opposite a load of market stalls, all of whom see the opportunity to snap my arm off in a bidding war to sell me a pair of cheap knockoffs with about as much uv protection as a greenhouse!  Still armed with my 6 sentances in Thai – I give them a swift “Mai Chi” and I’m on my way to the ferry (that means NO by the way!).

Ferry journey was well relaxing and I managed to catch 40 winks in the hour and a half that it took to get over the water.  Felt refreshed and raring to get to our next place – the Lanta New Beach.

The rooms upon arrival were nice, but we were given a twin and the girls were given a double.  Not sure if they thought Scatt and Alex looked more like partners than Emma and I, but we changed rooms with them anyway.  Nice to have a double bed for once, but not nice that the bathroom stunk like an old mans pub toilet - we also had some squatters, a cockroach that came to be known as Colin and a Lizard called Laura.  They haven’t caused us any issues though so we just leave them to scuttle/scurry around!

This resort offers Thai massages as well, so I got one as soon as the bed with the women that DIDN’T look like Geoff Capes became available - turned out to be a bloody good choice as the young, slender Thai lady that moulded and shaped me into positions that even a yoga instructor would of been proud of managed to snap, crack and pop virtually every single joint in my body – including toes, wrist, shoulders, hips, knees, vertabrae, fingers, thumbs, ankles and even my neck.  Still walked away feeling like I was 17 again and the crink in my neck I got when Steve ambushed me before I came away, has now vanished.  Looking forward to a nice nights kip before a full day at this place.

Current Mood: Alarmed & Happy

Well, I’m back again…  Scatt’s having her Open Water referral dives while Em, Alex and I just chill out and relax.  The last few days have been pretty crazy with all the moving around, some of it has been amazing while other bits have been soul destroying. 

We arrived onto Phi-Phi after an early morning ferry on the Sea Angel, the sailing was really nice and we got to relax on the sundeck for the two hours it took to get across the waters.  Getting off the boat was like jumping into the middle of the London Stock Exchange at it’s craziest hour, loads of like minded backpackers all desperately seeking those elusive rooms on Phi-Phi Island during high season.  The first place we looked at was fully booked and on a budget you don’t get a lot of choice – we were recommended a place called Mo Prough Bungalows and took it without hesitation.

Apart from the fact that the Taxi boat took us to the wrong beach and we had to trek through the jungle for 20 mins to get to our resort (Scatt with her 27kg rucksack having to duck under a tree, which is how I would imagine a hippo doing limbo would look) we found it without issue.  We checked in and made our way up to the ‘shack’!  On first glance it looked really nice, up a hill in the middle of a jungle we got to our little nest and dumped our stuff.  The beach was secluded and clean with a handful of people dotted around enjoying the gentle waves.

The day was just what I needed, falling asleep in a hammock in the shade of 2 coconut trees (no coconuts overhead either Russ!).  Scatt fell asleep on the beach and began snoring much to the amusement of the staff and holidaymakers while Em and Alex went in the sea and then read there books.

Yesterday, we went on a boat trip for 600 baht each ) around 9 pound.  We took in a number of postcard-esq beaches including one that was called Monkey beach, for that exact reason.  1 took a like to me and although I didn’t have any food to offer (unlike all the other tourists), I had my camera, which he seemed to love looking into because of the reflection of him on the lens.  Pictures to be posted soon.

Next was Maya Beach, where the Beach was filmed – this was really good to see, but an influx of tourism has seen the better of the beach and it has now turned into a dumping ground for rubbish that not so eco-friendly tourists have left behind a real shame and a major kick in the nuts.

The tour ended and we got dumped back at Phi-Phi beach………….

Then comes the horror…  We go back to our rooms to get changed for a night in Phi-Phi town.  Awaiting for us are thousands of mosquitos, busy banging their knives and forks together waiting for their lunch to arrive – and arrive it did, completely unaware of the banquet we were soon to be a part of.

Our shack is made of 4 walls which have been skillfully crafted from leaves and shoots, the roof is also not actually fastened to the walls – more just rested on it.  Because of this, we had no real way of stopping the Mozi’s from getting in.  Trust me when I say a formula 1 pit crew couldn’t change a wheel as quick as we got changed that night!  Using our cold hose that passed for the shower and the toilet that was merely a hole you had to flush with a bucket of water we were changed and out in an instant.  We went for a nice meal and stayed out for as long as we could, knowing that the night was going to be spent in a hut under seige by the little humming bastards.

