100 Days Down Under

Almost home

2010-05-04T14:45:00.002+10:00

Today is my last full day in Sydney, and Im wasting it inside typing... No I have been out all morning and will be outside again soon and tonight I plan to have a feast. So for my last couple of days I thought it would be nice to stay in that famous hostel of theirs the Sydney Harbour YHA which I have to add is pretty damn nice, I even have an en-suite, posh hostel or what! Tonight I think I want

Spear Fishing!

2010-05-04T14:43:00.001+10:00

When I got to Sydney I was met by Bobby, who I knew from Tasmania. We got to Bobby’s and then he said, “Right so tomorrow were going to go spear fishing, did you need to do anything in town before that.” hmm spear fishing you say, well now that was an unexpected turn of events, what better way to round off my trip and forget about leaving Charlotte than a weekend of spearing

Charlotte

2010-05-03T14:56:00.001+10:00

My flight was back to Melbourne and there I went, to discover that I suddenly had an almost empty bank account. Now when I say almost empty I mean I got there at the start of April, and I had $1.33 in my account. Which after printing out 2 statements just to check if that could possibly be correct ended up as just $0.33, unfortunately not enough to buy dinner with. The

Family Life

2010-05-03T14:01:00.001+10:00

Ok here’s a summary of what happened next, as I don’t have time to tell it all. We went up Mount Wellington intending to do some walks then watch sunset and sunrise, we went up saw it and got bored, so we called Ryan and asked if he wanted to go to the beach, he invited us to lunch. At lunch we met the rest of the tribe and including Maria Jessie’s mum who invited us to stay

Gig Night

2010-04-26T19:38:00.001+10:00

A couple of days later, Ryan was playing at an open mic night and the girls had said they would come along, so naturally I jumped in the van too and off we went. Turned out we had the name of the town that the gig was at, but not the name of the building. Great I thought, a night of driving around lost and confused, luckily not to be as we did actually find the place in the

Snorers!

2010-04-24T10:44:00.002+10:00

I spent last night drowning out the snoring from across the room with my iPod.For all those people who snore loudly, don't bloody stay in a shared room, it's annoying and I need my sleep!

Meeting Cygnet's Ruling Family

2010-04-24T10:25:00.001+10:00

Several days of sitting on my arse, waiting for something to happen, wondering what I was going to spend the next 2 months doing and then a pair of English backpackers arrived, Molly and Rosanna. Still wondering what I was going to do the girls planned to go down for a little day trip with Bobby, a Chinese born Aussie I had been talking to at the hostel, down in the region

Cradle Mountain

2010-04-23T20:37:00.000+10:00

The last thing I really wanted to do in Tassie was to see Cradle Mountain, only I had no money, whilst I was waiting out this conundrum I was back in Hobart with Mick and a bunch of others including a cute French girl Emmanuelle who took Mandy’s place as my travel buddy. Then one day I was on Skype and chatting to an old friend of mine back in England who after hearing of my

A bit of tassie bush

2010-04-17T17:42:00.001+10:00

I left the farm to explore the wider world of Van Diemen’s Land starting in Hobart, yes I had already explored it but never mind. Now I thought being in Tasmania would automatically render me friendless, seeing as no other backpackers seemed to be going there, and for the first few days in Hobart this was pretty much so. However little Mandy from the scandal back in Adelaide

Van Diemen's Land

2010-04-15T19:47:00.000+10:00

My grandparents have a friend who is related to someone who lives in Australia, and they gave me her no, she in turn gave me the no of her daughter in Tasmania and when I called up Kelly not quite sure what to expect she offered me a bed straight away. So off I went to Tassie early one morning to be picked up by Kelly and taken off to the farm to meet Leigh and the Kids,

Melbourne, the Rival

2010-04-04T18:34:00.001+10:00

My aunt and uncle had a couple of friends who played the music for their wedding, and then moved to Australia, Nicky and Stuart were still living there when I arrived and had offered me a bed for when I got to Melbourne. When I turned up it turned out to be a double bed in a lovely house and food as well, it seemed my luck was still working. So with so much time on my hands

