The Final Stretch???

Looking back over the previous post, I remember that the job situation was not looking too optimistic. I'm glad to say that this situation has since changed, and we all now have some sort of income arriving every now and again. I was the first to get a job, which was with Microsoft as a Vista "Guru" (their word, not mine!). It basically involved going out to clients and potential customers and explaining to them why, with the latest SP1 release, Vista is no longer a shite operating system. The job wasn't great but at least it was something. Mick then caved in his search for a professional type job and sent his CV around the local establishments. On a particularly low day, he submitted an application to a priest for a Graveyard Groundskeeper position. This guy rang Mick back and explained that his duties would include weeding, cutting the grass, general maintenance and digging graves. Apparently whatever way the graveyard is set up, they can't get any digging equipment in to dig graves so it's all still done the old-skool bucket-and-spade way. After a brief chat Mick said he'd be happy to go ahead with it, money's money after all. The priest said he'd let him know. He did let him know about 2 days later.... he didn't get the job! How much of a blow to your self esteem is that? Not good enough to dig holes? Anyway having survived being a suicide risk for a few days he eventually got a job, 2 jobs actually, in the local off-licence and the local video store. After 6 years in college, and achieving a masters in Engineering, all the hard work has finally paid off. He now spends much of his evenings delivering beer to strip clubs.... Fearghal was next to get in on the act, getting another job in the local gym. It's pretty much the same position he was in in Melbourne, enjoyable job, free membership etc but not great hours or pay. It's also an extremely gay-friendly gym which is funny for our extremely homophobic Fearghal, although he is coming to terms with it and I think he's after making himself a few little friends. Gegor was the last to join the force, which was not that much of a big deal as he is still quite financially comfortable after his late arrival. He is now working away in a call centre in North Sydney, as far as I know it's only a 1 month contract so he'll be back on the hunt in January. I'm not too worried for him, he has more commercial experience than any of us so he'll be fine once the market picks up in January. 1 week after I started work with Microsoft I got a phone call about another interview I had attended who were offering me a full-time job as a Reporting Analyst. I had to take it as it was better money / hours and has long term sponsorship possibilities. So that's where I am now writing this from (obviously on my breaks).....


We've led quite the normal life since sorting ourselves out so there isn't much padding I can add to this installment. I think for my own purposes, I'd like to document a few things like "best of...." lists, or "not worth it" lists. I'll try to put some sort of logical flow to these.....

Top 3 Xtreme Activity type things:

1: Skydiving, Lake Taupo, NZ Reason:

The pendulum swing of emotion from pure fear to huge adrenaline in seconds

2: Cycling Down the Road of Death, La Paz, Bol

Scenery, the animal sanctuary at the bottom, but mainly for the raw, unregulated experience of knowing that if you fall there is no safety net over the 200m drop

3: White Water Rafting, Rotorua, NZ

Some serious currents and a 7m waterfall which left us completely submerged

Top 3 Wonders of the world: (bit of a default list as we only saw 3, but I'll at least rank them)

1: Christ the Redeemer (Corcovado), Rio de Janeiro, Bra

Maybe because it was the 1st major sight we had seen, but as well as the statue being immense, the view was like nothing I'd seen before

2: Machu Picchu, Peru

After a 24km trek, the sense of achievement only adds to the majestic ruins that sit at the top of the mountain

3: Foz do Iguaçu, Arg & Bra

This was the one thing that I was looking forward to the most, and admittedly was slightly disappointed by, but that didn't stop it being absolutely awe-striking

Top 3 Cultural Experiences:

1: Visiting San Pedro Prison, La Paz, Bol

Such a strange, slightly scary but mostly fascinating day trip

2: Favela Tour, Rio de Janeiro, Bra

Having seen City of God, this was an eye-opener to how true to life that film is

3: Tango Show, Buenos Aires, Arg

The fanciest thing all trip, but along with the food and wine etc., the show was actually very entertaining and the dancing awesome

Top 3 things that disappointed a little:

1: Franz Josef Glacier, NZ

I'm not sure what anyone else pictured a glacier to be, but this was not what I had in mind, not as large or crystally as I was expecting

2: Steve Irwin Zoo, Noosa, Oz

Very zoo-like. Nothing different than any other zoo except for a croc/snake/bird show thing that wasn't great.

3: Santiago, Chile

This would be top, except we were warned how rubbish it was before we got there. Disappointingly it lived up to its reputation

Best 3 Nightlife Cities:

1: Cuzco, Peru

Easily the winner. No place has ever come close, on this trip and from Ibiza to San Diego and Ayia Napa to Amsterdam. There is no single factor, and I couldn't explain why, but you've got to go...

2: Rio de Janeiro, Bra

Serious party town 7 nights a week, unlimited options to choose from: normal nightclubs, Favela parties, dodgy house-come-club clubs, to full on street parties

3: Buenos Aires, Arg

The most western European city of the lot. Awesome superclubs to chose from, as well as non-existent closing times, epitomized by the slagging you get from the taxi driver if you go home pre 6AM.

Best Scenery:

1: Salta de Uyuni, Salta, Bol

When compared to the next 2, this is probably not the "nicest" scenery as such, but it is definitely the most original and diverse. Multi-coloured lakes, natural steam baths, a desert of salt and volcanoes, it's got the lot

2: Fraser Island (day & night time), Oz

Mainly ahead of the Whitsundays for the unbelievable stargazing, but also weighs in with nice beaches and crystal clear freshwater lakes

3: Whitsunday Islands, Oz

Whitehaven Beach, voted the 2nd most beautiful beach in the world, it's easy to see why. The other islands are pretty decent too.

Cities I would like to live in:

1: Sydney, Oz

Obviously

2: Rio de Janeiro, Bra

Beautiful beaches, scantily clad ladies and kick ass nightlife. It's a good combination

3: Buenos Aires, Arg

The easiest South American city to adapt to, they are very willing to converse in English. Also boasts the same characteristics of Rio above, just to a lesser extent

Top 3 Bunk Bed Funny Moments: (probably all had-to-be-there moments)

1: Mick:

Mick attempting to get down his bunk bed ladder with an obstacle in the way, Cuzco, Per

2: Gegor:

Gegor falling from his top bunk, but catching the rail with his right hand and left foot simultaneously, leaving him just helplessly swinging there, above some poor German girl who didn't know what was going on., Earlie Beach, Oz
3: Me:

Apparently, me falling off the top bunk naked, Rio, Bra

Finally, my top 5 experiences not limited to category:

1: Visiting San Pedro Prison, La Paz, Bol
2: Swimming with Dolphins, Kaikoura, NZ
3: Skydive, Lake Taupo, NZ
4: Seeing Christ the Redeemer, Rio, Bra
5: Hard to split so, the combination of Whitsundays and Fraser Island trips, East Coast, Oz


I've also stuck together a folder of all of my favourite photos, whether they be for scenic, cultural, comedic, artistic or basic reminiscing, they're all in there.

There's also a video I've knocked together, which we started doing in New Zealand. It's a work in progress, and apologies to Flanners in advance for the lack of recognition....

Looking forward, we are just gearing up for Xmas. Lefty gets here today, so to accommodate the full house we had to have another draw to see where to put the newbie. Another fair draw took place and Mick "won" again as Oisin put it, making Micks room a bi-human holding. If that's the case that's one draw I'm happy to lose. We're still trying to plan what to do for the 25th and New Years Eve, but at the moment it looks like the beach for Xmas day and maybe the Opera House for New Year. This Saturday we're also partaking in the 12 pubs of Christmas, which has been set up by a friend of ours who used to do it in college, and now has old classmates scattered across the globe, so they are co-ordinating to do a pub crawl on a given date in their respective cities. I think the likes of Vancouver, Dublin, Sydney and a couple of places in the states are signed up. Should be good fun.

That's about it for now, but as well as some pictures and stories from the holiday season, it'll also be the last we see of the Behan Machine, He's been offered a job in some hospital down the country somewhere (Ireland not Australia), and is flying home early January. I'll stave off on the down beat ramblings until then.....

