Things are fine.

Just boring as, D:

Essentially, I'm in Adelaide until at least the 9th. Which is when I have a job interview for working up at a resort some 400km north of the city. The issue is that I can't look for work at the moment, not that there'd be any that'd hire me for a week, anyway. I've seen most of what the city has to offer (for free, that is) and I can't really do anything much without spending money, which is something I'd rather hold off on for now.

In short, I've got over a week to kill, I'm bored, and there's nothing I can do except get all obsessive on Front Mission.

At the moment, there's genuinely nothing to report, which is why my blog has been so slow over the past few days, so I apologise for that, but there's genuinely nothing happening.

Also, Rob, it was Notes from a Big Country.

And so

In a rather pleasing turn of events, after dialling the Natwest 24 hour customer help line it only took me 6 minutes and 32 seconds to get through to an actual person who promptly diagnosed my issue and redirected me to the fraud squad who, despite the fact I'd even gone to the lengths of having a banker label my account as "for use in Australia" had blocked my account on account of it being used in Australia. They unblocked it, for me though, without asking for the two very important passwords that I can never remember, which is nicer.

Went for a wander around Adelaide today, to the State library to get some reading done as I'm here until at least the 10th. (I've got a job interview on the 9th). It's pretty impressive, but for a good deal of time I was wandering around the collosal building looking at exhibits and reference books. I eventually settled on a Bill Bryson book that I read through in the space of a few hours and I'm not considering spending my free time in the library becoming an expert on Robert Reagan. Something they have a considerable amount of texts regarding.

Also, I've found a sushi vendor who sells lunchboxes with 8 huge pieces (four various filling california rolls and 4 different toppings on rice) for six bucks, which is a little under tree pounds.

Sure as heck beats the hot dogs I've been living off for the past few days.

And now for something completely different.

t('_'t) McCloud.

Anyways.

Bad news, peepettes.

It appears, that Natwest have blocked my card, minutes after I'd just spent the last of my money of some Trigun books, >_>

As it stands, I have plenty of funds, just no way to access them, I'm gonna try transferring money from my natwest account to my National Australian Bank account, but I need my card reader for that and I'm not entirely sure if it's just my card that's blocked, or my entire account.

Thankfully, I'm paid up until Wednesday in my hostel, but I can't ring my local branch until at least 7pm Oz time tomorrow and I don't hold out hope for the customer service line.

Shitting dick nipples.

This is a blog about Australia.

Not a blog about how much I am annoyed with McCloud, although it seems to be taking a turn in that direction in the comments.

I didn't really want to dedicate multiple posts towards arguing my point, but I'd just like to highlight the fact that, McCloud, you have in multiple comments informed me that I didn't / don't "
"know the whole story".

What the hell did you expect then? Harold Shipman was a pretty good doctor, back before people knew "The whole story".

So, How did McCoud find my blog anyway?

I'm not gonna' drag this out. I've aired my views on McCloud aready and I'm happy to leave them as they stand. This is just a brief address as I've noticed that my views have kicked up bloody riots in the comments box, so here we go.

McCloud, You abandoned me, a socialy unconfident, timid as fuck, naieve boy on the other side of the fucking planet, of course I'm ever gonna be slightly angry.

Yeah, it may be cowardly of me to have blogged this whist I was right next to you, but I'm gonna excuse myseld due to the heady combination of rage, terror, and overwheming lonliness that I'd suddeny found mysef immersed in. Finding out you're in Oz on your own for even longer than you'd anticipated is pretty scary for someone who doesn't even like to take the bus on their own. What good, what honest to god good, would it have done if I kicked off on you right there and then at the hostel? Sure, I may be a coward, but I'm not an idiot. I'm not gonna start a fight with someone who has my room key, and I appreciate this doesn't really seem all that noble of me, but I didn't really feel like trying to reduce you to tears when it's your last day in a country. Those invites out for dinner? I was trying to be nice.

