fiji time!

well i have yet again forgot to write a blog for a good 2 weeks. i have however been introduced to fiji time. this is when you can be as late or slow as possible, mutter the words "fiji time" and then everything is ok!! i am going to use this alot in the future but it may not hold up when i go back to having deadlines for work! i will remain hopeful though.
anyway for the last two weeks we have travelled around the islands of fiji. this has been so much fun as both backpackers and local fijian people are the friendliest we have met on the whole trip. its great to just chat to random people about what you are doing and to learn things you did not know about countries and general life stuff. We had a bula pass to travel around the islands so we could just hop on the boat say which resort we wanted to go to and then they would take us there. after the first few days we were friendly with most people on the boat making it feel like one big family!
the islands themselves where pretty much what you would imagine fijian islands to be. white sands, crystal clear blue water and sun for most of the time. it was nice.

i feel pretty uninspired to write a blog at the moment so i will write a more detailed one that will take you on an emotional rolercoaster of the time we spent in fiji!

happy times then sad times

My its been a long time since ive done one of these! and hasn't alot happened! i'm not sure where to start with new zealand so i'm not going to bother! i will however write about the last week as we had two lovely girls, megs and makaela, travelling around with us! happy times! we did so many fun things such as sand boarding down dunes and going to a hot water beach. it was really great to see people who we are good friends with and exchange funny stories creating a couple of funny stories for ourselves. We had loads of great nights filled with fun such as human spot the difference in the early hours of the morning when really we should have gone to sleep! This morning the happiness of these times have gone away as meg and makaela have left on the kiwi experience bus. there is now a rather large hole in my heart! sad times.

All is not lost though as we are going to fiji to get our tan back! I'm really looking foreward to getting back to beaches, sun and the sea. bring on the happy times again!

i'm not sure what else to say other than if you ever go travelling make sure you go with meg and makaela! they're a real laugh!

sorry for this shocking blog i will try harder next time when i have more money!

the start of my time in 'a nicer England'

Well we have now arrived in New Zealand. The flight over was very nice and i slept, ate and listened to my m pod however the check in and security bit before hand was not so relaxed. Basically we had very little time to pack our bags before we had to go to the airport as the flight was at 9.15 meaning we had to be at the airport for 7.15 meaning we had to wake up at 5.45!!!!! so in my hand luggage was a very sharp and pretty dangerous object which did not go down very well with the x ray machine! after my bag being stared at for a long time and sent through the x ray machine a couple more times they decided to empty my full bag on the table in front of me. not only was this pretty annoying but i also had some things in there which caused a bit of embarrassment to me such as lots of rubbish from a long time ago a bottle of suncream and some cosmetic pads i had recently bought! the cosmetic pads particularly seemed to amuse the security guard who had, worryingly, started to put rubber gloves on! i thought i was going to be violated in possibly the worst way imaginable! but it turned out to be ok and i got to keep my dangerously sharp object!

When we landed in Christchurch we had to go and pick up our car for the next month. This was far easier than picking up the campervans and after half an hour we were ready to drive off. There is one slight twist and that is that the car is an automatic! it hasn't caused any problems yet but whenever i slow down my hand automatically goes out to grab the non existent gearstick and my foot tries to press the non existent clutch! pretty amusing! Anyway after a short drive we reached our first stop the Ellis family. They have been sooooo lovely to us 4 ragamuffins! they gave us a huge cooked meal (lasagna and pancakes) and we all have beds with CLEAN linen!!!!!!!! and they have carpets! for the whole 2 months i have not felt the luxury of carpet between the toes and my have i missed that feeling!! they also gave us a good idea of where to travel and some pretty tourist spots so that should be good! and they offered to have us for one more night which we are more than happy to oblige to!!

Anyway thats all for now

From the land of the hobbit goodbye

beaches, travelling and coldplay tomorrow!

At this moment i am sitting in a library in newcastle (no i haven't ran out of money and flown back to england where i have found a place to cower away in the shame of my ability to spend too much money). An old women has just tried to use a computer and it told her to wait for 30 mins. she did not like this at all and said ' no computer has ever told me what to do and in such a rude manner'! she is currently pulling out wires from the back of the computer and muttering profanities! my australian make me laugh!!

Anyway the last week or so we have been a bit more relaxed in the travelling and have taken our time to get down to newcastle (just above sydney) visiting many pretty beaches. The best place was probably byron bay. This was a pretty little bay with a long beach full of golden sands! We had a surf leasson with an old man here who looked rather homeless with no shoes and a stained white t-shirt. Despite this we (me tom and josh) had a really fun time and were, in my opinion, the best out of the group of 14!