Since writing the above, Oisin has arrived safely and we have completed the 12 Pubs of Xmas, but before going into detail (I say detail, when it probably should be sketchy, flashback memories) on that, I had a bit of an incident that morning before we started. I've been slagging off the others, mainly Mick and trevor, in previous posts, so it's only fair that I document my own mishaps also. On the morning of the 12 Pubs of Xmas I got a message from my beautiful sister saying that my xmas "present" had been lodged into my account, so before I done a Jesus-esque miracle of magically turning the money into drunken memories, I thought it best to buy some material goods with it before blowing it all. I went into the city early and done a bit of shopping, getting myself a few bits, but by total accident I spotted super-glue for sale in some Pound Shop kind of place, 7 tubes for $2. On a side note, the strap on my watch had split, and I had been intending on leaving it in to get fixed for some time now. This seemed like much better idea, I'd just super glue it back together myself. Well that was the plan. When I got home I opened up the glue, and read the instructions: Use 1 drop per 3cm squared of material. I done some quick, hungover rationalising: maybe for some industrial strength magic glue, that would be enough, but not for a 7 tubes for $2 dollars brand, so I held the watch in one hand and squirted in a couple of blasts of glue onto the strap. Mistake 1. I then held the 2 parts of the strap together with my hand. Mistake 2. Within a flash I was stuck to the watch. I pulled the watch off, small pieces of skin included, put the watch down (mistake 3), and went to the sink to peel the rest of the glue off my hand. After a couple of painful seconds most of it was gone so I went back to the job at hand. I went to get the watch again, and found it glued to the counter. After a little bit of a struggle I got the watch off the counter, only to find my other (mistake 4) hand was resting on a spill of rogue glue from the retarded cheap tube, and my left hand was now stuck to the counter. Having already unsuccesfully followed the elastoplast theory of ripping something off quickly, i decided to think about this one before making any sudden moves. I concluded that my best chance of getting out of this was to try to dissolve the glue. Luckily enough, at least I thought at the time, that the kettle was within my 1.5 meter radius of reach. Genius. Mistake 5. I clicked down the kettle (stopping just before it began to boil, after all, I'm not thick) and poured it onto the counter under my hand. It didn't have the effect I was expecting. As soon as the water hit my hand, nature kicked in and I just yanked my hand off the counter, half scalded and minus a few layers of skin. I then checked the watch to see what sort of state it was in, and to my surprise it had stuck together perfectly. Hazaa, success! Later that day I was telling Oisin what had happened. Thought nothing more of it. Mick was in bed and obviously over-heard the story. About 20 minutes later he comes to the door, calls me, and says "I hear you were stuck for time this mornin'?", then turns around and gets back into bed. Classic

That day did get better and we had a cracking a 34 degree day hopping in and out of pubs right across Sydney. We successfully completed the 12 pubs, and then some. 14 or so I've been told..... There are some photos of the messyness here.

Christmas is finaly encroaching in on us, and to get into the spirit of things, the lads wanted to go to a carol service in the local Parish. I thought I'd tag along too. I know what your thinking, and I too was half expecting to burst into flames as I walked through the door, but luckily for me God doesn't exist and that didn't happen. The church was very cool though, about 5 times the size of the Parish church, and elaborately decorated to Vatican proportions. We sat down not really knowing what to expect, when in the distance we hear singing begin, that spooky singing that made you feel like you were in a real life version of the Da Vinci code or Primal Fear, and someone was just about to be killed. We couldn't figure out where the sound was coming from, but it was getting progressively louder and louder. All of a sudden the sound became crytal clear and a procession of about 50 alter boys and girls emerged from a stairwell just below us. It was goose-pimpley stuff. Not an idea what the tune was, but it was excellently sung acapella style. The rest of the service was average enough, so we left after half an hour, but it was definitely worth small effort to get there, just for the opening number.

As of the rest of the Xmas plans, we are spending Xmas day on the beach, then in the evening going to a friends house where the girls are cooking dinner for 30, and we will be dining on the roof of their apartment block. From there I think we're just going to wing it. Then Stephens' Day we're going racing to an international race meet at one of the local tracks, where if yoou show up with a non-Australian passport, entry is free and you get a free pint or something. That's all of the planning we have in place for now, but it still looks like being near the Opera House for ringing in the new year.

Later,

BQ

That's Lunch....

I left the last post in the wonderfully named Surfers Paradise, where we had just arrived to a skyscraper version of San Antonio in Ibiza. This place didn't surprise in anyway. I've since heard this place described as the Paris Hilton of the East Coast, meaning "Trashy, in your face and a lot of fun", I think a comparison to Katie Price (the "model" formerly known as Jordan) is more apt, "dirty, loud and much bigger than it needs to be for what's required of it". I didn't like this place much, but a couple of overpriced dinners and 1 surprisingly good pub-crawl later we were out the door and onwards to better things. Brisbane to be precise.

I have previously blogged about Brisbane, and this time has no different opinion; it's still a nice place, but not enough about it to warrant a raving. One of the nights though, we were all in some bar / nightclub where Gegor discovered at about 3 o'clock that he had lost his wallet, after a rather un-exhaustive search Trev decided to step outside the nightclub and cancel all of his cards. From what I could tell, like us all, he was "jarred" (as the folks put it when they're drunk but don't want to admit it!). I'm not sure how he regained his diction but 2 minutes later all bank and credit cards were canceled. I don't need to fill you in on the rest but Gegor did get his wallet back, 3 useless cards included. In fairness, while he jumped the gun a tad, he did do the right thing, it was just amusing the way it happened.

From Brisbane we had another 6 am bus journey. Can't remember how long it was, but only 5 or 6 hours as far as I can recall. The next destination was Noosa, another little coastal town. Here we were just chilling for 2 days because we had a big week or so ahead of us. The only thing of note that happened in Noosa was the day trip to Australia Zoo - or Steve Irwin Zoo as most people get more excited about. The zoo itself is not that distinguishable from other zoos I've been in, apart from the big Crocodile, bird and snake show that is put on twice daily. This is impressive, and it might sound a bit gay but the coolest part of the show were the birds. They had all sorts of birds just flying around the stadium, at times no further than 1 or 2 feet from the crowds head. They were too quick for me on me Kodak, so any photo in the gallery that looks like it's just people, or trees, or anything else that you would have thought I wouldn't take a picture of, there's probably a bird in there somewhere. If your in work you could play a game of Wheres Polly or something and let me know how many birds you see. There's a prize for the winner.

After recharging our batteries we drove on up to Hervey Bay which is the starting point for the Fraser Island trip. For those that don't know, Fraser Island is the largest entire sand island in the world, but it also serves as a barrier (I tried to get a better word here but failed) to the Great Barrier Reef, protecting it from strong currents which would slowly destroy it. The Frazier Island trip is a self-guided tour, which means you're bundled into a 4*4 for 3 days with a bunch of randomers, but luckily enough our group was pretty cool, us obviously, 3 English girls and a Spanish guy. The Jeep is supposed to hold 11 people, but for whatever reason there were only 16 of us leaving on this particular day which meant 2 groups of 8 were deployed to each van. Thank fuck to be honest, because even with just the 8 of us it got a little cosy at times. The jeep is packed with all of your cooking and camping equipment, and you have to bring your own food. You are then given a talk about what to do on the island, where to go, and how not to attract dingos. After that you're just sent on your way, get a short ferry (45 mins) to the island, and then the fun begins. What we didn't realise was that the island is currently in its worst period of drought for 100 years or something. Sounds cool, more sun, better tan etc... not so much. What it actually means is that the sand is extremely dry and hence extremely "sinky". Once you get onto the beach the sand is fine due to the tides keeping it moist and compact, but the roads between these beaches are a nightmare, you get stuck all the time and the only way out is to get out and push. It's all part of the fun I suppose. The island itself is beautiful, the beach along the East coast id 90km long, and as straight as an arrow. Dotted along this beach are walkways that lead to all sorts of fun things. The 2 most notable are the Rainbow Sands and Lake Wabby. The Rainbow Sands is like a mini-desert, with big huge sand dunes that were crying out to be run down. Lake Wabby is a total oasis, you trek for about 2km through jungle type terrain and then this expanse just opens out in front of you, with crystal clear waters encased in pure white sand banks that run quite steeply to the waters edge. Our nights in Frazer were spent figuring out how to cook (although the girls did make up for their lack of pushing power here), and then having the craic on the beach with any other jeep that was there. Sitting on the beach at night is also one of the coolest things I've seen since I've left home, the sky is so clear, and the stars so bright. I don't know if it's due to the fact that Newbridge is inland, or the pollution that we give off, but I have never seen the sky look anything like them 2 nights. I got in my first, and first 10 shooting stars that night. On a side note, the dingo talk did not help one bit, we left out our dinner stuff to head down to the beach and when we came back dingos had taken everything, and wrecked the place in the process.

