The great western aventure!

Hi again, we are back in the world of 21st communication and how much we have missed those little luxuries such as showers, mobile signal and people who aren't born from a drunken night of passion between a brother and sister...!

Picking up from our last blog then, we left south australia and headed out along the 90 mile straight road to western australia, literally not a bend on the road for an hour and a half... how exciting! After a couple of days driving across the Nullabor (Aboriginal for 'treeless') Plain we made it into Esperance which was bliss to see the sea again and even find a McDonalds! It was Roz's birthday so we had a bit of lunch and then headed out to Lucky Bay, which is Australia's most beautiful beach... Me knowing this already and it being Roz's birthday it was time for me to suck it up and ask the big question! I bought her a sketch book, put in a little poem I rustled up and hid the ring inside the book... And as I am sure you all know by now she said yes! Anyway, i won't bore you with too many details so safe to say, 2 very happy people left Esperance the next day and headed up into the forests of Denmark, where we did a tree top walk, and then bombed up to Perth to pick up our travelling buddies Darragh & Annika from the Airport.

After a night in Freemantle we all went down to Margaret River, which is one of Australia's best wine growing regions and indulged in a day of wine tasting, which involved riding around in the pouring rain from one cellar door to the next for the whole day, getting more and more drunk on free wine as the day went on! Awesome time, would highly recommend it to anyone because it's a free piss up!!

Because the weather was so shoddy, we headed back up the coast past Perth and into Kalabarri for an evening of fishing on the pier. Not much biting unfortunately, but i still out fished everyone else... even if my 6 fish would probably not be more than 12 inches if you lined them all up!!

Now one thing you should know about camping in australia, in fact probably anywhere is that the greedy bastards will charge you extra money if you have more than 2 people, which to me is a bit of a rip off, because you aren't taking up any more room if you are all in one tent. So with a bit of careful planning we put me and Darragh in the front of the car and piled all the pillows on top of the girls in the back.. then we would go in all mincing it up and just getting odd looks from the hillbillies in the receptions who just wanted us out of their way incase they caught the gayness!! but it meant we spent half the money we could have! Safe to say there will be a few phone calls going between the owners about a couple of pommie fags mincing it up around the camp sites of western australia!

Anyway moving on with the trip we stopped off in Monkey Mia where you can feed dolphins (we had a whale of a time... pun intended) then up to coral bay where the snokelling was superb, and off to exmouth where we got seriously pissed on Goon (cheap nasty wine), played beach boules with stones, and made a bow and arrow to shoot kangaroos with! Not that we caught anything, but hey it was fun! Then from there we had a couple of nothing stops in Karatha and Port Hedland, and then to the final destination on the west coast - Broome... which was worth the whole trip because it actually has stuff to do and really nice beaches! We jumped off rocks, we rode on camels along the beach at sunset, and then we cracked open the expensive bottles of wine we got from margaret river to drink with some fine cheeses and pate whilst watching the moon rise over the bay which was stunning! The way the moonlight reflects over the very, VERY low tide makes it look like 'a staircase to the moon' and while i can't really see the staircase, it was a very nice (and even slightly romantic) evening!

So with Broome well and truly done, and all the west coast boxes ticked, we set off for the east coast, calling in at lovely places such as Halls Creek, which is where Wolf Creek was set, good film, if a bit scary considering we were doing exactly what they were doing in the film in exactly the same car, Katherine which was actually quite nice, and Mount Isa which was a crappy mining city but also the biggest city in the world in square kilometers. We got into Port Douglas 5 days after leaving the east coast, and even squeezing in some hairy drives at dusk that were full of giant wild pigs, dingoes and big red kagaroos, all of which would have been the end of bessie the car, and possibly us! But we managed to get there, and only one small problem with the car as it seems to drink transmission fluid like it's going out of fashion, but whoever we sell the car too doesn't need to know that!! Now it's just a case of getting working and selling the car, but maybe a drink or twelve first...!

hittin' the dusty trail...

Sorry it’s been a while since we wrote, but there was money to be made, and a lot of drinking time to catch up on…

So we have been working hard as always (me as a milkman and roz as a waitress) and after a couple of months there we had the obligatory leaving shin dig/s which was great fun, and t’was nice to see everyone off. We had a final night round in our garden with a few friends, our housemate sarah, and plenty of cheap grog! New drinking games were discovered that night which will be brought home as long as we can remember them.. that’s a bit of a sticking point with drinking games; you’re always pissed when you play them so rules are always difficult to remember!!

