Where's Warren?

Start spreading the news... (Beck's in the city)

2006-05-02T23:20:00.000Z

I know it's been a while since I updated this, but I have a load of really bad excuses. I meant to do it in New York, but we never got a chance to spend ages in an internet cafe. So here is, a little late, what we got up to in New York City...

I arrived in New York 2 weeks ago and met up with Beck. It was (of course) great to see her after so long as I'm sure you can all imagine. The first couple of days we were in the city, we just hung around checking out some of the sights. We went to go see the wrecked globe sculpture from the World Trade Centre which was moved to Battery Park as well as taking a walk down the Esplanade to look out at New Jersey and at the Statue of Libery. In the evening we walked over the Brooklyn Bridge and back again, it gives a great view of Manhattan. Later, we got a dinner at a nice Thai restaurant, that I think that was once in a TV show I don't watch.

The next day we planned to go and see if Coney Island was just like an American Skegness. It is. We got there a little too early and it was too cold to stand around on the beach so we went for a visit at the Aquarium. The Aquarium was a good choice because I finally got to get a picture of a Parrot Fish, which is by far my favourite fish. They had a massive 3000lb walrus that (as some schoolkids kindly pointed out) was obviously a male. Once the rides were open we headed over to the rides and attractions of Coney Island. Apart from big rides and an awesome wooden rollercoaster, The Cyclone, which we rode and Beck spent most of the ride saying "Oh My God!", it was pretty much like any fairground, crap prizes, games you can't win etc. Except it is the birthplace of the Hotdog. We tried hotdogs at Nathans, the place where they have the annual hotdog eating competition, where some Japanese guy has been smashing records for 5 years by gobbling over 50 in 12 minutes. Nice.

It rained on Friday so we went to the Natural History Museum and Planetarium. We saw a pretty decent IMAX video about the Galapogas Islands and an awesome display about "Cosmic Collisions" in the Planetarium. We met up with our friends Sarah and Adam and we spent the evening at Madison Square Garden watching the Jordan All American Classic. It was basically schoolkids playing basketball in a giant stadium. Only, it's not like schoolkids from home, one of these lads was 7ft 1in and as I understand it they are going on to college on sports scholarships. It was great to go to one of the the most famous venues in the world.

Sunday morning we did something that Beck had been looking forward to for ages, we met Sarah and Adam again and went to BB King's club for the Harlem Gospel choir's all you can eat brunch. This consisted of the Harlem Gospel Choir singing gospel songs (erm obviously) and us stuffing ourselves with the all-you-can-eat buffet. Their voices were amazing, I can't say we were as moved as some of the other patrons, but they were very impressive. Beck and Sarah then found the New York Hello Kitty store and, I don't know if it was the Christ infused music or the greasy food, went a little crazy. After some more wandering around we took a trip up the Empire State Building. We managed to pick the cloudiest day ever, but we still got some great views of the city. The queue to get to the observatory floor is unbelieveable. Essentially you spend hours queueing to get in to a series of smaller queues. Then you get a lift to some more queues. We spent 90 minutes waiting to get up there, this is on a cold cloudy day. Last time beck went, it took her over 3 hours, in the middle of Winter! Still, great view though, really.

Beck had a surprise for me on Monday morning. She was right, I would NEVER guess. She'd signed us up for trapeeze lessons. These were great fun. We both did pretty well, but I ached so much afterwards. We went to get "The Greatest Cheesecake Ever" from Grand Central Station to celebrate. It was pretty damn good. We did some more shopping (this is what we did when we were doing nothing else, I even know the difference between US and UK sizing. Just kidding.)

Tuesday morning was gorgeous so we took the boat ride to Liberty and Ellis Islands. We saw the immigration museum and the statue of liberty. I've had a lot of people tell me that the statue is pretty small in real life. I disagree, it's huge, but Manhattan is bigger! It was really cool to see such a famous landmark upclose and personal and
the nice weather made up for the cloudy Empire State Queuing ride. We didn't get to go up it, but it was no big deal. Ellis Island was also cool, it was interesting to hear some of the stories from the immigrants that made the USA what it is today. In the evening we went to the Bronx to Yankee Stadium where we saw the Yankees take on the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Tampa were crap, the Yankees took them apart. We sat up in the nosebleed seats which was great because we were almost covered from the rain. We left in the 8th inning because we had to leave at 5am to catch our flight home.

Which is where I am now. Home sweet home. It really is nice to be back. I've had a great time and have really enjoyed writing about it. Hope I didn't make you all too jealous. I've changed the site so you don't need to login to make comments, so feel free to let me know you've been reading :). Once I'm a bit more settled and had a chance to go through my photos, I'm going to make a post with of favourite photos. Thanks to everyone for reading, I hope you all enjoyed reading.

A long time ago in a state far far away...

2006-04-17T22:31:00.000Z

Tim and I revised our plans. We decided not to go to Montreal, mostly because we couldn't get tickets for the hockey game and it's full of French-Canadians. We ended up going to Boston (Mass, not Lincolnshire). I guess the sad truth is that we were swayed by Boston because the Museum of Science had an exhibition on called Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination. It was basically a load of old props, models and costumes from all 6 movies and some science stuff about how possible the science in the films is. For the most part, impossible. It was really cool to see some of the old costumes from the originals, like Chewbacca and C-3PO and I was really surprised to see how large some of the models were. They also had a load of child orientated play areas where we got to make our robots and see if they worked, mostly they didn't. We took a look around the rest of the science museum, there was a huge T-Rex which I managed to completely miss. I liked the maths area where they had models of certain maths principles which I still won't even pretend to understand, but they looked cool.

The next day we went into the city to see the other really famous part of Boston, the Cheers bar. Yes, we went to the bar where everyone knows our name. We didn't see Sam or Norm, but we did drink from branded Cheers glasses. There are actually 2 Cheers bars, the one that they filmed the outside of, and a new one in a mall where the layout is the same as the TV show. We went to the real one, then looked at and ran away from the fake one. Boston was a pretty cool city, I never realised how close Harvard and MIT are I guess it must be the smartest city in the Country, if not the world!

The Full Vermonty

2006-04-14T01:18:00.000Z

We had a really good weekend out in the woods. We went in to the Adirondacks National park in northern New York. Tim, Nate, Ama (the dog) and I set up camp on the edge of Indian Lake which was cool because it was still half frozen. We spent most of Saturday hiking up Snowy Mountain. It was 3898 feet high and it was a pretty hard climb. The top part of the mountain was still snowy and in places it was very deep. At one point I was in up to my waist in snow. The dog seemed to love it, she went crazy, running up and down the mountain, then coming back to make sure that we were all behind her. The last part to the summit took us ages to get past because there was only a thin layer of snow on top of ice. So every step we took, we slid back down. Once we got to the summit, the view was amazing. A little further into the trees there was a Fire Tower which we climbed. It was high, cold and windy and covered in ice and snow. We planned on eating lunch up there but as you can imagine the conditions were not really favourable enough. On the way back down we put on snow shoes for the snowiest part at the top. Knackered, we headed tp a local bar where I had one of the best burgers I've had in ages.

We hung around the National park for most of Sunday and then we made our way back to Tim's parents in Utica. Nate went back to Syracuse and Tim and I hung out in Utica before making our way to Burlington Vermont. I've spent the last few days hanging out with Tim, unfortunately I have been feeling pretty ill. Today we went to the Ben and Jerry's factory, a company that was started in Burlington. It was pretty cool to see where the magic happens. We got to sample one of the Caramel flavours which was tasty. The plan for now is to get myself well, then head to Montreal for the weekend. Then do some more hiking next week before I go to New York.

Farewell Philly

2006-04-07T18:19:00.000Z

I spent my last couple of nights in Philly as expected, we bowled on Tuesday night. I was appalling. I have never bowled so bad in my life. By the 5th game I was getting better, but I have no idea what happened. I blame the balls, they were crappy. Wednesday, I walked around South Philly and got on of Pat's famous Philly Cheese Steaks. It was amazing, well, it was greasy and meaty and covered in hot sauce, so I suppose that makes it great. I watched football for the first time in ages (Juventus vs. Arsenal) and we met up with my friend Pedro and headed to the Bodyworlds exhibition in the Franklin Institute. The exhibit is put on by Gunther von Hagens, the crazy German who did a live autopsy on Channel 4. Essentially, it's a load of plasticised human bodies and organs in different poses. These are real bodies that have been donated by people for this dude to use. Apparently it's quite contraversial. I didn't find it contraversial, just really gross. I'm pretty squeamish about this kind of stuff and it really made me feel uncomfortable, especially the organs. But I have to say that it really was fascinating, despite my weak stomach for these things, I was impressed by it all. It was also quite educational seeing how the body all fits together. One thing is for certain. If I smoked, I would quit. Yuck.

I left my good friend Matt, yesterday morning (thanks once again Matt and Dan for your hospitality) and after a lovely Greyhound ride I arrived in Syracuse New York yesterday evening. Don't be confused. This is NOT New York City. It's a university town upstate. I met up with another good buddy, Nate, and we went for barbeque food and listened to some blues music. This afternoon we are going to meet yet another friend, Tim, and then tomorrow we head into the mountains to hike in the snow. Apparently there are bears. Cool.

New York Preview

2006-04-04T19:47:00.000Z

Over the weekend Matt and I went on a little trip down to New York City. It was my first time in New York and it was great. We spent Saturday daytime wandering around a couple of the parks in Manhattan and we went to The Strand bookstore which boasts 18 miles of books. We saw a great band playing on the street called the Hypnotic Blues Ensemble. In the evening we went to an improvised comedy show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. It was really funny, they spent the 2nd half of the show improvising from music brought in by the audience. On Sunday we took a walk
around central park before joining the traffic on the way home, I never want to drive in New York. In a way it reminded me of London, in that you see it all over the place, on TV, in movies etc, so you expect a lot from it. When you actually get there, it's just another big city, albeit one with some excellent sites. I'm really looking forward to meeting my lovely girlfriend there in two weeks and spending some more time looking around the sites properly.

Yesterday I met up with a friend that I met in San Fransisco and we took a road trip with a couple of his friends down to The National Aquarium in Baltimore. It was very impressive and massive. I really enjoyed seeing all the big sharks and rays. It very different seeing fish in tanks rather than in the sea and it's great because I get to stay dry! I got all excited spotting fish that I had seen whilst diving, especially the clown anemone fish (Nemo). I felt like a kid. The highlight of the aquarium though, was predictably the Dolphin show, those fish are so cool. I had mixed feelings about it, it's amazing how they teach them to do things like walk on their tails and slide along the side of the pool, but it's kind of sad to see them confined. Although they looked pretty happy and they seemed to enjoy themselves. Especially when they kept getting fed fish. My plan for the next few days is to hang out in Philly, We're off bowling tonight and probably to the Franklin Institute for a Bodyworks exhibit tomorrow which will freak me out, yuck. Then on Thursday I'll be travelling up to upstate New York to Syracuse to meet up with another good friend of mine, Nate.