Canberra, a capital with a difference

2010-04-01T20:51:00.001+11:00

After all this time travelling around Australia I still hadn’t seen the capital. Now in somewhere such as Italy that would be a heinous crime, however in Oz the situation is slightly different; the capital city is boring. This is not just me being rude, everyone on the planet who has travelled Australia or lives there will agree with me. Canberra was built because Sydney and

Festivities

2010-03-31T16:13:00.001+11:00

Kate invited me to go down to Wollongong with her and so I was due to go the evening of the Sydney festival. During the day I met up with the lovely Franzi, who came out around the festival with me, unfortunately it was only for about 2 hours so we didn’t see a lot of the fest. What we did see was a man in a dinosaur suit running about scaring little kids and a man dressed

Presents!!!

2010-03-18T21:43:00.001+11:00

Ok so for the last little while I have been travelling and doing tons of random stuff, I am also now in Tasmania which for those of you that don’t know means I have a lot more time in the bush and the bush doesn’t have wi-fi. So I shall do my best to finish this story of mine and try to get up the rest of my photos etc. maybe even another bit of film footage, but don’t

New Years

2010-03-01T20:58:00.000+11:00

New Years was a slightly sad affair as Nic would be leaving on New Years Day, upon a train that had no more seats available (naturally this was a blatant lie as Nic later informed me her carriage was nowhere near full) according to Great Southern Rail, however we made it a nice ending. Earlier in the day we went out to the market and selected some nice food: olive bread,

Christmas, yes I know that was ages ago

2010-02-22T15:58:00.002+11:00

So I spent my Christmas in Adelaide with Nic. The lovely Angelica came back from Kangaroo Island for one day before heading off for good and on that day we went out into the Barossa Valley to sample some wine. Geli did the driving which worked out well seeing as alcohol has no effect on her, and we dragged Nic along too, luckily she didn’t mind being a third wheel. We toured

The End of the Nullarbor

2010-02-13T15:58:00.000+11:00

Our last day was a fairly quiet one, stopping only for a trip down the longest still standing jetty and at a museum. The museum included all sorts of things from evolution of the country from its Gondwana origins to the history of the town as a stop for all trains heading in all directions, it was actually a lot more interesting than I was prepared for being rather sleepy

Sharks for some

2010-02-10T19:01:00.003+11:00

The next day was the shark day for those that had paid extra, and the surf day for those that hadn’t. Well I’m a broke backpacker so naturally I opted to surf, which I did. The instructor gave me the shorter fibreglass board instead of the huge heavy foam ones and I attempted to make good use of it by taking on bigger waves, sadly they were too big and I just ended up

Bread, Fish and Bear

2010-02-10T13:51:00.002+11:00

So our wonderful but brief rest ended as we set off again for a little more fun. We stopped at colton a town of 2 buildings, to get breakfast at the bakery. No one was there, this rather confused us as there was a very limited selection of hiding places, we searched what little there was to search but we weren’t very productive and eventually gave up with no bread. So we got

Sand and Sealions

2010-02-08T23:57:00.003+11:00

Up early again for what promised to be the best day yet. A start of sand boarding and then a swim with Sea lions! Oh yes it was awesome! We actually started by visiting some cliffs with a cave and generally a very scenic look to it, which we spent ages at, I was in no hurry being a little tired from staying up with Angelica so I didn’t object but eventually we were dragged

Reaching base camp

2010-02-06T14:00:00.002+11:00

After we left the farmhouse/petrol station/ghost house we visited the coast again, for more windy times on more cliffs, this time the wind was even stronger if possible, and I took photos for proof. Up till now even though we had been doing the Nullarbor tour we hadn’t yet reached it, so this was the big moment, when we would be officially on the Nullarbor Plain! Nullarbor

Sleeping in a ghost house

2010-02-03T21:01:00.002+11:00

The next day it was more driving, on more long roads, reaching one point Lachie told us was “The edge of the world.” Which was really just a lower portion of plain, however its positioning and the way that it seemed to stretch on for ever did make it seem quite edge of the world like, I think perhaps the lack of anything on the plain might have contributed that effect too.