Also, I'd give a lot more of a damn about your hospital argument if the doctor had sent you away with slightly more then some pamphlets and a $100 bill.

You're telling people they don't know the whole story, hell, from what I've gathered, I apparently must not know the whole story either. Perhaps I'd be more forgiving if I did.

Peace.

Here comes the casual racism!

Asians will not talk to you without a fight. As a result, they make the worst room mates

Pics

Barron falls, or Barron valley waterfall, something like that. What you can't actually see is the big ass hydroelectricity plant that's up there. Judging from the angle I'd say that this shot was taking from the sky train, or somewhere near its route as the cable cars landed you almost directly in front of it.

If you enlarge this photo, you can actually see the pylons for the cable cars that took you up. There were about 30 over all, so this should give you an impression of the scale and distance.

I'm no photography expert, but this guy mist have done something funky with a wide angle lens as the angles on the two side rails in this picture were nowhere near this extreme. Still, I've been here, this is one of the first places you can view the falls from in this clarity.

Crocodile meat

Ain't all that nice. It's got a weird taste to it, =S I thought it'd be kicking rad, but it ain't all that.

So yeah, went up to Kuranda, a town in / beside the rain forest today. I hate my camera, it decided to pack up the moment I hopped in the 6 kilometer long cable car which goes over all the mountains and through the rain forests and vallies etc. Totally amazing views. Breathtaking and such. As a result I missed some pictures of some amazing stuff, but I'll try to google some up for you, so you have an idea.

So yeah, passing over roughly six k of rainforest, about 60-100m up in a rickity cable car was pretty fun. However the town on the end, Kuranda, is the ultimate tourist trap. It's literally all tacky shops and resteraunts. Although that's where I had the crocodile meat, at a wurst resteraunt of all places.

Nothing much to say aside from the fact that the trip up was awesome if the town was a little dissapointing. Pics of things I actually saw, even though they were from google will be in a following post due to blogspot having weird formatting.

I realise

That it's not exactly representative, but when the first Ozzies you meet after a week in one of their cities are a crowd of five who swarm you and start ripping the piss out of you for playing Time Crisis on your own as you wait for your movie to start, you kinda start doubting what everyone says about the Australians being super nice.

I mean, there are dicks everywhere, but why do I attract them? I seem to be a magnet for proof that people are assholes.

Also, I saw Batman, that movie is awesome.

Cairns: not all that bad?

So, after yesterday's little "upset" I went to the barrier reef today on my own. I booked the trip last night right after our little kerfuffle and I've gotta say, it was pretty awesome.

Although it took a while getting there, I suppose heading a fair few miles away from the coast was worth it, by our first stop we couldn't even see shore, so the coral was pretty much totally untouched. We had to weigh (spelling?) anchor a little bit off from the reef, but that was mainly so we didn't hurl a huge ass piece of steel into a fragile ecosystem, I imagine. So it took a little bit of swimming to get there. Swimming in the ocean away from any landmark is really bizarre. If you're face down for little over a minute the current's having its wicked way with you and when you raise your head back up you have zero idea of where you are. Popping up expecting to see the boat but seeing nothing is a little bit harrowing, especially when thoughts of certain movies are in your head.

Still, it was amazing, the reef itself was beautiful and the amount of fish out there was fantastic, there were turtles, sea sharks and all the other things you'd expect of the great barrier. T'was truely a sight.

Sorry about the lack of pictures, my own camera's being a bit of a shit and the underwater cameras were, to quote McCloud "Pricey".

Speaking of which.

After our little argument last night, we hadn't really talked, she reappeared briefly last night looking slightly upset (good, I thought) and I didn't see her until I got back at around 5pm today. She'd been at the pool all day and that was all the information she was willing to put forward.

She then informed me that "her parents think it best that she flies home ASAP" so she's leaving tomorrow. Like fuck, methinks. It's my personal, maybe slightly conceited, opinion that she doesn't like the fact I'm not a good dog who'll roll over for her retarded plans and so the thought of spending time with someone who has free thought and a vague will isn't appealing to her.

