Predicted and Unpredicted Showers

After a quality couple of months in Australia, we caught our 3 hour internal flight from Cairns back down to Sydney and then our 10 hour flight from Sydney to Bangkok. 5 Films later, we were in the land of THAI! Here's what we've been up to:

Bangkok:
Spent a couple of days in Bangkok doing the usual tourist trail. Went to visit a few temples, experienced some of the local cuisine and enjoyed a lot of the Thai beer which in comparison to its Australian counterpart is ten times tastier and a quarter of the price! Most of our adventures/misadventures in Bangkok took place as a result of Tuk-Tuk rides... Thailands very own 3 wheel motorised Taxi's which feel like they are about to crash every 10 seconds. In an attempt to get to the Grand Temple, our driver instead insisted on taking us to the floating market before eventually dropping us 10 minutes away from where we wanted to be! (We didn't actually make it into the Grand temple as we deemed the entry price was far too expensive for our modest budgets and had already visited several other lovely Thai temples and smiling little budda's!). Similarly, when trying to get to one of Bangkok's famous shopping centres we were instead dropped at a huge local market which spanned about 2km of straight road which we walked down for hours... seeing shop after shop of Ben10 pyjamas, fabrics and generally nothing which 3 boys would want to buy! Another awkward Tuk Tuk encounter occured when one dropped us at a Suit shop  (that we had no desire of going into) on our way to a temple and said we had to go in for at least 10 minutes even if we didn't want to buy anything. We went in and after the salesmen got angry at us for not buying anything, we left after 5 minutes of awkward chat to return back to the angry TukTuk driver who said we didn't stay in their long enough! Mental!

Krabi
Next off we decided to go to Phi-Phi, but after a 12 hour overnight coach journey where the roof leaked on Dan's head, we arrived in Krabi where the roads were flooded and we discovered that due to the floods, no boats were running across to where we wanted to go. We checked into a hotel in Krabi Town where we were stuck for 2 days because of the floods, power cuts and interestingly enough a shortage of running water from the mains of anywhere in the town. This meant no flushing toilets, running water and perhaps most detrimental to our stay in Krabi... KFC was shut! After around 48 hours without a shower, we took advantage of the persistent rainfall and got ontop of the hotel roof with some shampoo and shower gel to have a 'natural' shower! This was fun, clean(ish) and provided us with something to do as for the rest of our time in Krabi we were either stuck in our shack of a room playing cards or eating at the same restaurant! Forgot to say, we also indulged in a Thai Massage to kill some time.... I would say that the word 'massage' is used very liberally here as I would call it more of an assault! David also pointed out that the Thai definition of a happy ending is perhaps different from ours of finishing feeling soothed and relaxed!

Phi-Phi
We eventually made the short boat ride across to Phi Phi, a really chilled island with several amazing beaches scattered in or around it, including Maya Bay most famous for being where the film 'The Beach' was set. PP was a mix of chilling on the beach topping up our tans, going out in the night to one of the many beach bars and also seeing a couple of nutters kick the living daylights out of eachother in a bit of Thai Boxing... great entertainment and a very very cool 5 days spent on the island.

Rai-Lay Beach-
Next off we hopped on the short boat trip to Rai-Lay beach where we spent 3 nights in the comfort of a hotel/resort for only a few pounds each a night. Very very relaxing couple of days on a beautiful island which is pretty undiscovered by tourists. Highlights of our stay were the BBQ fish dinners (sampling sea bass, shark, kingfish for only a couple of quid a night) and also David's admittance/revelation that when he went swimming with Dolphins in New Zealand, upon his emergence from the sea and back onto the boat he was very excited and proclaimed that they should rename the tour 'Dancing with Dolphins!'. Despite being man enough to admit how ridiculous he sounded this has not stopped an onslaught of rinsing of his manlyhood.

Koh-Tao
I write this blog from Koh-Tao, where we have been for 5 days whilst David is completing his PADI Scuba Dive License and continuing his love affair with the water! As David gets his accommodation pretty much free with the course, me and Dan are staying in the same lovely resort for the small cost of an extra bed in the room a night. It is probably the nicest place we have stayed during the 6month trip and as well as the usual chilling on the beach/by the pool we have been and done a few things too.