Oh and we also saw our first wild kangaroos which was pretty exciting. We stopped on the side of the road and walked cautiously towards them. They were pretty tame and could have easily been someones pets. This was also the first time we saw kangaroos hop about as the ones in Australia zoo were lazy and didn't do too much moving.

I'm sure we did some other stuff but i can't quite remember. oh and i've just checked the football for the first time in ages and to my suprise liverpool beat real madrid 4 -0! thats a right whooping! good work lads! i know your all reading my blog!

g'day mate, throw another shrimp on the barbie and all that

well the last few days have been filled with rather eventful traveling. But before that we went on a trip to Cape Tribulation which is a rainforest leading onto a beach just north of cairns. We were greeted in the early morning by our tour guide called billy mcdonald who turned out to be the best tour guide in the word ever. He would laugh and joke and play tricks on people and he had an australian accent! what more can you ask for! Anyway cape tribulation was really nice and is the second largest rainforest in the world! the day started off with a rainforest walk than we went for lunch followed by a trip to the beach and then a swim in a fresh water lake which was pretty nippy but fun! this was also the day where i found out i was allergic to a certain kind of fish i had for lunch which left me covered in swellings and a rash! not good! At the time i wasn't too sure what was going on but luckily there were 3 really nice nurses on the trip who told me what was wrong and even took me to the pharmasist who got me to take off my t shirt and gave me some antihistamines. after a day i was back to my normal unswolen and un-rashed self. however the pharmasist told me to not eat fish for a bit of time as she thought i could have developed an allergy to ALL fish!! i think she wasn't telling the truth so i will go back to eating fish soon!

Anyway the next day we picked up our campervans after alot of hassle with putting down bonds for both the vans. Also it turns out i can drive the campers which was a pleasant suprise! Basically the last few days have just been filled with traveling in the rain to get down to the prettier, sunnier and wavier south of Australia. We have however fitted in some fantastic trips to different islands. The first we visited was the whitsunday islands. These are a group of 74 islands most of which are pretty untouched. We decided to go for a 3 island tour and so the next day we boarded our boat and headed for the best island, whitsunday island. The weather was scorching and the sand was cool and pleasant between the toes! however to get into the sea we had to wear stinger suits which prevent jellyfish stings but make you look like a ballet dancer! We wore these rediculous outfits and entered the sea and attempted to perfect our 4 man tower of people! we are pretty close but can't quite manage it yet! perhaps a bit more muscle is needed! We then went on to visit the other two islands where we went to a place that was like a rundown butlins and another island where we went snorkelling in very murky water and only saw a few little fish. On the way beack to cheer our moods up we stared longingly into the captains driving bit and he saw us and let us sit in his posh driver chair which was good fun! the next few days we just travelled in the pouring rain for about 10000000 km and saw a 3m python and a possum and some kangaroos in a farm.
The next place that i will mention is Frasier island. This was probably the best place i have visited so far in australia. The island is the largest sand island in the world and has a wide variety of ecosystems from rainforests to deserts. Our tourguide for the day was an old man called Captain Kangaroo! you can't get more australian than that! As it was all built on sand we had to go on a 4 by 4 bus which was rather bumpy but extremely fun! At one point we went on the largest sand highway that is also used as an aeroplane runway and people are allowed to sunbake!! mad! We then went on to have a walk around the rainforest copntaining dingo's and other animals. The highlight of the day was by far going to lake mackenzie. it was a fresh water lake that looked sooooo idilic and just really nice. We met some other english people and attempted to make a huge human pyramid in the water. the closest we got was 3 at the botton the 2 then 2 again! so not bad!
Anyway the weather is really nice here and we can go in the sea and surf and bodyboard! it hasn't rained for ages and we are all working up quite a tan!

Hope everyone else is having fun!