That's the whole two months / two days thing.

So yeah, seeing as it's her last night here, I thought I'd invite her out to dinner, just to do something flashy before she leaves, spend a little cash.

Essentially, she'd rather have some tesco value pasta at the hostel.

Nice.

So yeah, I went out into Cairns on my own and the city's night life actually looks pretty good. There are plenty of nightclubs, restaurants, bars etc and at the moment the city is hosting a festival. I spent a good hour watching some stand up comedy / rap / break dancing (all the same act) before moving on to watching a gig by an amateur rock group at a near by bar. Good times.

I got back at the ungodly hour of 10pm (!) and had to ring Elle as she had held on to our only key. It turned out she, being the wild party animal she is, had gone to sleep early and very snappily told me off for waking her up.

So yeah, I'm still a little bit angry.

Whatever, I can do what I want without her, tomorrow I'm gonna hang by the pool and then funds willing I'm going to see the rainforest by sky train.

Laters, toots.

Also, Anne Marie, Koalas are horrible animals, Marc's told you this. They're greasy and stinky and they do 'nout but sleep.

Oh and Dan, it's called a "Queensland bottle tree"

McCloud's leaving.

For Sydney, tomorrow.

She said two months, she gave me two days.

I'd laugh, but the joke's worn a bit thin.

Ok, so

Originally this was a bit of a private issue, but this blog is supposed to cover 'most every aspect of my trip, right? So, here we go.

By the way, for the people who I sent it to first, it is copy pasta, you'll have to excuse me for that.

You're going to have to excuse me, but I seriously need someone to rant at. but I really need to get it off my chest.

There may be swears.

I CANNOT FUCKING BELIEVE MCLEOD.

Oh my god, seriously.

I mean, firstly, let's summarise past events. She spends the best part of a school year begging, guilt tripping and persuading me to go to the other side of the planet, with just her, a girl I don't really know all to well. Eventually she succeeds and I save nearly all of my wages for the best part of the last good summer of my life, ignoring parties and trips to the beach for the sake of surviving on my own hard earned scratch in Oz.

She, on the other hand, has enough money to sustain herself for a good long while. Hell, for the first part of the trip she's staying in prepaid accomodation and then with her family. She's not even paying for her food or board, unlike me who'se done nearly this entire trip out of his own pocket.

She then texts me the morning I'm leaving the country to tell me that our two months is off, she's leaving Oz. I managed to persaud her to stay a week, with me, just so I'm not entirely on my own.

I mean, come on, I don't like taking the bus on my own, Australia? I was shitting bricks at the prospect.

That's pretty bad, right? Ok, let's move on to the current.

So I have a wonderful time in Sydney, without her. I meet her a few days later and I give her a well deserved telling off. She has no counter argument except "It's what I want to do and you can't change that". Ok, fine, whatever, I wasn't really holding out hope on swaying her to my side, but at least we can have a good time in Cairns, right?

Wrong.

Cairns is shit, there's not even a proper beach. There's a pool by the beach (which we spent a good few hours at, despite the fact that Elle refused to go back for our towells and cossies so we could actually swim. So I had to spend an hour bored whilst she lay there sunning herself.

So to have a good time in Cairns, you need to go to the sites, the rainforest, port douglas, the barrier reef.

"Elle, we're only here for a week, it'd be retarded not to see the sites. How about the reef tomorrow?"
"Yeah, ok"
"Look, there's this one here for [70 pounds]. You get taken out on a luxury boat, you get breakfast, lunch, free drinks and two hours of snorkling the reef with equipment given to you"
"That's kind of expensive"
"There's one here for [50 pounds]"
"..."
"Oh come on, here's one for [25 pounds]"
"why don't we just get the ferry to Fitzroy island, buy a snorkal each and check out the reef there?"

