Sometimes you wanna go...where everybody knows your name

Today, I got up nice and late at about 11ish, and then decided to take a stroll around Boston. I headed down Commonwealth Avenue park, towards Boston Public Garden, with Chevelle's Wonder What's Next album beating a strong and steady dirge. (Incidentally, after having this album on mp3 for ages, I bought it on cd in Chicago :) ) it was a really nice walk, broken up by statues every block or so, then through Boson Public Gardens and Boston Common, which was part of the original mile and a half square peninsular that was here when Boston was founded. most of the rest, (Back Bay) has been made by filling in the Charles River since the 1800s, and as such was subject to city planning, which means all the roads are wide and square, whereas further into the old city as I would find the roads follow the old puritans footpaths and everything is rather narrower. I walked myself to the river and came back along the 'Freedom Trail,' a double line of red brick set in the pavement as a set walk to take visitors past all the main points of Boston and it's revolution, ironically to Rage Against the Maching and Mr De La Rocha Screaming freedom down my ears. Awesome. Finally, to end my tour of Boston, I had to do the only other thing you have to do...go to the pub that was the original basis for cheers. I only had one pint, (at $6.50 can you blame me?) but I can now say I've had a beer in the real life equivalent to cheers. And I feel much better for having done so! :)

Quack Quack!

Today I only had one goal, to go on the Boston Duck tour! Which is a 90 minute tour of Boton from an old WWII amphibious vehicle, sounds a bit over the top right? well, that's because it also goes down the river too. Oh yeah, two for the price of one baby! It was a cool and informative tour, loads of stuff that I'll probably foget or have forgotten, but it was good to know whilst it was still in my head, our driver/pilot/tour guide was called Ace Bandage, ad informed us you needed 4 licences to drive one of the ducks (Actually GMC DUKW 6 axle 2 1/2 tonne all-purpose vehicle - hence duck) truck, bus, hackney and masters, so yes, he was a captain and he could marry any of us at sea if urge took us. ANY of us, as we're in Boston and it's fairly liberal these days ;)
Hehe, it was a pretty cool tour, he told us about the four seasons of Boston, "Nearly winter, Winter, Still Winter and Road Construction." and about a thisrt he saw on a biker dude the other day that read 'if you can read this my wife has fallen off' We were informed this was cleaned up dude to the children on board and the fact that the speakers meant everyone around us could hear from the sidewalk (americanism) too. I really enjoyed the tour, and think it was well worth the $30, and if any of you ever come here, you must do it! I must also give a big thanks to Em for finding the tour for me online, else I'd have probably never know about it. ('I wanna do things out here that I can't do back home.') It's also given me a sight of where I want to go look in the next few days, including the actual bar that Cheers was based on! Offically! hehe :) Anyways, since then I've mostly come back chilled out and written up this little lot! I wonder what tomorrow will bring. In other news, I'm lovin' it, and today I actually got to talk to people for the sake of talking, not just because they wanted to sell me something. I haven't done this since Alana left, I'm not sure I've missed it. I think I can live without talking to people. THis does not bode well for future relationships with people in the world.
Anothe

Boston!

Woke up, went to wifi hotspot, still no money on card. Swore, called home, booked flight for 6 hours time on mum's card.
The rest of the day was pretty much spent getting ready to go, one last quick internet check, then heading to the airport on the subway, the subway ride took about 50 minutes and was totally painless, and only cost $2.25! Which was a totaly result. You can keep your $25 airport shuttles mate :) As we flew out of Chicago and I looked out the window back at the city, I finally realized how tall the John Hancock and Sears Tower really are, they were still level with us after take off! and they were above the cloud level at the top, Chicago really does look awesome fro the air, and so does the coastline stretching away from it. I then wished I'd had my camera with me instead of in the overhead luggage, and as we were stil taking off, I couldn't get up and grab it. :(
The flight was pretty straightforward and I read some more of Clarkson on Cars, then looke dout the window to see we were flying along the beach, rather low. It would seem, dear readers, that the runway in Boston stop/ends (depending on how you look at it) on the watherfront, and to get there you fly along the beach, then over maybe 500m of land then more water and then you touch down on the most buttock-clenching landing you can think of, as the plane gets lower, all you can see is water, you hear the engines pick up as the pilot levels, and wonder for a split second before dismissing it, 'is this right?' Of course it was and we landed all safe and sound. I then took the magical subway (again $2.25 and this was over two different lines) to the station by my hostel, then wandered around in circles, actually around the road with my hostel in for a while before I found it. walked in, checked in, card got declined, called the usual, told the money had not been put in, and that I should wait about 6 hours. I wandered out to the nearest atm, drained my nationwide account of all but $20 and finally checked in. (which reminds me, i'd best top that back up.) my new room is a 2 bed co-ed, where I'm sharing with 6 irish guys, one usa/korean guy and 2 english lads. I headed out to find the nearest Subway for dinner, and along the way my trusty mp3 friend picked Enter Shikari, excellent call, I nu-raved my ass all the way to subway, past the musical college centre of the world (literally dozens of buldings) past a very posh theatre with posh old people coming out, in my black hoody with the bright hot pink writing on. Oh yeah, I'm that cool, and past a musical instrument store, (i'll be checking that out tomorrow.) And finally, to bed :)

D'n'B and Museums

So today, for my last full day in Chicago, I headed on down to the Museum of Science and Industry. It was a bout a 20 min bus ride from the nearest bus stop, it was a good ride. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we are about to enter the Arron Museum technique zone...a I walked in and grabbed a map I could tell this was going to be a massive mueseum and would take a fair few hours of my time up! So...on went the mp3 for some serious museumage. The place had everything, a meagre collection of cars through the ages, though I'm proud to say they were mostly british (Aston Martin, Two Lolas, a Rolls) then into the ships section, where they had 1:75 and 1:200 scale moselds that were still over a metre long, these things were huge! Mostly British and American once again, one was even made by the guy who built the actual boat the model was of, which was quite crazy. I then headed to the U-505 an actual u-boat captured by the Americans in WWII. Now, as is always the way with these museum places, you could see all the exhibits around the outside, but to go in the sub you needed t pay extra for a ticket, and I'm not going to do that. Cheeky beggars, so I had Powder on the mp3 and wandered around looking and interacting with the exhibits, and taking pictures, (very difficult with the lighting conditions.) Anyways, moving on, there was plenty of stuff to see, many many exhibits, more space stuff, andother big Imax screen, some future stuff, basically, everything you'd expect to find, DNA, engineering and so on, and upstairs, Aeroplanes and trains. and actual 727, with some parts still working (flaps and airbrakes) a Stuka, a Spitfire and some stunt bi-planes, it was all very cool stuff, it was also about this time the mp3 decided it was time for me to hear Pendulum and then the new The Prodigy album, possibly the best museum music ever! I saw everything I wanted to and got out in a shade under 4 hours. I then wandered back through downtown one last time, just because I could and because I like it. Someone, unfortunately however, decided it was about time for it to absolutely chuck it down, so, on came the coat and wet got the jeans! I then went back to lé hostel, to try and sort out accomodation and flights for tomorrow and beyond until I go home. Needless to say the Halifax still hadn't put the money on my credit card account yet, so I decided I'd give them until the morning.

"Barry White, saved my life"

SUN! There is SUN! Bugger this, I'm off out...
...
...
...wel, that was awesome, the sun was shining, so I took a walk up the 'Magnificent Mile' and got myself a new phone charger, as mine broke in the motel the other day. I stopped off in various sports shops looking at the prices of replica bears and blackhawks tops and tees and hoodies. I promised myself I'd get a new replica jersey, but now I think I have to re-prioritize. As people have commented from my pictures, it would seem I need new jeans more, and I think I may need another, non black and bright pink hoody! Also, I think I've sourced somewhere I can get the jerseys when I get home and have some disposable income anyways. After that I wandered back, stopped off at subway for my breakfast/lunch it was 2pm) and had a $5 footlong (plus tax) mhmm oven roasted chicken breast, lush! then through Millenium Park, with it's weird amphitheatre/venue and a random super polished stainless steel ball thing, with which I took some pretty cool pictures, and generally just wandered round and enjoyed the weather as I headed to Soldier Field, home of the Bears, the one place I've wanted to see for like 15 years, the one main thing I wanted to do when I finally reached Chicago all those years ago. The bugger's don't do public tours unles for a group and booked by phone in advance! how totally unfair is that? they're missing a massive trick here, the money generated, the interest in the franchise, the not dissapointing me after 15 years. I felt gutted. So I wandered round what I could and took pictures to the 4th album of the day on my mp3 (two by vertical horizon, then half of the Presidents of the USA and half of somthing corporate (so that only counts as 1) then AFI - Live, I Heard a Voice, and finally Fun Lovin Criminals, 100% Columbian.) I eventually headed back to the hostel, and found out they don't do tours of the United Center either. So that's that idea buggered too. Ahh well, was still a great day, and lovel weather, and now I'm in the TV room watching game 2 of the Red Wings, who are sadly winning this game too :( but it's good entertainment! :) Night all!