So we set off for Perth in Bessie the car, on Monday the 3rd of May with the plan to get about 400ks under our belt, but after fannying around for ages getting last minute shopping and packing the car we left at 2pm and only got as far as Torquay (200ks!). It’s a nice little place with some good surf, but we were to late to make any use of that so we just pulled into a caravan park and went to watch the sun go down with a bottle of wine. We got tea on the go and were soon mobbed by a massive possum, who got a clout round the head with a wooden spoon when he put his nose in the saucepan! And then an owl landed in the tree above us and just sat watching for ages, and the stars were truly beautiful!! We then settled into the cosy bed in the back of the car for a well deserved sleep.

Next day we set off pretty early along the great ocean road for Apollo bay where we stopped in a little café which had a mural on the wall by my old uni housemate jilly! The weather was pretty dire so we just hopped back in the car and headed to the twelve apostles for the night. If you don’t know the 12 apostles is a load of big rocks sticking out of the sea along the ocean road, amazing to see, but there aren’t actually 12 of them anymore because of coastal erosion.. but the 9 or so that were there were cool enough! So we did about 250k today, nice and steady again as the weather was bad.

After the night in Port Campbell, we got up at 7 to hit the road nice and early to Kingston SE which is at the end of the ocean road, getting on toward Adelaide. We covered a good 450k so that made a bit more of a mark on the map, and we just camped for free on the side of the road with a couple of Aussie lads, 4 frenchies and a Canadian crazy lady…! It was cold again so we decided to go to the pub for tea and beer, and they had a roaring log burner on the go so we just nestled in amongst that to warm our cockles!

Again we got up early on the next day (Thursday) with the intention to get to Adelaide, but Bessie isn’t great in the mornings but refused to budge on this particular day so we had to crack out the jump starter kit our mate had advised we buy (thanks Barry!) to get her going. With that worry on our mind we called ahead to a contact in a town just south of Adelaide for some mechanical help. Luckily Mark and Wendy knew a decent honest mechanic so we changed course slightly and headed to McLaren Vale, which is a really, REALLY beautiful little town surrounded by wineries, rolling hills and the sea. After dropping Bessie off at the garage, Mark and Wendy took us round their winery (Hassle & Lightfoot) and then back to theirs for a slap up mediteranean style feast! Of course we sampled some of their local brew which was a very cheeky little Chardonnay! Then we went kangaroo spotting and there was a mob of about 12 grazing in amongst the vines in their back garden! Roz was most delighted to see her first wild roos and got some great photos, and some great shots of an amazing rainbow across the vale. We had a call a little later on saying he could find nothing wrong with the car, and so we decided to power on past Adelaide to a place called Port Wakefield about 200k north.

We did another early rise because we wanted to try and hit about 700k and get to Ceduna which is one of the last stops before the open desert road. We made it in record time, even having time to stop for supplies shopping in Port Augusta. Ceduna seemed nice enough but is full of bogans (Australian hill-billies) and it just so happens that most of them seem to live in the camp sight we stayed in… The guy next to us spent most of his night throwing tins of beer down his neck, listening to hiphop and yelling obscenities at the sport on tv! Delightful!! We thought one of the bogans was moving his caravan until we realised it was actually a woman waddling to the toilet who was the size of a small caravan… I think she has made her dress from a bed sheet.. a double king size one!!

Anyway, that’s enough slagging off of the locals for now… on the road again tomorrow and hopefully get to Western Australia for more fun bogan adventures…!

the power of persuasion is an impressive thing!

A couple more weeks have passed since the f1 and the boring, long hours at work are grinding on the both of us but not all is dull. We have been talked into going on a mammoth of a trip with some friends we met here........... I happen to be working with dans work mates girlfriend and we all get on really well almost a little too well considering I have only known annika for a matter of weeks I spend the majority of my melbourne life with her while dan is at work then I go to work with her too.

Anyway, she has convinced me that it would be a good idea for me and dan to join their travel around the west coast and the other day we went out and bought a car!!!! yep she is a beauty! red 1988 ford falcon wagon, came free with a tent, matress, all you need to go camping, a surf board, volley ball and lots lots more all for $3000 or £1700 ish between 4 of us! its a bargin and she runs like a dream! our plpan is to drive from melbourne-adelaide-perth-coral bay-exmoth-broome-port douglas, stay there for a wee wile to work and save a bit more then down the east coast down to sydney. If this car makes it she will go down in history as the biggest legend ever!! if anyone has any advice, knows anything about traveling in oz please let me know because i am just kinda hoping that it will all fall in to place.