More than just cream cheese

2006-04-01T04:38:00.000Z

For the past few days I've been having a really good time with my friend Matt in Philladephia. I've seen a lot of stuff that I didn't even know was here. For Example the steps that Stallone runs up in Rocky. I spent yesterday looking around the historical part of the city. They are very proud of the fact that Benjamin Franklin lived here for most of his life. He was a pretty interesting fellow, not only was pretty important in founding the country, but he also did a load of science things. He was a printer and head of the Masons twice. He is totally worshipped in this city, I even paid $2 to see his grave. After walking around all the Franklin stuff I checked out the Liberty Bell. It is famous for being the bell that was rung to call people to hear the reading of the Declaration of Independance. After this I went to see Independence Hall which is famous for being where the Americans gave up on the English by signing the Declaration of Independence. It was here that they also signed the Constitution as well as having been visited by many other famous American presidents. I basically had a day being schooled in American history. In the evening, Matt and I went out to West Philly to watch an acoustic bluegrass band who were absolutely outstanding.

Today I saw another famous part of the city, the city hall and it's free mason lodge. The some of the rooms in the lodge where very impressive and the view from the city hall was amazing. Upon the top stands an 11 metre statue of William Penn, the city's founder. In the afternoon I walked around the art gallery, which is the building that Rocky runs up. There were some really good classic impressionist European paintings that appeal to me including paintings by Van Gogh, Monet and Cezanne. However there was also a lot of modern stuff that does nothing for me. We spent this evening rock climbing, which I need to practice more at because I like it but I'm not very good. We're off to New York City for the weekend where we're going to a comedy club night. So it's been a pretty eventful couple of days.

Dallas

2006-03-30T03:23:00.000Z

Howdy y'all (sorry couldn't help it). I've spent the last week hanging out in Dallas with my good friend Elliot. We've had a good time. We've sampled the local bars and a lot of the local cuisine, I've never had Mexican food like it. There seem to be a lot of Mexican restaurants around Texas which is good as Mexican food is tasty. I never had a Chimichanga though which is a shame. Elliot and his friends did introduce me to Margaritas though and they are tasty. We spent most of our time in Dallas seeing friends and sleeping on their sofas. It's been really good to catch up with Elliot and to get out of dorm rooms. There's only so much sharing space with 8 other people you can take!

We took a ride down to Waco where Elliot used to live where I learned to play shuffleboard where you have a long salt covered table and you slide metal discs down the other end to score. It's sort of like curling but not at all. It turned out that I was really good and I showed those Texan boys how to play haha. I ate a Chicken Fried Steak which is kind of hard to describe, I guess it's basically deep fried battered steak covered in a white gravy. It was nice, but it has absolutely nothing to do with chicken. We checked out the Texas Ranger Museum which was cool, they are basically this elite Texas law enforcement agency who are specific to Texas. Back in the day they were set up to stop rustling and fence cutting. They were responsible for bringing in serial law breakers Bonnie and Clyde. We also looked in on the Dr. Pepper museum, but we decided not to look all the way round as neither of us thought there was enough Dr. Pepper memorabilia in the world to justify the entry fee.

A group of us went out bowling on Monday night which was good fun, I actually beat a couple of the guys which is great because these boys can take bowling as a college course. The night ended up pretty messy and hence we had a pretty subdued Tuesday, but I did manage to meet up with some old friends of my parents who took us out to dinner. Then this morning I flew into Philladelphia, the city of brotherly love, to meet up with another old friend of mine Matt where I'm going to hang out for the week before I go bother another old friend.

Vegas Baby, Vegas

2006-03-22T22:41:00.000Z

I know I'm a bit behind, so let me catch y'all up. Vegas was fun. I have quite literally never been anywhere like it and don't think I ever will. It's so hard to explain how massive it is, how tacky it is and how funny it is. I stayed downtown in the nasty area of the city, running the gauntlet of poor people to get to the bus down the strip. As a city, it's pretty seedy and dirty, you know how they have those newspaper boxes where you get the free papers from? Well in Vegas they are all full of magazines full of advertisements for prostitutes, I wasn't prepared for that!

Anyways, what did I do? I met up with Gary and Rachel from New Zealand (as planned) and we spent the first night walking down the strip. It took us 3 hours to get to the last casino, The Luxor, which is a giant pyramid and is damned impressive. Other than that I didn't do too much. We spent the 2nd day doing the same, wandering around the casinos and seeing some of the shows, like the fountains at the Bellagio. This was cool, I gambled a bit on the roulette tables and fed the Star Wars Pokie machine and won a few bucks, nothing major though. It got to about 2am and we headed back because we decided to hire a car and head to the Grand Canyon on Monday.

I got 2 hours sleep, woke up and picked up this car and we set off. It took us 7 hours to get to the Canyon, crossing over to Arizona. On the way we crossed Hoover Dam, which was cool, big and full of traffic. I also had a little run in with the law who stopped me doing 88 in a 65 and gave me a $180 ticket ("Yes officer, I'll be sure to pay this before I leave the country... honest"), oops. We got to the south rim of the Grand Canyon around 5pm (because of the time difference, Arizona don't think they need Daylight Saving) and we spent about 2 hours driving to various viewpoints. It's an amazing sight, 10 miles across, 5000ft to the Colorado River and covered in snow. Unfortunately the weather was cloudy when we got there so it could have been a lot better, but still, it was worth the 13 hour round-trip.

We got back to Vegas about 11.30pm and I realised that there was no point in going to bed because I had a flight the next morning at 7.30am, so I needed to be at the airport at 5.30am. So we headed back down to the strip, saw some more of the lavish, over the top casinos like The Venetian which has canals indoors and then went to gamble. I lost money on the texas Hold-em table (should have quite whilst ahead), but made $5 overall on roulette. We then headed to Slots of Fun to play on the $1 blackjack to pass time before my flight. I started with $10 and was breaking even when I decided to get going. I put my whole $10 on the last hand and got 21. Unfortunately so did the dealer (so I lost nothing gained nothing). I said I came to lose it so I played on with my $10 stake. Well, someone liked me because I got Blackjack and walked away with $25. Grinning, full of coffee and all pleased with myself I headed home to drive back to the airport and drop the car off. I checked my details to see what my flight number was and then saw that the flight left at 6am. I drove like a madman in the pouring rain to drop the car off and try and make it. I got to the check-in desk at 6.25am and expected them to say "tough tits" because I had an online cheap-o fare. What actually happened is the guy put me on standby and I got on the next flight. I arrived at Dallas yesterday morning after having a total of about 4 hours sleep in the last 3 days where my good friend Elliot picked me up and is now looking after me.

Escape from Alcatraz

2006-03-19T20:12:00.000Z

I spent my last day in San Francisco seeing "The Rock". It's very impressive and quite imposing. Viewable from most of coastal San Francisco, the island is only a couple of miles of the coast. Alcatraz spent its early years serving as a military installation and then when it was deemed to expensive to maintain it was transferred to a federal prison. It then spent about 30 years housing the "worst of the worst". It was famous for its brutal conditions and that it was impossible to escape. What I didn't realise is that the guards and their families actually lived on the island in a little community. Most of these buildings have been torn down now but the national park service (apparently) intends on building them back up.

The prison has been home to some of America's most notorious criminals, Machine Gun Kelly (who never shot anyone). Robert Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz who never actually had any birds in the prison (he kept his birds in Levenworth). The most famous of all (well the only one I'd heard of) was Alphonse Capone. Serving time for tax evasion despite having believed to be involved in over 1500 murders in the 30s. The conditions really were pretty harsh. It was cold and barren and they say that the prisoners could hear all the people enjoying themselves out on Fisherman's Wharf from their cells, reminding them of their lost freedom. By far the most unsettling place was on "D block", where they used to put the inmates in solitary, including "The Hole", where you were locked in a soundproof cell with no light, smaller than a London bathroom. One guy told of how he used to pass the time by taking a button off his shirt, flipping in on the floor, then trying to find it in the dark. A pretty good place to visit and well worth the trip if you are ever out in that part of the world.

Well now I'm in Vegas, I got up here last night and met up with some friends I met in New Zealand. We've been down the strip and it's kind of unique, but I'll tell you all about that when I find somewhere I can do photos.

No Rich, I didn't do the flare thing from The Rock, I tried but security wouldn't let me go to where it was done. I got a photo of it I think though.

San Francisco

2006-03-16T01:27:00.000Z

I got in to San Francisco a couple of nights ago. It seems a really clean and vibrant city. The rolling hills mean that walking about gets you fit and you get some great views of the rest of the city as you amble around. I am staying in a hostel (commune) in Little Italy, right near Chinatown. It's not the nicest part of the city, but it certainly has some character. On my first night here I didn't do all that much took a walk around the area, saw some of Chinatown. The hostel puts on free food 3 nights a week so I got in on that. I met a guy from Philly who had a hire car (Pedro) so the next day we took a drive across the Golden Gate Bridge past Sausalito, around some winding roads out to the Muir woods. Having been deprived of Giant Sequoia trees in Yosemite (cancelled snowshoe hikes), Pedro and I took a stroll amongst the Redwoods down here. They were incredible. I find it really hard to judge the height of these things, but they must have been 100 metres plus and were a few metres around. They had a cross section of one of the trees which was an average size and it was over about 1000 years old. It's incredible that these behemoths grow from seeds the size of sunflower seeds. On the way back into the city We stopped at a viewpoint for the bridge and looked out over the city. It's really hard to get a sense of scale in the pictures, because they never really do justice to how massive this bridge is. It's very impressive.

Yesterday I met up with my girlfriend Rebecca's Mum and went to her wedding. Yep, that sounds as crazy as it was. They just happened to elope to the one city in the world I happened to be in and I stepped in as witness. It was a really lovely ceremony in the San Francisco city hall and they seemed very happy, so congratulations to Joyce and Phil. Today I pretty much walked across the whole of San Francisco. I walked all the way down Market Street through the financial district, through some of the not so nice areas and down to Haight Ashbury. This part of the city is famous because the hippies moved in back in the 60s and never really left. Lots of psychedelic colours and scruffy looking oiks. In fact I got offered drugs by about 10 different people. I then carried on walking down to the Golden Gate park and into the Japanese Garden, which was nice, if a little small. I then wandered around the botanic gardens, where I met another guy from Eritrea (I'd never heard of this place and now every other person I meet is from there!) who was just sitting on a bench feeding monkey nuts to squirrels. They were so funny, they'd come and take them right out of your hand. One even let me stroke him. I'm all booked up for my Alcatraz tour tomorrow morning which I'm pretty excited about. Just think, I get to go to where they filmed "The Rock".

Yosemite Sam

2006-03-15T16:40:00.000Z

I have a lot to catch up on, so I'll do one post this morning and probably one later on. As you can probably guess from the title, I went up to Yosemite National park at the weekend. I never really realised that it was in California until some nutty American lady told me to go there in Fiji. When I got to Midpines (just outside the national park) where my hostel was, I was kindly informed by the driver that I had a quarter mile hike up to the hostel from the bus stop. In the snow. Yes people, all of you who have been calling me a jammy git for being in the heat and sun, rejoice. I froze my ass off. People kept telling me how they hadn't "seen snow like this at this time of year for nigh on twenty year". I consider myself lucky.