lets go Magic

Today I had a lie in and got up about 9:30, went on the interent for a bit, tried to suss out my finances and plan for the next 14 days, gave up and wandered round a few blocked for food for the next few days, failed again and bought a subway. though it was a 5 buck footlong special, so that'll cover me 'til way into tonight, where I shall find a bar to watch the Orlando game. I then trundled back to my bunk to write up the last few days of the usa and all of Fiji. I managed the USA part! it's now 3pm, and I'm gonna post this online, sort out where I can buy food, and plan my trips to the united center and soldier field. I thought about seeing a baseball game, and although I'm sure I'd love the atompshere and experience, I'm not sureI can be bothered. I have better things to spend my money on! In the end I went to a sports bar called Junior's on Maxwell st. It was lush! Upon walking in I saw loads of screens, (I went so I could eat and see the Orlando game,) some local police sitting down for some food, it was mildly empty so i picked a booth and sat down, and by chance the booth happened to be showing the Red Wings - Penguins Stanley cup game on a small screen, result I thought! until I got asked to move to a hightop as booths were reserved for 4-6 people incase it got busy. This wasn't a bad thing as I ended up much closer to the Basketball screen :) I oreder a miller light, and an ace of jack burger and fries for $9. The fires were ok, but over fried. The burger on the other hand... better than anything I've had recently, burger, bacon, cheese, jack daniels bbq sauce, it was awesome. so as I devoured this burger, the place started to fill up, and more screens switched to the basketball, which was nice. lol. As the place filled up I noticed that I was most definately in the minority, not only was I one of only three white punters, but more notably, I was supporting the Magic, and pretty much no-one else was. The big dude oppostie me was very animated over his support for the Cavs, though I think it was mostly for Lebron James, we exchanged multiple glances and expressions of myrth and frustration at our teams as the game progressed, mostly laughing. By the end of the game the place was heaving, and they were clearing out the hi-tops to make space for i guess a dance floor, I don't know as once we won and I sank my 5th pint, (I had planned to go out and get to know people the saturday night I was in Chicago) and I headed on the 30 minute walk home, content that I'd had a great meal, my team had progressed to the NBA playoff finals, and I generally felt good about the world and loving Chicago :)

Chapter 4. Day off

Sat 30th
Today I had a lie in and got up about 9:30, went on the internet for a bit, tried to suss out my finances and plan for the next 14 days, gave up and wandered round a few blocked for food for the next few days, failed again and bought a subway. though it was a 5 buck footlong special, so that'll cover me 'til way into tonight, where I shall find a bar to watch the Orlando game. I then trundled back to my bunk to write up the last few days of the usa and all of Fiji. I managed the USA part! it's now 3pm, and I'm gonna post this online, sort out where I can buy food, and plan my trips to the united center and soldier field. I thought about seeing a baseball game, and although I'm sure I'd love the atompshere and experience, I'm not sureI can be bothered. I have better things to spend my money on!

End of Chapter 3, and continuation of chapter The Halfiax sucks Arse.

Today was Alana's last day, so with little time to do anything, we headed out of town to Aurora, to their version of MacArthur Glen, to see if she could get any last minute bargains, we didn't leave the room til about 11am (checking out time, due to last night's events taking us to about 2am! Alana bought a few items, I bought Ice Cream :) then we headed to the Airport (O'Hare) to drop off the car and see Alana off. In the end we notched up 3915 miles in that Sentra, with fuel pices ranging from $2.15 a gallon (US) to $2.85, (we did see $2.05 and $3.45) all in all, it served us well, as much as we'd have preferred to cruise along in a mustang or something old and chromed, it did the job, if without any of the power it should've had. After dropping off the car (and not leaving anything in it) we headed in, Alaa checked in, we grabbed some water and had a chat and a drink whilst waiting for her flight (it had been delayed for nearly an hour.) Once we'd gone our seperate ways, I grabbed an airport shuttle to the Hostel, it took a good hour or so to get to where it dropped me off, which kinda cool, as I got to see a different part of the city in a relaxed space. Also, as I was now bricking it about being on my own and what would I do if one of my cards ballsed up, it was a nice relaxing time as I was doing something, there was nothing I could do about it or to it or anything to make it any different, I could just tag along and enjoy the ride. Of course, this being me they dropped me off at a vey expensive hotel which sounded like my hostel, but it was ok, as my hostel was only round the corner and took all of 3 minutes to walk to. Then check in time. Interestingly enough I'd booked 2 nights in a 10 man dorm, and 3 in an 8 man dorm, as the 10's were all sold out on those dates, when I arrived, I fond out I'd actually been booked into a female dorm for 4 nights. Obviously I wasn't going to complain, but they did move me to a male dorm, drats, maybe next time. Next, I paid for my bunk and headed to my room. Or did I? No, of course I didn't, I bamk with the Halifax, and therefore, my card declined (now, I've lost count of the amount of times I've told them I'm away 'til mid june, and I knew I had enough money to cover it in there) so I asked the lad to try again, for a lesser amount, nope, declined again. OK, plan b, bit of a pain, but I want somewhere to sleep, so I wandered off round the corner to an atm to get cash out of my Nationwide account, except, there wasn't any in my nationwide account, because I'm poor. Fudge. So, slightly miffed at the card declining stil, I wandered back in and sked if there was a wifi connection I could pinch briefly, there was, so I jumped on that, logged into my account, and low and behold, there was more than the amount sitting in my account waiting to be used. So, we know what happens next, a 10 minute phone call to Halifax, who seem bemused I'm in another country, "have you told us you were going out of the country sir?" I resisted the urge to use expletives, as it's obviously not his fault that his company is entirely incompetent. Then he checked my activity and said there had not been any attempted transactions recently, and then tsaid, "oo, it might be because our computer card system has been off for the last 15 minutes, but Mastercard usually takes over from us." Sorry? You turn off your entire system once a day and hope someone else's system takes over? (it was explained it was daily maintenance, done at this time so to inconvienence as few people as possible - I lose again) that's a ridiculous way to run a credit facility, ever heard of a secondary?? Twats. Anyways, he then laimed to call "head office" to tell them any transaction coming through from chicago in the next 15 minutes would be me and fine to pass. (ANY??? I said the company name, their location, everything. I don't want ANY transaction you tit.) Anyways, eventually, I got in! and it's very nice, I had a quick look around and it is a lovely hostel, though right next to the L! (El - Elevated Train system) - Oh yeah, and my phone charger broke this morning too :(
But I'm all good :)

I can't find the keys....I'm turning into Dad!

Today, we went for the Adler Planetarium, which was very cool, 2 shows on those 360 degree domed screens you get for such presentations, some cool exhibits about space and the world, and the pod from Gemini XII which was awesome to see, it was tiny, with two unpadded seats and then a mass of switches, levers and gadgets around them, just to think, this is the space two men lived in for 2 weeks! how did they get any exercise or stretch their legs??? After this we wandered over to Sears Tower and went up to the skydeck, though the main skydeck is undergoing refurbishment (on the 103rd floor) we could go up to the 99th and look around, which was probably better as the visibility did end a few miles away, so any higher and we'd have just been further away from what was insight. The views were amazing, this place is massive we saw all the sports grounds, both airports, and more, before eventually deciding we should come down. We then started to head back to the car, and as we passed the Art Institue on the way had a look in there. We eventually got back to the car park about 7:30, paid for our ticket nly to find we no longer possessed the car keys. Which after being so damned careful for the last 2 weeks seemed impossible, also the reminder on the keyring that said min fee for lost key $250 was not helping. Fortunately, we're both pretty sensible when we need to be, so I called the Aquarium, and the skydeck, only to find that the aquarium was shut and the skydeck had no-one on the phone after 5pm. Then I called the shop I bought stuff in, and they were hepful and said they'd call back if they found them. we then headed to the planetarium on the off chance they'd have a security guard wandering around. they didn't. so we headed back to the art institute via the park where we stopped to see the floral sculptures made of car parts to see if we'd dorpped them, no luck, Alana ran on to the Institue as they were about to close, they were very sympathetic and gave her the number for the local police station. I called them, no luck. and again when hanging up the phone, like the shop they wished me a good day. good day? it's 8pm and I've lost my car keys you ****! we headed to the skydeck next, all the time I was trying to remember the roads the dunkin donuts we stopped at was on so I could call directory enquiries and get them as I was sure that's where the keys would be. Outside skydeck we got apporached by a man working for the local shelter (why he chose to approach two angry faced, power walking, crazy looking tourists I don't know, but I though for a bit of Karma I'd give him a dollar or so, allowing Alana to get ahead, as I walked into the skydeck, there was Alana facing the security guard who had made me empty my pockets earlier holding up our keys! yay! (we'd ha to empty our pockets for a metal detector, and somehow my wallet, phone and camera made it back out of the box into my pockets but the keys didn't. Though seeing as it was the same guard and he'd obviously noticed, how comes he didn't say anything? He could've saved us 45 minutes of panicked power walking! Though I didn't feel justified about the karma thing. My legs were now broken, as was Alana, but we had to power walk back as if I stopped for too long I wouldn't get started again, so much for the plan of getting back nice an early for the last night, having a KFC and chilling watching a film. I decided we both needed beer, so we made it a point to grab beer on the way home. also, to soak our feet in the bath, thus appeared the idea of kfc, beer and feet in right now isn't even as funny as the real image was! We got back to the car, got out of the car park, having to pay again for the parking as they're bloody useless too. then headed off for beer, check, petrol, check, taco bell for Alana, check, and, KFC for me, ahh, now here was the problem, I'd set my mind on popcorn chicken, (film, popcorn, worked for me) and we'd seen loads of KFC's everywhere on our travels, normally attached to a taco bell. well, in the end it took an hour of searching, finally giving up and using interent on my phone to find one, (bt the way, the KFC mobile site is exactly what you need from a mobile website, the first thing you have on the screen is an option to enter a zip code and it'll find you the nearest outlets and show them on a google map. the second option takes you to the menu. brilliant, whoever desgined that concept needs a raise, a promotion and to make everyone's corporate mobile sites. what else do you need??) eventually we got back, did said foot spa with a foam cup for a plug, as they didn't have one in the room, and drank the beers watching coupling 'til 2am. :)