First off, Dan and I got a haircut. This in itself was always going to be a risk due to the language barrier, but when your hairdressers is a he-she with boobs and a beard, the risk factor, in my opinion, doubled! Thankfully both haircuts turned out OK, much better than the massacre of my hair in Argentina!

Another great moment of the trip took place a couple of days ago.... when it was Thai New Year. It is a tradition on this day for the Thai people to go around with water guns drenching absolutely everyone whiilst getting drunk. Another funny custom they had was to chase people with soap and try and shampoo people's hair... very much in a similar way to how the big guy in Takeshi's castle tries to attack people with his painted hand when the contestant is trying to complete the giant maze! Not wanting to insult anybody, we soon joined in with the fun and partied from around 3pm until the early hours of the morning in a mix of swimming pool and beach bar parties. Highlights of this particular night were shutting Dan in a chest freezer full of ice and sitting on it and also jumping through a ring of fire! (A hoop set on fire... not a deck of cards pre-arranged for a drinking game).

And the rest..

• Dans has made an outrageous claim that he can perform 10 somersaults whilst underwater in the swimming pool. He is yet to back up this claim.

• We have suffered the biggest loss of the trip to date. Bigger than Kurdish Michael going home, just about bigger than leaving Jonny in Australia and just pipping our first football Wilson being torn apart on a night out in Bolivia... on a perfectly calm sunny day in Phi-Phi, we lost our beloved yellow official weight disc blaze ultimate Frisbee in a freak sea accident! Beach days just haven't been the same ever since

• Have had amazing weather since the Krabi floods, and had some of the tastiest food of the trip for some of the cheapest prices.

• After traveling with the same people for 6 months you would think that you would run out of things/stories to tell eachother, and whilst it is true that I have heard Davids yet to be confirmed as true 'goal monster' story around 20 times and Dan's Teddy Sherringham Bumblebee tale so many times I know it off by heart.... yesterday whilst sitting in the pool I heard 2 new fantastic stories from the pair of them! Don't let anybody ever tell you that Dan Cohen and David Friend can't spin a good Yarn. Please feel free if you ever see Dan crossing the street to get him to give you a rendition of his David 'The Sherriff' Seaman story, and similarly if you ever want to be enthralled for minutes... ask David to give you a quick recital of his Kenny Dalglish wonder!

 In other news, I have 2 weeks left of the trip and Dan/David have another 4 weeks as they have extended their trip to go and see Cambodia/Vietnam and Laos. Next up is Ko Phangan for the full moon parties and hopefully a few more epic nights out.

Until next time..

GOOD BYE!

Life's a Beach

Since I last wrote, 6 weeks have passed. Michael has left us, Spurs have defeated AC Milan in the champions league, Me and Dan have woken up at all sorts of hours to see the mighty Spurs play, we have left Sydney and said goodbye to Jonny - reducing our travelling group from a fantastic 5 to a feeble 3, David has shaved his hair off and Dan fears his head will explode!

Sydney
We lived in an apartment right on Bondi Beach for about 5 weeks and this proved to be a more chilled but still awesome experience. We sacrificed a couple of wild nights out for TV-watching nights in - partly due to the lack of money and partly due to Sunday nights fantastic TV viewing - Bondi Rescue, Hawaii Five 0 and NCIS LA became staple viewing! Meanwhile, Friday nights seemed to be occupied by going to dinner at our adopted Family, the Hoffmanns! My boss at work, Brenda (Brendles as she was affectionately nicknamed!) was a lovely jewish lady who kindly took the 4 of us into her home for Friday night dinners and to meet the family, feeding us up and sending us home with the leftovers! The food and hospitality was very much welcomed having been living off of Instant noodles and pasta for days on end! Meanwhile, a few of the Aussie girls we met in Argentina also took pity on our malnourished bodies and invited us round for a delicious BBQ.