Resigned to the fact we had to sleep at some point we went back to the shack – but alas this time armed to the teeth with Anti-Mosquito devices and sprays.  When you go to war I guess you need the right tools!

We showered ourselves in 50% deet and made our way back to the rooms.  So far so good, you could see and hear them, but they could do no harm (well, only the really desperate got ya!).  To strengthen our defences we lit 6 mozi coils and left them burning on the stone floor, it was like a not nice smelling insense!  Then all we had to cope with was the heat and lack of cooling device (our fan didn’t work!).  I think I lost about a stone those nights (we had 2 in the god-forsaken place), but have today put it back on in our new accommodation – a lovely little bungalow with air conditioning, hot shower and flushing toilet.  Wahooooooooo

Sorry for the essay, been a long couple of days and I wanted to put it all down!

[zp]thailandbeaches[/zp]

Current Mood: Cool

Sorry this is a bit late, I saved it to drafts to finish once I had time… 

We moved from Bangkok to Phuket on an amazingl comfortable flight, landing safely but with nowhere to go we went to the fella in the tourism section of the airport – he sorted us some accommodation in a resort on the west coast of Phuket called Karon Beach for about 5 pound (wish I could find that poxy symbol) a night.  Taxi ride there was pretty surreal as the guys exhaust was hanging pretty much off and when we went over a bump in the road the car would rock back and forth like a giant see-saw.

Hotel was really nice with driftwood carved beds and a huge amount of space!  Dumping our belongings we head straight to the sea where we are greeted by more sunbeds than you would see along Tenerife’s infamous Playa De Las Americas.  This is NOT the Thailand I neither expected nor wanted!  Still the beach was golden and the water clear – we stayed here for two nights, findind the roof pool the afternoon before we left!  This was amazing and made up for the fact that the beach was filled with the huge Germans and there titchy tiny Thai Brides that were about 20 years younger.

Off to Phi Phi on the Early morning ferry and back into the unknown on the accommodation front.

Current Mood: Happy

Yesterday was spent fighting the tuk-tuk drivers to take us to temples, they insist they are closed because of buddhist holidays and try to take you to factory outlets instead (if they do they get free petrol!), but we were warned to this before we came here and so far have managed to avoid any said shops.  They offer you prices of 20Baht (about 35p) to take you where you want to go and when you say that you don’t want to go to a factory, they say 150 Baht :-).

We saw the reclining buddha yesterday which is huge – 45 metres in length and about 6-8 metres high and covered in some kind of gold.  Will put some pictures up when I find a quicker internet cafe.

We then proceeded to the Grand State Tower hotel for an Alfresco Meal on the 64th floor, this was truly amazing and an experience I won’t forget – meals consisted of sea food, red and white meat all served up in a way that would make even Gordon Ramsey swear more than usual (in a good way!).

Today, we have chilled and been taking it easy – this morning Em and I went back down the Khao San Road to see what it was like in the day and actually really enjoyed it, you don’t get hit by the touts and the market stalls are plenty and varied.  Then was a visit to the pool to relax.

This afternoon we visited MBK which is a huge shopping mall selling cheap (in price!)knockoffs, fake DVD’s and massage chairs (weirdly!).  This was a bit of a manic place to be and the hustle and bustle is like London at rush hour on a tube train.  We were there a while though and Scatt and Alex managed to spend quite a bit of cash.

On the way home I got to do something I have wanted to try in a while – I took the bushtucker trial and ate a bug, well a worm to be precise and it was actually not that bad.  It was fried, so rather than taste of Chicken, it was instead a more protein packed version of Crispy Sea Weed…  ummmm, yummy!  Anyone wants one, I’ll bring a bag home for you ;)

Tomorrow we are off to Koh Yao Noi for a few days and then moving onto the other islands, not sure if I’ll be able to update this there, but am keeping a journal so will update when the internet is next available. 

Thanks to those who have sent me emails, it’s really nice to hear whats going on there.

Current Mood: Esctatic

Well we made it…  The whole saying goodbye was tearful and not very nice – gonna miss the family, friends and pooch terribly.  But am, looking forward to the adventure ahead.