It's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses

Today we got up, and went down to Museum Campus, which is by Soldier Field (where we had to park) and went to the Field Museum, where we bought a "City Pass" for $69 this gives us free entery to the Field museum, Aquarium, Planetarium, Skydeck or John Hancock Tower and the Science and Idustry museum. Bargain!The field mueseum was massive, loads and loads of exhibits from all over the world of all kinds of things, and Sue. Sue is the world's largest t-rex fossil/remains/skeleton whatever you want to call itand everything apart from her head sits in the main hall. She's huge, then you have to imagin all the flesh etc on top of the skeleton and the size is immense! the hea has it's own exhibit on the 2nd floor were it shows you how they restored the artifact, as it was filled with rock and partly crushed due to Sue's pelvis being ontop of her head, welding her jaw shut. It was very impressive. Next we headed to the Shedd Aquarium and saw many cool things, barely anythign of which saw in Australia, there was also apparently the chance to dive their fake caribbean reef, though I didn't see that. we saw some big white beluga whales, dolphins, sea otters, which are very amusing, penguins and loads of other stuff, it was great :) we then wandered toward downtown to see if we could find some food etc, afer a while we gave up headed back to the car and stopped off at wal mart on the way home! We got home at a decent time so I introduced Alan to the Blues Brothers film, as I'd brought it along to watch when in chicago. (sorry if you've been looking for it bloke! I've got it :P)

Bent Bridge

We left St Louis, took a minor detour by accident, but it did get us some grat picutres of the St Louis Gateway Arch, then we saw one end of the Cahin of Rocks bridge, and drove on the new bridge 3 miles to the other side, and walked back across most of it. (It's an old bridge that can't be used for cars anymore, but was part of the route, starting just after the chain of rocks canal and passing over the Mississippi, with a 20/30 degree bend in, and it just a mass of metal, we got some cool pics and it was nice to have a decent walk. this took us to gone 12 and we were on the border of Missouri and Illinois, there was stuff on the bridge to inform us of this. At the next rest area ALana took over the driving until we got to "memory Lane" and 8ft section of the original route, now blocked to traffic but preserved as a monument, it was cool, we then swapped over again and I drove the old (in some place very old) route to chicago, passing through Joliet, sparking off Blues Brothers memories, watching the film with dad, and seeing the tribute with mum and dad at the marlowe, it was awesome, we stopped by an ice cream parlour to take a picture of the jake and elwood they had on their roof and then proceeded into chicago. It was raining alot., by the time we finished the route, then tried to find our motel, we ate, and slept.

Toufer. (Two for the pice of one)

Sunday 24th
Today we headed to Joplin, our orginal intent had been Tulsa, but it's too close to Oklahoma City, and would make the next day unfeasibly long. Our route was mostly off of the interstates with route 66 being a fairly large way aways from the main roads, this being because when they made the new interstate, they were going to follow the old route, but Oklahoma wanted it to connect to their newly made expressway, so it detours. Still, it made for some nice driving, some cool sights, including a very old bit of road near Miami, Oklahoma. which was again very cool, as all these little old bits seem to be.

Monday 25th
Today was a straight driving day, with just one stop, at devils elbow, to see an old bridge and take some picutres, the first half of the day was mostly away from the interstate on the old route 66, at devil's we swapped over and i drove us to St Louis, using mostly the interstate as route 66 lies on it.

Dead bugs :)

Today was a bit of a strange day, we started of with the Bug Ranch, 5 horrible little Nazi Wagons (VW Beetles) Buried nose first in the ground, like the Caddys, best thing for 'em says I. All rusting and falling apart, and also being sprayed, one was even a pick-up! The target for today was to make Oklahoma City, we stopped next at the Devil's Rope and Route 66 museum. Who'd have known there was so much to know about barbed wire? Well, apparently there was, I'll be honest, I wasn't all that interested, but I had a look around anyways, it was like 4/5 times the size of the route 66 section! It was kinda cool in an odd way, and free, so it wasn't so bad. Then we carried on, trying to follow the route across Oklahoma state, which was a total mission, the road wasn't signed in most places, and our maps didn't really help when you weren't on it, the was alot of annoyance and frustration, aqnd some rather large detours, but eventually we got there, I drove the whole day as it wasn't a massive distance, but it did leave me pretty much dead for the night, so we went to Pizza Hut to grab a take-out, met the worlds most bored sounding worker, considering he did actually seem to really enjoy his job and be very enthusiastic (in a bored sounding way) about all of the offers and what they did and didn't have. (Seriously, this place still had the 80's branding on the outside.) But in the end we got very good pizza, part of which is about to make for todays lunch. Mhmmmmmmm good badness. Lunch was indeed good, and we did make it to Oklahoma City at a reasonable time, we drove round a bit looking for our motel, and for food, and had a bit of bbq cookin' hehe. I managed to have a total day off of the driving, which was nice.

Is this the way???

Today sees us on the "...way to Amarillo" which is mostly on the I-40 again, but somehow this 300 miles stretch is set to take us a good 5 hours? :S add to that the fact that we will stop places, (I'm eying up the Route 66 Auto Museum, just outside Santa Rosa, Adrian - the (contested) mid point of of Route 66, and the Cadillac Ranch just outside (Sha-la-la, la-la, la-la-la,) Amarillo. Which is a row of Caddies buried nose first in the ground as a tribute to Route 66. Can't wait!...The museum was awesome! about 30 or so old cars, in great condition, I ended up taking well over 120 photos, there were 5 mustangs, and I love mustangs. (Ok, so one was a gay 80's mach 1) 2 Sting-Rays (one early one later) a GTO, a Plymouth Roadrunner, and old school Ford Falcon Convertible, and some really old and crazy stuff, also, rather suprisingly, a 280z...in a horrible shade of umm, brownygold? we spent a long time in there, longer because my camera is still playing up, everyso often the screen goes white and to make it work involves some random mixture of pressing the side of the casing in, blowing through the back of the screen and shaking it about, so that'll be going back to the vendor when I get back. The museum also had a few engines on stands at the front which were pretty cool. Next stop was the midpoint of Route 66 in Adrian. THe owner of the Midpoint Cafe came out and took a picture for us, which was very nice of him, we still didn't buy anything from his cafe or shop though. (The whole road is littered with these kitsch souvenir shops.) then we headed to Amarillo, stopping just outside to visit the Cadillac ranch, which has been moved from it's oringinal site, due to Amarillo getting bigger! (development creep) The reason it's been moved is well, a load of cadillacs buried in the ground getting continuously graffiti'd isn't going to help property prices, AND, the guy that did it, did so as an homage to the route, and wanted to keep the background to it bleak to add to it's presence. It definately worked, considering it was just a few cars stuck in the ground, incidentally at the same angle as the choebs?? pyramids in Egypt. We got some awesome photos, I climbed up into one, and have left my marks with some blue spray paint I found lying around. (there will be pictures on facebook once I get hold of the ones Alana took too.) Eventually we made it to Amarillo, after what was essentially a very car centred day, had some food and drove round the town a bit.

this just coming in...

I hate my bank. They're crap.