We had some fun nights out including Brenda's Daughters Chloe's 21st Birthday Party - A fancy dress house party with the theme 'In the Garden'. Me, David, Jonny and Dan dressed up as a washing line and thought we were rather witty!:

Between going to the beach, watching DVDs and working our respective jobs, We also found some time to be tourists and visit the Opera house and Harbour Bridge... Dan in Particular enjoyed getting up close and personal with the opera house:

As our time in Sydney drew to a close, we began thinking about rushing our way up the east coast and Dan and David headed to Byron Bay where David shaved his hair off and they had a delightful time on the beaches and looking around the town. I stayed in Sydney for a couple of extra days then said my Goodbyes to all the lovely people I had met, and also to Jonny who is staying in Sydney for a couple more weeks and whom I wont see until he is back in England in around 6 months or so... Sad times!

(Jonny's hat in particular will be sorely missed!)

Brisbane:

Next up I took the 16 hour bus ride up to Brisbane, where Dan and David also arrived after their trip to Byron, and we all met up with Jack and Oscar, 2 friends we met in Bolivia who you may remember fondly from previous blogs entries in which Oscar ate a bunch of fish food and Jack was awfully handsome!

Our 4 days, 3 nights in Brisbane were hilarious and despite being poor travellers like ourselves, Joscar demonstrated outstanding hospitality in borrowing bedding for us and buying us a welcome pack of eggs bread milk and cornflakes. Here are a couple of highlights from the brief stay:

• Sausage-Gate: Oscar having recently travelled with a couple of Israeli's was intent on making us a traditional Israeli dish upon our arrival, and one that he had just learnt was a tasty Israeli stew called Shishuka (not sure how you spell that!). Anyway, whilst he was at work, he texted me asking to take his Sausages out of the freezer, and I obliged. Later in the night, when he got home, there was a powercut and in the darkness, lit only by candlelight, his french housemate Remi appears out of nowhere and accuses me of taking HIS sausages out of the freezer to defrost.... I immediately pointed the finger at Oscar who had told me to take the pack of sausages out of the freezer and despite Oscar realising he had made a mistake in that his sausages were in the fridge and not freezer, he maintained his innocence and let me take the wrap. As we later told the story to Dan and Jack, the story got more and more ridiculous until it was decided that Remi had been a raging frenchman who had accused me of being a 'Sausage Bastard!'. That aside, Oscar made a fantastic Shishuka despite having to chop all of the vegetables in the pitch black!

• Gold Coast - made the short trip down to the gold coast and more specifically to Surfers Paradise, a beautiful beach famous for its big waves. We spent a great day there with the boys playing football, frisbee, and jumping in the sea to rid us of our respective hangovers.
  
  

• Brisbane city... surprisingly cool city with plenty to do... especially when Jack and Oscar are involved!

• Oscar's face upon realising he would be too late to get a Mcdonalds breakfast... a 6 foot 4 man close to tears!

Cairns:

After a mad few days and a couple of emotional goodbyes in Brisbane, we boarded our plane to Cairns where I am writing from now. Dan and David are currently doing a scuba dive in the great barrier reef and then tomorrow we are heading off for Thailand. It is a sign of how long I have been on the road for when I am most looking forward to receiving 1 (or hopefully 2) free meals on the aeroplane!

Thailand on Sunday...
The last leg of the trip. The first time in 5 and a half months that we will be properly travelling in a group of 3. We are all very excited at the prospect of travel, cheap food and accommodation, good weather, wild nights out, exciting new things to see and generally seeing what Thailand has to offer. My prediction is that the Thai people will be friendly but sly! Fingers crossed that they are nowhere near as annoying as the Bolivian locals.

In other news, Dan has expressed concern about his head exploding due to a scuba dive and 3 flights in 3 days messing with the pressure in his head! Concerns were almost realised when he gave a positive reading in a routines explosive check at the airport last night, but a second test came back all clear. That actually happened!

That about wraps things up, so until next time...

Adios!

Australia-la-la

Just  a quickie....