I did plan to do a snowshoe hike the next day, but the lazy German that ran it decided there weren't enough people to go so it was cancelled. Instead I caught the bus into the Yosemite valley and did some walking. It's a truly remarkable place. Although it was utterly freezing and I was hiking in the snow, I was stunned by the scenery in the valley. I took a hike in about a foot of snow out to Mirror Lake, which was mostly frozen over, but still impressive. From there I saw Half Dome (although at the time I didn't know that's what it was), a feature of the valley created as age old glaciers melted and took away the rock. After lunch I took a walk around the lower part of Yosemite Falls and as it started to snow a bit thicker I decided to head back and warm up by the fire. Something pretty odd happened later that night. I'm pretty wary of trying to explain it because I'm worried it'll sound like the ravings of a madman, but here goes. I bought a pack of playing cards in the park and we were cutting them to see who would go first in a game of Jenga (this is the high life people). Out of six of us, four people cut on the Queen of Spades. The other two cut the Queen of Diamonds. We shuffled the cards between each go, yet it kept happening. This in itself seems odd, but then every time (or every second time) we cut the deck we got the Queen of Spades. We took it as an omen that we should leave for Vegas right there and then. We didn't, it was cold and our driver was over the limit, but still, I thought that was worth mentioning.

The next day Ze German cancelled my hike again so I headed back into the park. This time I started on the trail up to the upper part of the Yosemite falls which is the highest waterfall in the US (at 2,425 feet or 739 metres) and the sixth largest in the world, made up of three separate falls: Upper Yosemite Fall (1,430 ft), the middle cascades (675 ft), and Lower Yosemite Fall (320 ft). I never planned to go the whole way up (it's a good 12 hour hike), but I thought I'd go for a reasonable amount of time and then turn back. What actually happened is I got as far as the Columbia Rock viewpoint and then found myself waist deep in snow. So I turned back. The next morning I left and headed back to the coast to the city of San Fransisco. Which I'll tell you all about later.

In Merced

2006-03-10T23:07:00.000Z

I left LA this morning to head up north to visit Yosemite National Park. I am currently in a place called Merced. It's not like LA at all. In some ways it makes me think of a classic American town with wide tree lined streets and everyone talking to each other. I stopped in a comic book store and the owner and his wife talked to me for ages. In other ways it reminds me of a ghost town. It's so big and there doesn't seem to ne anyone here! I finally found an internet cafe, but it was closed, at 2pm in the afternoon. In the end I ended up in the library which is next to the courthouse. I saw prisoners in orange jumpsuits being escorted by all chained up. Very odd. I'll be in Yosemite for tonight and tomorrow, but I'm off to try and change my train ticket to Monday so that I can get an extra night up there as it sounds amazing. I don't know if there will be internet there (probably), but rest assured I'll get y'all loads of photos.

Hollywood

2006-03-09T19:51:00.000Z

Well I've been in LA for 3 nights now and I can safely say that it's pretty damn weird. My first night here I didn't do much, wandered down Hollywood in the rain for a bit and fell asleep pretty early. The day after however was much more interesting.

I took a walk down Hollywood and saw the famous Chinese theatre, the Kodak theatre and Hollywood Walk of Fame (favourites so far include Dean Stockwell and Angela Lansbury). I didn't see any famous people, but there was some guy offering tickets to a TV show. I took them of course, not even knowing what the show was. It turned out to be The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson who was actually pretty funny. They recorded 2 monologues and 2 interviews, one of the monologues was for Friday's show so we had to pretend it was Friday, seeing as I wasn't all that sure what day it was anyway, I ended up very confused. We saw him interview Jackie Collins and John Larroquette. I had no idea who Larroquette was, but he had some pretty damning stuff to say about the way the US government responded to Hurricane Katrina, so I liked him.

On the way back down Hollywood our (Mark, from Western Australia) and I's way was blocked by a premiere for the new Tim Allen movie. They were all inside watching the film, yet we still couldn't cross the road. Rather than walk all the way round we decided to grab a beer in the nearest bar, which just happened to be Hooters. We ended up having dinner there and waited out the crowds. It's a pretty odd place, it's basically a Harvester but where all the waitresses go through a rigorous interview to make sure they are good waitresses. I swear to God, there was one girl who couldn't use a bottle opener to open a bottle of beer.

Yesterday we decided to follow up on a call for "Hollywood movie crowd scene, people needed all week". Which basically meant pay $200 and we'll call you. No-one felt like getting ripped off so we walked around Hollywood some more, got some pictures of the sign and headed off to see Sunset Strip. It was a pretty long walk, but the strip was pretty cool, we saw the Viper Room, site of River Pheonix's drug overdose. We also saw the Hustler store, only in America people. Once we reached the end, Latif and I started to walk back to Hollywood. This is where LA really showed its glamourous side. First up we saw a small queue outside a bookstore so we joined it. It turned out to be a book signing by Mr. Bonzai, a rock photographer. He was there with members of The Police, The Travelling Wilburys and the singer from Devo (famous for Whip it). Seeing as we weren't going to get the book and the guys from the Chili Peppers hadn't turned up, we took a picture and left. Then we saw another crowd inside a Virgin Megastore. So we looked in. Turned out to be an interview with Gustavo Santaolalla who wrote the score for Brokeback Mountain, took a picture, left. On the way back we saw more commotion outside a restaurant so we crossed the road to see what was going on, we saw professional tart Paris Hilton. I got a photo of her entourage going in, but missed her by a second. I then had to explain to my friend Latif who is from a country called Eritrea who she was and why she was famous. He barely believed me and the conversation ended with him shaking his head and saying "America, what a country".

Might take a trip to Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, or Venice Beach today, or go check out a museum. I am booking a train to Merced so that I can go hiking in Yosemite tomorrow, so if I vanish for a few days, that's where I am.

USA! USA! USA!

2006-03-07T00:29:00.000Z

It's raining and it's cold in LA. I'm not used to this. I spent my last few days in Fiji, pretty much doing nothing. I wandered around a Hindu temple which was quite interesting, but other than that I read and wrote postcards home. I landed at LAX about 3 hours ago and have checked into a hostel in Hollywood, just off Hollywood Boulevard. I was warned that it's a pretty crappy area. It's certainly not glamourous! I don't have a picture of the sign yet, but I'll get one. I expect I'll stay around here a few days, Nate has given me the number of a friend of his who I'm going to call in a bit. At the moment the plan is spend a few days in LA and see the sights. Then go up to San Fransisco for a few days, come back down here and meet Gary, then get a lift to San Diego, where we are going to borrow his uncle's car and drive to Vegas (baby, Vegas). Then I'll be off from there to Texas to see Elliot. Well you know what they say about the best laid plans...

Diving... with death!

2006-03-02T07:35:00.000Z

Fiji is hot. I know it's cold back home, but I am cooking alive over here. Anyways, what have I been doing? Well "This week I have been mostly doing diving. I did 2 dives yesterday and 2 today, let me tell you all about them.

Yesterday I went out to the Mamanuca Islands off of the West Coast of the main island of Fiji. The first place we stopped was called Seven Sisters, it is a collections of reefs out amongst the islands. We got down and saw some great tropical fish, I still get amazed at how bright the colours are. What was special for me about this dive was that I saw an octopus for the first time. It was hiding amongst some coral and as we got closer to look at him, he backed away and changed colour making it tough to see him. We saw angelfish, triggerfish and my current favourite, the parrot fish. The second dive didn't go too well for me. I got down to depth at Rainbow Reef and started swimming around. We got down to about 15 metres and all was going well until I started to hear a noise behind my head. I pointed at it to someone I was diving with and they couldn't see a problem. After a few more seconds I realised why. The noise was the air escaping from the tank on my back and Anders couldn't see it because it was mixing with my bubbles. I swam over to the dive master and started to make the "There's something with... my tank" signals. Before I could finish he'd worked it out and was pulling my up to the surface with his spare regulator in my mouth. By the time I got to the boat I was completely out of air. It was pretty hair-raising, but above all it was disappointing as I had my bouyancy perfect so whilst I was diving I felt completely weightless. It turned out that the O-ring on the tank wasn't in properly and must have blown out when I got deeper because of the pressure. Not something that should really happen, but the dive master reacted right and I'm all safe and sound.

Because of the problems I had yesterday the company let me do 2 dives today for $75 which is a total bargain. Despite the risk to my life, I decided to go again. Our first site was the sight of a crashed B-26 bomber. There's not all that much of it left (it must have been pretty scattered), but the wing was clearly identifiable and as we swam around the reef we saw the wheel and steering column which have become part of the reef. I got lucky again today as over the 2 dives we saw a whitetip reef shark sleeping under some coral, I woke him up and he looked pissed off. We also saw cuttlefish and we played with some clownfish who swam around our fingers as we waved them in the coral. The boss at the dive centre has also told me that if I want, they will let me dive again at a discounted rate (not as cheap as before mind) if I want to come again. I have decided to leave it a couple of days, as I had a bit of trouble equalising my ears this morning. Rest assured, I'll let you know if I go again.

Apart from that Fiji is hot and there isn't all that much to do where I am apart from sit by the pool, play cards and read. The people are really good fun and are pretty laid back. They didn't seem to mind when we used the pool cleaner pole to try and knock down coconuts. I'll probably head into town tomorrow as there isn't a bank near here and because I didn't book my room again, I'm stuck on the floor of the travel shop for tomorrow night. D'OH! At least it's only $8.

On Fiji Time

2006-02-28T04:15:00.000Z

I arrived in Fiji last night and it was boiling hot. I didn't really know what to expect from here as I know nothing about the country. At the airport I met a couple of guys that I met in my first hostel in Christchurch so I tagged along with them to their hostel. They informed me that 3 weeks ago there was an attempted coup here, but apparently it's alright now. Great. The weather is insanely hot, it's about 30 degrees and I'm melting. I feel like I should be doing something after my hectic month in NZ, but I'm happy just sitting by the beach trying to figure the world out. I am currently in a place called Nadi (pronounced Nandi) and it's a bit of a dump, it's the tourist capital of the country so I should be able to find something to do. I've wandered around the town and a shopkeeper made me have Kava, the national drink to welcome me to Fiji, of course I was expected to buy something to help support the village (they are a community shop, they all chip in). This seems to happen a lot, so expect presents people.

I'm planning on doing some more diving tomorrow (it's lots cheaper out here) and depending on how safe the equipment and the boat is I might go out again the day after. They said that if I go twice, they'll make sure that we go different places. I have seen some dive companies that actively encourage Bull Sharks by feeding them so that you can get near them, but seeing as they are man eaters, I decided this wasn't too good an idea. After I've dived I think I'll take a bus to Suva, the capital for a couple of days before coming back to fly on to LA. If I can find a cheap deal I might head out to one of the islands, but they just seem to be party resorts and I'm not really looking for that. Internet here seems pretty crappy, so I can't add pictures at the moment, when I can I will.

Leaving New Zealand

2006-02-27T02:28:00.000Z

This will be my last post from Aotearoa - The Land of the Long White Cloud - as I fly to Fiji in a few hours. I've had a fantastic time here and done so much and the last 2 days were no exception. Yesterday I was up in Paihia staying in the Bay of Islands. This is a collection of 144 natural islands that are incredibly scenic. My reason for being there was to dive the wreck of the old Greenpeace Ship The Rainbow Warrior. It was sunk in 1985 by the French government as Greenpeace were protesting against French nuclear testing in the Pacific. The wreck was dragged up to the north and sunk so that it could be dived on.