From Hervey Bay we headed off to Earlie Beach. Again, this place is the same as all of the rest of them, but is also the pick up and drop off point for the Whitsundays. The Whitsundays tour is a 3 day boat trip around 72 (give or take) tropical islands. You stay on the boat living in tiny cabins, (It is here I rediscovered Trevors ability to wake himself up with his own fart and laugh himself back to sleep without saying a word), only getting off to swim, snorkel and walk along the islands. The boat we were on was called the clipper, and carried 50 passengers per trip. Once we got on, we realised that 22 of these were a Mexican group, whom we discovered that night were savage craic. We started off sat in a circle, the 4 of us and the 22 of them trading drinking games, one of ours for one of theirs. after about 2 hours just about everyone on the boat was in the circle, and at one point there were too many, so a rogue sub-circle broke away. It was good times. During the days we went scuba diving, snorkling and onto a couple of the islands. The main attraction on the trip is to visit Whitehaven Beach, which has been voted the 2nd best beach in the world. Whilst walking to Whitehaven Beach, the 4 of us and 3 other Irish guys from the boat got a bit lost. It was a good lost though, because in our hungover rambling we stumbled across a little enclosed beach about 50 metres across which was surrounded by cliffs and rocks and looked amazing. This was not the cool part, the cool part was that upon this beach there were 22 women and not 1 guy, it was like the pretext for one of them late night Channel 4 films! We forgot about being lost for a while, and then had to go to find where we came to see. When we finally got to Whitehaven Beach, you could tell immediately what all the fuss was about; the scenery was amazing, the water was crystal blue and the sand was blindingly white. The sand is actually 99.9% quartz, which is son pure and fine you can clean your teeth with it. And due to the sand being so fine, to near viscous proportions the landscape changes everytime the tide comes in. That night was again spent on the deck of the boat, where the Mexicans drank us under the table, the whole lot of them are machines, but they did teach us a couple of cool party tricks which ye will all see at some point or another when we get back.

Going back to the last 2 trips, it is here that we were officially introduced to Goon. Goon is like the staple dietary supplement for the backpacker up the East Coast, we had avoided it for over a week, but succumbed to it's legendary status on the Fraser Island trip. Goon is a type of wine.... sort of, which comes in a box.... sort of, it actually comes in a bag within a box, a 5 litre bag to be precise. This bag easily gets the 4 of us on our way. The price of this bag? $11.95. That's AUS Dollars. In the current merry-go-round that is the stock exchange, this equate to 6.37718 EUR. That is 1.594295 EUR each. How did I not know about this stuff before. It would nearly be cheaper for Paddy Dowling and the boys not to drink for a while, get a flight over here and just live on this stuff! I know it sounds too good to be true so far, and it does not come without consequence. Firstly, when I said it was sort of a wine, I meant that term loosely. While it does contain mainly grapes, when you read the ingredients, they include, but are not limited to fish.. eggs.. nuts.. This is not an appetizing discovery when first made while you are half way through a bag. Luckily at that stage, you don't really care. Goon is to alcohol what Paralympians are to Olympians, at first glance they look harmless and inferior, but when you get down to it, it's actually pretty impressive. You can also lose large portions of your night post-goon, and we've pin-pointed the reason for this: While most of us know when you're at the peak of your intoxication and when to stop (most of the time), Goon does not allow this, for the simple reason that you are still getting drunk long after you have stopped drinking. We figured this out one night when we ran out of Goon while drinking on our balcony. We all remember running out of Goon, we all remember thinking lets just go down and get some more, we all remember that Mick and Gegor were the chosen ones to get the next installment of Goon. This all happened over the space of about 45 minutes, 45 minutes of non-consumption of anything alcoholic. I do not remember the lads coming back (empty handed I might add), I do not remember the night we subsequently spent in a niteclub, I do not remember getting home. That is the nature of the beast.

From Earlie Beach we went to Kroombit, which is an old-school ranch in the middle of nowhere. We arrived there early enough to a steak lunch, which had been one of there own cows, and then straight into the activities. We started off shooting clay pigeons with shootguns, then into a rodeo ring where we were paired up and had to lasso, flip and brand a goat, then we all stood in a circle holding hands while one person got stuck with a cattle prod electrocuting everyone, then back to the ranch where we learned to crack a whip properly (like a 7 ft wet tee-towel), and finally onto the mechanical bull, jumping up on whom Fearghal split his shorts. It was an embarrassing moment for him. That night was spent around a fire playing games which mainly involved doing the splits and kissing random places on random peoples bodies. We did not know that these games would involve kissing the people to the left and right of you and all sat together.... amateurs.

From Kroombit we went to Magnetic Island, for no more profound a reason than it has a cool name. THis was our chill-out spot after the previous week. On the Saturday afternoon, this random guy came in to the hostel and asked if anyone fancied a game of soccer. Obviously we jumped at the chance, and ended up bailed into the back of his van with a Canadian guy, a couple of drunk Scottish lads and a couple of American guys who had never played soccer before. We were driving for a while, and just as the deliverance music started to play in my head we pulled up to this guys house, and to the soccer pitch of a garden he has beside it. There was a team on the pitch warming up, all the wives, girlfriends and kids lined up on deck chairs on the sideline, and a bbq and beer laid out for afterwards. We were the entertainment. It turns out that once every 2 weeks they organise a Magnetic Island Vs the Rest of the World type game, and we were luck enough to be passing through on one of these days. We played a full 90 minute game in phenomenal heat, and were beaten quite comprehensively, not helped out by our 2 star quarter backs who were still getting used to the idea of Throw-ins! Afterwards we stood around and met all the locals, had a bit of food, a few beers and then were dropped back to the hostel. It was an awesome day, and the guy who organised it was saying that next summer they're running a world cup type thing, where a load of backpacker teams call out for a week and have a kick about. It's a great idea, and if we're still around it's one we'll look into being a part of.

Anyway, from here we set off for Cairns, but got to stop off along the way at a crocodile farm. Here we got to about 6 feet of a wild crocodile with only a chicken wire fence between us. As soon as you go in you get to hold a baby croc, and a python, and then the keeper dudes take you around to do demonstrations with all of their big crocs, Andrew was one of these. The power of these is immense, and the speed and flxibility they show over a distance of about half the length of their body is quite scary. When the guys make them snap their jaws, a boom comes out unlike anything I've heard before. When the croc tour was over we got to see a few other animals, some bird that looks like an Ostrich but is the most dangerous bird in the world (I thought that was Rosemary West), hogs, kangaroos, wallabies, and we got to play with dingo puppies.

Once in Cairns the only thing left for us to do (Us being Me, Mick and Fearghal, Gegor went on his own to do a skydive, the dvd of which is priceless) was to see the Great Barrier Reef, we went out on a day trip where we got to snorkel in several different locations, hand feed prawns to these big, huge fish, and swim with a ray and a turtle. I'm not sure how they got through this trip before the movie, but every fish that we came across was explained with a reference to the film Finding Nemo, luckily we did find Nemo (clown fish) and most of his friends. The start of any answer to any question we threw at the instructors generally went "Remember when Nemo got into this situation, and this fish helped him out? That's him". I'm slagging it off, but it was the only way that un-marine-biology-educated folks like ourselves could pretend to know what was going on. This was an awesome trip, and made our Whitsundays dives look uneventful.

The only other eventful thing that happened in Cairns was that on the second last night, some guy got into our room some how, slept in one of the free beds, then got up, robbed my phone, went down and checked out as one of us taking our deposit with him! We knew what he was wearing and along with one of the guys from the hostel, went out looking for him. The guy from the hostel spotted him going into the psychiatric ward of the hospital, called the police, and they arrested him. I had to wait a while to get my phone back, but finally did. The last I heard he was to be in court last week, I've no idea how he got on.

We flew back to Sydney the next day to meet up with Bergy and Louise who were over for a few weeks, but only 4 days in Sydney. It was awesome to see them again, but we had to do the goodbye thing again which was not awesome. Luckily though, enough of an impression was left and, with a little twist of the arm from Louise, Derek is applying for his Visa when he gets home. See ya in March Der....

Once the lovebirds went on their way, we got hard into looking for jobs and houses. We viewed an assload of houses, applying for anything that was half decent, but always getting rejected. We had a feeling that this was due to the lack of employment on our applications. We phoned up a few Aussie accented friends, gave them the run down of what to say, and within about half an hour we were all "employed" for our next application, which we got accepted for straight away. Fearghal was even one of my personal references. We have since moved into this place, which is a really nice 3 bed apartment in a suburb called Potts Point. We're 3 minute walk to the train station and then its 5 minutes on the train into the CBD. It's an ideal location. Now, Potts point as an address is quite lucrative, but we are literally the first street in the suburb, and one street from the red-light district of Sydney. Strip clubs, sex shops and drugies are rife, but so far it seems grand. It sounds a lot worse than it is, they stay around their own area and the direct vicinity of our apartment is quite cool. We even have our own star neighbour, remember Craig Macloughlan from Neighbours? We're now his new eh, neighbours

As for the job search, of today I have applied for over 150 jobs, and am yet to get an interview! I don't know what ye are doing up there in work, but ye are dragging the economy down here with ye. It's time to get the finger out.