alot of things

Well the last few days have been rather packed. We left our wonderful accommodation in koh phangan, thailand to go to the more touristy phuket. Leaving our little appartment in koh phangan ended up being a bit sad, and i'll be honest and say i nearly shed a tear, as we had to say goodbye to mr and mrs T and their kid john who we had grown rather friendly with. they did however give us free thailand football shirts with the name of their resort printed on the back which was really sweet of them. Any way we headed off for phuket on a ferry which was literally a boat with a huge bed for all the passengers to share. There was very little room so everyone was touching the persons either side of them. I drew the short straw and was sandwiched between will and a random girl who felt obliged to stare at me as i slept causing me quite alot of distress when i would wake up staring into her eyes our foreheads basically touching!!
anyway after a sleepless night we arrived in phuket where we walked around, stayed on a beach and went to a market. We also had to book our travel down to kuala lumpur and singapore. This is when we realised that things would get quite packed. We ended up getting a flight to kuala lumpur, stay there for one night ( or maybe 2 i can't remember) and then fly to singapore for one night. Kuala Lumpur ended up baing like a more developed and nicer version of thailand so the time we spent there was very enjoyable. The most memorable things were going up the 4th largest tower in the world and seeing the amazing view and having random groups of girls coming up to us and asking for us to have pictures with them. This was very amusing but slightly disturbing and uncomfortable as they did like to get rather close!!
We also had a cracking time in singapore despite it being only for 2 days. The first day we went on the singapore flyer which is the largest wheel in the world i think. This was pretty cool and the views we saw were amazing. There was the sea and skyscrapers and really nice modern buildings and stuff like that ( you had to be there really). Then we went on the formula 1 race circuit which was an experience. We got some rather good pictures. In the evening we went to the waterfront where there was a band playing who were pretty good. There was also an old man who thought it was a good idea to stand at the front by the band and dance towards the audience in a classic 'embarrasing grandad' style. That had to be one of the funniest moment of my life and i don't often say that! i did however feel very embarressed for his family as i would probably have jumped into the sea with alot of weights strapped to me or turned so red that i would've exploded. The next day we decided to go on a cable car to an island just off singapore called sentoser. This seemed like a good idea but when we got up the mountain to the cable car station there was a thunderstorm which was very dramatic as we were basically surrounded by metal so lightning was cracking all around us! the storm did pass over and we did go to sentoser and sat on the beach and had a nice time. In that evening we had our flight to cairns.
The plane was very small and had no tv or anything so entertainment was at a minimum an it was pretty uncomfotable so sleep was also to a minimum! And that leads me to this morning when we got to cairns and the weather has been perfect! In cairns there are no beaches and your not allowed in the sea so instead they have public swimming pools which are very nice. I think you call them horizon pools or something as when you are in them it looks like you are in the sea or something like that. But best of all is the australian accent! i am sat in an internet cafe and there is a little australian boy talking all australian and i can't help smiling! its so funny! i think tonight i shall perfect my australian accent and embrace the culture as much as possible!
We are currently in a youth hostel but the fun really begins in 3 days when we get our campervans! can't wait!!

squatter toilets

It was only a matter of time before i started talking about toilets and other unsavory things!( if you don't want to hear my complaining don't read lines 18 to 24)

Basically it all started when we got to our accommodation in koh phangan. We got off the ferry and searched for our free taxi transfer to our 2 apartment rooms we had previously booked. This proved to be harder than expected as everyone knew where it was but where determined to rinse some money out of us! after a bit of searching and alot of angry shouting in thai we got our taxi. Everything was going well until we headed off the main road and through what looked like a rubbish tip. This was the site of our accommodation!! i decided to 'man up' and take it as being a part of travelling. that was until i went into our room. There was a double bed matress lying on the floor with rather alot of stains ranging from blood red to urine yellow! not nice!! we then opened the door to the bathroom when a lizard dropping down right infront of josh! anyway that wasn't too bad. lets just say I would class our bathroom as rather unequipped. There is a cold shower that is so broken no matter how you hold the shower head the ceiling always seems to get the most of the freezing water. There is no sink and no mirror which makes shaving my ever so manly beard pretty difficult if i don't want to completely laccerate my face! And then the bane of my life a squatter toilet! who invented the squatter toilet?! its so completely useless! If anyone doesn't know what it is its basically a ceramic hole that you have to use a pot filled with water to 'flush' it. it can't save water as you need to fill up so many pots of water from the tap to make sure the 'flush' works! its pointless! and if you actually use it to do a number 2 surely towards the end your thigh muscles would be bulging with such raw pain that you would just topple over and cause even more mess resulting in even more water being used!!! its such a bad idea. i wouldn't mind so much if every toilet was a squatter toilet but no the womens toilets are perfectly normal with a seat and a flush and a sink!! i know this as a fact as i have been in there when no one is looking and find using it far more enjoyable but equally as enfuriating!!

Anyway enough of that toilet talk! The people here are very nice and we get on very well with the owners of the accommodation and their kid, John. He is proper clever and frequently beats me at draughts although he does use strange thai rules!! He is also the best at speaking english and is often called over by the staff to translate words. We have also got to know some chilian people who we had a game of volleyball with yeserday and a swedish guy who is............ interesting!! its the full moon party tonight which should be a laugh and i'm sure we'll meet some more interesting people there too!