So with just 3 weeks till we set off for our near impossible feat we are both extremely excited and raring to get going. melbourne has been good but i am so over cities (for now). just got back from the casino celebrating matt and stephs (dans brother and girl friend) last nights in melbourne before moving to port. me and steph rocked on the black jack and the boys sucked at pretty much everything apart from getting drinks at the bar!!!! hehe na to be fair, dan won bowling afterwards :-) xx

ozzy ozzy ozzy oi oi oi

8 weeks into our ozzy experience and we are still in melbourne juggling between the crazy weather of sun and blinding heat and flash floods and cold cold nights! about a week ago, me and dan got stranded in the library while hale stones the size of golf balls came pelting down! when we decided to leg it to the underground, we had to wade knee deep through flood across the road! then when on the train we saw that one of the stations roof had been pelted through and the whole place was flooded! it was a very very long journey home that day!

www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2004/05/26/flood,1.jpg

other then that it has been 3 days hot, 3 days cold then 3 days hot etc its so confuddling! :-\

we have just moved into our lovely share house in st kilda, (the center of everything). we share with a girl called Sarah and her cat Fanta who have both been very nice and friendly. we are enjoying having a social life again, maybe a little too much as on monday night after champagne tasting at my new job i went out and found myself dancing on the table in the middle of a drag show. Its not all boozing though unfortunately, I am juggling 3 jobs in one go and dan is a milk man!!!! yep you cant make this stuff up! 

We are both working at the formula 1 at the end of march and hope to have enough money to move up to port Douglas after that, where the beach is golden and the sea is.......well not as bloody freezing as it is in melbourne! 

just seen on the news that there is a 2.5m long shark swimming in the bay near our house arrrrgggggg!!!! oh and for all the animal lovers there is a family of possums living in our tree in the back garden who arnt very photogenic but still its worth a go! 

delayed flight

when we got to Singapore airport, we discovered that our already tight flight plan had just been abolished as our Singapore-Sydney flight was delayed by 2 hours meaning that we would miss our Sydney-Melbourne flight without a doubt. this bad news just about set the tone for the day. as we hadn't booked all through the same air line, quantas would not compensate us at all! no offer to change flight, no room for the night, nothing! we were just dumped in Sydney with nowhere to stay. we ended up having to fork out $250 for the flight and $200 for a room + taxi to and from the hotel. this sort of money would have had to last us 2-3 weeks so we are now very much out of pocket :-( 

we did make it to Melbourne in the end though if not a little late and we are going through the process of sorting out our holiday insurance with no help from Quantas what so ever! 

anyway we are in australia safe and absolutely loving it! staying with Matt and steph is great! and we even went on a camping weekend with them which was oodles of ozzy fun! 

so now we are looking for jobs to help our finance situation. the blogs will not be half as interesting from now until june so will probably start writting again then. i might even get dan to write a few! lots of love to everyone xxxx

hostel hunting

When it got to 07:00 am we decided to make our way into the city using the super cheap, super effective underground system. When in the centre we found our hostel about 3kms away from where we were dropped off. It was a small scummy place on the 4th floor but it only cost about 5 pounds each (which is really good for Singapore) we waited and waited and waited in the reception for someone to check us in and finally fell to sleep on the couch. we woke up at 10:30 to find that there was still nobody at work! we waited until about 11:30 and decided to leave. nobody was manning the building, anyone come get into the building and leave un noticed, and it generally seemed like a place where we may catch a disease of some sort.

 

We wondered up the street to the next one to find a friendly woman behind the desk willing to check us in to her place for around the same price! It was also quite a weird place though, an open air dorm on the roof top with all the noise of the traffic (basically a terrace that has been scuffed up a bit and someone crammed about 10 bunk beds onto it) our room was about 3m by 3m with 3 bunk beds in it we were crammed in like sardines and unfortunately shared dorm with a rather pungent smelling individual. None the less this was our home fo the next 2 days and oh what a good sleep we had that day!

 

We went to the zoo which was a delightful day out. its like a safari park which you go round on foot. everything was so free range and you would look up to find monkeys playing in the trees above your head. We went to all the shows including feeding the polar bears (which were in a tank thank god because they were huge!!!!), the elephant show (a bit commercial but i love all elephants so loved it) the jungle fights back show ( a cringing experience where we endured half an hour of terrible acting about how humans are destroying wild habitats, a worthy subject but just awful awful acting!) and finally the sea lion show which reminded me of one of my favorite memories at sea world Florida with a performance from these amazing animals! we also saw white tigers, pygmy hippos, white rhinos, chimps, orangutans, giraffe, lion all that you would expect from a good quality zoo. after the zoo we tested Singapore's finest and cheapest foods at one of the infamous food markets. sprig rolls all the way.  

hay long bay

on our 3rd day in Hanoi we went on a day trip to visit Hay long bay. its an amazing place, so picturesque and peaceful, we just sailed around all day stopping at caves fishing docks and islands and trying to stay warm, yes the weather was still bad but at least it didnt rain! this was also the point when i realised that i had no warm clothes whatso ever so wore........1 vest top, 2 t-shirts, 2 long sleeve t-shirts, a zip up jumper, 2 scarfs, 2 pairs of trousers, leggings, 2 pairs of socks etc i was still cold!!! the last few months of sunning and constant sweating must have turned me into a wimp! 

