Australia

Woot woot I am now a certified open water SCUBA diver! Sorry the updates have been slow but its a real pain to get pictures onto the computers at some places and I was tired of updates without photos. The Reef was awesome! The first day out we spent most of our air on the bottom practicing practical skills and stuff and didn't have a lot of time to swim around but as the dives progress you get more and more free time and today I saw a sea turtle and a cuttlefish and a giant clam that I could easily have crawled into. If you put your hand in it and rub it it freaks out and tries to close up but it can't because its so big. Also i learned a neat trick with a sea cucumber, apparently when they feel threatened they eject their intestines at the attacker (not exactly my idea of a great way to protect itslef, but hey, who can question evolution?). Anyway their intestines are increadably sticky and white and gross looking so (as my typical Ausi instructor was eager to demonstrate) if you rub it up and down really hard it will procede to "ejaculate" it white gooey mess of intestines out into the water and onto whatever it is that you are pointing it at (we were shown that the effect can be exagerated if you hold it in a particular place). Unfortunately (and I'm sure he does it every time) the closest girl ends up with a giant wad of white grossness all over her BCD or wetsuit or face depending on how quick she is really. Quite an amusing spectical, I'm surprised that more people don't drown choking on there regulators as they crack up 12 meters under.
The program was definitely worth it, tonight our Dive Master is taking us out for a night on the town as we've been prohibited from partying while the course went on.

me in the pool on the first day, I'm kicking myself in the head cause the underwater case I bought for the camera was the cheap one and it only goes to 3 meters, which was great at the time cause i didnt think I'd be diving but now...

me and jan (he's german I think thats how you spell "yon") on the bow of Osprey V about to head out to the reef

Cairns is in a cool location cause its in a little bowl of mountains that run all the way out to sea, it makes for a pretty dramatic shoreline

lookin back at the town from the water

Heath (our instructor) lookin scarily confused as he briefs us for our first reef dive
Appart from the obvious great scenery that Cairns has, I wasn't totally taken by the city like I was thought I was going to be. Airlie is much nicer for its more low key and less vertical feel. But I'm starting to change my mind just cause I've met some of the coolest people here. The nights have been pretty crazy because the first night was our riunion with long lost mono who was off the Melbourne to visti his mates for a bit. The second night was the Canadian twins' (I'll talk about them in a bit) last night in Australia and then 2 nights ago was Andy's last night it Australia and for him especially we thought he needed a propper send off. So last night i went to bed really early for the most intense diving which I think we all can appreciate

Brandon and Britt are twins from Winapeg Canada and were awesome.

I've been hangin out with 2 sets of Siblings, the ones on the left are Brandon and Britt and the ones on right ar Maria and Isabella who are from Soa Paulo, Brazil and are living in Brisbane right now.

Andy always manages to sneak into pictures, even when we're trying to keep him out

The girl on the left is Fiona, she works in the bar which is great for all the people she knows. Her Boyfriend on the far left is a crazy Kiwi that just happens to be best mates with our instructor, Heath, and they've been able to get us some great deals in Cairns for dinner and nights out. Its good to know the locals, I figure by the time I see Nick again he'll be as good as a local at Airlie so I'm exctied to see what hes found out about the local scene.
Anyway I'm going diving one more day tomorrow and then Mono and I are headed down to Bowen to meet up with Tom to do a week of Mango picking, I should make 1020 and then its off to Sydney to fly to Auckland. I'm meeting up with Sarah for the New Zealand tour, we're renting a wicked campervan and should be able to see most of the country though I'm hoping we stay more in the South Island, its supposed to be the best. There is a 145 meter bunjy from a cable car hanging in a canyon that is lookin more and more inticing but we'll see how it goes, seven seconds of free fall is pretty intense. Hope everything is great backhome, Dad I think that you'll have to make me 4 apple pies when I get home cause I'll be missing both of my fixes wont I? Love you guys.

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...