I've eluded to mention Oisin thus far, but he's over on the West Coast trying to find himself and we haven't been in much contact over the past few weeks. I'm not sure what he found out over there, but this says it all

Before I leave ye, there's one funny Mickism I have to talk about. We've had our share over the last few months but this one is worth sharing. I'll set the scene:

We are all in a taxi, Mick in the front, on the way to house party number 1. We do not know how to get from house party number 1 to house party number 2 so Mick decides that asking the non-English speaking taxi man might help. Not a bad idea. Mick turns and asks "What's the name of that road with the second party?", I have this address, but we have had a few bottles by now and I briefly forgot the name of it. To cover my own absentmindedness, I reply "The Yellow Brick Road". Without skipping a beat, Mick turns to our African friend, and in his best dumbed down English proceeds with "DO.....YOU......KNOW.....WHERE.....THE.....YELLOW.....BRICK......ROAD.....IS?". We all fall around laughing. Mick thought we were laughing at his attempt to talk like an immigrant. The guy didn't know what Mick was on about, so takes out a big huge telephone book sized map, has a quick look, and can't find it. We're still in a knot in the back. He hands the map to Mick explaining that he does not know anything. Mick, all the while still trying to explain to the taxi man where we want to go, starts looking on this huge map for the Yellow Brick Road. We were in the back struggling to breath, unable to believe the farce that was unfolding in front of us, it was straight out of a Monty Python sketch. A good way to start any night....

Adios for now,

BQ

The Return of the Mac

Well it's taken 6 months for Gegor to pull the finger out and come over to us, but he's here now and has wasted no time in making up for previous absenteeism. Before I start talking about what's happened since the arrival or the AG (after Gegor) period of the trip, there's a quick BG (before Gegor) issue Id like to clear up. Whilst not in the last post, I think most people are aware that I was considering staying put in Melbourne and trying to get sponsored where I was working. I was offered sponsorship, and for reasons that go no further than my boss was a pure fuck-wit, I had to turn it down. This was a little disappointing, as all of the other people there were pretty cool, and the job paid well as well as being a bit of a no-brainer. Then there was a twist, a manager from one of the other teams asked me to consider joining them. This was a business analysis role, which is exactly the field I want to get into eventually, and was with people I really got on with. The only problem I now faced was that having wasted 3 months working for the female version of David Brent, I only had a further 3 months to work under this employer (It's a working holiday visa restriction where you can only work for 1 company for 6 months). Long story short, the only way I could get around it was to set up my own company as a middle man of sorts. This would have worked, but as a non-resident I wasn't allowed to set up a new ABN (Australian Business Number). This meant I had to turn down the job, as I need to look for long-term work, and unfortunately could not afford to waste 3 months in a job with no future. So, I have left Melbourne to travel up the coast for a while and then try to find another gullible employer to take me on.

The day before Gegor arrived we went down to a little island south of Melbourne called Phillip Island. The main reason you go here is to see the 600 or so penguins that live there. What they don't tell you is that they only come on shore at half 6 at night to go into their burrows (or whatever a penguin hole is called). We left at 10 in the morning. There is literally nothing else to do on this island, and we were hungover so lurking around for that long was not an option. We went into the penguin sanctuary / museum type place and saw a couple of them in wooden boxes. That was good enough. What we did get to do though was stop at a Wildlife park on the way down, where we got to hand feed kangaroos. That was awesome. They are easily the strangest land animal I've ever seen. Like a cross between a rabbit and a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Their little arms look really skinny and retarded... but it's a trick. You put food in your hand anywhere near them, and they are pulling your hand to where ever they want it, and they've claws like an eagles talons that make it very uncomfortable if you even try to resist. Apart from that, they're amazing creatures. There were also dingos, Tasmanian devils, wallabies and emus as well as a couple of weird exotic birds. None of these were that impressive, although most of them were asleep, so maybe they're more entertaining when active. I know some people think that keeping animals in captivity and making them do tricks is cruel, but you have to admit it does make for more interesting viewing than these so-called "animal-friendly" wildlife parks.

Anyway, back to the Mac Attack. Gegor arrived on Monday, 1st of September, surprisingly enough as expected without having many issues with flights or transfers. Fearghal and Mick met him at the airport, and pretty much went straight back to the house to start the session. What is the first thing you think of when you say Australia? Obviously Neighbours. So continuing in that vein, the first night out everyone should have here is the Doctor Karl Kennedy World Famous Neighbours Night Experience. Myself and Oisin met up with them at the Neighbours place, and after the initial bums out welcoming hugs etc he slipped right back into his old groove, and it was like he was always here. The night itself was good craic, the highlight of which was Mick winning the dance-off. Luckily enough it's all caught on camera. What the camera did not catch was, this will make more sense after watching the video, but when the bottle is kicked, it hits some English guy square in the jaw! He was not impressed.
Also, if you watch the second fall, you can see Mick bang his elbow. This has led to 3 separate visits to the hospital due to the cut getting infected. His arm blew up to Popeye proportions. We've survived 6 months of jumping out of planes, bribing prison guards , cycling down cliffs and bouncing down big hills in souped up balloons, and 1 night with the Mac leads to the first hospital visit.

From here, the rest of the week was just spent between going into work hungover, getting home, going out and then starting all over again. I can safely say that that final week in work is the least productive I've ever been in any situation in my life. That weekend we went for a drive down the Great Ocean Road, which is just a scenic coastal drive that runs for about 600km west of Melbourne. It is actually really impressive, but the night-life is pretty much non-existent. This was not much of an issue, as we had a pretty big week leading up to the weekend, and it was probably a good idea to get a little detoxed before we started travelling again. The main feature of the Great Ocean Road is the 12 Apostles, which are limestone sea-stacks (school geography kicked in here) that stand just off the coast. Funnily enough, there are only 8 of them left now, having originally been 9 (1 fell a couple of years ago). There have never been 12. There is no obvious outstanding characteristic that points to the number 12, except that the 12 apostles sounds biblical and cool. What else could they have called it? The 9...... Brady Bunch members, or the 8...... I've nothing. Side note here, I actually could not think of anything here, so I was looking on google for things with a group of 9 and put "the 9" into the search engine. The top result was "The 9 Most Racist Disney Characters"! That would have been a good name. We got a helicopter ride over these as well, which was class, but I've none of my own pictures from the helichopper because I thought it a good idea to take a video of the dashboard as soon as we got in. Then my battery went before we took off. I've robbed a couple of the others photos, so apologies if they're not up to the usual standard...

The rest of the Great Ocean Road was spent doing more scenic stuff. There was a tree-top walk through a rain forest, which is pretty much exactly as it sounds; there's a big structure with pathways going all over the place built up in the trees of some rain forest. It wasn't great, although it was pissing rain when we got there so maybe it could be good given better weather conditions. We also got to see koalas in the wild, which was cool, and to go up into a lighthouse which was not so cool, Although they did explain that it's powered by one 1000w bulb that's only slightly bigger than the one in your house. That's mental. I thought there would be this giant filament encased in a huge glass sphere, but it's only 1 small bulb that gets bounced through hundreds of prisms to produce a much brighter version of a house light. Very impressive but slightly disappointing. I wanted the big bulb.

On the way home from the Great Ocean Road we found out about this golf course in Anglesea, Anglesea Golf Course I think it was called, that had wild kangaroos just hopping around it. So we ducked in for a look expecting to see a couple here and there. There were hundreds of them. You're not allowed on the course to view them so we had to drive for a while to get to a fairway that was both full of 'roos and far enough away from the clubhouse that we could escape if anyone spotted us. It was totally worth it. While we were there we had discussed trying to do something funny with them but the RSPCA in us kicked in and we decided to leave it.... or so I thought. While we were leaving I turned around when I heard Fearghal say "fuck this" to see him emptying his pockets and just pegging it after a group of about 40 kangaroos. It's quite the sight to see these guys split off simultaneously, much like a group of Mexican workers in California after spotting an immigration officer.

WE got back to Melbourne on Monday the 8th of September to finish our packing and spend one more night in the house before flying to Sydney on Tuesday. It's here that we lost one of our cogs, for the time being anyway. We simply took out an Oisin shaped wheel and stuck in a Trevor shaped one. Needless to say they are 2 completely different wheels. Oisin is more of your reliable airplane wheel (see what I did there Ois?, with the aviation?), while Gegor is more like the wheel on Richard Hammonds drag racer; works perfectly for a while and then just fucking explodes for no reason leaving nothing but destruction in its path. To make the transition a little more seamless, Gegor now always has to walk on the right-hand side of the group and any food he cooks must taste like arse. I'm not sure how long Oisin plans on staying in Melbourne but I think he'll be back in a couple of months.