I'd never done a wreck dive before, so I was not really sure what to expect. It tottally blew me away. I never really saw the point of diving sunken boats, but it's a really spooky and impressive sight. The colours of the anemones on the side of the boat were amazing, all sorts of pinks and blues. We even went inside the boat where we found a pocket of air at the roof of the room and we took our regulators out and had a conversation 20 metres underwater. I was down there for about 40 minutes and saw so many fish it was amazing. For our second dive we dove "The Tunnels" which is a reef further out from the Warrior. I got pretty lucky here as when I got down I didn't quite get my buoyancy right and I plummetted to the ground. My divemaster started pointing to my hand and sitting about 3 inches away was a pissed off looking Scorpion Fish. I've never moved so fast! We swam around some tunnels and inbetween some tight squeezes where we were lucky enough to see a manta ray. I had 2 great dives and I keep remembering why I love it so much, apparently there are loads of wrecks of the English coast and I'm starting to think I should look into diving them. We were also lucky enough to see dolphins (again) on the boat out there. They must like me :)

This morning I did my 4th and final bungy jump of this trip of off the Auckland Harbour Bridge. I opted for a harness jump again and ran off into a somersault. I can't describe how cool it was! I really enjoy bouncing around on a rubber band over a huge drop. Sorry for the crap photo, but nevermind. Next stop... Fiji.

Back on the beaten track

2006-02-24T05:35:00.000Z

So I know I've been quiet for a while, but I've only been in towns where the Internet is still so new and shiny that they charge an arm and a leg to use it. I'm now in Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city and it seems quite nice. I've a lot to tell you all about, so I'd better get started.

I got to Taupo with the intention of doing a skydive. It WAS pretty cheap, but I couldn't bring myself to spend $259 to jump from a plane seeing as I've done it before, figured I'd put the money towards something new. So instead I stayed an extra day and went hiking on the Tongariro Crossing. This is known (by the NZ
tourist board probably) as the greated 1 day walk on earth. I can vouch that it's certainly very good. It's a 17km hike, passing by several mountains, including Mt. Ngauruhoe, the volcano they used as MT DOOM in some film about rings. The scenery was incredible, as the whole area is volcanic, the craters and the scenery is all very different. I decided, that although the top of MT DOOM was clouded, that it would clear and that we should definately hike it. It didn't clear. It was pretty tough getting up, the path up is very loose and every step you take you slide back down half a step. Getting up took me ages. Getting down was quicker. The trick is to try and surf down on the scree that shifts out from under your feet. It was good fun, even if I did take a few tumbles. After this I crossed several large craters and down the other side of the crossing to where the bus picked us up from. I was stiff and aching, but I'd done what Frodo did, so I was happy.

From Taupo we went to a place called Rotarua. Because of all the volcanic activity, Rotarua stinks of sulphur. For those of you unaware of what sulphur smells like, I envy you. The smell of rotten egg is all over the town, but you do get used to it. Our hostel had thermal heated baths that supposedly had curative properties these were lovely and warm, but I still ached from walking. We wandered out to see the largest geyser in the Southern Hemisphre (it also stunk of egg), then rushed back in time to go on a trip to a Mauri cultural village. This was fantastic, if a little put on. The sentiment and the respect for their culture however was very real and it was quite humbling to hear how the Mauri culture has had to assimilate with the Western culture and what little they ask back. I saw the haka and some other cultural stuff including a meal cooked in their traditional way under the ground. It was great.

The next day I took some of my Skydive money and went blackwater rafting. Not as violent or as rapid as whitewater, but still pretty cool. We abseiled into a dark cave and then floated around on rubber rings looking at gloworms. Apparently these gloworms are not even worms, they are maggots that burn their waste in their bums to attract insects into their sticky tendrils that hang down. I was pretty surprised at how bright they were. We did a little bit of caving (well squeezing through tight rocks) and then we had to climb about 30 metres back out of the cave where we had abseiled down. It was good fun and good value, so if anyone is heading up here check them out.

I'm now in Auckland for one night then up to the Bay of Islands for another night and back here for my flight on Monday. I'm hoping to do another bungy jump as I have a discount token for the bridge here in the city. Stay tuned...

Cricketing with dolphins

2006-02-19T07:48:00.000Z

I did quite a lot yesterday. After a lot of fussing around and hassle, I eventually managed to get on a dolphin swimming trip which is one of the things Kaikoura is famous for. However, the only one I could get on started at 5.30am which is a little earlier than I'm used to. I wasn't going to let this spoil it, so I signed up and went for it. I said my goodbyes to Vicky and Shaun the night before and got set to go. The basic premise was - if the dolphins are interested in you, they'll play, if they are not, they won't. The dolphins we were looking for were called Dusky dolphins and are off the coast of New Zealand all year round due to the geography of the water. They are less than 2 metres long and have a kind of dark topside. They told us that they like it when we sing, when we swim around in circles with them and when we dive down. I tried pretty hard to think of songs dolphins might like.

We got suited up in (quite catching) wetsuits and set off. When we finally found a pod of dolphins it was incredible. They were flipping and jumping out of the water and just seemed to be enjoying life I was unsure of what to expect and it was quite amazing. I sang a bit, they seemed to like the Jaws theme and Van Morrison but weren't to impressed by Sennen (sorry guys). Whenever I was singing loads came and swum underneath me and all around to have a look. They really did seem love it when I dived under the water because they would all swim around me and look me in the eye. It was like they were fascinated by this weird looking thing that couldn't stay under the water for very long. However, when I bobbed back up (the wetsuits were super bouyant) most of them scarpered when I coughed up the seawater. It was good fun when they swim in circles around you. They liked to play and it was a game I'd never win. Basically the idea was you both swim in circles (I sang as well) until the human gets dizzy or gulps seawater. We then got some photos and we saw a pod of about 700 dolphins! We had 3 swims in total and I have no idea how long I was there for, but even if it had been hours it wouldn't have been enough time. It was a great experience and should anyone get half a chance to do it, do!

After my early start and swim, we headed north to Picton and crossed the Cook Straight to Wellington where I am now. As we got in our driver mentioned the 1-day cricket game between NZ and the West Indies. Having never been to a live cricket match I was well up for going, so a bunch of us set off to catch the Windies batting. It was great. I am definately going to more cricket. The Black Caps trounced the Windies and we saw some pretty cool dismissals. Some good catches and a someone getting bowled out with the ball going between his legs.

Off to Taupo tomorrow where you can skydive for pretty cheap so I might give that a go, but as I've done it before I might not bother and put the money towards something new. Also want to say thanks for all the nice comments about the blog. It's nice to know you're out there.

40-40 I see trouble

2006-02-16T21:58:00.000Z

I have good news. I arrived in Christchurch to find that 2 of my group from Fraser Island were also staying there! So instead of catching the bus that I'd paid for the next morning at 7.20am, we got drunk, didn't get any sleep and missed it (this may be partly due to the X-rated actions of some the other noisy people in my dorm room, but I won't go into that). Shaun and Vicky offered to drive me up to Kaikoura (where I am now - top of the east coast of the South Island). Which we did. Seeing as I had an extra day in Chrischurch and we had nothing better to do, we ended up drinking boxes of wine in the sun in the massive park in the city. This soon turned into a game of 40-40. It ended up with 4 drunk English people and a bunch of Kiwis (including ine lad in a wheelchair) playing 40-40 in the dark with a torch. A good time was had by all.

The next morning we left for Kaikoura, famous for whale watching, seals and dolphin swimming. It's a really nice little place that has sea on one side and mountains on the other. It seems built around the tourist trade, but this hasn't seemed to affect the laid back friendly astmosphere. I leave here tomorrow morning, but not before I've given the lucky dolphins a chance to come and swim with me.

The pack on my back is aching, the straps seem to cut me like a knife...

2006-02-13T03:40:00.000Z

So I'm back. I ache all over. I have feet like a hobbit and I probably still smell terrible. As the avid reader will know, I just spent the last 5 days hiking the Rees-Dart Track. I have done a little hiking before, but nothing on this scale (it's about 67km), so with the benefit of hindsight maybe it wasn't the best idea to go straight into a "moderately difficult tramp" without some kind of warm up first. But I did, and it was fantastic. It's been a pretty arduous few days, but I've seen some breathtaking scenery that really made me realise why Peter Jackson chose this area to film his Lord Of The Rings trillogy. There are a lot of tramps you can do in this area of the country, but I was recommened this one by a guy in Christchurch who told me that it's not a touristy as some of the more famous ones and if you want to, you can easily go 5 days without meeting anyone. For some reason this appealed to me. So off I went.

The first day is a 17km hike from the Muddy Creek car park to the Shelter Rock Hut. I started off great, feeling fit and fine wondering why I don't do this every week. After about half an hour I started to realise how different this was to the hiking I had done in the past (just day hikes carrying very little). It's a whole different game having to carry everything you need for 5 days with you. The track began on a fairly even level and I was happy just wandering along. When I got to the first area of wetland I realised that even though it was bright sunshine and the middle of summer, I was going to get wet. Within an hour I had already tripped over and gone up to my thighs in mud. Only now do I get why it's called Muddy Creek. I got to 25 mile creek in about 3 hours and after crossing the ankle deep water, stopped for some lunch. I set off again into the valley and walked on to the boundary of the National Park. This took a lot longer than I expected and I started to feel that maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew. The sun was extremely hot and my soaking wet feet were really slowing me down. The track continued into a beech forest and rose slowly into the mountains. Eventually (about 6pm) I spotted the swingbridge and my home for the night, Shelter Rock hut. I arrived, cooked my dehydrated food and was asleep by 8.30pm. I was absolutely shattered.

The second day I woke up after about 12 hours sleep. I felt refreshed and ready to take on what I knew was going to be the most difficult day. I spent most of this day walking with Bruce, an Aussie maths teacher who appeared to have years more experience than me. Today's hike reached my highest point, the Rees Saddle, at 1447 metres. Compared to the other days, it's the shortest distance at 9km, but it was incredibly demanding. It took me about 5 hours to reach the bottom of the major climb to Rees Saddle. In this time I had a period where I was properly exhausted. I ended up just laying down in the sun and almost passing out. Luckily Bruce came back and gave me a kick and got me going again. The hardest part was yet to come. The climb to the saddle was a grueling climb up for what seemed like forever, having the pack made it so much harder than I could ever have anticipated. However, when I reached the top, I realised that it was all worth it. The view was breathtaking. I stopped and had lunch and eventually began the descent down on a roughly marked track following Snowy Creek. The drop was huge and the weight of the pack coupled with my tiredness and lack of fitness meant that every little trip was almost lethal. I had a couple of close calls, but as you know, I survived, so it's all ok. Another 3 hours of descent and bush walking and I made it to Dart Hut, where (you've guessed it), I made dinner and passed out again.

On the third day the weather turned. It was no longer blinding sunshine, but constant drizzle and rain. This was my "easy" day as I decided to take a day hike up to the Dart Glacier from the Dart Hut. I emptied my pack and took only what I needed and set off. I walked until I could just see the glacier, but the poor weather and poor visibility made me decide to turn back early so that I could rest up for the following couple of days. I reasoned that having hiked on a glacier last week, I'd make do with just seeing it today rather than going right to it. I walked about 8 ir 9kms today and because of the up and down terrain it took me about 6 hours. Although I did stop for a while to read my book in the shelter of a over hanging rock.

