Nov 2006

Hey ho, made it to Cairns with Andy. Longest travel time yet, the bus ride was about 13 hours. This really is a freakin huge country. Anyways don't have pics to update but I will tomorrow and they'll be of my learning to SCUBA dive!!! I had my first day today and its pretty awesome. Tomorrow we'll be in the pool again and then its 2 days out on the Great Barrier Reef to finish my certification. Andy and Mono went skydiving yesterday and Andy's shute didn't deploy and they had to use the emergency one. They guy had done about 8000 dives and said that it was only the 13th time its happened to him, pretty crazy though huh? I don't think I'll be doin that. My new little baby cousin is quite cute it's a good thing the little ones are gettin more of Nat's side huh? We wouldn't want little Tommies running around... wait thats exactly what we've got!! Anyways congrats again and miss all you guys. Update you with some more pictures tomorrow!

It seems crazy to think that it was only a month or so ago that we bumped into nick and brock in a car park in new south wales, we pulled into the parking lot and saw them cooking over the tinest of stoves, we joked about them being novices.
The friendship was cemented with a night on the town that left us all drunk, lost and me locked out of the van trying to use my drunken mind to outwit the door and force it to open, something the police found ever so ammusing. Since then we have experienced everything from violent abo's to naked women selling raffle tickets, we have fixed every kind of mechanical problem going, and we have picked up untold amounts of travllers and strays.
Once you have opened your mind to traveling and trying new things, everything is so much more fun, the simplist things can entertain us for ages, and every night brings a new story! Admitedly a lot of the stories are fuelled by vast amounts of goon, the hot weather, pies and taking naps on the street.
Of late we have deffinatly added nakedness to our entertainment as it seems no night is over until the girls have stollen someones clothes but dont worry lads, were getting our revenge in the pool- those double knoted bikini strings wont stop us. Watch this space as the madness is far from over!
this is tin tin signing out, over to you brock for the sport and weather.

Sold the car today!!!!!! 1200 bucks which works out pretty good cause it definatly would have been way more than that $200 loss for travel and accomodation thus far. Heading up to Cairns with Andy today to meet up with Mono and do some reef diving. I'm thinking about getting my scuba certification. Since dad's always hounding me about it and if I was gonna do it anyway it would be cool to have done it on the great barrier reef. I just have to make sure its an international certification and then we can go dive the bahamas when I get home Pops!! Thats all that's new really just was excited about the whole car thing. I'm sure I'll have much bigger updates from Cairns.

Airlie Beach turned out to be a good spot to sort the near future out and everyone has pretty much gotten what they wanted. Tom is leaving in 3 days to pick mangoes an hour north in Bowen where you make about a 1000 a week. Nick's worked out an accommodation job so the loss of the car and van is no biggie. Andy is headed North to Cairns to meet back up with Mono and the rest of the girls have found jobs packing on the farms to the North of Airlie. I am gonna head to Ciarns with Andy cause otherwise I won't get up there before I head out to New Zealand. The others are spending to much time here for us to get up there before I fly out on the 1st of December. After a week in Cairns I'm meeting Tom in Bowen and working for a week before I start heading back south to catch my flight out of Sydney.
It's official, I'm extending my trip again (hopefully for the last time this time, I think if it isn't mom will kill me, she's already threatening to give away all my stuff and redo my room and she's killing my fish to get back at me ) uhh that was a long little () there. OK so it's to New Zealand on the 1st of December. I think I'm gonna rent a camper van and do both Islands, 20 days should be enough. Back to Sydney on the 21st of December for Christmas and New Years in the big city. Its kinda crazy, first Christmas away from home and I've chosen to be really really away from home huh? I certainly will miss the fam for that one. After New Years I'm westward bound winding through the "real" part of this country (the hyped outback) to Perth where I fly out to Bangkok Thailand on the 21st of January. 3 weeks in Thailand (fly out the 12th of feb) and its on to Johannesburg South Africa where (after 2 weeks) I leave from Cape Town for a 25 day camping Safari through Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Thats a crazy one, I'm pretty sure I'll be turning 20 in Botswana. Birthdays in Africa I'm hoping are pretty cool, maybe there some cool tribal custom I'll get to do!!! Ending in Joberg finally I fly out to London on the 22nd of March and thats where the set plan ends. (thats right I haven't actually bought a ticket home yet ) But... i figure it will be sometime in April. It hasn't quite hit me yet but that is a pretty long time I think.
The new camera is awesome, I got an underwater case for it that means i'll keep it from being ruined by any of the crazy elements here, and also means no more boring all word blogs. Although (I've been told) my grammar and spelling is so bad that is entertainingly enough to puzzle out my, what was it Dan, incoherent rambling or something like that. I have to post the email it is just too good and too Dan not too. "...I only just began reading your travel
journal after Joe showed me some of the entries and I must say that your
grammar and spelling are piss-poor (although to be honest-it doesn't
surprise me). Do they not have spell-check on those Australian computers? I
told Joe that I might just start editing your posts and reposting them
on your behalf so that those of us with a relative grasp of the English
language will not have to regularly struggle to divine the meaning
behind your ill-worded musings.

Ok, it is time for me to decide what homework to begin, a predicament
that fortunately eludes you at this moment, but if you find the time, I
will look forward to hearing from you (and hopefully seeing you)
sometime in the near future.

Godspeed,

Dan" what a buddy isn't he! Ok so enough "musings" here are some pics

The underwater thing is cool no? Topless sunbathing is (you could say) encouraged here in Airlie and uhh yah I think you know what I'm talking about.

The ocean (as you all know now) is unswimable so at all these Northern tourist spot they have these cool lagoons which are basically a giant swimming pool but its where you hang out during the day, pretty much all day. Thom is trying out one of his more manly poses in this one, freakin brittish people.

I think I've found my perminant look

After long lazy days at the lagoon there are several pubs to hit up for the nightlife. Everyone pretty much follows the same pattern starting here at Morracos for happy hour 10:30-12:30...

heading to Mama Africas, this cool little dance club after to continue untill pretty much whenever you want. On the latest nights you end up back in the lagoon to complete the big Airlie circle.

I've yet to hear of anyone actually waking up at the lagood but I'm sure its been attempted, for us lightwieghts its back to the van for at least a bit to catch up on the z (pronounced zeds) by these crazy non-americans. I can't think of anything to say to end it so...

Airlie has turned out to be a pretty great little spot. There is enough to do that the people who aren't working aren't bored and their is enough opportunity to find work for the people who have to (I think). Nick, Tom and I are probably going to be hired by a dry dock company to take a 60 ft old wooden sailboat out of the water and redo the hull. He thinks it'll take us about 2 weeks of 8 hour days which would be a good start of replenishing the dwindling funds. If all this falls through I think me and Tom might drive an hour north to Bowen where there is always work in the corn fields and fruit patches. The best job to get is apparently corn shucking which is 12 hour days but you make about 1000 a week. I am buying a new camera today so expect picture updates soon!!!! Big swing in the elections I saw, pretty wild. Hope everything is going great!