We spent a couple of nights in Sydney, not really doing much touristy stuff as we knew we'd be back to live there so spending money that could be put to better use elsewhere didn't seem like the brightest move. We did walk along Sydney harbour, under the Harbour Bridge, and on to the Sydney Opera House. It's a beautiful area, one I could definitely see myself living around. And I didn't know this, but the Opera House is completely covered in tiles, so Da if you ever get itchy feet there are a few square yards down here that I think could use replacing, but I'm fucked if I'm grouting it

From Sydney we caught the Oz Experience, which is a hop-on hop-off as you like kind of deal for backpackers, up to Surf Camp. Surf Camp is very much like what you'd picture the Home and Away caravan park to be like, we were staying in a trailer, we were 50 metres from the beach, and we sat around drinking at night by a campfire on said beach. There are less Swedish people in Home and Away than we had, but other than that, very similar. We only had the one lesson, which lasted about 3 hours. Surfing is hard, and no surprises that within about 20 minutes Mick was up on the board booting it in towards the beach, but what was a surprise was the fact that Gegor was the next to master it! We may have found his thing. Anyway, by the end of it we had all stood up at least a couple of times, just enough to keep you interested and want to go again. It's like when you tease a kitten with a piece of string, if you let them have it too easy they get bored, if you never let them catch it they get pissed off and stop playing, but if you get the balance right you can keep the eejits amused for hours. We're the amused kittens, and I'm really looking forward to getting to a place where we can give it another go.

From Surf Camp we moved on to Byron Bay. This is the first time since being in Australia that a town actually looked like what I had in my head before leaving Ireland. It's a small little beach town, swarmed with hippies, and a nice mix of local and touristy bars to keep you entertained. During the days we just lazed around down at the beach, and walked about 3km to another lighthouse for some reason which surprisingly was no more exciting than the last. There is a ledge beside it though that is Australia's most easterly point, which is a completely useless place to say you have been, but fuck it, I have now been to Australia's most easterly point. Only 3 to go. At night we hit a couple of the bars around the town, always ending up in a a club called Cheeky Monkeys, which may well have been picked up and flown in from Ayia Napa. Total cheese, but good craic. In one of these bars is also where we watched Liverpool beat United. I won't rub that one in though. Without Torres and Gerrard as well? Embarrassing. Sorry. One of the day trips you can do from Byron Bay is a bus ride to Nimbin. Nimbin is an even smaller version of Byron, famed for the fact that about 30 years ago a couple of hippies rebelled against the cops who had arrested some other hippy for smoking weed on the street. From then on the local authorities turn a blind eye to this recreational drug use, and the place has since turned into a mini Amsterdam. Without the hookers. As soon as you get off the bus here you are offered either straight up weed, or weed based cookies by everyone from teenagers to auld pensioners. We all had a taste of these biscuits but not enough for any of the magic to happen. I'd say if drugs were your thing you could lose days in this place. But we're not, so we didn't and came home that night.

From Byron, we got the bus up to a place called Surfers Paradise. It's a city version of Byron. They have the beaches and the bars, but also skyscrapers built on the boardwalks instead of the little ice-cream stalls Byron has to offer. The buildings are that close that at 2 in the day, the beach is engulfed in the shadow of these buildings. It's here that I am writing this from so I'll pick it up from here the next time.

Talk Soon,
BQ

By the way, I came across a good photo that I didn't know existed so I thought I might share. The girl at the front is one of the german girls that lived with Oisin's girlfriend. Who said the Germans were racist??

OZ

It's been a long time since I've updated this, and justifiably so I think. The reasons for my laziness are 3 fold:

1: We spent much of our first month in Oz sorting stuff out, from houses to jobs, and bills to finding the best night life.

2: Kind of ties in with the last point. Being so pre-occupied with real grown-up stuff, we didn't really have the time to go around having fun and doing all of the responsibility-free activities we had gotten so accustomed to.

3: I'm quite lazy

We arrived in Brisbane at the end of May to some beautiful weather and a pretty nifty little hostel. When I say nifty, the room was a disgrace. I think they let Andrea Bocelli draw up the layout for the beds, with most of us being trapped in some corner, with about 4 square inches of personal space to get dressed and do all that personal stuff people do. The most important part was that downstairs there was an awesome bar that seemed to be hopping 7 nights and most days of the week. We met up with Oisin cousin here, who has settled semi-permanently there (In Brisbane, not the bar). We had some good nights out there. One stands out particularly prominently. I'm not going to go in to all the gory detail, but it was the night that Ireland played the All-Blacks (I think; the game was on at 4 in the morning and most of us didn't make it), it was also the night Oisin got arrested for pinching some girls arse! If you want any more details you may contact the man himself, I'm not at privilege to divulge anything else. If he's not answering his phone, just try 911.



From what we had heard all along our travels, Brisbane was not the place to be, and Melbourne was the talk of the country. On this advice, we booked a flight from Brisbane to Melbourne allowing us to spend less than a week in Brisbane. If it had of been left up to us, Brisbane left quite a good impression on all of us, and we probably would have tested the water for ourselves, but we had the flights booked so there was no going back.



We landed in Melbourne around the 31st may, and were booked in to the biggest kip of a hostel we had ever seen. Beds in this place were rented out by the week, but you were put in a room with 12 other people, most of whom smelt quite funny, with a small "bathroom" attached with 2 showers and 1 toilet. Some of the people in the room had been there upwards of 6 months. You could tell that most of these people were obviously a little unstable before moving in, and were full of praise for the place. And those that were some way normal had had so much of the life sucked out of them, they had lost the will to care. This was incentive enough for us to get straight on the phone and computer, and check every notice board we could find for some sort of alternative to this place. Come the end of our first week in the "hostel" we were quite close to getting a house, but knew it wouldn't be done by chucking out time in this shithole, so we booked a room in some other hostel for a few nights that was well recommended.



By the time our nights had run out in this place we had secured a house that we could move straight in to. The house is enormous. There are 4 bedrooms (ish – I'll get back to that), a laundry room, a kitchen, 1 bathroom (another bedroom is ensuite), and 2 living rooms, one of which is bigger than the last apartment I lived in in college. Totally coincidentally, the house is also a 3 minute walk (1 minute cycle when your bike is not broke) from the train station, which means you can be in the city centre in less than 20 minutes, maybe 30 during rush hour.



It's not all roses though, which we very quickly found out. The house came unfurnished. Totally. No couch, bed, TV, fridge, you get the idea. The 4th bedroom I had mentioned above was also not really a bedroom. It was like a dining room, off one of the living rooms, that we were allowed to "convert" into a bedroom. The first thing we had to decide was who the lucky one who would reside in this dining/bed-room would be. I'm not sure if Mick suspected we might try to rig the draw, he took it upon himself to hold the draw. No need to explain the rest, but Mick is now not happily sleeping in the dining/bed-room. Now back to how we converted it into a bedroom. It was ingenious really, like something Lawrence Lewelen whats-his-name would come up with: One sheet of plywood nailed on both sides over one of the entrances, and one sheet of plywood nailed on one side over the other entrance so that it can swing open.



Upon moving in, we had no electricity, which in this crazy country also means you have no heating. The first night was spent in the big living room, in our long-johns (bought for the All-Whites party in Buenes Aires – discussed previously) and fake Alpaca hats and scarves from Peru, lying on lilos, trying not to melt them on the nightlights we bought to light / heat the place. Surprisingly with no electricity, we still had hot showers, which was nice. I do not have a clue how this works, but later discovered that it is quite common over here for places to have a chilled tap and a boiling water tap. News to me, but it did prove quite the funny anecdote for everyone in the new office. They had quite the laugh at the Irish guy who was found waiting for the kettle to boil when making a cup of tea. I felt a bit better about myself when I heard 4 of them standing in a circle discussing whether the Netherlands was in Denmark, Sweden or Norway!



The final, and only, outstanding problem we have with the house is that once the electricity was turned on, we discovered we have 1 heater…. right beside the back door. This is not cool for me and Oisin, as our rooms are located right inside the front door.



After acquiring our new bachelor pad, we set about furnishing it. And where do 4 slick, cool, young professionals go for their furniture needs? You guessed, the salvation army. We became best friends with the auld ones in there, who couldn't have been more sympathetic to our plight. They would ring us when new stuff came in, keep stuff on hold for us, and throw in free stuff every time we went in. I'd say all in all we spent under $500 in there and got; 2 suites of furniture (one does look like it was designed by Mrs. Doubtfire), a dining table, all our pots and pans, a microwave, a fridge, a TV, DVD player, and all our linen, towels, tea towels and some other stuff.



Looking for a job was the next priority. It started off quite promisingly, with every recruiter (who we have since discovered are all spawns of Satan) telling us that we were highly sought after, and we'd be turning down offers. Turns out not so much. There were a couple of channels that seemed promising, but most ended in defeat. I think Mick was the first to get in to the swing of real life, with me shortly after. Fearghal had it tough from the start when he realized that even though he's a fully qualified physiotherapist, he needs to pass state exams to be allowed to practice here. The Aussies are a little different, but I doubt that transfers right down to anatomically different. A human body is a human body, no matter how slow the brain is that's pointing it around. He did however land a job in a gym which I'd say is far more fun than our mundane jobs, but the hours aren't great, namely the ones he does at stupid o'clock in the morning. Oisin was the last to join society, but he did get the best job out of us all. It's remotely related to his field, if not a few years under what he should be doing. So right now, we're all pretty much set up, and our bank balances should no longer be in free fall.