It's at this point she fucking made me flip. She's the one with enough fucking money to live for 2 months, whilst I'm the poor schmuck she's dragged out here, last minute notice to be her travel bitch, the guy who's gonna have to work to survive and yet she's going on about how this shit is too fucking pricey?

That's not even the worst part.

We start arguing a little bit, I tell her that's retarded, the island isn't even ON the reef. There's no coral and all the offwash from the city fucks up the water, she said that was bullshit and the tours were just trying to rip us off. Apparently 70 quid is too much for six hours on a luxury boat with supervision, food and two hours at one of the most beautiful natural occurances on the planet.

I then tell her she's being a cheapskate, that I'm gonna have to work soon so I'd at least like to see the sights before I do.

"Do it on your own then".

That's what she said.

That's what she fucking said.

I cannot believe she said that.

Do it on my own? I'm doing this whole fucking COUNTRY on my own. This whole fucking hemisphere! She's the one who's left me alone in the most inhospitable place on Earth and she has the gaul to tell me, during the only week I have with an actual friend, to do it on my own. I mean, how dare she! First she leaves me on my own for the two months we had planned, THEN she decides that I can do the week I have with her on my own?

I wanted to cry. I actually wanted to cry.

I don't know who she thinks I am, but I'm not a guy who can do the other side of the world, away from his family, away from his REAL friends without support. and the only time I have anyone by my side, she decides it's fine to just fuck off and spend 10 bucks to check out the coral that's been killed by the city's offwash?

SHE'S the one with the money here, SHE'S the one who's been experiencing this country as a tourist whilst I've been experiencing it as a backpacker, paying for my own food, my own board, finding my own way around.

You know what her excuse was? " I want money when I get back home, so I don't have to find a job straight away".

I mean, WHAT THE FUCK. She'd rather have money for going out in chepstow then seeing the mother fucking barrier reef? The Shitting rainforest?

Jesus christ.

So that's it. Fuck her. Fuck McLeod. I'm not talking to her. I'm going out tomorrow. to the barrier reef. On my own. She can fucking take Fitzroy island and stick it. She's flaked out on me majorly, twice now. I might fly to Adelaide without telling her, see how she fucking likes it on her own.

Fuck her.

So yeah, cheers for that. Sorry for spilling my bile all over you, I just needed to tell someone.

Thanks.

Sydney --> Cairnes

So, yesterday was my final day in Sydney, although it wasn't much of a day seeing as my plane left at 3pm and I was at the airport by 1. Still, I've gotta' say that all in all my 4 days in the city were pretty awesome. The hostel I stayed in, although slightly lacking in the cleanliness department was cheap, cheerful and gave you a surprising amount of free services in a retrospect brought about by the hostel I'm currently in, although more about that later.

Flying up to Cairns was a bit of a nightmare, the 4 hour flight was made almost unbearable due to the fact I seemed to have been tactically positioned in a central location between three young families, the parents of which seemed totally incapable of getting there kids to sit down and shut up. Little bastard one thought it was awesome to change aisles every five minutes or cry as a result, throwing pringles and trying to steal my satchel as he did so. Little shit behind me loved punching, actually punching, the back of my chair, an act which would have earned her a reclining seat back to the face if it had actually worked.

Still, it was all over in 4 hours, which compared to the england to Sydney flight, passed fairly easily.

So I'm in Cairns now, I'm not enjoying it. I know I've only been here for a night, but I can just feel it. It's not even a proper city, it's a beach town that's grown fat on tourism. The people are all beach beauty layabouts, which is nice for them, but when you're an uptight brit like me, it's kinda annoying.

It's all so relaxed, there's no pace. I guess that's what you get when you're a beach town with little else to do, but it's just not my sort of thing. I know I'm a total country boy, but I'm missing the hustle, bustle and generally liveliness of Sydney already.

The hostel as well, it's very pretty, decked out as you'd expect at a beach resort, rooms are animals, not numbers, there's palms everywhere, cabins instead of buildings, but they charge for everything. The internet, the lockers, the washing machines. There are no plugs in the rooms and no en suite. You get less but it costs more.