It rained all through the night and I was starting to wonder what I was doing. The clouds had come in and where not spoiling the view, but they were certainly taking something away from it. However, I set off in the rain towards Daley's Flat Hut, another 18Kms and what I expected to be about 8 hours of walking. However, today I didn't seem too tired and I seemed to get a second wind. The rain stopped on my 3 hour wander down hill through the beech forest and by the time I reached Cattle Flat, it was clearing up. I stomped on up and down the flats (blatant false advertising) feeling great. I didn't need to stop nearly as much today and I could feel my fitness coming on. I crossed streams without caring and made it to the hut about 4pm, well before I expected to. I did however fall straight to sleep for 2 hours. Eventually I got up, socialsed with my fellow trampers and made some food and got ready for my final day.

I set off this morning about 8.30am because I was booked to get the bus at 2pm. most of today was spent hiking up and down through beech forest, but the breaks there were were fantastic. The sun came out today as I followed the Dart River on to Chinaman's Flat. There were a few places where I didn't feel particularly safe, including some 200 metre droppoffs whilst hiking on a 2 foot path. My stamima had returned by today and I found myself pushing on quite well when I wasn't stopping to appreciate the magnificent view. The walk this morning was about 19kms and I arrived at the Chinaman's carpark about 1pm feeling pretty good about myself, but smelling pretty damn bad. As I sat waiting for my bus, an English couple dropped their friends off and asked if anyone wanted a lift back to Queenstown. I weighed my options, stay and carry on getting bitten by sandflies (my new least favourite animal) or get home early and shower. Easy really.

What next? Next is a Fergburger (Stuart you were right, they really were worth going to NZ for) and tomorrow morning I get a bus back up to Christchurch and on to Kaikoura where I hope to swim with dolphins if I have time.

Just in case I don't get to a computer tomorrow, Happy Valentine's Day to Rebecca, I love you and I'm missing you loads. I'll call again as soon as I can.

5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 BUNGY!

2006-02-07T06:45:00.000Z

Those of you reading who knew me before I left England will know how much I was looking forward to bungy jumping. Well I've done it now and it was awesome! I thought I'd slap some photos of me dangling like a pillock on the end of a giant rubber band on here so that you can all see that I didn't bottle it. I started today on the 134 metre Nevis jump which was the only one I was a little anxious about. We got taken across to the cable car in the middle of the valley and harnessed up. Then once it was my turn it was all over pretty quickly. I shuffled to the end of the ledge with a look of terror on my face (you can see this on the dvd) when he said jump, I jumped. The fall was incredible. Because you get about 10 seconds of freefall, you really have time to think "what the hell am I doing!?". I bounced back up trying to look cool for the video, but when the bit that brought me back up locked in place I bricked it and grabbed on for dear life. Everything went great and I shook for about half an hour.

Next up was the ledge jump. The view over Queenstown is stunning, the giant lake and the surrounding mountains were and incredible backdrop for one of best things I've ever done. It's only 47 metres, but becasue you have a body harness on this one there are more things you can do with it. I decided as it was my last jump (until Auckland - can anyone say addict?) to do something special. So I tried a somersault. I was never particularly good at gym, but luckily everything went perfectly. I managed 2 full rotations until the rubber band flew out of my hands and I was on my way back up. I can't recommend doing this highly enough (I might do one in Vegas too), the mental energy it took me to push myself to do it meant that it was so rewarding, right now I feel like I could take on the world.

As for my tramp in the bush (slightly slower paced than the last 2 days), I'm currently set to go the day after tomorrow, so I should be back the 13th or 14th depending on the route I take.

Queenstown

2006-02-06T22:58:00.000Z

A lot to fit in here, so bare with me...

First things first. Franz Josef glacier ice hiking. This was awesome. I've never hiked on ice before (there's not many places to do it in Norfolk). It's an odd experience. They kitted us up with spikes for our boots and ice picks for those who wanted them, he did warn us that the fun wore off after a while, but Gary and I certainly didn't seem to think so. The glacier is a pretty impressive natural phenomenon, it receeds and advances over periods of years depending on the weather. Apparently at the moment it's in a state of advance. We took a long walk up the terminal face and then the real fun began. Our guide walked ahead cutting steps for us, so we got to stop every few minutes whilst he hacked away. As we got higher we started getting into more crevases and had a few pretty tight squeezes. I confess that I did slip in a crevase and got stuck by my ass. I would have been embarrassed had it not been so cold and funny. Some of the drops were absolutely terrifying, there's something awe-inspiring about knowing that you're pretty much at nature's whim. If she decides to drop a large block of ice there's not much you can do about it. We got up fairly high and turned around to come back. An excellent hike and something really different to anything I've ever done before. Top class.

From Franz Josef we headed to Wanaka, a lovely little town where we swam in the freezing lake and kicked a ball around. We tried to take it easy, because the post glacier hike celebrations were probably a bit too prolonged for a 7am start. I managed to trick my body out of a hangover by running round a lake in the morning, others weren't so lucky. From here, after a stop at the awesome Puzzling World, we headed towards Queenstown which is where I am now. It's a town that has pretty much been built out of the tourism and adventure activities in the surrounding area. It's also famous for being the birthplace of modern Bungy Jumping. Bungy legend AJ Hackett opened the first commercial site in 1988 just outside the city from the Karawau Bridge. This is where I did my first jump. As I have been before, I tried something new on this jump, I fell backwards. This was one of the strangest things I have ever done. If you've ever played that trust game where you fall back and someone catches you, it's kind of like that, but you don't hit the ground, you just fall. I asked the guy to dip my head in the water, but the b*stard put me in up to my knees. Still great fun, watch out for the DVD release coming soon.

So on to the future. This is likely to be my last post for a while. As I am off to do a mammoth trek called the Rees-Dart trek for about 5 days. Probably tomorrow or the next day. Today however, I am doing the largest bungy in the Southern Hemisphere and then it's slightly smaller brother where you can jump with a body harness, so you can run and jump. The views from these are breathtaking so hopefully expect some good photos next time.

Ice ice baby

2006-02-05T20:05:00.000Z

Quick post to say I survived my climb on the glacier. I have a load of pictures and will put them up. Going to do the first of 3 bungy jumps this morning. Have to go, bus is leaving without me! More later.

Chase the Ace

2006-02-03T04:56:00.000Z

I'm going to try and be pretty comprehensive in this post (wouldn't want to get complacent huh Rich?) and cover the last few days. Before I do, I want mention that on the way to Westport we had lunch in a little town called Otira.
It's an old mining town in the Southern Alps which is pretty unique. It's a quaint, quiet little place with, what we were told, is a typical old style West Coast Pub. This pub is home to Bill and Christine who a few years ago bought the town for $70,000 (that's about 30,000 GBP). When they bought the pub, they didn't realise that the rest of the town (which the mining companies had finished with) came with it. They now own everything there and rent out the houses to holiday makers. I really liked this story, I think I want my own town.

We left Westport pretty early and we have headed further down the coast. We stopped off at a seal sanctuary where we saw (from a fair distance) a load of seals sitting on rocks and just doing their thing. We rode on the bus somemore down some crazy coastal roads. It's a real art getting a 40-odd seater coach round some of those corners, but our driver Jamie seems to be a seasoned pro. We stopped off for lunch at a place called Punakaiki where we saw the Pancake Rocks. I have to be honest I was a little cynical as they looked nothing like pancakes. I felt robbed. They were pretty impressive rocks though so I'll suppose I'll let New Zealand off this one. Apparently they are formed by sucessive layers of silt laying over layers of limestone over time. Fascinating.

This done we headed off to Lake Mahinapua, where some of us decided to go kayaking. Those of you who have seen me kayak, will know that I'm not exactly gifted at it. It was made all the more difficult when we decided to go 2 people in a one person boat because they were heavy to lift and we thought it would be ok. We had a few spills, but after a while my American counterpart and I seemed to have it licked. We took on a serious amount of water, but we only capsised early on. The views were stunning and the lake was fantastic. I didn't bring my camera, so you'll have to trust me. That evening we had an excellent steak dinner and a beach themed night in a pub run by the oldest living publican, a legend called Les. My costume was a bad Hawaiian shirt and goggles. I'm getting lax in my old age.

Today has been pretty much more of the same, a lot of driving and stops at various places of outstanding natural beauty. We visited a Bushman museum where we learned how some crazy nutters used to jump out of helicopters onto running dear so that they could gather them for farming to supply the demand for New Zealand's venison. I shared a possum pie for breakfast, it was ok, kind of like the thigh meat on turkey. I don't think I'll be rushing to order it again however, I was basically eating tree-rat pie.

We are now in a place called Franz Josef, home of the Franz Josef Glacier. It's a giant ice cube that goes all the way down to sea level. It's quite impressive. I don't know all the science yet, but I will find out for you all as I'm sure you want to know. Tomorrow I will be getting suited and booted with ice climbing equipment and will spending the day walking on it (I even get an ice axe!). I'll be here 2 nights so I will try and add some pictures of it tomorrow when I get back.

On the Westsiiiide

2006-02-01T06:34:00.000Z

Quick post here, but a lot to say. Basically I left Christchurch as soon as I could (ie this morning) because I decided I didn't really like it. I did the right thing. I got the bus this morning and we travelled cross country to a town on the west coast called Westport. It's a coal mining town and there doesn't
seem to be all that much here, but I think there are a lot of walks that you can do around here. We are only here one night though. On the way here, we went through Arthur's pass and saw some frankly stunning scenery. We stopped at lake bruner for a swim which was great, just what we needed after the strenuous walk up to see "The Devil's Punchbowl" (a waterfall). It's been a good day. I will add pictures when I can.

Christchurch

2006-01-30T01:59:00.000Z

I'm not sure why I'm having such bad luck with transport at the moment. I suppose some of it is my own fault. I completly forgot to book the bus to the airport from my hostel so I had to sort myself out on the train. It wasn't that much worse, it was just an extra 20 mins walk. With all my stuff.I went for a quiet drink with some mates the night before my flight, left early because I knew I had to catch a train at 5.30am. I got a few hours sleep and set off at early o'clock so that I wouldn't miss my flight. As it happened, my flight missed me. It's not a nice feeling turning up at an airport to see CANCELLED next to your flight. Apparently Christchurch was "foggy" so I had to wait another 4 hours to fly to Auckland and then wait there for another 3 hours to fly back to Christchurch. I also, of course, never bothered to book a hostel before I left, so I've ended up staying a place called Cokers. It's a bit like a cross between an Amsterdam coffee shop and Fawlty Towers. Anywho, the last few days of ridiculous journeys, late nights and early mornings have finally caught up with me and I feel rubbish. I have decided to write off today and do nothing but get an early night. Christchurch can wait until tomorrow.

Oh and to cap it all I have an infected ingrown toenail which is gross.

NO! SLEEP! TIL BRISBANE!!