As for Melbourne as a place to live, it's still yet to make its mark on us. Firstly, it's fucking freezing. I know unnecessary expletives should be avoided, but when it actually is fucking freezing, it needs to be said. It rains quite a bit as well, not as much as home, but just enough so that we don't get a chance to miss it. I'm not one for the sun worshipping, but it might be nice to have a morning where I wake up and do not see my first morning breath rising up towards the ceiling. Apart from the weather, the city is pretty nice. It's a standard enough place, with the usual city-like features. One other issue we have found is that the night-life is very much spread out. There is only one real area you could call a strip, where there are more than a couple of bars side by side. It might not be such a problem for the locals, but when you don't know the area, it can be quite difficult to find the best places to go out. Much to our detriment we are continually discovering that the Irish bars are still the best places to have the craic, but also the best places to find the county full-back, male and female, proudly sporting their colours in a way I thought we had flown halfway around the world to avoid



Again, there have been the usual stories and events that have happened on these nights out, most of which I'll leave to the imagination. The one I will let ye in on, was a little incident that happened 50 yards from our front door. It was 6 in the morning, and me and Mick decided to have a bit of a dual before finishing up for the night. So we got our weapon of choice (a strip of bark from a tree in our garden), and proceeded to do battle. The rest of the incident is a little hazy (I think it has something to do with running into a tree), and memory failed me for some reason, but the result is I woke up Sunday morning with a belter of a pain down one side of my chest. I thought I was just feeling a little delicate, being hungover and all, but after a few days of no improvement, I decided on Thursday to check it out. I went to the doctor, who diagnosed pretty quickly the fact that I had broken the 2nd and 3rd rib on my right side! There's not much you can do with this apparently, so it just had to be left to heal of its own accord. It is now 2 weeks later and it's grand, still a little sore but nothing to complain about.



Funnily enough, that day is the same day young Ciara Behan became Ciara Burne and made Brian a lucky man. Unfortunately, logistics wouldn't allow us to be physically present, but we did make a conscious effort to synchronize one of our sessions with the afters so that we could ring as many people as possible and try to feel like part of the event. From all accounts it seems like it was a cracker of a night / weekend, and we all wish the newly weds the best for the future.



As for actually doing stuff worth writing about, we haven't really done that much. Hence the bullshit that I have been writing about…. We did make it to the Telstra Dome to watch Australia beat Ireland in the egg chasing. It was a pretty average game, not helped by our crap seats, and an even worse atmosphere. We met up with Oisins cousin again who flew down from Brisbane for the game, and the craic afterwards did make up for the non-event of a match. Going to a comedy club is about as adventurous as we got after that. I'm really clutching at straws here, eh, that's about it. One more thing, possibly our greatest achievement since leaving; You know when you leave a DVD player on pause or something for a long time, you get that screen saver thing bouncing around the screen? We did watch that for a lengthy period of time until it bounced right in the corner. Many people say that it cannot happen, but it is now a fact. We felt like them 2 Mythbusters guys do when they prove some very important fact, like why does a mint mentos sweet go mental when dropped into diet coke. We should get some sort of award. Like a Nobel Prize but for observation instead. We could be in the final with Flanners for pointing out that New Zealanders are not the brightest people on earth, and the guy who realized you can seal a pint glass full of beer, airtight, with the lid of a Pringles can.



As of now, we've just found out that the one and only Gegor, TJ Mac, DJ Trebor, Rover T, Maccers, Uncle Trev, Trevor James McEvoy has handed in his notice and is joining our crew. His impending arrival will be preceded by the first major decision we've had to make in the last 5 months; whether to stay in Melbourne or move on up to Sydney. At the moment it looks like we're all going traveling the gold coast and then on to Sydney, except Oisin. He's digging his heels in and giving Melbourne another chance to float his boat. We're all in savings mode now, so the next month will be more boring than the last which, if this last post is anything to go by, paradoxically might mean that the next post will be longer…….



Before I go, there is one disclaimer I may put on here. I've left it until the end in the hope that some people will have reacted before getting this far. When I said Oisin was arrested for fondling of some kind, I left out the end of the story. What really happened was that some genius of a guard had just received info that a guy in a yellow t-shirt had been harassing girls up the street a bit. So he done what any of us would have, and handcuffed the first guy he saw who was wearing yellow. After a bit of pleasant banter, the girl in question was summoned and, unfortunately for us, straight away said it was not Oisin, who was then released back in to the wild. So mistaken identity is the official version, I just thought the first was more interesting.



I have no pictures attached to this, because I have not taken a picture worthy of the bandwidth it would use to upload. I'm sure once Trev gets here he'll more than make up for that...

New Zealand Part 1

Since the last update we have done a lot of stuff, a lot of which might be boring to most of you, but I got pissed off updating a written diary as well as this, so I'm putting in stuff on here for my own recollection from now on.

We left Buenos Aires for a small place called Mendoza, which is just on the Argentine side of the Chile border. It is here that most of Argentinas wine is produced and so, as well as breaking up another 26 hour bus journey, we thought it the best place to do a bit of wine tasting. To accomodate the football (Champions League) we had to pay through the nose (3 times the normal price) to get a morning tour, but it was probably worth it as we got to go to 3 different wineries, where I think the usual is just 1 or 2. Speaking of the football, the Chelski game cut me deep, real deep. To come from behind at Stamford Bridge and then lose in such a fashion is gut-wrenching. Trying to look at it subjectively, on the night, I think that Chelsea did deserve their win, but Liverpool also deserved to win the first leg, which obviously didn't happen, so it was down to pure luck and faith as to who would go through, and given the results (and performances) in previous CL semi-finals it would be harsh to begrudge them this one. Although I do hope that United pound them in the final, just because Drogba will be there. Someone has to win, and I think for once, United are the lesser of 2 evils on this occasion. Subjectively however, I think that Rafa has signed his own resignation papers by taking off Torres at the point in which he did, and I'm not too disappointed by that fact. While there is no talk of him being given the P45 just yet, I can't see him getting through to the start of next season.

From Mendoza we headed towards Santiago, which should have been only a 6 or 7 hour drive, but some truck overturned down one of the cliffs just before the border crossing and traffic was held up for hours, and we ended up being on the bus for 13 hours or something.. Our saving grace was the fact that the drive is renowned for being one of the nicest in Argentina, and if we were to be stuck anywhere, right at the top of the Andes is not a bad place for it.

There is not a lot to say about Santiago, it's a nice city, but has very little to offer on the sight-seeing or activity front and about the most memorable thing that happened was when Fearghal got called into a huge circle of people by some street performer, who without warning, ran at him, jumped, wrapped his arms and legs around him, and for some reason just started kissing hime all over the face. This would have been funny enough for a normal person, but the fact that Fearghal is slightly homophobic, led to a very amusing performance for all. The only thing I can think of that explains it accurately is it was just like in the WWF, when the big huge wrestler has to fight the small nimble guy. The nimble guy jumps on the big guy, and the big guy has to swing and shake and spin, just to get him off. It was extremely amusing, particularly the fact that Fearghal couldn't get thick with your man because so many people were watching.

We only stayed in Santiago for 3 days, and from there we were to fly to Aukland in NZ, but unsurprisingly something went wrong again. About half way across the Pacific, some guy at the front of the plane thought this the ideal spot to have a heart-attack! Apparently he wasn't too bad, but couldn't be risked to stay in a pressurized tube for another 7 or 8 hours so we had to turn pretty much 90 degrees to the north and fly for about 3 hours to Easter Island where this guy could get off and get proper medical attention. Before we got there the pilot came on and said that he had to dump all our fuel (not sure why) before we landed, which had an adverse effect on Micks mood for the remainder of the flight, but again, it was amusing for the rest of us. We were grounded on Easter Island for 3 hours before we took off again, and the full duration of our "14" hour flight was about 22 hours.

Anyway, from here it was all uphill. New Zealand has been awesome so far, even if our bank balances have been in freefall since we arrived. After that flight we thought that the best course of action was to get to know as many local bars as possible, just to get a feel for the place. That night we hit a nightclub and at about 2 in the morning 3 guys (Thorpo, Bello and Collins) that we played football with years ago walked in. It was strange to say the least, but we did get to arrange a night out the following night with a good few people from home, which was good craic, particularly the fact that we didn't have to go through the usual routine when meeting someone of where are ya from/going/coming from, what have ye done/planned to do, work at etc....