In other news, I'll be in chicago until about the 2nd, as my hostel booking seems to have gone awry, I'm not going to the NHL playoffs as it's $125 a ticket, and I barely have $125 for the next fortnight! so if any of you owe me money, now's the time to pay me, else I'll be very angry when I get back. I leave new york on the 11th, and so don't want to really get there before the 7th, so not sure where to go in between, I'm tempted to go back to Toronto as I love that place, but not sure. I'd like to say a big thanks to MaD for their loan last week, it helped immensely, and to Lana who's just left for home with a h00j I.O.U. from me! to everyone else, I promise I'll post some updates of the last few days soon, and fiji, (I've not forgotten) I'm thinking of having an easy day tomorrow, so that should work perfectly :)

Arron's Blog...supplemental

Hi all, well, I'm currently in Chicago and loving it. Sadly, the Hawks just lost game 5 in OT to the red wings, which means the Stanley Cup Finals will be Detroit Vs Pittsburgh...which has led me to a musing...shall I go see game 4 of the stanley cup final in pittsburgh, leaving here on the 3rd, see the game on the 4th and fly to new york on the 5th until the 11th? I'm still thinking that may be too long in NY...I need some input guys, I was planning on staying in Chicago until the 2nd anyways...

In addition to this, a ticket to fly from chicago to new york, will cost me $160. To fly to Pittsburgh is $115 then on to New York is another $70, so $185...(tickets to the game don't go on sale for a few more hours yet so I can't factor that in.)

Day 8 in the big (brother) car

Thursday 21st
Today was the sector from Flagstaff to Albuquerque. (Yes, "Hot dog, jumping frog, !") it was an awesome drive, we drove past a place called "Two Guns" obviously named after Chuck Norris, and I did think about asking for tickets to the gun show, lol. (If you don't get those jokes, then, well, nevermind. :P) we then took a diversion to Meteor Crater, which is on the incredibly aptly named, 'Meteor Crater Road.' when we got there it turned out there was a $15 each admission fee, now, we'd seen the pictures on our special maps, and to be honest, we didn't feel it was worth it, so we headed back to the route, even though i would really liked to have seen it and al the other stuff they had there, it just didn't seem worth the money. Oddly enough, the center (as it is American) is pretty much the first brick building we'd seen! No wonder the slightest wind destroys their towns, they're made of balsa wood! (jokes) we then went through Winslow, definately a one road town, and Joseph City (not very city like) beore leaving the 66 again at holbrook to go down to the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, again this is a national park area, so money to get in (25 for yosemite, 25 for grand canyon, 10 for here) and it wasn't very forest like, but that is only to be expected, a) in the middle of the desert, and b) it's caled petrified as the all the water here was replaced underground with silica which was then taken up by the tree's roots and slowly crystalized the tree from within! There are many chunks of trunk lying around with the most amazing colours in them where the silica has crystalized, and all the textures have changed, it really is an odd but very cool thing to see. The painted desert, is rumoured (though I doubt the legitimacy of this) to be the reason colour film was invented. The sand and rocks change colour due to the different types of rock, the silica content and so on, and again, it was very odd to see a hill that started white, went to a lavender colour, then a pale green, and then dusty red at the bottom, but again, very cool. After that we were back on 66, (still the I-40, as many sections are) or about 30 miles, then 66 seperated from the main drag and rang alongside as Frontage Road all the way to Albuquerque, this was the most fun drive so far, seeing all the cars flying along the interstate as you bounce and bump your way along a rollercoaster-like road, with corners and bends and everything. Just after a place called Laguna, we decided to divert down the pre 1937 stretch of 66 that goes about 20 miles south of Albuquerque (man am I getting bored of typing that word) as it was rumoured to be quite a view. We weren't disappointed, the first thing we encountered was a dust and gravel road for a few miles, with big bumps and lots of loose shale, which was incredibly fun to drive, then we hit the south route 6, and meandered through the wilderness for a bit right next to big rock formations with hairpin corners to get round them, it was a truely amazing drive, and we eventually arrived in Albuquerque, on the correct road (Central Ave) at number 4000, our hotel was 13317, so we decided to head to the longer end of the road, and were surprised when the numbers started to decrease. but it's ok readers, as once they hit 0, they started counting back up again. WTF?!? still, we got to our hotel all right in the end! :) and I was then rather allergic to something, possibly the coat that Alana had left in the room which was mostly used previously with horses, the one thing that sets my allergy off worst! doh. so i dosed myself up on drugs, she hid the coat away, I had a shower and went to bed.

USA ummm 7?

Wednesday 20th
After our little stop at Kingman, we headed off on Route 66 proper, heading toward Flagstaff, the longest continuous strech of Route 66 is here, and heads up off the I-40 (for a change) and toward the Grand Canyon, part in the Hualapai Indian Reservation, and we stopped at the "Grand Canyon Caverns" now, this is in no way connected to the National Park, but what it is is a massive set of caverns 21 storeys below the ground, the lift takes a full minute to get down there, and as you walk around, you see how well everything is preserved due to there being no moisture there, all bacteria etc dies within 72 hours, there is no life down there at all. Just a few remains of things that were unlucky enough to fall in, (like a bob cat) and some bouquets from weddings they have held down there, that are still in very good condition. there is also a US Government supply of food and water and medical kits etc for 2000 people, as at one point in the cold war, all caverns were designated fall out shelters. Now, I said there was no life down there, so how would humans survive? well there is breathable air, naturally, not pumped down, and at one point they were curious to find where it came from, so they set of red smoke flares and had people up top wait to see where it came out. They waited, and waited, and waited, and gave up, then 2 weeks later someone called to say they'd seen the red smoke coming out of the Grand Canyon! Hence the names, and also, the reason it would make a terrible fallout shelter, after two weeks you'd be breathing radioactive air! Doh. We also saw some great little route 66 shops with t-shirts, number plates, tin signs etc etc in, and even a specifc route 66 map, which we are now using rather effectively! (much easier than normal maps, it has route 66 and some of it's earlier adjustments clearly marked in red :) ) Anyways, we carried alon the 66 to a town called Williams, where we diverted off North, so we could go see the south rim of the Grand Canyon, as always, by this time we were starting to get a bit tired, (everyday seems like 9-14 hours in the car!) but the views were amazing, we took many pictures, and got some information on the area from the observation station, and some very cool elevated views from the watchtower in the Indian Reservation section, and then we headed back down to Flagstaff to find our bed for the night :)

USA nearly a week!

Tuesday 19th
We decided not to head out for a Canyon Tour, as we needed a relaxing day, nothing was booked, AND we couldn't find free

internet anywhere! We took a wander down the strip, which was cool, then up to the Outlet stores wher yes, we did spend

money, which hasn't helped my money situation any, but in my defense, I wanted everything I bought for me, and presents

are well, presents! (No, you haven't got any, you've not been good enough :P) we then finally found a hotspot in a food

court on the strip and trying to book and sort a place to stay in Kingman. For some unknown reason, neither of our cards

was working with lastminute.com my bank accounts had some missing money as halifax were being slow and dumb, this would

later end up in a not entirely pleasant toned phone to get them to put the money in my account that they'd had for the

last 6 days. I'm so closing all my accounts with them when I get back. It just looks good on credit checks when they ask

how long you've been with your bank to say, 'over 20 years.' Well, loyalty has got me nowhere but wound up, so they can

stick it now. Anyways, back on with the story, we finally got somewhere to stay, and the route to Kingman took us over

the Hoover Dam, which was one of the things we really wanted to do.
As we got to Hoover Dam, ( I was really excited, having seen a program on discoveryHD about it before coming out) we saw

that they were building a new section to the 93, the road that goes over the dam, and to do so are in the prcess of

bulding a massive bridge a little further downstream from the dam. It looks awesome, the whole site does, the Dam with

all it's art deco styling and big brass doors and plaques and oh so much stuff to see, I could've taken photos all night,

but sadly after sunset all pedestrians have to get off the dam, and it was about 15 minutes to sunset and we had a little

walk back to the car, crossing the Arizona state line too. I was very much impressed by the dam, and in awe of the fact

it had been built at all. let alone the fact that it's still a massive hydro electrc plant producing enough power for

well over 1.3million people! (That's American people too) and all this back before colour tv!

More America Day 5

Monday 18th
Time to leave and head on, undertaking a massive 14hour journey according to Google maps. We had an end point of

Stratosphere in Las Vegas, a room we grabbed through lastminute.com for $33! normally the run to LV is 8 and half hours,

but we wanted to try and see Yosemite and Death Valley, and had a good route all planned out, cutting across Yosemite,

then down into Death Valley taking in the view and Dante's Peak of the highest and lowest points you can see in one place

in all of mainland america, Badwater at -278ft, and Mount something or other at 14,400+ft. So we knew it would be a

mission. It was, it was a totally draining day we covered over 800 miles on roads that varied from interstate to windy

mountain passes, we spent most of our time at about 4000ft abot sea level, dropping down to 2000 and up to 6000+

typically, the pass across Yosemite was closed halfway along and there was no other detour than going back 137 miles and

going all the way around the top. Screw that mess, we ended up going down through the park instead, seeing some great

sites still and making many photo stops, then down to Fresno, where we took the 99 to Delano, and then across some more

winding forest/range roads to Lake Isabella, which was gorgeous, we took this route in the hope we'd get to a point we

chose as our descision point at a time to make it worth going to Death Valley and Dante's Peak before sunset, the point

was about 120miles from the peak, we got there at 6, wich sunset being at 8, and all the roads being so winding we knew

we'd only average 30 maybe 40 mph, so, defeated, we headed south and joined up the main route to I-15 and Vegas. We

Finally checked in at 23:20, having left San Francisco at about 8:00/8:30, shattered. Sleep was much needed and

gratefully recieved.