Straight roads

2010-02-02T00:32:00.002+11:00

The next morning we were up for a hike, the weather had cooled slightly so it was a pleasant enough walk up one of the nearby hills that had a rock at the top, this rock I attempted to climb, then noticing the spider webs 2 inches from my nose I attempted to flee. Angelica and Nic had kindly waited for me and we strolled down to the lookout to find the others already

Esperance to Lucky Bay

2010-01-31T16:37:00.001+11:00

Eventually sleep came, after much stargazing in which I saw 9 shooting stars, (I still haven’t used up all of those wishes) and I awoke to the sun heating up the tent. Breakfast, great, I am never one who likes to join in with the general public in a lot of things, I disagree with such things as eating cereal in the morning. So naturally it was cereal in the morning, of

Nullarbor!

2010-01-28T18:03:00.003+11:00

So I pretty much got off one bus and onto another. Our tour with the Nullarbor Traveller started early, meaning I had to wake up early, grr, something I have never been a fan of so I was still half asleep when we began our epic journey to Adelaide. When I had finally shuffled my stuff around and got myself onboard we headed off and soon after one of the girls announced that I was pretty lucky

Cold cold morning

2010-01-26T18:12:00.002+11:00

Upon waking the cottage was bloody freezing, the last thing I wanted to do was get out from under the lovely warm covers, with the lovely warm Nadege and venture out into the unthawed early world. But I forced myself to move, shivering as I searched for clothes and cringing when I put the icy garments on. I crammed all my stuff into my bags and got ready to leave while

Nadege and a giant tree

2010-01-24T22:43:00.002+11:00

The goodbye as usual came with plenty of hugs and the usual feeling of pessimism at leaving behind a new friend or 5, and excitement at the new journey about to unfold. Speaking of which Nadege had given her no to Helen to pass on to me, which made me kinda happy, she had previously not given me her no saying we should just leave it and let fate decide,

Margaret River

2010-01-24T00:37:00.001+11:00

I wasn’t the only guy who didn’t get much sleep, and that was mostly due to the snorer so I’m pretty blessed having at least a nice reason for being tired. We did a quick pack then headed away to a chocolate factory and a cheese tasting before getting into the town of Margaret River again, this time I got off the bus, along with Helen, Melissa and Burt, leaving only 3 people

Easy Rider Southern Curl

2010-01-22T17:56:00.002+11:00

I hopped on the Easy rider bus to see whom, but Helen looking at me with an amused grin. Hi Helen, don’t mind me I’m just stalking you. We set off and headed south, stopping almost immediately when one of our group got off to stay at the first town we reached. The Easy Rider being a JOJO (Jump on Jump off) tour this was normal but unexpected so soon after getting on the bus.

Back to base

2010-01-19T22:14:00.001+11:00

Starting the journey back to Perth at 3 was tough, and what was worse I didn’t manage to sleep until over half way there. I was slightly annoyed that I couldn’t go any higher seeing as I would be missing lots but then you never get to see everything eh. So off I headed on a painful journey, which was made much nicer by the fact that Clair and Helen got on when we went past

Shark Bay

2010-01-14T23:48:00.002+11:00

I said my goodbyes and Anna dropped me off at the bus stop to wait for my journey up to Monkey Mia which would only be for one day, crazy aren’t I. Turns out the bus only went to Monkey Mia 2 times a week, so I had to book it on the one which just so happened to be at 3 in the morning leaving the next day, so it meant I had one full day to enjoy the place, what else d’ya