We got the finger out on the second day and went up the Skytower, which is apparently the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. You can jump off this and freefall for something like 198 metres, but we decided not to do it. My excuse was that it was too expensive, but if I'm being totally honest, I don't think I would have done it even if it was free. From the observation deck they have a glass floor which, when walked on, all you can see is the ground 300 metres below. It's a funny feeling, and one that goes against all of your natural instincts. Micks natural instincts are a lot stronger than the rest of us, and he couldn't bring himself to stand on the glass. After the tower we went down to the Viaduct, which is an area just off the coast full of bars and clubs, one of which is made entirely of ice. The walls are ice, the glasses are ice, the seats are ice, and there are a heap of ice sculptures dotted around the place. Sticking with the NZ theme, it's fairly expensive but it is quite cool (boom boom!!). You're only allowed in for 30 mins as the temperature is minus 7 degrees and I doubt it's too good for you. We snuck in a camera and got a couple of shots before the bar man gave out to us, so they are available here. So from the hotel made of salt, to a bar made of ice, all we need now is a brewery made of meat and we'll have seen the lot.

In Aukland we rented a car to limit the crappy travel experiences we had recently encountered. This has allowed us to do things that would otherwise have been logistically impossible to get to. The first of which was the indoor skiing slope about an hour north of Aukland. Apart from Mick, none of us had ever really skiied before, and we had some serious craic learning. In all we spent about 3 hours there, and apart from I'm-good-at-everything Mick, we never really got the swing of things, which did result in some spectacular falls, broken ski poles, and some very minor injuries. It did however give us a feel for it and hopefully, if we get a bit of luck, we will catch the start of the season down south somewhere and we can get in some more practice on the real slopes. Upon leaving Snow Planet, we spotted a luging centre, so we popped in there for a while. For those that don't know, luging is like bobsleighing, only on the road. We were put into these carts, much like a keg that had been cut in half longways, and a handle and 3 wheels added. There is no motor, but gravity does one hell of a job in getting you up to speed. Unfortunately we weren't really expecting this to be as good as it was so we don't have any photos of it, but we did talk the girl working there to give us a go of the seg-ways they had in the park afterwards. These things are class. We do have videos (1 and 2) and photos just to show what they are. Again, both the luging and seg-way involved some impressive falls, but luckily again, only minor scratches and a few torn clothes were the result.

Rotorua was the next port of call, which is a relatively small town entirely built inside the crater of a volcano. The circumference of this crater is something like 42km so its pretty big, but the main outstanding feature of the city is the fact that there is sulpher seaping from every orifice. This leads to some spectacular scenery, whereby many lakes have this bubbling steam rising up through them, but also has the downside of making the whole city smell like the inside of a wheelchair basketballers glove. In certain spots the smell is nearly unbearable, but in general you get used to it. Rotorua is also considered the centre of the Maori world, and they have an authentic village set up where you can go to learn about the culture, see a show where the men and women perform some of their indigenous dances, songs, games and war chants, and finally taste their food which has been steamed underground for 4 hours or something. There are some photos here, and videos here, here, here, here, and here. Rotorua also has some pretty good white water rafting which we signed up to do, mainly because halfway down the course, there is a 7m waterfall that you get to go off, which is the highest commercially navigable whitewater waterfall in the world. We also spent a day in the mud baths and hot springs of one of the local outdoor Polynesion Spas. This was quite boring but if you need a day of relaxation, this could be a good way to give it a try. To finish things off we climbed into a big inflatable ball in pairs (me and fearghal, and Mick and Oisin), filled it with water, and got thrown down a big hill. It's called zorbing and it's pretty good fun.

From Rotorua we drove to a town called Taupo. Taupo is built on the largest lake in the southern hemisphere, and we heard this is one of the nicest places in New Zealand to skydive. We, and by we I obviously mean me, Oisin, and Fearghal, (Mick decided that sleeping in the car would be a better option) signed up to do a 12,000 feet, or 3.5km, jump. I'm not going to say I wasn't petrified all the way up in the plane, but when it came to the point of jumping I done it far more readily than I had envisaged. It's -15 degrees up there but once you're getting ready to jump, the temperature is the last thing on your mind. When you jump out, you're tumbling for a few seconds where its ground-plane-ground-plane kind of scenery before the guy you're strapped to does whatever he does to straighten you out, then you have a 45 second freefall where you reach 200km/h and cover a 2km distance. It is the weirdest feeling I have ever had. It seems like it's over in a couple of seconds, and at no point does the ground feel like it is getting any closer. Once the shute opens you get time to catch your breath and take a look around at the scenery etc... The expert you're strapped to is also pretty nifty under a parachute and makes the drop quit entertaining with spins and freefalls etc. We bought the video of our jump which is hopefully here. At the end, for some reason, we tried to be as camp as possible for the finale which, quite worringly, turned out more convincing than I had pictured.

From here we hit a small beach town called Napier on the east coast of the island because Mick had a friend from college working over here, and it would have been rude to drive on by seeing as we're going that way anyway. The town itself is nice, but very quiet with not a lot to do. I'm guessing it's a livelier place when the peak season hits, as the beaches are beautiful and the surf seems to be impressive. We stayed here for 2 nights which was just long enough to recharge and get back to a non-hungover state for the first time in I don't know how long.

We had to go to Wellington from here as the Inter Island ferry crossing departs from here. We hadn't heard great things about this place despite it being the capital, so we only jotted in one night to stay here. As soon as we arrived in the hostel we randomly met up with a bunch of Cork lads we had met in Buenos Aires who were all raving about the place, so much so that they had spent the day looking for apartments to move into and stay for 6 months! Our stay would be far more brief. We arrived at about 6, got food, went out, got up at 8 the next day and got the ferry out of there at 9. The night out wasn't great as it was only a Monday, but apparently the weekends are pretty busy, and it's a college town, so Wednesdays are when it really shines. Outside of that, there's not a lot of regret about not staying longer.

The ferry between the 2 islands lasts about 3 hours, but for the final hour you are sailing through the sounds (fjords) to the north of Picton. the scenery along here is beautiful, and at one point a couple of dolphins started to tail the ship. Once we arrived in Picton, the only thing we had to do was collect the new rental car, and then high-tail it to Kaikora where we went swimming with dolphins. The trip entailed getting a little yacht out to where the dolphins normally hang out, which is about 40 minutes away, and then just scouting around until we found a pod (I thought it was a school of dolphins, but they kept saying pod, so who am I to correct them?). It turns out we arrived on a good day, and we ended up finding a pod of about 60 dolphins. The boat then sails into the middle of these and you jump off the back and start snorkelling among them. They're fairly high maintenance creatures, amd the only way they will come over and interact with you is if you entertain them. The 2 best ways to do this are to sing through your snorkel, or to dive down as far as you can go. Once you start singing, at least one dolphin will come over and check you out, and then they test your swimming abilities: they swim right up to your face, and then swim in circles around you. You have to swim around with them maintaining eye contact or they just lose interest and head away. The most you can do is 3 or 4 spins with one and then they get bored and either piss off or start messing with you and swim in the opposite direction around you. I never quite kept up with one who done this, so I'm not sure how long they keep this up, or what the next step in their evil plan is. We got the last laugh though as while they thought we were singing, we were actually calling them names, so who really wins?? All together this is up there with the trip to San Pedro prison as the most memorable thing we have done so far. The only down side was the fact that none of us were great snorkellers, which meant that when you dived down with the dolphins and one came over to you, you get all excited, forget to concentrate on your breathing, and swallow a gallon of the pacific trying to resurface. This had repurcussions on the way home, as together with the rough boat ride, the sea water decided it wanted to come back up. There are a couple of pictures of Mick pre and post puke in the previous link.

From Kaikora, we (by we I mean Oisin and Mick) had a scenic but horrible drive the full width of the country to Franz Josef which lasted about 7 hours, where the following day we hiked the Franz Josef glacier. The best trip to do here is the heli-hike which flies you to the top, and then you mess around for a couple of hours before being flown back down, but for the first time money became an option and we couldn't justify spending over 300 quid on this, so we paid our 100 bucks and hiked it from the bottom. To be honest, this was one of the more disappointing ventures we have undertaking. Whilst it was nice to do, the glacier was not exactly what I had pictured. The guide was quite informative though, and enlightened us on the local Maori legends which, by the way, make our Cuchulain and Tír na nÓg stories pretty realistic! One example is the story of the glacier being created by an old Maori princess who started crying one day and the Maori gods feeling sorry for her froze her tears. It turns out the Maoris are not just crazy looking, they're mental on several levels.