USA Day 4 innit

Sunday 17th.
Today we walked to Pier 33, bought tickets for Alcatraz, then spent the time waiting at Pier 39 which is a mini shopping

arcade, it was quite nice, we then walked back to pier 33 and took the ferry to Alcatraz, and enjoyed the tour, those

cells were tiny! Even more so once you had belongings in them. The audio tour was very informative, and the whole

experience was enjoyable. Once we got back to Per 33, we decided to walk to the Golden Gate Bridge, it only looked a

couple of miles on the map. It wasn't. By the time we got there I was very very grumpy at the slight sunburn I had, plus

how much my feet ached due to walking in my Reef flip-flops (I'm still not calling them Thongs) and my knee was playing

up again. We eventually got there at about 18:30, having left Pier 33 at 15:00ish, we'd left the motel at 10:00 so we

could walk along Lombard St on the way and take pictures of the crookedest street as it's now known, you know the part

I'm on about, it zig-zags down a hill and was in the Herbie film :) we then walked all the way back to the Motel for

20:30 to grab the car to drive to Golden Gate Park, a park 9 miles long with roads in it and nowhere near the bridge! it

was dark by then, so we did a little tour and headed to the coast for an "in N out burger" which we'd been told was the

best fast food outlet as they cook it fresh. I personally loved their menu which consisted of the following.
"Hamburger"
"Cheeseburger"
"Double Double" (Two burgers and slices of cheese in a bun)
"Combo"
Combo was any of the above with CHIPS (fries) and a drink.

That's it. That's the menu. Simple as. Loved it. THe burger was rather good too. :)

Despite the pain and frustration, I loved San Francisco, it's a great place, totally great, we didn't see any of the gay

parts, which would've been interesting to see the whole culture of city, but what we did go round and see was nice. They

also have the best radio station ever on 104.1 who have a 'hate at 8'section where people call up, say what they hate and

what song they love and it gets played, unless you're the woman who called up hating Linkin Park, and got demolished by

the DJ, telling her she's wrong, then she tried to sing, to which he said, "Wow, you're a great singer, you should go on

American Idol" very mockingly, she, being American and not understanding sarcasm said "thank you" his retort? "shut up"

and cut her off, not a moment too soon for my liking either. Other than that the station played top music all day, some

new stuff, some old stuff, an interview with Green Day about the new album, just generally good good stuff.

US and A numero trois

Saturday 16th
We started off the day by retracing our way back along the coast to the places we didn't see in the daylight, Carmel-by-

the-Sea looked lush, very expensive, and they'd banned all neon signs and such to keep the place looking very respectible

and slightly old-fashioned. we then headed back to the Big Sur region taking some nice pics of the Bridge and the

coastline. We then decided if we were ever going to make it to San Francisco we'd need to make a move, and headed on up

the the coast with the Flaming Lips in my head as we went to Santa Cruz. I've one thing to say to you about Santa Cruz on

a lovely hot sunny weekend day. Don't bother. THe place was chock full of traffic, and whilst bits of it looked nice, by

then I was tired, hungry and fed up! we left about 5pm and Alana drove the rest of the way to San Francisco, whilst I

slept.
San Francisco is quite an odd city, in that it's busy, we know it's busy because it's San Francisco, yet, when we got

there there was moderately little traffic and the whole place is very easy to get round, even if the od one system foils

your first attempt to go up a street, you can always take the next one and swing round. We ended up checking into a nice

little motel on Union and Van Ness, having to part with a little more money than we'd hoped as there was a race going on

on sunday and everywhere was booked up! By this point my credit card had all of $100 on it and my pocket $70, which was

handy, as that just about covered the room for two nights.
In the grand sceme of things, I still owe Alana for the car hire, so I'm hoping to pay off as much debt as I can as we

go, sadly, my money situation isn't the best, the money I have is now notably less than my credit card debts, and I'd say

as I write this now on Weds 20th, I really need to spend less than £500 before I go home. Which I think will be

impossible. lol.

USA Day 2

Friday 15h
Today we began our journey to San Francisco, the route we picked yesterday invovles taking the 101 through Santa Barbara

to San Luis Obispo, where we take highway 1 for a more scenic route all the way up the coast toward Santa Cruz. The drive

was very very long and by 8:30 (sunset) we still hadn't reached Big Sur and were a good 50 miles from our target of

Monterey, where we'd found a nice cheap motel to stay in if we got there! The day's travelling was cool, we stopped in

Ventura for breakfast (scrambled eggs, hash brown, bacon, sausage) and I stubbed my toe, which hurt an excruciating

amount! We then moved on up the coast on highway 101 to Santa Barbara, which was lovely, los of cool shops, restuarants,

bars, cafés and surf. Kinda like a US version of Byron Bay, but more upmarket.The next place we stopped was called Avila

Beach, just past Pismo Beach, and far nicer, it was a lovely long stretch of sand with a big long pier to walk out on,

fish and enjoy the views. From there, we passed through the town of San Luis Obismo, to switch onto the '1' to proceed up

along the coastline, We stopped briefly at Morro Beach, and Saw some surfers at San Simeon (I had to stop there because

of the Goldfinger song of the same name) then a few miles up the coast we stopped at an Elephant Seal look out, there

were literally hundreds of hte big, fat, lazy, noisey, burping, farting b*stards! got some awesome pictures and a bit of

a video, they were on the beach right beneath us, it was so amazing and totally unexpected! Now, it was starting to get a

bit dark, we figured we had maybe 30 minutes before sunset, so we took off along the road to get a decent spot (our aim

had been to get to Monterey before dark, but that was well out the window now) the road for the next hour or so was

truely not american, I don't know where they stole it from but they should steal more, hanging on to the edge of the

coastline, going up steep inclines, swinging round the edge of a slope, before plummeting back down to sea level for a

hairpin and back up again, it was quite like the more fun parts of the Great Ocean Road in Oz, we caught a really nice

lookout for sunset and took many photos. (Eventually I'll sort through the dozens for a decent one or two!) we then

decided we'd head on to Big Sur and find somewhere to stay. We didn't. they were all booked or too expensive, so we ended

up heading on past Carmel, to Monterey, a big town where we knew we'd find somewhere. We were in by 11, and soon asleep!

Usa Day 1

Thursday 14th
Note to all, America doesn't understand backpacking or travelling, when faced with the question of where will you be

staying in America, the response, I don't know, I'm on a two week road trip, so nowhere for more than a night does not

compute, in the end, after queuing up for 30 minutes I had to leave the line, go back to the information desk and ask for

a hostel in LA, the information desk...well, let's say it's not very aptly named, so as far as the US Government and

immigration are concerned I'm now staying in Banana Barracks in Los Angles, I very much doubt this is a real place, but

they didn't check so stuff 'em! after that farce of trying to get into the country, I met Alana and got the car, given a

choice, which was nice, we were told we could pick anything in the compact section, if there were none there we could

take something out of the intermediate section, the. The compact section seemed to be taken up mostly by people carriers

apart from a blue Toyota Yaris saloon, and a white Nissan Sentra, n ow, I don't like white cars, but the Yaris didn't

have a jack plug for an mp3 player, the sentra did :) (For information, a nissan sentra is essentially the same size as

my Primera back home, and this one claims to have to 140Bhp, coupled to a cvt automatic gearbox, it's gutless as hell, my

old Passat had 140, albeit with diesel torque and a turbo, but it destroyed this thing, as most cars would!) we then

navigated the traffic to Stefan and Emily's took, 1h20. sat in the garden an chilled for a bit, then Emily came home and

we went out to dinner at a philly cheese steak type lace, and caught the end of the Magc Celtics game 6 playoff game.

After dinner we headed to a little shopping type village, which was desgned in a whole '50s? kind of retro style which

was nice then had a walk through a little mall, which was rather big by our standards and had lots of col shops I've

never heard of, and a few I had. We then went back to Stefan and Emily's and fired up the pc attached to the tv to have a

look at our proposed route and get some suggestions on a really cool trip to San Francisco, then somehow we managed to

catch the season finale of series 3 of 30 rock! (How cool is that Rob!!!) and feel asleep.