Kalbarri

2010-01-13T01:28:00.003+11:00

I eventually discovered the Bus Pass I possessed was in fact valid for more than I had been told about and I wanted to see the west coast a little better, so North I headed. My first stop was Kalbarri, a little town with a striking coastline and a lot of birds. On my bus ride up a guy offered me some weed, which amused me, and he also mentioned that Kalbarri was full of hot

Perth

2010-01-04T23:24:00.006+11:00

Perth took a while longer to get to than I thought it would. By this I mean I had been in the middle of nothing and then suddenly there was buildings and vegetation, were here! Here unfortunately was about 2 hours away from Perth, I was so shocked to see civilization that I immediately presumed it must be the city, also this tends to be the way with a lot of places in Australia. However perth is

Kalgoorlie, Gold Rush!

2010-01-01T23:50:00.003+11:00

Kalgoorlie was just a name on a map between me and Perth and I figured I should check it out, so really I knew nothing about the place. And so I found out. It has the biggest open gold mine. Unless perhaps some aliens in another galaxy far away have gold and have figured out how to mine it efficiently, Kalgoorlies gold mine, is the biggest open pit. It spans 3 kms, which is quite large, and the

Into The Wild West

2009-12-29T12:23:00.004+11:00

Ok so you know how its weird when you come across a place where you can see for ever and you can’t see anything much, like a desert, or if you’ve never been to one; like Yorkshire. So the Nullarbor plain is translated as Treeless Plain, the reason for this is because it has no trees, ‘big deal there are plenty of places without trees' you think. Of course this is true, there

Adelaide

2009-12-22T12:58:00.007+11:00

Leaving Coober Pedy was interesting; I remembered I had cleverly hung my towel out to dry just before leaving right next to where we were waiting for our shuttle and of course I had left without it even though it was right in front of me. So I ran back. I got the hostel sweaty and panicky not wanting to miss the bus, naturally even after I got back to the bus stop I still had to wait another 10

An Update...

2009-12-17T20:13:00.002+11:00

Hello faithfull and lovely readers.I wish to tell you that my blog is in the Northern Territory at Alice Springs however I am in South Australia having already been to and from the West. My trip has been amazing and full of fun however I have been moving slightly too fast to tell you in time so I have got behind, just so you know and don't think I'm still up North, and I currently don't have a

A Treasure Hunt

2009-12-13T09:10:00.004+11:00

It is here again, this time it shouldn't be banned by Youtube, Soundtrack is different but hey, sacrifices sometimes have to be made. Hope you like it.

An Oasis

2009-12-12T22:04:00.001+11:00

We got back. That much surprised me. I paid the girls the money I owed them for the trip, which was very little considering what we did and off I went to the YHA, which was full, so off I went to some other place down the road which took about 5 hours and 3 bath tubs of sweat to reach, carrying just my day bag as I had left the bigger one in the YHA, both bags would have

The Red Centre

2009-12-06T00:26:00.004+11:00

I arrived in Alice Springs, or at least part of me did. I felt as if half of me had entered a different dimension and wouldn’t be leaving soon. I also had no idea how I would get to Uluru as I really had no money left at this point, I think my bank account held less than $90, so I was feeling a little tense and wired when I arrived. However after a while I settled into Alice

Kakadu and away

2009-12-05T02:24:00.002+11:00

So the next day we naturally missed the sunrise again and decided to head back to Katherine just to film a little more. That done we headed off to finally visit Kakadu which was the whole point of the trip anyway, or so I had figured. During the long car journey I bombarded Kate with questions, something I had been doing pretty much every second we weren’t filming. She did

Katherine

2009-12-04T02:40:00.003+11:00

So the plan was to wake up before sunrise and head off somewhere else in Litchfield, maybe film the sunrise and hopefully get something done whilst the day was still just hot. Naturally we woke up late and missed that opportunity, so we messed about with the camera for a while and enjoyed breakfast before heading off to find the next location, we turned off at one location but it lead to an