Nonetheless it was a lovely way to spend the day. I kept imagining seeing Jeromy Clarkson come zooming round one of the islets in his home made motor bike boat. 

After some last minuit shopping and organising, we were ready for our flight to singapore. We landed at 11:30 pm so decided to wait around until 06:00am at the air port so that we could save ourselves 20 pound on acomedation and 15 pounds on transport. This seemed like a flawless plan but the reality hit at 04:00am when i had had no sleep and nothing but a cold floor to sleep on. it is so hot in Singapore so everywhere blasts the aircon out at a rediculous level making sleeping conditions unbarable. I gave up and bought a hot chocolate in one of the cafe's and fell asleep in the chair whilst clutching my hot drink. They didnt seem to mind so i just stayed there all night. When dan finally woke up from his position on the floor he came and joined me, that boy can sleep anywhere!!! in the early hours, we chatting to a retired american RAF man who had alot of exciting stories to share and to stop us from going insane!

vietnam

Sorry that it has been so long. Being in the land of the Viet Kong meant that face book was banned so there wasn't much point of going on the internet. So where were we????? Nah Trang???

Its a nice place but like i said, its rubbish when it rains. We decided to take it easy, read, sleep and generally be lazy for 2 days, before continuing our journey to Hoian.

The night buses are an ingenious invention!! basically bunk beds on a coach at slight angles so that as many as possible can be crammed in. The only down side that i can think of is the fact that they are so narrow that you cant turn on your side and they are made from leather so that when you wake up, your face is glued to the seat and makes that horrible burning feeling all over your skin when you move. Apart from that they were brilliant and saved us a lot of money on accommodation. We met a nice American (didn't know they existed) (joke) called Joe we actually continued to bump into him in every destination and sleep in the next bed to him on 3 different occasions, this was either coincidence or we had a friendly stalker on our hands.

We rocked up in Hoian at about 05:00 am in the rain and about 1 mile out of town. The walk was long and wet with our backpacks on and we were fed up from a bumpy nights sleep. I could see that we were in a bad position to get ripped off for a room so I took control with a soggy moody Dan following me. We eventually got sorted with a niceish room in the center of town that resembled a bathroom with entire walls covered in tiles.

After a sleep we went shopping and found a bargain place to get a suit tailor made for Dan. I also fell in love with a design of a coat so they threw that in as well as 2 shirts and shoes (all tailor fitted and made) for around 60 pounds. Absolute bargain!! after a day or 2 in Hoian we realized that there really inst much more to do then shop and we could feel ourselves crumbling and making excuses as to why we need certain clothes, shoes etc so we scarpered sharpish.

We visited Hue for 6 hours on our way to Hanoi which was lovely, we saw many temples which were reminiscent of Chinese temples. Unfortunately, a lot of them had been bombed during the war so it was a contrast of feelings between beauty of architect and anxiety of destruction.

We reached Hanoi the next day with Joe and went in search of a hotel. I think we have just about got the hang of dealing with hagglers now and we approached the situation expertly. Not showing too much aggression but still being firm. saying "would you kindly piss off". Anyway we discovered that the lonely planet lies about the prices of hotels so we took the situation into our own hands and we found a top notch place with a tv and everything! for a reasonable price, (after haggling with the giggly 14 year old girl on reception.)

Hanoi is an amazing place, it is so easy to get lost so if you have enough time it is great to just wonder around all the little streets taking in the sights and the smells. One thing did shock me about Hanoi and that was, driving down the street we saw a pile of dead dogs! still fully intact, heads, tails and all. we asked the taxi driver and they were indeed being prepared to go into a stew or soup or something! we didn't see any crickets so Claire and ed, the bets off! (we had a dare that if Dan ate dog, i would have to eat cricket!) we saw all sorts of other gruesome foods on the way like brain, balls, intestine spider etc none of which looked in the least bit appertising. i think i will stick to exotic fruits.

good mornign Vietnam!!!