USA

Yeah, so, umm, I've still not written the Fiji part yet, and I've only got a draft of what I'm gonna write for the US, but needless to say, we've done 1400+ miles in 5 days, including a day where we didn't go anywhere by car and walked excessively. THere will be an update soon, I might pad out what I have tonight and post in the morning (US time) once we've sussed out our route. We're in a place called Kingman currently, just past Chloride (i sh*t you not.) Tomorrow will be some actual Route 66, maybe a bit of Canyon and then Flagstaff for the night. Today I found a shopping outlet. I bought new glasses, they're polarised. I like them alot.
One thing of note for the week, the phrase, emmitted by my very own vocal chords when seeing a bird wash itself in the street... "What are you doing? that's not a bath it's a f***ing puddle you pikey!" A bit harsh on said bird maybe, but it had just offered to Tarmac my driveway. (I guess you had to be there.)
Catch you all later!

fiji

there will be a fiji post to come, I've just not written it yet, sorry the updates have been so far apart! the internet is a pretty rare thing over here, unlike rain. it's been an eventful week, few highs and lows, but all in all a good experience. I'm currently sat in a hostel waiting for the washing to finish and trying to get myself ready for route 66 next week!





So, Fiji, well, We flew into Nadi, where we found our Feejee Experience peoples, who then got us lei'd, then off to our "hotel" for the evening, this is where we met up with the Gavlar, who had acquired a Ryan, he was to be our new friend. :) In the morning we all boarded the Feejee Experience bus, greeted by possibly the campest tour guide ever (and that's saying something) the 6ft black Bungle known as Kem, and were carted off into Nadi, where we had to gain supplies for the day, (this I could see was to be a problem for the week, what with my only form of currency being my Halifax credit card, and so would have to rely on Rob for the week to sub me - not a position I liked being in.) and a sarong for visits to the villages, where we would meet the locals and partake in rituals, but you must not wear footwear and must cover your legs. So, off into town we went, after learning the word "Bula" (Boo-laah) which is Hello, you pick this up very quickly, as everyone and their dog will say it to you as you walk round, one shop keeper even stopped us for a chat, the whole time we were thinking (oh no, go away, we don't want to buy anything from you!) But we were wrong, he didn't want to sell us anything, he made no movements to get us into his shop, he wanted to know where we were from, what football teams we supported, what we were doing in Fiji, and to buy local stuff from the Fijians, not the Indians that were taking over. The irony was not lost on me, and it was funny as how we mis-judged him when the conversation started, by the end of it he ended up sounding like every "get them out of my country" Englishman! But he was very nice with it, and wished us all well with our travels.
The Feejee group now consisted of Laura, Just - Plain - Jane, (who was lovely) Florian, Aurellie, Lukas, and the Japanese!
Then we were off on our travels, in our mother of a bus, moving all and sundry out of the way on roads that made Fraser look mildly serene!
We then went to the sand dunes and sandboarded down them, well, about 5 of us did. It was awesome. I wrecked myself twice and loved it. There's at least one video on facebook.
PS. It's raining.
In the evening we stayed at Mango Bay and had a Kava cermeony, this is how the Fijian's like to hang when they meet each other on their travels, one man brings a bowl, the other brings the ingredients, they mash 'em up, have a ritual cermeony, then drink Kava, showing respect to each other, and friendliness, as Kava slowly deadens you're body, taking all feeling out of it, whilst making you a little tipsy, liquid stoner juice maybe? It does however, taste like rather harsh mouthwash/root beer. Still, we would be undertaking Kava many times, each time that tingle on your tongue still feeling just a bit weird.
The next day we headed from Mango Bay, to Uprising, this was to be our home for 4 nights, on the way we stopped off for a little boat ride up the river so we could ride inner tube's all the way back down, the ride was awesome, nothing too fast, or slow, mostly calm, it was a lovely relaxing but fun trek.

Uprising.
Well, now, this is a bit of fun. They played a game of move the foreigners, as their main Dorm building (which myself, Gav and Ry were booked into) was suffering a bad case of bed bugs. (fortunately not in my bed, I had a great night's sleep, after coming in at 12ish.) Over the course of the 4 days we were moved to Bure 12, 9 and finally 2, where we told them to stick it we weren't moving anymore! This will all be explained as we go.
So, we checked in, dumped our stuff at the dorm, and headed "to the bar!" for a cheeky pint at 4pm happy hour. 8 hours later I came back, having somehow only ordered 2 rounds, and I'm fairly certain, only paying for 4 drinks of those 2 rounds!
The next day was a chillout day, we all crashed, relaxed, I finished watching Watchmen (There were some weird dreams that night. I don't think I could ever see the Blue Man group after that.) Then the aftermath of the bed bugs appeared and we moved into Bure 12. (A Bure is like a little 4 sleeper chalet, with an outdoor shower, which was private.) I needed my sleep, the next day was to be shark day.

SHARKS! LUNCH! DEEEEEEAAAAAAATTTTH!
Today, we dived with Sharks at feeding time. It was *Amazing.* You have no idea how cool it was. Flo-rida, Aurellie and the Gav came along but weren't allowed to dive due to not having their diving qualifications, but they came along, took pictures and Flo and French got very, very unwell on the rough sea!
The actual dives were great, we got the whole thing recorded on Sarah's camcorder, so I have some awesome if rather large videos if you ever want to see them. we were between a rock and a death place. We dove down 25m to 'The Bistro' my dive log tells me. Where we lined up against the big rocks, home to eels, behind what was essentially red carpet rope, but without the carpet and BIG FUNKING SHARKS on the other side. We bottomed out on the ocean floor, one hand on the rope, turning to the Dive Master as if to say "The sharks know they're not allowed to cross this line right??" Then, one of the dive guys descended from the sky atop a green frickin' wheelie bin! holding a rope as if descending from the skies on a very council version of the silver surfers surfboard! The whole experience was incredible, there were two dives, separated by a bout of Rob throwing up, looking to the side to see Flo throw up at the same time, which in turn made him laugh as he threw up. It was pure comedy gold I tell thee.
At sunset, Flo, Aurellie and I took a wander down the seafront as we we're now in Bure 2. (They tried to move us to 9, where we found there were already enough people in there, so we got shifted to 2, which was a seafront Bure, costing Uprising more money, as we weren't paying for anything more than Dorm accomodation.) The walk didn't last long as walking arm in arm Aurellie slipped and kicked my heel, this brought a stop to her stride and tears to her eyes, we shouldered her back to the bure to rest and tend to the toe. (She later found out it was broken and had to be strapped up.)
When the time to leave Uprising came, we gladly got on the coach, and headed for Volivoli beach resort, via an orphanage, where we gave them gift in exchange for letting us see how they live. They put on a welcoming show for us, gave us a tour and were all very excited and pleased to see us, which made us all feel a bit better, then a bit skeptical of the whole thing and so a bit sad about how bad their lives are, but they were amazing, and love balloons. If you take nothing else fro this blog, take this. Fijian orphans freaking love balloons! It was quite a humbling experience, and the ride the rest of the way to VoliVoli was a bit more sombre. Though my earphones had Limp Bizkit - Eat you alive on, so I was rockin out in my own little world.
At VoliVoli, Rob, Becky, Ry and I went for a dive, as we'd heard such good things about it. FLo and Gav went and did an introductory dive. Our dive was great, first time we'd done a reverse entry off the side of a boat (instead of giant step entry) which was kinda cool, the coral was lush, we saw more sharks, (lil' reef ones this time) Bec nearly ran out of air, then we went back by Gav and Flo, who were cut to pieces on the coral, Flo more so than Gav, which may explain why Gav seemed to enjoy it more! Later we travelled to a local indian where we had a pre-defined meal and made our own Roti, (look it up) which was nice, it was a nice experience, then swung by a boys home, bit like the orphanage, I didn't want to go in this time, so I just chilled out with some rock. Then we went off to the mud pools, my own insecurities stopped me from going in, but I had alot of fun seeing everyone go arse over tit getting in and out, and getting covered in mud, and "blacking up" in that totally non-racist racist way that us english have. Then they ran into the hot bath pools and cleane dup and we all went back to the hotel. This was a new hotel, We ended up in a room without Rob! But a spare bed. Rob ended up in a room with 5 girls. In true cock-block fashion we got him moved to our room :) After a shower it was dinner time at the hostel next door, not bad, but the food took an age to come to us as everyone was on "fiji-time" (Read, lazy and can't be arsed) the next day the sun came out! finally! So we soaked up some rays, then prepared to catch the big bird to LAX...