The airport was highly amusing, Emma turned up with a Backpack weighing a measly 16kg, mine topped out at 14kg and Alex beat us all with her bag weighing 11kg (but she is only out with us for 3 weeks!).  Scatt on the other hand went the other end of the scale and managed to get a Heavy luggage tag on her bag because of the 25.9kg of clothes, that she has brought along – and that’s without her day rucksack!  Anyway, the plane managed to take off without any hitch and the flight was perfect – apart from some complete tosser behind me who was jealous of our extra leg room seats who decided to massage my lower back with his knees throughout the 11hour flight!

Arrived safe and sound and the hotel is lovely, going for a dip tomorrow morning to freshen up and work off the $2 meal that we have just eaten on Koh San Road – (Pad Thai Noodles!).

Current Mood: Sad & Happy

Times come for me to start trying to force everything into my backpack, more or less there now. I laid out the majority of stuff I am going to be taking onto the bed to see how much there actually is – I’ve surprised myself with how little I am actually going to take (especially compared to the girls :) ). I’ve stuck a picture down below of pretty much all of it, minus my boxers, socks, camera and Nintendo DS.

My sleep this week has been terrible and I have found that I’m still awake till well past 3am every morning just thinking about what I am doing. I’m going to love the trip I know, but I had security, friends and a life here which I’m leaving behind. I can tell it’s making me nervous as I have come out in a couple of spots, something that I don’t usually have to worry about! Typical eh… Went out for a really long walk today with my dog which was really nice, I’m going to miss him as well and I might even shed a little tear when I close the front door to him and mum when I leave – especially as squidge is totally unaware of me buggering off!

Well there ya go, bit of me from the heart. But I’ve told myself that I’m going to be brutally honest with how I am feeling on this blog, it’s going to be my reminder of everything I experience on the trip so no point lying!

Hey everyone, thought I’d just let you know that to leave a comment you now need to register as a user…  I think this can be done from inside the website, if not then just send me an email and I’ll add you on and give you a password.  Just I have been hit lately with a shit load of spam comments!  Not what I need when I’m travelling the globe :)

My first week of freedom has come to an end and my last full weekend in the sunny UK is looming.  All very real now, we got our passports back today so they have gone straight into the ‘important stuff’ file that I seem to have made up, got ourselves a telephone number for when we’re away now – if you want it, then give me a shout on the email and I’ll send it over.  Be warned though, in Thailand it costs 84p a minute to call up.  This drops to 12p a minute in Australia…  Weird eh!

This week has been full of quandrys, I mean, what do I have for breakfast?  Which side of the bed should I roll myself out of?  Shall I have a bath in the morning, or just skank it out until the evening???  Hmmm, life is hard…  Emma finished her job today, so she’s going to begin to face the same kind of dilemmas that I have – she’s a bit more get up and go than me though, so she’ll have mon-fri next week planned out to the minute! ha ha ha, bet I get a call to tell me I have to meet her at a certain time to go over, well I don’t know, but she will…

Monday coming I am snowboarding, obviously I can’t make it to the slopes this winter as I will be in Oz – so thought I would accompany Paul to the Milton Keynes snowdome so that he can get some lessons in before him and Suz hit the slopes in December.  He’s borrowing a lot of my stuff, so lessons will really help get him on his feet (pun intended :-) ).  Gonna be a good laff, although I’m gonna take it easy considering I have to stay in one piece for the flight next Sunday!

Right I’m off to watch some UFC and then hit the sack – busy weekend ahead of me!  Take care ya’ll…

Paul

In a months time we’ll be in Bangkok…  What a crazy thought and something that has begun giving me butterflies, not because I don’t want to go or anything stoopid like that – but because I really have no idea what to expect.  Loads of people have given me different ideas of Thailand, from some seedy backstreets filled with ping-pong firing women to a paradise where the sea is totally transparent and the beaches are out of this world – what do I expect, absoloutely no idea…  I’m just hoping that the first place we find has a hearty supply of loo roll and a toilet where you sit instead of squat.

Scatt is on her PADI course tomorrow so she will be well prepared to go diving for the ‘big fish’ when we get there, I’m hoping we’ll see some Whale Sharks while we are in Thailand as my Cuz-in-Law (can you get sucha thing) used to be a Dive Master and saw quite a few there.  Hopefully he’ll manage to get us some cheap dives as well not that they would be that expensive with the exchange rate at the moment!