After enduring a painful bus journey in which Dan had to put up with some old Cambodians bum stuck right in his face the whole way and i had taken some advice from Ed to take some tablets to stop a vomiting spell i had, which made me so fidgety and restless that there was not a hope in hell of falling to sleep and my legs were in a constant twitch. We made it to Siam reap 7 hours later, all a little flustered but ready to see some temples! we found a really good hotel with two double beds, an on suit and a TV for only $6 so that was.......$3 per couple (bargain!) i think we spent our first night watching tele and laughing at rubbish American film called "direct contact?" i don't recommend it!

The next morning it was up and out early for some serious temple tours! angkor wat is so amazing it looks like old Aztec ruins but about 30 times the size! We went to big temples, little temples, 200 year old temples, and 600 year old temples, temples with trees growing from them.......... and so on. By the end we were templed out and ready for some beers! The town in Siam reap is great! and the beer only cost 13p so we had lots to compensate. At about 1 o'clock we found ourselves boogying in some seedy nightclub surrounded by Cambodians watching and mimicking our stupid dancing to the YMCA and other tasteful tunes including the spice girls etc.......

We spent the next day feeling sorry for ourselves hung over drinking coffee and mooching round markets, i bought the most adorable antique wooden elephant puppet which i am currently trying my hardest not to break in my tightly compact back pack. Then we said our good byes to Claire and Ed who had decided to stay for a week or so to do some volunteer work. We, on the other hand were off to Vietnam!!!

We....(i) decided it was a good plan to go by public transport to the nearest border crossing rather then the usual tourist route going back through Phnom Penn on a 12 hour long bus. Our plan was flawless until we got to the crossing and it became obvious that they had never dealt with a foreign passport and kept us waiting for ages till they figured it out! Then when on the other side there were no busses only one lonely man offering us a ride to the nearest town for $25!!!! We had no choice as this was all there was apart from walking. When at the bus station it took 6 changes of busses (where nobody spoke a word of English and we only knew 2 words hello and thank you) finally we made it to Saigon which was buzzing with thousands of motor bikes... literally coating the streets and the pavements. Luckily we got off the bus in the right place despite being completely oblivious and overwhelmed by it all. We found a guest house and explored the streets.

Saigon is a great place (really busy) but there is a good atmosphere about it and we were able to spend hours window shopping, eating weird and wonderful foods and wondering around markets and museums. after a couple of days we booked an open ticket where you basically have a month to get up to Hanoi with as many stops and as much time as you like, our first stop was nha trang which is nice but it has been rainy and cloudy since we got here and with it being a beach side city there isn't much to do. Tonight we leave for Hoian then Hue then Hanoi and Haylong bay before leaving for Singapore on the 27th. 

change of plan

So our plan was to sit back, relax and pamper in the south of Thailand for a month before finding jobs and working our socks off in oz.

We made a snap decision and change of plan to go to Cambodia and Vietnam instead.....what can i say we love this traveling millarky! so here we are after a immense 24 + hour straight journey on a bus-boat-bus from KO Tao all the way to Sihnoukeville in Cambodia! its really authentically Asian here which is a big change from the commercial south Thailand where you have anything and everything ready at your hotel.

me Dan ed and Claire were staying in dirt cheap guest house jobbies again, just the way i like it! after a couple of a booze ups and a visit to a crazy snake farm, we decided to push on to Rabbit island.

It was another short 6 hour bus to the ferry (a little wooden boat with a motorbike engine) when we reached our destination it was like heaven! nothing but jungle, sand and a couple of bamboo huts! we heard that you had to catch and cook your own food. so we were pleasantly surprised when we saw a food hut which served fresh crab and fish. the island was so perfect, so chilled and best of all nearly deserted! we swam around for a while and a big school group made there way over by boat and started swimming with us. The children were between 6-12 and they were so much fun! we were all playing games, splashing around, taking under water photos and generally looking after these poor kids for the afternoon. I really want to do some volunteer work even more now as this was a little taster of how fun and enthusiastic these kids are!

In the evening we sat round, ate whole crab and drank 2 bottles of rum between us! Dan disappeared off to the sea for 5 mins then came back with something glowing on his hand....... it was glowing plankton which is really rare and only happens at certain times of month when the weather is just right! the 4 of us ran down to the sea and the waves were glowing. I remembered the scene off the beach and decided to go for a swim! it was the most beautiful thing i have ever seen in my entire life!!! it was like the water was alive! every time you move the twinkling lights shine... we all swam around for hours trying different things like standing still then splashing as much as you can, or swimming underwater and seeing if you could track the movements. the next morning we all felt like it was a dream.... we dint want to leave but phenom penh was beckoning!