Mojosurf

Mojosurf, was to be our last activity in Australia, a 5 day surf school from Byron Bay to Sydney, consisting of 7 lessons, at 2 different sites, 1st up, "Spot X" on Arrawarra beach, and 2nd, their own location in the middle of a National Park (I don't know how they managed that) at Crescent Head. Our Instructors were to be Antman, A local Aussie (on one day he showed us where he lived, and where he learnt to surf) sometimes he looked his age, sometimes he loked near 40. poor dude. He was very funny, but did sound like he'd maybe smoked a few too many drugs in his time. Second up, we had Adios. From Bali, his real name was Adire, and he didn't have a surname so on his immigration papaers he put "only name" down in the surname box to indicate this, therefore he is now known to the Australian Immigrationa dn governament as Mr Adire Onlyname. Only in Oz guys, only in Oz. 3rd we had a work experience dude named Sam along, he was absolutely sound, into surfing, drinking, music, and anything sporty, the other members of our group were a guy named dave we met as we got off the bus, Steve and Ottar from Norway, Julian from Germany, and Natalie from Switzerland. Yup, we had a group of 8, in peak they have groups of 50+ so this was brilliant for us, we got some real good teaching time, and at spot x there were plenty of other tours around for us all to socailise with round the fire playing "change places if you have ever..." You learn many interesting things about the people you're keeping company with playing such a game with alcohol, was a top night. that night, Natalie didn't come home, she seemed to have found herself an instructor to umm ;) ;) with. (Instructor not from our group, and to be fair, he did make alot of effort during the night!) The first day we only had the one lesson, and I managed to land on my big toe bending it forward too far, it did swell up over the next few days, and also bailed a bit awkwardly on my right leg, twisting it slightly and opening my knee joint a little, so I had a bit of a limp for a couple of days, but still, I got injuries surfing, so I didn't really care!!!!
Day 2 was a bit quieter at Spot X as there was hardly anyone else there until the evening, and their group was a bit seperated, and for some reason they all wanted to go off skinny dipping, so we left them to it. But two more surf lessons and it was getting better, we'd all managed to stand up properly, no matter how briefly, and were really enjoying it, there were some top class wipeouts (possibly the best part!) including multiple person wipeouts, me and rob, becky and me, steve and ottar, julian and natalie, a top moment where julian surfed all the way up to where becky was standing after her last ride, then fell off the back sending the board straight into Becky, who's onw board then hit her in the face, this was witnessed by myself, Rob and Antman, and we had no option but to laugh, as comedy moments go, it dowsn't matte who was invloved that was always going to happen and always going to be hilarious. This night, only myself and Rob slept in our room.
Day 3 was a quick surf after breakfast then on the bus down to crescent head, where the track reminded just a bit of the roads on Fraser, once there we chilled, me two guys who were the only other residents, having left Julian at spot x as he was returning to Byron. That evening we had a little time playing guitar by the fire (Yes! there was a guitar there, Oh how I miss mine :'( :'( )and some idle chat then off to bed ready for the next day's lessons.
Day 4 was our first surf at Crescent Head, it was a lush sport to surf, bigger waves just made it all easier, then I got hold of a nice big wide fiberglass board instead of the squidgy foam boards we had been using and surfing became so much more ridciulously easy it was unreal! ha da great lesson, then switched back to foam for the afternoon with a 1 on 1 lesson with Adi, and I managed to get up a few more times a bit more predictably, and kept going "one more!" we had a good laugh, came up with a few new nicknames, shared some good one liners, ("Oo me conkers" a la Unlucky Alf, came up at one point when Adi got lashed by a wave.)" That night the evening was dampened a little by the rain, but we still had a laugh. Before we went to bed we were asked who wanted to do the sunrise surf at 6am, there were a couple of us up for it.
Day 5. I got awarded Sam and Adi's "hXc Surfer Award" (hXc being hardcore) as no other bugger came for the sunrise surf, it awesome, ok, so I was utterly utterly knackered and useless, but I was the only one in the water and at one point I was walking out through the waves, seing two nice big surges coming up and above it was a gap in the could just wide enough to see the sun coming up over the horizon, just an awesome moment. as the session ended so we could go get some breakfast we noticed a good 10 dolphins sitting in the bay having a play so we stood in the water and watched them for a bit, it was a truely awesome moment, 2 in one day and it wasn't even 07:30 yet! After breakfast we got ourselves together, and left for Sydney, a fair old bus ride, where time was passed with movies, and sleep. We arrived in Sydney about 4pm, after a thoroughly top few days, we got our certificates, hoodies, picture cds and memories and I'd recommend it to anyone.

Sydney
In Sydney we stayed in Alexandria with Lesa and Jo, who Rob and Becky stayed with when they first arrived, we mostly just hung out and chilled, got very drunk on the first night, sent some stuff home via sea freight, so I should be home about the smae time as it arrives, and generally got ourselves sorted ready for Fiji. It was a nice few days, and I got to see a few people from the last visit, like Vikki, which was awesome to have a catch up and chill out and enjoy other people's company.

Filler...again

Our next stop after Fraser and Hervey Bay was a few days in Byron Bay waiting for the mojosurf tour to start, Byron was kinda cool in a lia back, surfer, slightly overpriced supermarket kinda way. It's not a big town by our standards, but it has some cool surf shops, a fairly nice culture to it, and was generally quite pleasant. Our hostel could've been really good if it weren't for the fact our room was pretty much used as a walkthrough by everyone, and our room-mates had this habit of coming in very loudly at 3, 4, and 5am everynight!

Fraser Island Part 2

Day 2
Day 2 started off with me back at the wheel, as I was determined to be the one to get us to Base Camp even if it took the best part of 24 hours! So we headed out, back onto the beach at the earliest possible moment, (it was still a bit hairy) and travelled up to Cathedral Beach, the home of Base camp, where we put the tents back up, had a spot of breakfast, then headed off to Indian Head, with Becs behind the wheel along the beach, by the tim we got there we had a quick run up the hill, look out over the beaches and surf, we didn't see any sharks loitering by the bottom of indian head like they supposedly normally are, then noted that it was probably time to make a move back as the tide was getting high again, and the drive up took longer than it should have, so Rob drove back along the beach, with a bit off gentle persuasion to go a bit faster, we made it back to base camp, and had the rest of the day to ourselves, no, it being 3pm, we decided the best thing to do would be to start drinking. THe night was messy, Rob and I spent a fair amount of time holding Angela up, Becs had to be fed her dinner by the lads as she was already drunk by then, and The Jen decided to be very kind and magic up some food for the dingos we had patrolling round the dining area just waiting for some tasty vom! Somehow, Rob and Chris ended up in the girls tent, giving them 7 people and us boys only 4, so I had a good ol' stretch out and dozed off about 12, after escorting Angela back, then Becky to the amenities too.

Day 3
Day 3 was pretty much a mad rush to get back to the ferry in time, we were told we'd have to make a 2 hour detour (we only had 4, and the original route was supposed to take 90 mins) due to the tide being too high by the rocks and they would be impassable. We were also informed that this run involved more dodgy roads, so I was back behind the wheel (and loving it) and a run on some very soft sand that went down steeply, then through a creek and back up a steep slope the other side. When we got there, we did lose the third team for a minute there. We also stopped breifly at Lake Allom, and took a walk down to what looked like American high school bleachers, with the bottom two rows underwater (think benches if you don't ge tthe bleachers reference) and there we saw lots of tiny tiny turtles just floating around, obviously after some food, they were smaller than the laptop I'm using, so cute! but didn't make for much of a long stop! We hit the road again, eventually, we made it back to the boat with 40 minutes to spare, and in the end the boat left late anyways! but we made it safely back off of Fraser Island!

Fraser Part I

The next morning we woke up ready to meet in the bar at 6:30am when we were finally put in our groups of 11, (ours consisting of 12,) we found out that we were indeed bundled with those said kids from the night before! Although, in the cold hard light of day, they were just a bunch of well brought up kids, who were seemingly quite sensible, especially in the light of the previous week's incident. and a bunch of girls.
So after some faffing by the woman trying to organize the whole thing, one of the two late arrivals to the group of 12, (Called Robb) was assigned to another group, leaving us with "Team Jigga" consisting of;
1) Me! (Mostly nominated driver)
2) Rob
3) Becky
4) Jonathan
5) Chris
6) Mike (aka, Kermit/Chunks)
7) Alex
and Team Canada
8) Tanya
9) The Jen
10) And Jen
11) Angela
and we headed off to get in the Land Cruiser, and old school tropp carrier one, with tyres that seemed altogether too narrow, and with a roof rack, laden with all our goods, and therefore making it very top heavy, it was apparent driving the beast would be quite a daunting effort. Once we arrived on Fraser, we followed Team Ireland (There were now 3 trucks, team Ireland had 3 irish members, one of which as the drivers, and team useless, who were always lagging behind.) we tanked off after team ireland, and detoured to Lake McKenzie, which was stunning, white sand, clear freshwater, sadly, this was on the agenda for day 3, had we checked the itinerary, we woul dhave known this. In the driver briefing we were told all the precautions and methods for driving on sand on Fraser, including not going anywhere near the water, so high tide was out, and they proceeded to tell us that we were safe on the beach until 5pm, when it would then become dangerous. so when we got to the beach at 3, noting the rather high level of the tide, we still dumbly though it would be safe to proceed. I'll be honest I was absolutely cacking it, especially as the second wave came across, and lashed over the windscreen, rendering us blind for a second or two, thinking carefully about what direction to keep the vehicle pointed, and not rolling it like the other group, needless to say, we got off the beach at the next possible gap, where we met Team Ireland again (we'd all split up) sadly, what this did mean, was that we had to travel up the island on roads we didn't know and weren't supposed to go on, it took 6 hours, with the concentration like you wouldn't believe, looking for dips, bumps, camber, soft sand etc, so as not to get bogged down. Eventually we made it back to the beach, and the tide was still in, so we had to turn around and set up camp in a nearby site at a cost of $8 each (what fool, puts a base camp on an island where the only access is via the beach? I mean, really, no back road??? - the beach is a road on fraser btw) which was run by an aborginal man who told us not to whistle as it attracted the ancient spirits, one of which was a 4 year old girl who gave awesome massages, (I didn't see why not to massage, i could've done with one after that drive) this was a massive day, i was totally shattered at dinner, and couldn't interact with anyone, I ate, sat down, hoody over my head, and zoned out the world.