2006-01-28T04:42:00.000Z

Well some sleep, but I'll get to that. Basically if anyone reading this ever wants to travel by Greyhound Australia, please be aware they break down. A lot. I was supposed to leave Airlie Beach yesterday at 11.15. However, the bus got stuck in 2nd gear which is not really much use to me. I ended up getting bored waiting so I went to find the last 2 stragglers from Team Spring Break (Pete and John) left (stuck) in Airlie Beach. We hit the jugs to pass the time until 6pm when I finally could start my marathon journey to Brisbane. I finally arrived here about 1pm. Yes that's right. A 19 hour bus journey. On a broken seat. You can imagine how good a mood I am in. I slept, but only for about 40 minutes tops at a time. You sleep, but there's no rest.

Anyways. Here I am in Brisbane booked into "Somewhere to Stay"
on Tim Kelleway's recommendation. I'm hoping to find the Swiss lassies from Spring Break who are staying around here somewhere so that I can give Australia a "Goon Slapping" send off. Next post should be from Christchurch barring any nightmare scenarios involving me oversleeping.

Whitsundays, Dolphins and Torrential Rain

2006-01-26T01:04:00.000Z

Happy Australia Day everybody!! Yesterday I got back from my trip to the Whitsunday Islands. These are a small island group just off of the Australia mainland. They are World Heritage listed and are generally regarded as some of the best beaches in the world. I was on a 3 day sailing trip on a boat called the Tallarook 3. As I have said before, the success of these kind of things tends to rely on how the group gets on and once again we were lucky. We had a good group of people and an excellent crew so we had won the first battle.

Our trip started with a ride out to the islands and pulling up for dinner. The food was fantastic. Goodness know how our chef managed to make brilliant food for 24 people using only a barbeque on a boat, but she did it. We visited the famous Whitehaven Beach, which is the beach you'll see on all the postcards from the Whitsundays. It's really impressive, the sand is incredibly fine, so fine that it's practically death to any electronic equipment. This was cool, but for me, a number of other things were more impressive than the beaches. I have rekindled my love of SCUBA diving.

I did 2 proper certified dives off of the boat. I had forgotton how amazing it is to be underwater swimming around with the fishes. I can't remember the names of all the fish I saw, but the colours on some of them where incredible, they looked like luminous marker pens. I also saw a turtle, just hanging around chilling on the coral ignoring us completely. He was very cool. I am thinking I would like to do some more diving over in New Zealand or in Fiji, but I'll see how it goes

The other thing that happened was pretty special. We had 3 dolphins swimming in the current of the boat, playing around for about 10 minutes. This is pretty much unheard of on a boat our size especially for the length of time they were there. I have never seen anything like this, they were so cool. Obviously just showing off because they kept looking up at us to make sure we were still watching them. They basically grabbed a free ride off of us and got pulled along by the boat, jumping and playing around until they got bored and swam off. The captain said there must be someone pretty special on this boat. I can only assume he was talking about me. Despite the rain, the crappy toilet and the fact that we had to wear really attractive stinger suits to swim, I had a excellent time. All in all a pretty good trip.

I am back in Airlie Beach now where I have found some other members of Team Spring Break. The rain here has been biblical for the last couple of days. It's still raining now. But it's so warm it's like taking a shower, outside. I leave for Brisbane tomorrow then I fly on to New Zealand so this might be my last post from Australia. Or maybe not. Not that it really matters. Ok I should go now.

Airlie Beach

2006-01-23T04:20:00.000Z

I am now in Airlie Beach, waiting to get on my sail boat to go round the Whitsunday Islands. I don't have time to put up any pictures right now, but I will update the post below when I get back. I am lucky enough to be on a boat with one girl that was in our Spring Break Fraser tour, so I'm not completely alone. However we have both had to go to the doctors for various whinging pom reasons. My feet have swollen and Sarah has a gammy ear. Other than that I have 3 days of sailing and SCUBA diving (they have reissued my Open Water License SCORE!) to look forward to. Photos when I get back I promise.

SPRING BREAK!

2006-01-23T03:29:00.000Z

I arrived in Hervey Bay Brownieless, but having had 2 seats to myself on the bus. It turned out that 2 people on that bus with me were in my Fraser Island camping group. For those of you who don't already know, here's some information about Fraser. It is the largest sand island in the world and it is World Heritage listed. The island is home to many freshwater lakes, such as Lake Wabby and Lake Mckenzie. Mckenzie is (apparently) one of the top rated beaches in the world (even though it's a lake!) and it is particularly beautiful, but more of this later. I was booked to do a 3 day and 2 night 4x4 self-drive camping trip on the island. Basically this meant that I was put in a group with 7 other people, given a load of tents and stoves and shipped off over to the island.

The problem with these trips is that often how good they are is governed by how you get on with the other people in your group. We were incredibly lucky. There were 2 groups of us leaving on the same day and we all seemed to get on pretty well. Somehow we managed to acquire 2 chefs (one French, one Italian) who were a constant source of amusement ("anymore French... is impossible!). We bought all our food (and booze) and the next morning we were ready for our briefing. I can't begin to describe how funny and terrifying this briefing was. The old guy basically showed us videos and pictures of dead backpackers who hadn't followed his advice ("IF YOU DO NOT LISTEN TO ME YOU WILL GO HOME IN A HELICOPTAAAAH") and told us all these scare stories about how easy it is to die ("FROM THE MOMENT YOU ARRIVE THE ISLAND WILL BE TRYING TO KILL YOU"). The main beach on the island doubles as a beach, 70Kmh road, an airstrip and a deathtrap. He told us how there are 25 creeks and traps on the island which, if we drove in the wrong place, would certainly kill us ("IF YOU HIT THE FIRST ONE, YOU WILL NOT HIT THE SECOND ONE! YOU WILL DIIIEE!"). So suitably scared we set off for the ferry.

Our first stop on day one was Lake Mckenzie (a freshwater lake often used by FHM to take pictures of pretty ladies rolling in sand). Unfortunately this was to be our last stop for the day. After waiting 6 years to drive on Fraser Island, my turn came around, I reversed out of the parking space to find that the steering on the car had somehow got completely buggered. No worries we thought, a few extra hours at one of the most beautiful places on earth. Long story short, the mechanic couldn't find us and we had to wait overnight for him. The other group waited with us and we had a huge bonding session over some excellent (but not good enough for our chefs - "so sorry, for bolognaise, this is not bolgnaise, so sorry.") Spagetti Bolognaise. I managed to achieve the nickname "Big Dog" due to my (lack of) skill at catching a ball. Our French Chef was renamed "The Dingo Whisperer" because he would creep up to them whilst they growled and barked, saying "dingo? dingo? dingo?". We camped out on the beach and saw the sun come up over one of the world's most beautiful lakes, something pretty unique because you are not allowed to camp there, but we had no choice because we were stranded.

The next day our Bush Mechanics brought us over a new car and did a Mcguyver job on ours so they could get it back to the mainland. They also told us that we could get a free night on the island as we had been stuck for so long and wasted a day. We headed up the 75 mile beach past the Maheno shipwreck which in its day was one of the largest passenger ships in the world (and the fastest). We camped up at a place called Waddy point where we had too much beer and lots of rain. Some of us ended up getting drenched as we put everyone elses stuff in the dry(er) vans, so we stood outside in the wet for an hour. Some others (no names John) spent their time showing poor terrified Swiss girls things they should never have to see.

The next day we drove South down the Beach to Champagne pools where the sea washes over the rocks to fill pools of water full of bubbles. Hanging onto the rocks as the waves crash over was fun, but most of us came away with cuts and bruises, but it was all worth it. We then drove on down to Indian Head which is an outcrop of rocks where you can look out to see and on somedays see sharks. Which we did. No idea what kind of sharks, but they were there swimming around, waiting for some dumb backpacker to fall to their death. Other people saw Manta-Rays and turtles, I think I saw a turtle, but I'm not 100% certain.

This was our last night camping and we camped in a site just off of the beach where we built a contender for the best bush camp ever (we couldn't have done this without Knotty's expert knot tying), by using the tarps to keep the rain and wind off and sleeping underneath in the open air. This was drier and cooler than any of the rubbish tents we were supplied with! We drank the rest of our booze and passed out under the tarps ready for our last day.

We ended our trip by visiting Lake Wabby, a greener lake than McKenzie (for complicated science reasons) where we all risked "SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH" by running down the steep sand dunes into the shallow water. After the 40 minute walk back to the 4x4 we headed back to the ferry and then back to Hervey Bay.

All in all it's one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen and we were lucky enough to be able to do it without a guide (set to change in the next few months, no more unaccompanied groups because of deaths). Made extra special because we all got on and everyone mucked in. Seemed a shame that we have all gone our separate ways, but we'll always have "New York, NEW YORK!".

Seriously Dude, Where's Brownie?

2006-01-23T03:10:00.000Z

Right, I've got a lot to get through, so I'm going to split this up. Firstly, as some of you already know, Brownie has decided to go back to England. As far as I know he arrived safe and sound, although he hasn't let me know yet (hint hint). I know you all may have questions about why he went etc., but please address them to him. Let me say, No, we didn't fall out, Yes I am fine on my own and yes, I am going to miss him (ahhhh).

Anyways, enough of that, here's what happened on our last night. Brownie and I decided to go to the bar dressed in our football shirts (Ashton RIP) and ended up looking so "Brits Abroad" it was ridiculous. Apart from the socks we looked in full kit. We had a good night out and then caught a bus at 4.15am to Brisbane. Brownie stayed in Brisbane and we said our goodbyes and I tootled off on another bus further up the coast. Brownie managed to get a flight home and was home before I could get to Fraser Island, which is coming up.

Byron Bay

2006-01-16T01:31:00.000Z

Hello all, have a spare few minutes so thought I'd let you see where we are right now. As you can guess from the title we are currently in Byron Bay, a little town on the eastern coast that is the first point in Australia to get the sun and is famous for it's surfing. We are staying at a place called the Arts Factory who had run out of dorm rooms and have put us in a big teepee. "WOW!" I hear you all say, well not quite. It's pretty cool, but apparently it gets like an oven in the morning and we have to share it with the local wildlife, the rats. It's not all that much of a problem as we got here at 10.30am and we leave 4.15am tomorrow morning. It's a hard life huh?

Sydney and beyond...

2006-01-15T03:38:00.000Z

We have a lot to cover in this post, so I better get going, first things first though, HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRIS! Hope you had a good day and a nice evening out will call again soon and catch up proper. We have finally left the clutches of Melbourne however not before we tasted some of the local wildlife. Between us we ate a roo-burger, a croc burger, emu sausage and crocodile tail. All of which were pretty tasty, crocodile really does taste like chicken. We spent our last night hanging around in backpacker bars with some mates it was a good send off to the city.

We left Melbourne on an overnight bus that took 12 hours to get to Sydney and we've been here ever since. We had a wander round the harbour area and seen the famous sites (see photos). Sydney is an ok place. If it wasn't for the bridge and the Opera House, it'd just be another big city.
However these landmarks do give it something and makes the harbour area a good place to sit and have lunch or a drink. We both feel that it lacks some of the charm that Melbourne had, but this might be because we spent a lot more time there.