Litchfield

2009-12-03T02:52:00.003+11:00

Talk about a fated meeting. I had yet to see the North except for Darwin but I didn’t have anywhere near enough money for a tour of Kakadu. Kate had already been on a tour but she wanted the chance to go back by herself before she got stuck at work in Darwin. The car rental gave unlimited mileage, however only for a 3 day rental, so what the heck we thought, and went for it. I paid for the car,

2009-11-25T19:10:00.004+11:00

For all those who are wondering what its like to catch the bus all the way to Darwin from cairns I urge you to keep wondering and never find out. Certain words come close to describing it: painful, torture, agony, hell, exhausting. Really all you need to know was it took a long time, 41 hours, and it’s a lot like an endurance test. I didn’t crack but boy did I want to, the only thing that stopped

Uncles and Cousins

2009-11-23T01:53:00.003+11:00

One of the pretty girls working at Cairns Central YHA convinced me to do Uncle Brian’s tour. I never got to meet uncle Brian, he had an accident coming out of the shower to get the phone one day, slipped on the kitchen floor and his wife tried to stop his fall, he ended up impregnating her and so he now has a kid to look after and leaves the cousins to do the tours. Cousin

In Cairns

2009-11-14T21:52:00.003+11:00

A few things happened here. met Jochen here again, this was the final part of his journey before heading back to Sydney and then home again, so we figured we would take a walk and see what we could see, a Dutch friend of his accompanied us. We walked the esplanade observed the view of mud and then Jochen found a volleyball game to join in, we left him there, much as I love volleyball (sarcasm,

Onwards and upwards, and downwards.

2009-11-12T18:43:00.002+11:00

Sadly I have to keep moving; again I cursed my luck at winning a competition that gave me a ton of free stuff at the cost of having to leave a pretty girl behind, she went south and I had to continue my free holiday to the north.Ok so after leaving Magnetic Island and Annette, my to do list had skydiving at the top, time to jump mission beach. The Treehouse YHA is a lovely little place, run by a

Magnetic Island

2009-11-10T10:37:00.002+11:00

I met an Isreali named Dor in airlie beach who left the day before me headed to Magnetic Island, both of us were staying at bungalow bay YHA so we met up there, drove around on the scooter he had rented and thought very hard about what to cook, he also pointed me in the direction of a Dutch girl he said was interested in getting a scooter and exploring, suggesting we go together. Introducing

2009-11-10T00:07:00.000+11:00

Finally the internet is letting me upload things, stress! However it is done.

Summertime/Whitsunday

2009-10-29T17:42:00.000+11:00

Summertime; my new home for 3 days, and a pretty one too, if a little cosy. Our skipper was called cookie, from being a chef, Flo was the funny onboard German (you cannot escape them) and Shani might be the correct spelling for our cook’s name. Summertime was a lovely timber boat, with a Jacuzzi on the back, nice big sails that we only got to use on the last day and plenty

A Bit Further North!

2009-10-26T23:20:00.003+11:00

Back to Hervey Bay where I stayed a couple of nights just to get cleaned and sorted and then north towards the Whitsunday Adventure. Stopping only in Rockhampton. Rockhampton………Sleep I woke up, saw the sun and thought ‘holy moly’ (not exact words) ‘its bright, that means it must be late, that means I must have missed my coach,’ I allowed my self one brief nanosecond of

Fraser Island

2009-10-24T18:53:00.003+11:00

Fraser Island To get a real flavour of Fraser Island you need to be there, crystal clear fresh water lakes, a beach almost 100kms long, friendly campfire dingo’s and an aboriginal to entertain us all. Watch the video. There’s also the tendency to hit your head every 3 seconds on the roof of the car, its that bumpy. My group contained a Scottish couple, 2 French girls, 3 Danes (1 man 2 girls) and

