18 months of summer

has been a while i know, but there are two more than valid reasons for my silence. Firstly, ive spent most of the last 2 months in a place with no possible way of making contact. As is typical with Australians, they say ‘soon there will be’ this and that but nothing happens, just barbecues and carlton dry! so there remains no signal or internet, life has been strange!

Tuther reason is to be honest I have been working for most of the time since I last wrote, and I dunnae want to spend too much time on this topic!

Only one thing I want to say about it, just cos I know anyone who knows me will be like WTF!!! I drive a folklift for a living, emphasise drive! its so bloody strange that I would ever drive anything, no?ha! but its well fun, driving in circles and stuff 😉

I believe my last post was in Sydney no? If I repeat myself, pologise! but I came back to Melbourne rather swiftly, greener pastures and all that, despite the severely dissapointing beaches and strangely tropical weather, minus the heat! lovely people over here. I spent a long time looking and waiting for the right oppotunity to become apparent. Took a wee while, but I ende up about 6 hours north waiting and waiting for this grain harvest job to get going, frustrating that was, 20 of us sitting around in Hyah west (hardly a postcard destination). This wait was all because of the rain, which has caused no end of problems in these parts. The rains mean not only that we couldnt start work, but also whilst we were waiting there was bugger all to do, the temperatures were crap, teams of locusts (doesnt quite deserve swarm status) and mosquitos in the order that has not been experienced even here for many a season. So its all a little bit buggered!!

Happier times to come – right now im in Melbourne again staying with some lovelies I met here before for christmas, but im back later today to Hyah west and the friendly fat dog and manky tail will entertain me for another month! upon which I will be rich enough to buy a car and travel the great ocean road, grampians, Adelaide and over some of the longest entirely straight roads n the world toward Perth. This should be a damn sight more interesting for my next update, heres hoping!

Thats kinda all I have to talk about this time around, apart from mybe 2 tyhings:

MERRY CHRISTMAS
AND
HAPPY NEW YEAR CHUMS!!

we will meet again, and I will talk of my adventures over Yorkshire tea, ciao xxxxxxxxxxx

ok, has been a while since I updated and we’ve covered many a thousand miles in the meantime, not just in the air!

Dalat was where I left it previously, which ended up being by far the most awesome experience so far, and likely altogether. I wont give it all away, but I spent 3 days on the back of a motorbike entirely exposed to the elements, in the most impressive highland area in the south during monsoon season! That’s enough said for now.

The bikes dropped us off in a place called Miu Ne (may have already forgotten the spelling and certainly never understood the pronunciation!) where we had only 5 minutes to explore some pretty extensive sand dunes. The great thing about this was the road to get us there. The highlands are pretty much a very high elevation plateau with extremely steep and sudden edges, particularly in the south (our route). the road was awesome, views incredible and almost entirely empty!so we weaved and weaved til the beef came home, felt a little uneasy in my shorts and t shirt but was rather distracted by the mountains and massive HEP plant on the way down, loved it.

so then we went straight to Saigon, a city which I cannot recommend enough. have never found it so easy to meet the locals. plus we stumbled across some really friendly and generally excellent travellers literally seconds after vacating the bus, helps! 2 days there and an awkward bus trip and border crossing accompanied by a Jake Gyllanhaal look-a-like 😛 and Vietnam was fully dusted.

Cambodia turned into a bit of a whirlwind considering we pretty much did the two biggest destinations and traversed the entire nation in 3 days! luckily we managed to trade the bus for a high speed boat to Siem Reap from Phnom Penn, was fun but severely caught us off guard with the suncream! that was the last time, thank god that i’ve properly seen the Sun and my arms continue to peel. Angkor Wat was incredible but should be done in a week, not the 1 day we had. Be prepared for electricity failures and money swindlers to the extreme. Most people say bew3are of the kids, but I say beware of the police! for surprisingly similar reasons.

another border and back to Khoa San road for fun with the drunked british hoards :S enough of that

we are in Oz!!!!!hooorah! is what I wouls have said a month ago in anticipation. Now however, everyday is a monetary struggle, its rediculous. We honestly though twice about buying a can of beans! So work is on the agenda a lot earlier than assumed before. A week in the awesome city of Melbourne left us almost wanting to hate Sydney so that we could decide where to settle. We now realise that they whilst they both have their perks, Melbourne takes the biscuit just for being a bit friendlier and easy going. Ive seen the opera house a couple of times, but am yet to hit the beaches, god help them when I do. My saving grace is the season. Not only do we have time to recover our skin from Cambodia, having just come out of their coldest winter in 15 years, theyre pretty pasty 2!!woop woop!

all is a bit uncertain in the immediate term, but it will be revealed when we have our heads in the right place!

So long, speak soon and I miss you all tonnes and TONNES!! xx

alo english people hope all is dandy back home! but this is about me so shoosh!

I am in Bangkok right now, having a realy bloody marvalous time amongst all of the confusion and food (which is unbelievable, me and rach just ate a noodle thing, lots of fruit, 2 spring rolls, and sweet rice and it was under 2 slimey squid!!weeediculous.

anyways, the plan is off to taipei tomorrow to see Jasmine for a week, then over to Ha Noi on the 16th to travel down Vietnam and drop in on Cambodia and Laos, lovely jubblies! once we reach Bangkok for the third time, we fly straight off to Sydney

sorry to interrupt, but I just have to say the Thai government arent all that bad (sorta’). They are subsidising all tuk tuks at the moment so theyre unbelievably cheap. We had our own one for 3 hours today and it cost around 30p!! :O

sorry, im in a rush so cant be bothered with blog etiquate. we then have three months to do Oz which will take us up to Feb so happy new year! NZ for a month, fiji for a week long island hop and winding down before home. Oh, its possible we may stay in the states for a wee while and see Las Vegas as it may not be as expensive as previous estimates.

blimey, only 3 minutes left! IWe went to see the lucky buddah today, without knowing how lucky we were. Every time we mentioned it to a local afterwards, they were amazed that we had even geard of it, and informed us that it is only open on one day in the entire year!realy is lucky

hope that fills you guys in a bit!! pics soon promise! xx

hello guests

2 days to go til I can finally reap the benfits of this last year. Bloody exciting, but Ill wait just a lil’ longer to brief the detail, and avan experimental post first. Bear with me….

Since this is the very first time I have ever posted on my very own blog and I am far from being technologicaly mature, this may take a few attempts! My main problem right now is the damn image size!check out my friend down below and you’ll see what I mean! Whilst he is lovely, I tend to rely quite heavily upon smaller images to fool you fools into thinking I know how to take a picture. Heres hoping I will gain some experience in the next few months 😛

As a test round ive pulled together a few pics of the british countryside taken around February time. Reason being I have no ‘travel’ photos as of yet to put on my travel blog, so heres a few (hope they work);

HERES THE REST

Putting these together realy did remind me what I am going to miss about England – the super long, chilly, wet, grey, monotonous, anticyclonic winters. I mean that literally! look at the blog title. Yes, I’m gloting!!

So, ill be witing up the plan tomorrow, and maybe adding a few more interesting things to the page. Ill definitely be doing a regular thunderstorm count, just cos I love it, and I can!! You get the idea.

Any probs, let me know buddies!! much love

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