What we've been upta
So after an emotional goodbye to whats-her-face (Amanda) we caught the short flight from Christchurch, New Zealand, to Sydney, Australia. The journey was painless, a short 3 hour flight was nothing in comparison to the 14 hour rocky bus journeys of Bolivia. Saying that... the pilot was seemingly terrible and almost crashed upon landing! We jumped into a shuttle that took us into the heart of Sydney's city centre... and more specifically to our Hostel... which was an absolutely dump! Highlights included the hapless staff (I asked one for a paperclip and she genuinely didn't know what a paperclip was, claiming English was not her first language) weird guests... and complimentary cockroaches! We stayed a couple of nights here and had a few very unsuccessful nights out. The first night out.... Michael and David were still in New Zealand mode so wore flip flops to go to a bar... but the bar had a strict shoes only policy... and despite Me lending Michael my socks to put over his flip flops as a genius disguise, we were turned away! The other night out involved being ejected from a bar for cheekily drawing an F on my hand and claiming that it meant I was owed a free drink. Bouncers in Australia are apparently more uptight than the Kiwi ones!


Fed up of the hostel, the seemingly weak nightlife and the cloudy weather... we were all but ready to pack up and move onto Melbourne. However, after a trip down to Bondi Beach on our third day, and the first sunny day of our time in Oz, we realised we had found our true calling! Bondi Beach is a wonderful place my friends, great views, great weather and great women... poyfect! We realised the error of our ways in staying in the centre of the city and quickly moved to a new hostel by the beach which was much more chilled out... and began our search for jobs, cheaper accommodation and a decent night out! Also... we have met back up with Jonny who flew into Australia a few days after us.... more on that later! (below... Bondi Beach)

Business Ventures
Given that the average price of a cadburys Dairy Milk here is about 1pound50, money is sure running out fast and we have become inventive in new ways of saving money (using mcdonalds for free wifi and free ketchup, eating peoples left over food etc!) - also stepped up the search for job.

• However, Before resigning ourselves to the working world  Myself and Michael got a bit entrepreneurial and decided to try and make a quick buck by making and Selling Sandwiches! We bought a load of ham bread and mustard from the supermarket, swiftly made and wrapped 50 sandwiches and places them in our cool bag, made a sign... and headed out into the streets of Sydney to get selling... $2 a sandwich, the freshest and cheapest in town... surely we were onto a winner!? Apparently not... we broke even on our 30$ costs and made about a 10$ profit each. We discovered that nobody really wants to buy sandwiches off of bearded travellers... and also that people ended up just giving us money out of sympathy! On the plus side, we got a lot of exercise walking around and also saw a lot of tourist attractions including the opera house and the harbour bridge... both of which are no different in real life as to what they look like on google images!

• By chance I was standing by reception at our second hostel when they got a call from a tree surgeon saying that he needed some assistance for the following day... essentially labouring for him by carrying large trees, branches etc to his trailer once he had cut them down. For 20$ an hour, I bit his hand off and the next day I began working for Pip, The Tree Surgeon! Pip, aged around 35 is a big man who carries his tiny dog on a pink lead with him to work every day. Pip, cuts down trees using chainsaws. Pip is skilled at his job. Pip has a funny name. I have never done a days gardening in my life. I am small. I have a normal name. So the next 5 hours were pretty hard work as I schlepped heavy trees and branches over many metres and lifted them into his trailer, occasionally having to cut them down and do some raking and leaf blowing in the process. The work in the sweltering heat was extremely tough but i got through, and he even hired me a few more times after which was most delightful. Theres even whispers of me being nominated for young rakesmen of the year 2012 (I already beat David to it this year despite his work helping an old lady renovate her house and garden)

• Pip only can give me occasional work, so I have now scored myself a full time job... Holding a sign for a shop! I get paid 50$ to stand (or sit) holding a sign for 4 hours a day. Its the easiest money I have ever made. I don't have to do anything but exist, and hold a sign. Simples! (Family... I know you are really proud of me!)

Apartment
Due to the extortionate price of hostels, its actually cheaper to rent an apartment! So very quickly, we found and moved into one right next to the beach, on Bondi Road... and its absolutely awesome! Me, Jonny, David and Dan are the occupants, with Michael just crashing on our couch for the week until he heads back home. We have quickly made the place our own, and it is great not to be living out of a suitcase again, if only for the next 5weeks or so! New Apartment, 'Cassa De Gringo' shown below!:

Birthday Week
The much anticipated Birthday Week is under way! Jonny celebrated his birthday on Saturday night and we decorated the flat accordingly.... banners, hats, balloons, cake etc etc! Michael's Birthday is on Tuesday, and Davids on Wednesday... so the messy week looks set to continue!