Anyways, gonna try and drag McCloud (who I spent a good two hours telling off last night) to get some breakfast. I am starving and she does not seem to care.

Jon's day at the zoo pt 2

Jon's day at the zoo

Pie and Peas

More time spent in Sydney

So, rather annoyingly, on the day where I went out and saw the most to date, I'd forgotten my camera, missed some amazing shots, so I'm afraid I'll have to list them for you, I'll try to get them today, moody camera willing.

• The swarms of bats at the botanical gardens
• The opera house lit up with the bridge in the background
• The magnitude of the city itself
• A gigantic flock of parakeets

Plan today is to visit Taronga zoo, which is about 20 pounds to get into, but is apparently totally worth it.

I've met some pretty cool people thus far to, an ex-soldier mexican hairdresser called David, my english room mate Ryan who's been giving me tips on employment and surviving, a party machine german who'se got an infinite supply of sambuka and a nice 30 year old guy from Manchester whose temp employment at the moment is working on a help line for people with sexual issues.

Oh, and this is what a guy who's been here two months had to say about the place I'm staying in;
"Kings Cross? It's a zoo, a fucking human zoo. It's where everyone from all over Sydney comes to get totally smashed because it's so cheap, they get off their tits, fuck shit up and then leave to go back to their snug flats and houses."

Natch.

Photos pending.

Comments,

Just a heads up, that if you leave a comment, I'll probably reply to it with another comment, so I'm not just blanking you, you'll have to check the comments so that this thing doesn't turn into some huge weird IM style affair.

Opera House

Couldn't find the Banksy piece though, :(

Exploring Sydney

Botanical gardens

Actually in Australia

So I landed in Australia at about 6:30am local time, it's now around 10:00am and I've only just got my bearings. The whole 30 hour flight thing didn't seem all that bad, I slept through most of it and discovered that I could watch Indiana Jones 4 and family guy for the rest of it. So, aside from the fact that I didn't eat the airplane food and the only sustenance I had for the entire journey was some noodles that almost made me miss my flight in Hong Kong, it wasn't as bad as it was made out to be.

The worst bit so far had to be actually getting to the hostel. Although they promised free airport pickup, a answer at the reception never came, so I had to get some freaky dual train which even involved (!) getting on to a different line. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a totally indecisive, fearful goon when on my own, so you can easily imagine how this sent me into a constant adrenalin high.

Still, got to my hostel in the end, although it appears to be in a recreation of Soho (It's roughly 5 strip bars, to three standard bars to one cheap as chips hostel), still for AU$20 a night, I don't really know what else I was expecting.

I'm going to go wander around Sydney now, pictures when I get back.

Peace.

Ok, scratch that.

So it turns out that aside from a big backpack, I am actually travelling alone. My travel buddy McCloud has just up and decided that a month (!) is enough of Australia (!) for her and that she wants to come back. Come back to what exactly I'm not sure, apparently Wales in winter with none of your friends around is preferable to the experience of a lifetime, but hey, maybe there's something about this country I don't quite appreciate.

Yes, I am bitter.

I am under the impression

That if I do not visit the Bundaberg factory when I'm out there, I'm to face some sort of almost capital punishment when I return. Not just Marc, but his dad to, have demanded photographic proof.

I hope you guys enjoy the inside of a rum distillery.

I call her "Big Red"

I'm not alone, I'm travelling with big red.

Who at the moment is packed nice and tight into lovely, organised strata starting with shoes and ending with my washbag. We'll have to see how long that lasts though.

Things to do in Australia

Just so I don't forget.

1. Write Josh an upset postcard
2. Get something neat for Dan
3. Get everyone a Koala. Or a Joey
4. Take a photo of that Banksy piece in Sydney
5. If it's not there, recreate the Banksy piece in Sydney
6. Don't die.