The next City

2009-10-22T22:51:00.003+11:00

So what can I say of Brisbane, it is a city, it has a river, it has a YHA. What else you say? Umm buildings… sky… lots of flies. Ok I’ll be nice; the botanical gardens while being nowhere near Sydney’s are pretty and the banyan trees there are damn cool, it has a pleasant area next to the river with artful walkways and a nice lagoon and a few places to explore but I didn’t

A Stay With Gossamer

2009-10-18T23:12:00.002+11:00

I had arranged to stay with a friend for a couple of days and so I left Byron having only put my feet in the water, literally. Named Gossamer, she lives in Surfers paradise and welcomed me into her home. If when travelling you get the chance to stop at a friends DO IT! I can’t express how helpful it is to get out of hostels just for a couple of nights, staying at hostels is

Onwards, to Byron's Bay

2009-10-13T22:31:00.004+11:00

The next leg of the journey was considerably more painful, getting up earlier this time, around 5 and having to walk what I was told was a half hour walk to the bus coach carrying my backpack and bigger backpack which turned out to be an hour walk getting me there literally as the bus pulled up. After that it was just fairly bumpy, the road conditions in Australia do seem a

Heading up the East Coast, First stop Coffs Harbour

2009-10-10T22:09:00.003+11:00

Waking up has never been a fun occasion for me, waking up at 5.30 on a Saturday didn’t make it any better. It was a dark day, literally; I looked out of the bus window and thought wow the moon looks bright, then I realised it was the sun I was staring directly at, somehow my eyes hadn’t disintegrated and that another dust storm had hit the east coast. It was nice to have

My Last Night in Sydney

2009-10-08T12:46:00.007+11:00

I left the Blue Mountains eager to be back in Sydney where I could find Nora and annoyed that I would be leaving again the next morning, but hey my journey has to start, right! Seeing as Australia is a fairly large country I presumed I should get on with it rather than stay in Sydney for 3 months, somehow I think the blog might get boring. I got back to central and waited around for a minute as

The search for the ruined castle

2009-10-06T09:02:00.002+11:00

Up to date?!

2009-10-04T21:40:00.004+11:00

Ok people so far i have been uploading blogs roughly a week after things happen, Ive been trying to keep it that way but I'm lagging, being on the road all the time changing hostels almost every other day leaves little time to write. So not being able to access what i have previously written due to having no wi-fi at my current location this will not be the next section of the story, which is

the search for ruined castle. blue mountains

2009-10-02T21:31:00.006+10:00

The Blue Mountains I woke up, wondered why someone had turned on an orange light and then closed my eyes again, a few minutes later I opened them and noticed no lights were on, but the room was orange. Wondering what alien race had invaded I went downstairs to make some breakfast. I got everything packed in the orange hue and checked out, somewhat puzzled. Someone told me

Alone in Sydney, with Germans.

2009-09-28T18:07:00.003+10:00

Sydney and Germans!Confused and feeling lost I checked into Sydney central YHA and dumped my stuff, then noticed that not only did the whole place look nice it was clean! In a moment of pure heaven I praised various lords, wept, and claimed a lower bunk! Lets have a quick comparison to explain my joy: I had just left a cheap hostel by the beach, no problem with the

Acclimatisation week

2009-09-24T22:46:00.007+10:00

My First WeekMonday: arrival and space out, checked out the botanical gardens where cockatoos attempted to eat my hand, went to Sydney harbour, took pictures at the lookout and checked out all the relevant stuff, cut my head open on a rusty bit of metal sticking out from a coat hanger and got on a jetboat, came off drenched and shivering then went back to coogee where we were staying and ate a

Arriving in sydney

2009-09-23T21:41:00.004+10:00

This is my first blog.. ever!So far I have been around Sydney for a week, seeing various wonderful things and getting rather stressed out. A mixed bag of delights and absolute poo.I left England feeling pretty nervous, had no idea what I was getting myself into (still no change there) and what my trip would be like. At the airport I struggled against the tears as I