People

• Australians - haven't met very many yet! Everyone around here seems to be travellers! Hope to find some real ozzys soon!

• Thomas - staff at our Bondi Beach hostel. French. Extremely good at table tennis. Extremely bad at doing an English accent.

• The Kaizer - or captain of 'Team Ireland' - the hostels group of travellers who took over the kitchen every night. We despised her for many reasons, not just that she was fat and ugly!

• A tramp... in a bid to save money... we slept on the beach with a many a tramp the day before we moved into our new apartment as we did not fancy spending another 100$ collectively on one more nights stay at the hostel. Michael and Dan chose a nice concrete floor next to the tramps, whilst me and David opted for the softer sand. It was uncomfortable and got freezing at about 5am.... but money well saved and another life experience gained!!

• Michael Rhodes. Lad. What a man. He is going home on Thursday after an extremely enjoyable and memorable 4 month stint with him. He will be missed greatly by all. The rumours are true.... Rhodes does indeed know the roads... and his navigation skills have pretty much single handedly got us to where we are today. I will not however miss his Kurdish beard.
  
• Ricky Lawrence - true legend. Fact.

Aims
So looks like going to be in Sydney for the foreseeable future.... have a couple of publishable things to tick off my checklist:

• See an Ozzy Rules Footy game
• Have a good night out
• Rid Michael Rhodes from our lives
• Have a BBQ on the beach
• Find a nice Australian Girl to marry
• Get a great tan (yes i am using factor 50 sunblock mum)
• Find another job to save some money so that I am not a tramp in Thailand!

So that just about wraps it up! I'm off to do a wee that I have been bursting to do since I got into this Internet cafe, then (after washing my hands) will be going to buy some fresh vegetables to make a pasta sauce with!

Until next time... Byeeeee!
x

'Sweeeeet As'

Sweet As Bro! New Zealand has had a bit of everything, and due to the extortionate cost of getting on the Internet and the lack of free time, this blog post has been extremely delayed! I will attempt to fill you in on the last month of my trip....so eeeree goooeezzz:

New Years Antics:
Having just arrived in New Zealand and chilling in Auckland for a few days, we didn't really know what to do for new years. After attempting valiantly to board a freighter ship to Fiji, but falling short at the final hurdle, we decided to make the short 3 hour trip up to the Bay of Islands situated at the very north of the north island of NZ. From here, We got a ferry across to an island with a funny name, believed to be Uckupucku or something similar for the Annual New Years Eve Music Festival / Fancy dress pirate party! We had a cracking night, and given the short notice, our pirate outfits went down a huge hit:

However, perhaps the most remarkable thing about that evening / the trip / my life was the 'Miracle of Che'
.... I attempted to draw a pirate upon Dans arm, but after drawing a circle and two dots in about 1 second, I realised I had drawn a perfect replicate, completely by accident, of the iconic photo of Che Guevara! Truly Unbelievable I think you will agree:

To this day I still can't believe it! When the party died down, we got on the ferry back to the hostel where our bags were stored, but as we were doing a day trip the next day at 7am, we decided against booking in at the hostel and instead, attempted to slum it for a few hours between 4am and 7am. We didn't take into account that the storage room would be shut and that it would be cold and wet... so we spent these few hours shivering on the outdoor decking before I found refuge in someone elses room... and then discovered that the hostel had a hot tub, so on New Years Day, 2011, at 6am, we relaxed / recovered from near frostbite in a relatively dirty and overly hot, hot tub!!

At 7am on New Years Day, we were picked up by our bus for the day to take us to Cape Reinga, the most northern part of New Zealand where the Pacific and Tasmin Sea's meet. The views were incredible, and after a jumping in the sea with massive freezing waves crashing over us... we were rid of our hangovers! The rest of the day was spent on the famous '90 mile beach', going sandboarding down massive sand dunes, and on the way back from an extremely long day, we got the best fish and chips I've ever had from the apparently world famous "Mangonui Fish and Chip Shop". The fish had been caught merely hours earlier and it was heavenly!!