I got the rucksack off Russ (the one he used to travel around with) and stuck in it what I thought I would take with me initially, turned it round and slung it on my back – it felt sooo empty.  So I tried to fill it and see how much crap I could take with me should I decide to ‘go prepared‘, the outcome, too much to actually lift the rucksack and walk around with.  I’d end up like Quasimodo if I slung that bag on my back full to the brim, I’m gonna stick to my original plan and take only a bare minimum…  Big thanks to Russell for the lend though, hugely appreciated!

Enough of me, I’m off to spend some time soaking in a hot bath filled with English Bubble Bath – gotta make the most of it while I’m here…  Laters!

We’re nearly at a month to go and everything seems to be approaching so quick, we’re still trying to get all the little things done such as cancelling various direct debits, the car insurance, mobile phones and all the other day to day expenses you don’t notice coming out of your bank – but we’re nearly there.

Emma and I are still awaiting the return of our passports which we sent off just over a week ago now, would of been sooner but our banks couldn’t get our statements to us for some reason (out of 4 posted, I received 1!).  We said we needed them by the beginning of November though, so a little while left.

Work is driving me a bit crazy at the moment, thought things would ease up the closer to my leaving date, but with new projects coming in quicker than we can handle them I feel sorry for the people I will leave behind – ‘specially James, he’s in for a rough ride if they don’t get someone in and quick.  I’ll try and get all my crap finished up though, I’m not one to leave stuff unfinished. 

Went and got Russells backpack from Emmas house the other day, so it is now officially ‘My Backpack and I’!  Going to try and work out where everything is going to go now – Pants at the bottom as they’ll be the slowest thing to come out the bag, I got a tip the other day that to save on washing you follow a four prong approach: Wear them once, turn them inside out and wear them again, turn them around (bums at the front!) wear them again and then once more with the inside out!  Sounds a good tactic apart from the fact we are going to Thailand first and I imagine that my belly won’t hold up too well there!

Right, gonna stop writing now, else I’ll waffle on forever – I only logged on so that I could set Lucy an account up!  Hope this doesn’t happen every time!

Had a look at Fiji and found this rather amusing ’10 things to know’ on traveljournals.net

10 facts about Fiji

1. Fijians are cheerful. Apart from the occasional political coup or race riot, life is relaxed and laid-back.

2. They say “Bula!” a lot. Means hello/welcome/cheers/good health/good morning/etc. The all-purpose Fijian greeting.

3. They dring kava. A mild intoxicant, looks and tastes like ditch-water, makes your mouth go numb in kind of a nice way. Makes Fijians even more cheerful.

4. Palm trees are dangerous. Watch where you sling your hammock – a coconut might fall on your head. Fijians say coconuts have eyes and choose who to fall on, and if a coconut falls on you then you are going to have really bad luck. Starting right then, presumably.

5. The climate is idyllic. There are no seasons as such – it is warm all the time, except when it is hot. Sometimes it rains.

6. Fijians like to sing. Whenever you step on or off a plane or boat, chances are some guys with guitars and loud floral shirts will sing you a cheerful song.

7. Fiji has its own time zone. Most things operate on flexible “Fiji Time”, like manana but with less sense of urgency.

8. The sea is warm. Clear, blue and calm in the lagoons with lots of colourful fish. You can hear the splashes as they chase each other about after dark. Big surf on the outer reefs to satisfy the kamikaze Aussies.

9. The mynah birds are gallus. Like noisy starlings with attitude. Applies to mynah birds everywhere, but the Fijian ones seem particularly pushy, maybe in contrast to the general laid-back atmosphere.

10. It is paradise – almost. Yer actual tropical island fantasy, apart from the mosquitos which come and whine in your ear as you doze off in your hammock. Bula, ye wee b@#$%@!

At last we have all got our finalised and paid for tickets through STA Travel.

Emma emailed Sean (My travel agent) and Liz (Emmas and Sarahs travel agent) to make sure that we all got booked on the same flights and stuff, but now everything is complete and I have received my receipt and travel itinarary from the agency. Total cost of the flights were £1197, which broke down as £376 of airport tax and £821 for the flights. Details of the route can be found on the ‘route’ page funnily enough.

Now all we need to book is the hotels at each destination for when we first arrive and the camper van within New Zealand and we’ll be well away.

Work is going to get my resignation shortly, so that should give them more than enough time to recruit me a replacement.  Don’t think Emma is going to bother until possible minute though!

Then we will be on the case for our rucksacks and all the gear we need to take with us, starting to feel real now!