Yesterday we took a day trip out to the Blue mountains. Apparently these are not actually mountains, they were created by the erosion of various ice ages over the last 120 million years. We visited the 3 sisters, so called because of various stories, mostly involving a father turning his daughters into stone for some reason or other and then losing his magic bone. We had a really good tour, we went on the steepest railroad incline in the world (52 degrees!), a cable car and visited a wildlife sanctuary which houses only Australian animals. I now have so many pictures of wallabies, kangaroos and koalas that it's ridiculous. The koalas were painfully cute, apparently they sleep up to 18 hours a day, not a bad life. When they run around though they are pretty nippy. We were dropped off in the Olympic village and we got a ferry back into the city. Where we got some stunning views of the harbour, the bridge and the Opera House.

Last night Brownie did the Harbour Bridge climb. It took about 3 hours and it sounds like he had an awesome time, but I'll let him tell you all about that when he can, but I can show you the photos.

The next few days are going to be pretty hectic, we leave Sydney tonight at 9.45pm arrive in Byron Bay 10.15am tomorrow. We then jump back on the bus at 4.15am the following day to arrive in Hervey bay lunchtime on the 17th in time for our Fraser Island 4x4 briefing. We then spend the next 3 days on Fraser Island. We'll try and update when we get to Hervey bay, but if not then there'll be more from us on the 20th.

Everybody needs good...

2006-01-10T23:04:00.000Z

We have seen a lot of Melbourne in the last few days. Last night one of Brownie's colleagues took us out for drinks and dinner. We went to lots of hidden bars that were secreted away in alleys and behind bins and all sorts. They were the kind of bars that you would pay about 4 pound a bottle in London. We also had a great Chinese meal down in Chinatown

Monday we went out on a tour to see some of Melbourne's most famous sites. Namely, Pin Oak Court, AKA Ramsey Street. It's surprisingly small in in real life, the camera work they do to make it look like a big street is pretty clever. It's also full of tourists. I don't think I'd like having bus loads of English students turning up every day to take photos of my house. Our bus driver also took us to some other famous Neighbours landmarks, the church where Scott and Charlene were married, Erinsborough High and the hospital Mrs. Mangel died in. I didn't really recognise most of these placed (Brownie did), but I took photos anyway. Today is a bit rainy and grotty (yes it's not all fun in the sun) so we're thinking of you all back home.

Church where numerous wedding have taken place, including Scott and Charlene.

Erinsborough High. Do you recognise it? I didn't.

Me and Brownie outside Harold's house.

I think this is the Kennedy's house.

Also, congratulations to Rob and Rachel on becoming proper grownups and having baby Erin. Good luck guys, I'll come and see her when I'm back

Ouch.

2006-01-08T22:09:00.000Z

Yesterday I remembered why I hate the beach. We went down to St. Kilda (just outside Melbourne) and had a good time in the sun, playing cricket in the sea and just lazing about. I must have worn myself out because I fell asleep. I did put suncream on, but apparently not everywhere and not enough. I now look like a red and white deformed panda. Still, I won't do it again!

After getting roasted on the beach, we headed back the hostel where we blagged free pizza and played in a pool competition. I was crap and Brownie wasn't much better, both of us losing to the eventual winner. Still not content with the day, we toddled off to the Crown Casino, where we watched people losing crazy amounts of money and I spent $25 on roulette, last of the big spenders huh :)

Where's Brownie?

2006-01-07T04:21:00.000Z

I am now back in Melbourne after spending a few days out in Werribee with some friends. It's been a good few days, we took a boat trip out round the bay and I got some good pictures of Melbourne from there, we went to Werribee open range zoo and yesterday we went fishing. The zoo was great, even though I was in charge of more kids than I have ever seen in my life! But they were all pretty good so it was good fun. We saw lions, giraffes and rhino amongst other things. I think I was having more fun than the kids! We went fishing with Sarah's husband Shane who knew what he was doing. Despite trying all over the area, we only caught one little flathead, which was so small, we had to let it go.

I still haven't managed to find Brownie yet. I reckon he's around here somewhere. He's in the same hostel, but he must have gone out for the day because I can't find him. WHERE ARE YOU!? (let's be 'aving you!!!)

Melbourne

2006-01-03T02:36:00.000Z

The last few days have been a bit of a write off. I can safely say that I have seen very little of Melbourne except the free gardens and the free art galleries. There is a section on contemporary indiginous art where some of it looked pretty cool, but I couldn't quite work it all out. Worth seeing though. Other than that I've been sucked in by various Happy Hours and drinking with Aussies and Germans (hello to you all!). I don't have many decent pictures to show, so I'll add some when I do.

Today I'm off to visit my Mum's friend Julie, who has kindly agreed to put up with me for a few nights. So I probably won't update this for a few days. Anyone who wants to send me pictures from their New YEar celebrations Please do. My email is in the link to the right.

HAPPY NEW YEAR AGAIN!

2006-01-01T01:52:00.000Z

Hi all. It's been 2006 here for almost 13 hours. I had a good night, watched some fireworks and checked out a few of the local bars. It's still incredibly hot. Hope you all had a good night. Send photos please!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2005-12-30T22:52:00.000Z

Happy New Year everybody. Still not sure what I am going to do. But I thought I'd let you all know that it's 42 degrees in Melbourne today. Yes 42 Degrees! It's the hottest New Year's Eve since recordes began!! (well 1899 apparently). Might head to the beach or might just stay out of the sun. It's a bit too hot for me to do anything right now. Hope you all have a good night tonight. I'll be thinking of you all in the cold ;)

Melbourne. Finally.

2005-12-29T08:32:00.000Z

Well I finally made it here. It's taken a long time and I'm not really sure what the day is. My body clock is a mess especially because it's about 7.30pm and still really light. Not much to report other than it's blisteringly hot and I am totally shattered. Happy New Year everyone!

Invisible touch

2005-12-27T18:37:00.000Z

Up until now I've been pretty good. But tonight Brownie, Catherine and I made some new friends and went out and did Karaoke. Right now, I am too drunk to write this properly. We've had a good night. I have a flight to catch in some hours.

hi guys, its Catherine here. Dave has been karaoked out so i am taking over for a minute. Wish Beck was here so Dave wasnt so mean about me and Brownie. He misses you, Beck!!!, Trust me ive heard enough about it!!! Merry Christmas to all you guys in England, will see you soon! ps did an original version of Dolly Partons 9-5 tonight amonst other things!!!!

I wasn't that mean was I!? Or at least I hope I wasn't. I caught my flight though (just) and I am now waiting at Singapore for my connecting flight to Melbourne. I don't think I'm going to make a habit of 4 hour Karaoke marathons and then getting up 4 hours later to spend 20 hours flying. Will put some photos up when I (finally) get to Australia.

Happy Horridays, especially to Catherine!

2005-12-27T09:43:00.000Z

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY! I know it's a couple of days late, but the sentiment is still there. Thanks to everyone who sent a comment to say Merry Christmas, it's really appreciated, it's nice to know you are all thinking about us. A lot has happened, so let me fill you in. Firstly Catherine arrived a few days ago and we have all been hanging out together (I'm in trouble for not mentioning this sooner, so I thought I better say it first). The 3 of us spent Christmas day with Si and Kez who are also from England. It's a bit odd celebrating Christmas in a place where they don't really care about it. Apparently it's treated like Valentine's day over here, very coupley (sulky face). We did manage a Christmas dinner of sorts, warm roast lamb and salad. It was more funny than anything else. We had Cheesecake crepes for desert which made up for it though. Not exactly 'WORST CHRISTMAS EVER!', but certainly different to what I'm used to. We also took a wander down to Harajuku where all the kids dress up like Manga characters and wierd goth things on Sundays. It's pretty wrong to see 14 year olds dressed up like they were. Very Japanese!

After our pretty low key Christmas day, we went a little over the top on Boxing day and went to Tokyo Disneyland (pronounced Disernyraaando). I totally felt like a little kid again! We went on all the cool rides, Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain (lots of mountains). My personal Highlight was (geekily enough) the Star Wars ride. I found it so funny that we blasted to "RIIIGHTO-SPEEEEEEDO" I took a video. Will try and upload at some point. The haunted house ride was decked out from The Nightmare Before Christmas which was cool, even though I haven't seen it. Disney more than made up for Christmas day, despite it being so cold that we all nearly died. All that is set to change for me however, as tomorrow morning I fly off to Melbourne where it is 34 degrees! Sayanora!

Happy Birthday Emperor Akihito

2005-12-23T15:38:00.000Z

Have seen the more traditional side of Japan in the last 2 days, yesterday we went to Kamakura which is a small town about an hour away from Tokyo. There's a lot of temples and shrines out there. We went on a hike through the countryside and visited the country's 3rd biggest Buddha. It's a beautiful area, the countryside is beautiful and really peaceful. They town is a little touristy, but it wasn't too busy so it was ok.

Today was even stranger, I got up early and went down to the Imperial Palace to celebrate the Emperor's Birthday. It was one of his 2 public appearances a year (his Birthday and New Year's). It was really odd, no pushing, no shoving, just patient waiting for the family to appear. When they did, everyone waved the Japan flags they gave out and shouted "BANZAI" (really!). He spoke for a bit and then they all calmly filed off back in to the city. Photos tomorrow.

Sushi? Nah, not for me.

2005-12-21T15:42:00.000Z

So the last few days have been pretty cool. We've seen some nice gardens and some crazy big temples! The picture here is the garden near Ginza. The ropes are tied to the trees to stop the branches breaking when it snows. The park is very peaceful and beautiful, a real change from the hussling Tokyo just a few hundred metres away. We tried to book tickets to Kyoto, but we couldn't get the right bus or train back in time. It's a bit disapointing, but there is a little town just outside of Tokyo that is apparently like a little Kyoto. However, we have missed out on the Sword Museum which is closed for the holiday, which is a shame.

After our disapointment we went down to the Bay Area to check out the Sega Joypolis. It was ok, probably not as good as all the other arcades that seem to be in every other 6 floor building in downtown Tokyo. There was a good view of the rest of the city and this picture doesn't really do it justice, but I thought it'd be interesting. Yes that is a mock Statue of Liberty, no, I don't know why it's there.

Today we got up at before 6am to get down to the Tsukiji Fish Market. It's where there is a huge fish auction every morning and it is nuts! It's absolutely huge and you can probably get any kind of fish you want or need. It's odd to see these guys driving around massive Tuna fish on little motorised carts. Certainly an experience worth getting up really early for!

After this we went to get Sushi for breakfast. Yes. I ate raw fish. It was ok for a while, but by the end I wasn't feeling too sure about it. I didn't really like it all that much, but I'm not much of a fish person. If you like the fishy flavour, you'll probably like it more than me! We spent the rest of the day wandering around the Tokyo National Museum It's pretty cool, but I still wish we'd have got to see the Sword Museum, but I'll have to do it next time I'm here. We've booked our Disney tickets, but the 25th was sold out so we are going on Boxing day. Now we have to find an English pub serving Turkey and all the trimmings

"Gas Gas Panic is dead tonight. Let me hook you up"

2005-12-18T15:32:00.000Z

We've spent the last few days exploring Tokyo and it is a truly awesome place. We've managed to get the hang of the Subway and I have learned the Kanji for cheese and potato. We took some time to wander around the Shinjuku area of the city which is full of flashing signs and adverts that mean nothing to us. We've been in to some of the video arcades and they are everything I thought they would be. We watched some guy play a drum game on the hardest setting and he was like a machine. Brownie has a video we'll upload it if we can.