Car Rental/Car Mental:
For the rest of our time in the north island, we decided to rent a car to give us the freedom we so badly craved! We didn't take into account that it was peak season for car rentals, so dreams of a camper van soon diminished, and after hours upon hours of searching, we settled for a Toyota Camry. This my friends is the definition of a mid of the range business mans car! It was a 5seater and given that there were 5 of us plus all of our luggage, it was a miracle that we all managed to fit in comfortably. The boot of the Camry was bigger than Ian Wrights Wife! Me and Michael were the designated drivers for the 10 days we had the car, and here is a quick run down of what we got up to:

• New Chums Beach - one of the worlds top 20 beaches. bliss.
• Hot Water Beach. Does what is says on the tin... burns ya feet.
• Played a whole lot of pool. David mentored me to become an average player but I had to sack him when he failed to take me to the next level. I installed Rhodes as my new mentor but we're already having teething problems. I feel a bit like a caged rocket Ronny ready to be let loose!
• Hells Gate - Hot Mud Baths.
• Maori Village - Exhibition of the customs of the Maori people including meeting a tribe, being shown the Haka very enthusiastically and having a 'hangi' or feast as we would say in English!
• Caving/Abseiling/Black Water rafting - Action packed day, very fun, sounds more dangerous than it was though!
• Skydive....

Skydive over Lake Taupo:
The 5 of us decided to do a skydive from 15,000 ft in the air, jumping out of an aeroplane and free falling for 60 seconds before the release of a parachute, attached to a stranger that we could only hope had guided people to safety before! I was very nervous beforehand, especially after the kind receptionist at the hostel asked us why we would want to get out of a perfectly functioning aeroplane at 15,000 ft in the air when we could land safely without jumping out! I put his perfectly logical question to one side as we got inside the tiny aircraft and readied myself for the big moment! I was strapped to my Canadian instructor Cody and after I had seen the trees below turn to dots in the distance and had watched David and Dan being sucked into thin air, I found myself at the open door of the plane, flying high, hanging out....and then.... whoooshhh.... I was pushed out by my instructor and began the ferocious fall screaming shouting and attempting to breathe! Before I knew it, the parachute had been pulled and I felt safe again as I glided for few minutes to the ground, landing perfectly and taking in the great views over the glorious Lake Taupo on the way down! Splendid.

Delighted to be alive, I began to jump up and down with the others for a video but ALAS jumping up and down appears to be more dangerous than skydiving as the clip on the harness smashed me in my teeth when I was in the midst of celebration! Classic moment and.... OUCH!

The rest of our car rental experience was awesome - the scenery on the drive was the best I have ever had the privilege of driving through, and despite us only having 1 CD for the car for 10 days, we made the best of a bad situation and this hit by 'collective soul' became our car anthem... mainly because everyone hated it but I kept playing it!! See Link Below for the song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9ywbNv72xM

South Island/Kiwi Experience:
After crossing the channel and arriving in the South Island, we boarded the much talked about Kiwi Bus. (A bus full of young traveller that takes you to loads of popular places). Highlights include:

• Poo Pub! A pub/hostel nicknamed the poo pub due to its location by Lake MahinaPUA. The place has become legendary because of its owner, an 85 year old mental man called Les with a big beard! Everyone from the bus dresses up in fancy dress and pretty much goes a bit mental:

• Franz Joseph Glacier. 'The worlds fastest moving ice glacier' - It was really cool, we drunk some glacier water, climbed through tunnels, caves, tight spaces, hiked for about 6-8 hours and threw some glacier water over our heads. COOOL!

• Made loads of friends including Canadian Ryan - LEGEND, The other Leeds Uni boy crew (pannicc), Euan who's cross dressing antics made for a hilarious story, the flying Belgium, and many many more.

Queenstown:

Picture about sums it up:

The penultimate stop of our Kiwi Bus is/was Queenstown. Its by far my favourite place in New Zealand due to the nightlife, picturesque scenery, heaps of activities to do and of course the notorious and delicious 'Fergburger' Restaurant. Our 7 days here have been particularly crazy, involving a lot of partying and of course....