The next morning we headed south for Queenstown to meet up with Flanners. He's living here with his girlfriend , Lea, in a really nice apartment which is surprisingly very well kept. I've no doubt that this has nothing to do with him! The house is right on the bank of a big lake (it has a Maori name I can't remember) with some beautiful panoramic views from his sitting room of the lake and the surrounding mountains. In fairness to him and Lea, they have put on a good show and it's greatly appreciated. I had nearly forgotten what it was like to spend the day on a couch without having to leave the house or get dressed etc... We have had some pretty heavy nights out here which, for a skiing town outside of ski season, has some decent night life. We have some touristy stuff planned but the only thing we have got around to doing is luging again. This time was pretty much the same as the last, with a few more spectacular accidents, one of which involved 3 of us coming together and being thrown from our respective karts. Unfortunately this was not caught on camera, but this photo was taken seconds before impact.

That's pretty much where we are now, we're here until the Champions League final Thursday morning, and then on to Christchurch where we fly to Brisbane which signals the end of our holiday. I'm still not sure if that's a good or bad thing. I'll decide when it happens


Until then, catch ye soon,

BQ

Buenos Aires

We´re coming to the end of the South American chapter of our travels, which is absolutely heart-breaking.... but on the silver-lining side of things, it will be awesome to get back to a country where English is a first language, and the insects don´t feast on you constantly. I was going to say that it will be cool to be settled somewhere and not have to live out of a bag anymore, but I´ve just realised that we won´t have that luxury for at least another month, so I´ll hold off on that thought for a while.

As for BA, we´ve had a funny time of it here. In the first few days we, I at least, could not see what all the fuss was about. The city was nice, but nothing special, nothing that could put it up there with some of the other places we have been. That was an opinion that was created on the experiences of the immediate vicinity of the hostel and the local nightlife, as for the first few days our whole regime was; sleep, wake up, go for dinner locally, back to the hostel for a few beers, and then nightclub. We were stoopid. After talking to a few people, and getting the low-down on a couple of areas, we ventured off to other neighbourhoods around the city that turn out to be absolutely beautiful. These areas are full of amazing buildings, good restaurants and funky pubs and clubs. We´ve gotten friendly with a few members of staff from the hostel, and the woman who owns the place, and on a couple of separate occasions they have taken us out to the local areas, which is a cool experience. There are a lot of drugs floating around these bars, and they don´t feel as safe as the usual gringo haunts, but once you get use to that they generally turn out to be good fun. We have a limited supply of PG photos from these nights out, but the parent-safe ones are here. One funny night that we did have was an all-whites party (racist) where you had to wear white clothes, and the hostel stuck black lights up. Just to be on the safe side (!!!) we thought it best to buy new clothes for this, as them black lights are not the friend of people who are living from a bag and not sure what has been washed (or been packed beside something that hadn´t been washed). During our shopping spree we done what anyone would have, and bought a pair of white long-johns and t-shirt, and couple with a pillow case around the head, we were set. These photos are the result. (The black-light played havoc with my camera, so just imagine the pictures without all of the white blurry shite going on, and you°ll get a more accurate idea)

The hostel, Millhouse, that we are staying in is huge and we have met some really cool people there, some of which we have already crossed paths with in an earlier life, and hopefully some of which we will meet up with again when we get to Oz. Obviously with such a mass of travellers concentrated in one area you get the odd tosser (or group of tossers in the case of the jerks sitting beside me right now) but generally everyone is in the same boat, and all just out for the craic.

Speaking of craic, we did play another trick on Mick, whereby he was out of the room, and upon his entrance, we casually started a conversation about whether or not you could fit into the safety boxes in the room (it´s quite obvious you could). Right on queue, Mick turned around and proclaimed that he could easily get in, and that we were idiots to think otherwise. A bit of to-ing and fro-ing followed, which ended with him (voluntarily) climbing into the cage, and looking surprised when we closed the door behind him. The following are the videos that ensued 1 and 2, and these photos. It´s a little sadistic to say, but totally true, that this has been one of the highlights of the trip so far. On behalf of the group, I apologise to any of the Dunne family (particularly Mrs. Dunne) who may be reading this. (But always remember that it was voluntary....)

As for touristy stuff, we haven°t done an awful lot, but we did go to a big cemetery place where all of the Argentine big-wigs are buried, Eva Peron, Admiral Willy Brown (not Argentine, but they've adopted him) and some other politicians and poets etc.. The place is a bit weird, as each "grave" is like a big fancy tomb that you can look inside and see coffins and alters and the likes. They really put the Irish Pikey headstones to shame!Examples

Freisin, we went to a tango show last night which was amazing. The whole thing was about 50 Euro, which is expensive in South American terms, but it includes a full 3 course meal (the fancy type that you can't even understand the menu) and then an hour and a half of a play told through tango. At no point had we any idea what was going on but it was still one of the coolest things we've done. It was the whole 9 yards, orchestra, opera singing, and beautiful people dancing around like lunatics, riverdance style (ish). Photos here. I had more planned to write but Fearghal is rushing me because he's hungry, which is always a bad thing, so I don't fancy pissing him off.

I'll try to ring some of ye later this week, but its Adios for now,

BQ

Mi hermana es más inteligente que yo le dio crédito para, por lo que algunos de los mensajes codificados tiene que parar!

Back to Civilization

We are back on the road of decent internet speeds, some half-english-speaking people, and food that is no longer just described on the menu as "meat". We left La Paz on a 13 hour bus to Uyuni, which is the port of call you have to make when going on the Salt Flats tour. We didn't even stay in Uyuni 1 night as its a bit of a kip, but it was a necessary means to an end. The Salt Flats tour was a 3 day \ 2 night trip that cost 50 Eur, all food and accommodation included. The first night we stayed in a hotel, which was made entirely from salt, walls, tables, beds, the works. It was pretty cool, even if not the most comfortable. We also only had electricity between 7 and 9 in the evening, then it was all candles and cold showers. The tour basically consists of driving for hours to get from one touristy spot to another. The Salt Flats themselves are covered in the first few hours, but are really impressive. Its just like the flattest landscape on earth, made of salt. Because its so flat, you can do funny perspective photos, something to do with relativity, or the lack of it. Its an optical illusionists dream, if such a person exists.

The second night we stayed in a hostel at 5000 metres above sea level. This led to a couple of issues, 1) at night, the temperature dropped to -12 degrees (we had no heating other than our beer jackets) and 2) we went playing football with some of the local kids, and after 15 minutes not 1 of us could breath. Altitude is a bitch.

The next morning we were up at 4.30 to get to some natural springs by sunrise. At the time this sounded like the worst idea since putting pineapple on a pizza, but once we got there, and struggled through getting into our swimming stuff (it was still negative degrees out) the water was beautiful. The rocks under the pool were heated volcanically, and after an untimely head first fall into the pool, the water was magical. Mick wussed out of this too...

The photos can be seen here. There are some artistic ones in there that we cant take credit for. On our tour we met a far more innovative girl than we could ever be, and even though she was English, she was OK!

From here, we were dropped to San Pedro in Chile, the hardest place in the world to get out of. We ended up buying 2 bus tickets for 2 different days and just trying both of them. We got a bus to Salta, which unexpectedly, was pretty cool. We had a few good nights there, and 1 day of adventure stuff. I´m glad to say, (and I think he is too) Mick was beer pressured into doing all activities. There were 2 crap things, an ab sailing job and some crappy rope slide, but we did so this swinging from a bridge malarkey, and then the bungee jump. It wasn´t massive, but it was good practice for the real thing in NZ. Videos of Mick and me are here. (Alternatively, you can get to Micks by typing "blanky flakey 3step" into youtube)

From there we had a 27 hour bus to Iguazu. Valium is a good thing. On our first day here we realised that the town itself is very unparty-like, unless bingo, or backgammon with coffin-dodgers are your thing, so we went straight to the falls and saw the Brazilian side (Iguazu forms the point that Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet, and can be accessed from all 3 sides with different views of the same thing from each). It´s really quite impressive, the Devils Throat is the largest of the falls, and is mighty powerful, but I think the most awesome thing about the whole experience is the vast circumference of falls that must cover over a mile of cliff faces. I can´t remember which photos are from which side, so they´re all just here.

On the second day, we hit the Argy side, which has more to do, but doesn´t have that postcard shot that´s available from the Brazilian side. We got a speed boat up the rapids and got soaked going under a couple of the falls. It was great craic at the time, and then the boat stopped and we had to get off. The cold kicks in pretty quick, and Iguazu has a lot of things going for it, but an abundance of hot showers and changing rooms is not one of them. After a chaffing, 500m walk back up to the top of the cliff, we got pissed off and gave the crowd what they wanted. We had to just change on some random, lucky bench. It was worth it though.

That´s where we are now, and we have another 20 odd hours on a bus to Buenes Aires tomorrow, but Valium and pre-packed sandwiches in hand, we have finally nailed this travelling business, so bring it on....

As usual, Gegor has not been forgotten. His latest escapades can be found here and the latest notch on his laminated bedpost is here. .

Talk to ye all soon,

BQ

P.S. Mick está haciendo tomar los últimos cambios ...