Yesterday we wandered around Hagoita ichi which is a traditional fair around a temple to commemorate the year. It was really cool, there was loads of stuff I wanted to buy, but couldn't because I can't carry it around with me. Brownie and I got our fortunes, I got "Good Fortune" but apparently I'll get it after a sustained period of illness. Brownie got "Bad Fortune" telling him that he had many rivers to cross, far and wide, but that he wouldn't make it. To fix his bad fortune he had to tie the paper to some kind of rack. So his fortune is fixed, but I still have to suffer a nasty disease, great!

This morning we decided that because it was such a clear day, we would go up the Roppongi Hills Tower which is one of the largest buildings in Tokyo. The view was incredible. We could see all of Tokyo and, because it was so clear, all the way to Mt Fuji. We also wandered around the Art Museum that was showing a Hiroshi Sugimoto exhibition some of his photos were quite good, however I am such a cynic when it comes to these things that I felt most of it was quite pretensious. Brownie however can see past this and I think he got more out of it than I did.

With our art craving satisfied we decided to head to Yokohama to see if we could get tickets for the Liverpool game. By the time we had got there, the ticket office had sold out of the cheapest tickets for ¥9000 (¥200 - £1). All they had left was the ¥22000 and ¥30000 tickets. Neither of us could afford to spend £150 to watch a football match so we had pretty much decided to give up. When a tout offered 2 ¥17000 tickets for ¥15000 each, we haggled with him and managed to get them for ¥18000 for the pair and off we went. The seats were good and the stadium is the massive 70,000 seat Yokohama Nissan Stadium, venue for the 2002 World Cup Final. Not a bad game, Liverpool were robbed 1 - 0 after having 3 goals disallowed and hitting the bar twice. Tomorrow, we're planning on doing things that are much cheaper, like gardens and temples, so expect more photos.

Japan... just.

2005-12-16T10:19:00.000Z

Hello all, this is going to be quite a long one, as it's been a hectic few days. So if you're all sitting comfortably then I'll begin...

Wednesday started as a good day, after drinking in a crazy bar in Ipoh with Tom and kevin on Tuesday night, Tom and I headed back down towards KL. We stopped at some caves that were really impressive, really... well, cavenous. I've never seen anything like it. Photos don't really do it justice, so I you'll have to trust me when I say they are huge! We got on our way again and stopped at a service station for about 15 minutes, for a bite to eat and a toilet break. When we got back to the car we found that it had been broken in to.

This of course is never a good thing. What made it worse is that the theiving scallywags (swear filter on) had nicked ALL my travel documents and my passport and Tom's bag with all his smart clothes and his work laptop in. Now of course you are all going to say "WHY DID YOU LEAVE THEM IN THE CAR!?" and in response I'll say "Leave me alone, if that's your attitude go read this instead and stop bullying me". When the police finally turned up they escorted us to the nearest police station (about 30 mins away) with their nee naws on.

I could go into to detail about how inept they were and how infuriating it is to spent 2 hours in one police station, just to be told you have to go to another and do the same thing, then come back tomorrow. I could whine about how it took them 2 hours to write a 3 paragraph report but I won't, that would be boring.

So I woke up at 6.45am on the Thursday morning, after about 2 hours sleep, with a flight booked for 21.45 and no passport and no tickets (deja vu anyone?). I won't go in to too much detail, other than to say that I am indebted to my parents, Beck, Tom's girlfriend Mae and the British Embassy all of whom have bent over backwards to help me in the last 2 days.

Needless to say, I got a new passport and my tickets reprinted just in time and I am now safe and sound in a city where I can't read any of the signs or menus and noone speaks the same language as me. Still having a great time.

Oh yeah, s'pose I'd better mention that Brownie is here with me too, he's having a little rest at the moment because it's been a long day for him poor little love. But he's all safe and sound. We plan to go and see the Hagoita ichi and maybe go to to Yokohama to watch Liverpool on Sunday.

More Jungle.

2005-12-12T12:11:00.000Z

More jungle stuff to write about. We went looking for more roosts, but got no good information. Drove around for ages and ended up swimming in the waterfall in the picture below. I did see Tom's bats in the Taiping Zoo and they were cool. Saw loads of animals there, but I'm not sure they count

Today has been good. I won a game of bowling and Tom took me to the Buddhist temple that is in a cave. It's amazing. More later

The Jungle is massive...

2005-12-10T15:34:00.000Z

Today was an interesting day. Went out into the Malaysian jungle to look for bats. It was pretty much spent driving around local towns and Karim asking people if they had seen any bats. Tom got some good information and we trapsed out looking for a roost. We didn't find any bats, but we did manage to get ourselves knee deep in a river.

It was good fun, got some great photos (forgot my camera again, will update this post when I have it). I also mananged to acquire some little bloodsucking friends. When we got back to the car I found I had 4 fat leeches feasting upon my leg flesh. They are nasty little bastards and they freaked me out a little bit. The bleeding has stopped now, but it went on for a few hours. I ended up with my calves looking like a casualty patient!

One last thing before I tootle off for a well deserved beer, what the f*ck was the World Cup Draw about!! I stayed up until 4.30am local time watching some prancing magician and a series of ageing German footballers try and kick a ball at a camera. By the time "Ballero" was on, I was nearly crying. I just wanted to see the draw! Anyway, not a bad group, the world cup will be good. :) Will add pictures later if I can.

Photos... finally

2005-12-09T18:21:00.000Z

Right as promised here are some photos for you all. You can click on them to make them bigger, should you so wish.

This is a sunflower in the Changi Airport Sunflower garden. Not particularly exciting, but I like it.

This is the view from my room at the Hilton. Not amazing, but the bed was comfortable. It's a hard life...

The Petronas Twin Towers. They are 451.9 Metres high. That's pretty damn high. Very cool at night.

This is me looking fat and gormless on the skybridge across the 2 towers. That's 170 metres high, not even halfway up, but still a long way!

No photos again

2005-12-09T12:07:00.000Z

Just a quick post today, I am in a little rush. We have driven up to Ipoh and are staying in Tom's flat. It's nice. Eating well, lots of lovely local food. Have to run off to get more stuff as we are heading in to the jungle (or swamp, grrrreat)tomorrow. Will put more up when I know what we are doing, but I think we are going to look for some bat roosts to help Tom with his job... which is catching bats.

A lot of you have been hassling me to put some photos on here and I've got a good excuse why I haven't. I forgot my camera. I know, I know. We may be coming back later so I will do it then, otherwise it'll be after the weekend when we get back from our adventures.

Time to KL

2005-12-07T03:29:00.000Z

I finally made it to KL about 6 hours late. Not too bad, but Tom was worrying about me. It's a pretty crazy place, there is a shopping mall which has 10 floors of shops and a rollercoaster in it. I was wandering around and kept hearing screaming wondering wtf was going on!

Later on, Tom and I went for a couple of beers and got a lift home from his girlfriend Mae. We were soon pulled over and Mae was breathalysed, she'd drunk less than half a pint, she 'failed'. Basically this meant that the policeman knew she was ok to drive, but decided that he was going to be git. After about 15 minutes of talking Mae got out of the car (they tested her in the car with the engine running) and wandered off with the policeman. She came back and we drove off. Apparently it costs 50RM (less than a tenner) to bribe a KL police officer.

I've been staying here for a couple of nights, so you can see that I'm really roughing it! This is set to change however, as we are heading on up to Ipoh in a few hours. Have some pictures to put up but I will do this later.

The more they stay the same

2005-12-05T03:32:00.000Z

Still here. 3 hours goes so slowly when you have nothing to do. I feel like Tom Hanks in that movie The Terminal, despite our situations being entirely different. Still a fair old while til I can board my plane. As you can guess I'm pretty bored right now, there's only so many times you can visit the Sunflower Garden, pretty as it is. I'm even bored of going into the Duty Free Hugo Boss shop and openly laughing at the price of the clothes (over 200 pound for a pair of trainers!!). Reckon I've been awake over 22 hours now and it's not even lunchtime! More sleep deprived ramblings later...

The more things Changi...

2005-12-05T00:59:00.000Z

Well hello everyone. I certainly didn't expect to get the time to update this site so soon, but thanks to the "World's Busiest Airport" I am sitting delayed in Singapore Airport. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, there are worse places I could be, but I expected to be tucked up in bed by now getting serious jet lag!

Anyway, was a pretty good flight, I got to be totally surrounded by crying babies for 13 hours. Although when people tell you the service on Singapore Airlines is good, they aren't lying. I got my own little TV with a choice of movies (Dukes of Hazzard is shit by the way) and the food was nice enough (everyone loves aeroplane food). Highlight of the flight? Seeing a thunderstorm from above the clouds, that was cool! Also looking down over the border from Pakistan to India in the dark. Cities look cool from 30,000 feet at night!

Right I'm off to see how work out the best way to kill 3 hours in a massive airport without spending any money. I always forget how crazy these places are. Missing you all already and barring anymore hiccups I should be in Malaysia in about 5 hours.

Itinerary

2005-11-23T21:18:00.000Z

I thought the best place to start would be to let you all know where I'm going, so here goes...

On the 4th December I fly out of Heathrow to Kuala Lumupur in Malaysia. Here I'm meeting up with my fine friend Tom, who has promised to both wine and dine me at the hilton and drag me through the jungle catching bats. I stay here 10 days until...

The 15th December when I fly to Tokyo, Japan. Here I get to meet up with my travelling companion Brownie. We plan to see as much as we can here. I'm mostly looking forward to the Ninja Museum and Christmas, when we are going to Tokyo Disney, for that real Japanese Christmas feel.

By the 28th December I'll be bored of Brownie for a while, so I'm leaving him with Catherine in Japan and I'm heading to Melbourne. Not really sure what I'm doing for new year yet, but I'm sure I'll find something to do. Brownie catches me up on the 4th (I think) and we plan on going down to Sydney and up some of the East coast to the Whitsunday Islands. We fly out of Brisbane on the 29th January to...

Christchurch, New Zealand. We've got 4 weeks in New Zealand and the plan is to get a Kiwi Experience bus ticket to take us around the country. Brownie wants to jump out of an Aeroplane, but I'm most excited about doing a 134 metre bungy jump!

Once we are done with New Zealand, we fly to Fiji on the 27th February. To be honest, we have no intention of doing any thing in Fiji, I'm sure it's lovely and fantastic, but I think we're just going to sit and do nothing.

Then after putting up for each other for 3 months, Brownie and I go our separate ways. We both land in Los Angeles, but Brownie is heading straight on back to the UK. Once again I don't really know what the hell I'm going to do when I get here, but I have a list of people to visit (impose upon). I'm going to take advantage of all of you who have said "Gee, you should come over and see us in the States!". I plan to see, at least, Tim, Matt, Nate, Elliot, Brian and anyone else who'll feed me and offer me space on their floor.

Finally, after meeting my wonderful girlfriend Beck at the top of the Empire State Building, I fly home from New York to London Heathrow on the 30th April, in time to see mighty Norwich win the Championship Play-offs.

Well, that's it really. There's a few interconnecting flights and probably somethings I've forgotten, but you'll get to hear all about that. Please feel free to leave comments on this blog (nothing too coarse though, my Mum is reading it (Hi Mum)) and email me as often as you want with what is going on in your lives.