THE NEVIS BUNGY JUMP!! The third highest bungy jump in the world, hovering a staggering 134m over a canyon, leaping off a tiny platform in a suspended cable car, attached only by some bungy rope attached to your ankles! I was pooping my pants prior to doing it, and being the lightest in the group, I had to go last!! When it was finally my turn, my instructor shouted 3-2-1-JUMP, and with that, I took a leap of faith, literally, and sprung into the air and for some reason decided to shout/scream 'LEEEEESSSNEEERR!!" It was unbelievably unbelievable as I plummeted for what seemed like an eternity before feeling the re-assuring feel of the bungy chord kicking in and the feeling of weightlessness disappear! Of course the bungy was not over and after bouncing back high again, i was dropped again a few times before being towed back up to the cable car and kissing the 2 instructors jubilantly. I thanked them profusely for not killing me and we were all absolutely buzzing. Amanda certainly won the award for most comical fall, I hope that one day you all get to see her video! My Bungy video can be seen below:

Freeeee stuff
In Queenstown we have won and worked for an incredible amount of free stuff! It all began on the day we got here and we haphazardly entered ourselves into the 5-a-side footy tournament. Our team of Me, David, Dan, Michael in goal with his marigold gloves on and Canadian Ryan grew in stature and confidence throughout the tournament.... drawing our first 3 games before winning our last league match - and then winning the final on penalties thanks to some heroics from Rhodes in net. Ryan was an absolute gem, having only played football a few times in his life, he was taking on players and banging in the goals for us! Our prize was a 100$ free bar tab at Buffalo's Bar which we were most grateful of and it lead to a fantastic night out on the town! At the bar, I also won a free zip-line day out in a raffle... Result!

Earlier in the week I was really hungry and got a free pie by simply asking for one!!

Later in the week.... I won a Free Bungy Jump by winning a dance off with some SICK moves!! So yes.... just as I thought my extreme sports days were behind me, Today I partook in my second Bungy Jump of the week.... this time from a shorter distance but it was equally as scary and even more fun as I got to take a run up and hurl myself off the top of a cliff before having a fantastic view over queenstown on the way up.... WOHOOO!!

Michael and I also worked for a couple of days, cleaning for 2 hours in exchange for a free nights stay at the hostel. We had a laugh changing the bed sheets whilst extremely hungover!

Finally, My Zipline experience which I won was pretty tame in comparison to my other extreme sport activities, however, I am proud to say I have now zipped down the highest zipline in the world! The experience was somewhat less dramatic given that the average age of the group I was with was about 60 years old, but a free activity is a free activity and it was a very pleasant afternoon!

Jonny, Will, Amanda, Serial Killer
Remember Jonny....who we travelled with in South America....We met back up with him in Queenstown and had a cracking night out. We hope to see him again very shortly in Australia. He is still really good at stuff... he fixed my flip flop with a paper clip.

And What of Amanda I hear you ask? She has been an extremely wonderful addition to our group over the month in new Zealand and I for one will be extremely sad to see her go. She is much much much better to look at than those ugly mugs of Dan David and Michael!

Will Burgess. WILL BURGESS??!?!!? We only went and ran into none other than under 17 Spec Legend cup winning hero Will Burgess on a night out in Queenstown. Absolute LEGEND! Small world eh!

The Serial Killer.... There was a Dutch woman on our kiwi bus who we have nicknamed the Serial Killer. This is because her face actually offends us! She is really odd looking and we believe she has escaped a mental asylum and is on the run. We haven't seen her in a few days and are pretty grateful!

What Does the Future Hold? Noodles?
With Money running out fast, instant noodles have been the order of the month in New Zealand. I now consist of roughly 70% instant noodle, 20% pasta and 10% beer. We are flying to Australia in 2 days where the plan is to work work work and also celebrate Jonny, David and Michael's Birthdays within 4 days of eachother in the middle of February.... or as it has become known.... "BIRTHDAY WEEK". It Promises to be a classic.

Peace and Love and Gareth Bale

xxxx