oopsie & itinerary

Seems i've neglected the blog again. I've been very busy readers, yes I have. Trying to sort out things, whilst also Going to Fraser Island, and then doing a 1 week surf school from Byron to Sydney, I *will* get round to updating, hipefully before leave for Fiji tomorrow, but just thought I'd check in for now to say in the words of Granny Weatherwax. 'I aten't dead' :)

OK, so I probably haven't put up what I plan yet...so here goes.
Today: 05/05 Fly to Nadi (Fiji)
Travel round Fiji
14/05 - Fly to LAX - Head to Santa Barbara for a night's place to crash
15/05 -> 29/05 Route 66 to Chicago, with slight detours to San Francisco at the beginning, and Hoover Dam.
LA -> Barstow -> Kingman -> Flagstaff -> Gallup -> Albequerque -> Santa Rosa -> AMARILLO -> Shamrock -> Oklahoma City -> Tulsa -> Springfield -> St Louis ->another Springfield -> Chicago
29/05 -> Don't know yet, probably a few days if not a week in Chicago
11/06 Fly home from Newark, so probably a few days in New York beforehand too.

Summertime

Upon waking up we were most surprised to see it was a gorgeous looking day, and headed down to the harbour with our day bags (clothes, wash bag, etc) for 8:30am ready to get on board the boat. I'm not sure what we were all xpecting, but I was somehow expecting something a bit...bigger. There was to be 14 of us, plus 3 staff. and a small 3 person hot tub on the back. The boat itself was lovely, all wood, which gave that lovely slippery when wet feeling everytime anyone nearly stacked it. and down stairs were alot of bunks all neatly packed in together, it was quite and old boat, I must admit that a week or so on, I've totally forgotten how old. I took the bottom bunk, which barely had enough room for me to turn onto my side, but at least it was long enough and wide enough, I just had to go in sideways. lol. It was better than the other option, Rob and Becky shared the wider bed above me. We were introduced to the crew first, Flo, (Florian) our dive master for the trip, (At this point I didn't know it was going to be a dive boat. doh) Amber, our hostess and cook, who provided top tucker throuhout the trip and kept us all fairly entertained, and Fernando, (Think Teves without the scars) who was the skipper. Over the next few days we'd get to learn who our fellow Passengers were, but just for you lucky lucky people, I'll give you a run down now...how considerate of me.
First, the British contingent:
Me
Rob
Becky
Mike
& Liz
Rachel
Laura
and rather questionably Nigel. (Now, Nigel is a bit of a sticking point and an anomalie, as he's originally British, but has lived in the States for 25 years (Half his life) has a bit of a US accent, and his appearance ttally belies his personality. Tattoos, a Flame emblazoned bandana, loving rock music, the little bushy tattoo, all lead us to think one thing. But he was really a very nice friendly and personable guy!)
Which brings us on to Team America!
Jess
Anna
Emily
Then Our Kiwi:
Caroline
And finally our Spanish lovebirds
Marc
& Stefanie

Over the next couple of days there would be lots of mocking of Team America, but obviously only in jest. "Team America, Have you seen a turtle?" was the cry from the other side of one of the bays when snorkelling. Randomly, Laura worked as a nurse out here and back home, and when I asked where she said, "oh a little place, you'll never have heard of it in Lanark, 'Law.'" Funnily and randomly enough, this was where I got signed off to work on my own at Adastra, so we had some fun but slightly odd little chats about Hairmyres Hospital and Law, and a bit of Monkton, she worked days in surgery back there, but it was a cool point of reference. She kind of ended up joining myself rob and becks most of the time, but the boat was very frinedly in genreal, I think most people took the time to wander around and chat to everyone, there was the usual chat about the english language with the yanks and the spanish, and Mike & Liz to some extent, the yanks brought up the subject of the V-sign and this then had to be explained to the Spanish, but all in all everyone seemed to get along, though Rachel and Caroline were maybe a little more apart from everyone else. The first day we motor-sailed (as the sails aren't up to the weight of the boat these days) to Tongue Bay, where we hoped into "Little Summertime" (A Dinghy) and headed to the island, we had a wander and went to a lookout overlooking Whitehaven bay and some cool sights, and then we trekked across the island to said beach, and stayed for an hour or so, chillin' having a laugh, taking some silly silly pictures and generally loving the almost white 98% silica sand which squeaked under foot. then back to the boat for dinner and sleep.
On day 2 we woke up and Flo took us all out Sea Kayaking around the bay, Everyone paired up, and we headed out, and saw loads and loads of turtles and cool stuff, whilst getting a bit of excercise, we must've been out for a good 2 hours and it was awesome. After that, we headed off to Luncheon Bay, where there was some diving to be had, but due to monetary situtations we 3 passed on this occasion, we went snorkelling instead, Rob felt rather ill almost as soon as he entered the water and made his way to the beach and had a sit down. Becks, Laura and I carried on after checking he was ok, and had a good ol time and saw absolutely loads of stuff, I even saw a cleaner wrasse doing his thang. and some large Angel Fish, easily the size of my laptop screen. and plenty other colourful specimens, the water was alot cloudier than the reef, but it was still good viewing. in the end the boat came to pick us all up, and Laura, Mike and myself decided it'd be much more fun to snorkel/swim back to the boat. So we did. It didnt take half as long as I expected and we saw many cool things, not least of which were the HUGE batfish by our boat! well over half a dozen of them, it was very very cool. We then moved round to Langford Bay, where it was dark (Oh yeah, it gets dark bloody early round here! ie by 6pm without fail, it's rather annoying.) we had dinner and bit of a laugh, Team America's token Blonde Anna, got very drunk and was a bit silly through the slideshow of all the pictures taken during the day, which we found mildly amusing :) then sleep!
Our final day Rob and I were up nice and early for the dive, (we had to do at least one really, and it was only £30) and we had a cool little guided tour round the reef with Flo, held a sea cucumber (slimey little buggers) and generally had a bit of a laugh. Then we got back to the boat, with Fernando shoving Flo off of little summertime when he was trying to take his fin off. Which added more amusement to the day, on the way back. We all chilled and wondered where Laura and Nigel had got to, they'd gone on a bit of a snorkelling trek, Marc went for a few more dives with Flo, and eventually Nigel and Laura re-appeared. Sadly it was then lunch, a bit of business and time to go home. But there was a promise that for every 4 people that turned up to our hostel bar at 7:30 on our reserved table, there would be a free jug of beer or wine, we figured this would get a fair few of us together again. Turns out we were wrong, it was only us 3 and team america, so we enlisted the help of a dude called chris (who had appeared with Big Rob who randomly seems to be stalking us back along the coast! Bless him.) who was a football mad geordie (are there any other types of geordie?) and a sound lad to boot, and some random that team america snared. We then all got wasted :)

Our last day in Airlie consisted of chilling out, shopping, checking out the surf shops and generally recovering from the alcohol, followed by a late night bus from Airlie to Hervey Bay. 13 hours overnight, and with a "meal break" at 11pm. seriously? who's gonna eat then? we were all falling asleep nicely and were then told we had to vacate the bus for 40 minutes! swines!

We arrived at the sister hostel to our airlie beach one at 9am, only to be to be told the rooms weren't ready yet (I'd kind of expected this as check out wasn't til 10.) and that their ATM wasn't working, so we'd have to walk down the road for 15 minutes to find a working one, by the time we got back, they still had no rooms ready for us, so we dossed in the closed bar until 12 when we finally got a room, and proceeded to get on with our washing and packing ready for our Fraser Island trip tomorrow, a little apprehensive after seeing all the walking wounded (4 of them) in the hostel from the big accident that had happened 3 days earlier, when one of the 4x4's had rolled at 100kph on the beach trying to swerve a wave, (1, the limit is 80, 2, you shouldn't be near the wave, and 3, these are nearly 4 ton fully laden top heavy (roof storage) old toyota land crusier troop carriers. With 11 people on board, a sharp turn is never going to result anything other than a dramatic roll. Sadly their one lasted several hundred yards and the loss of 2 people's lives as I'm sure you've all read by now, hence I feel it's ok to include here and not scare anyone unneccessarily. We also saw some young lads at the kitchen that looked like they'd be a pain in the arse to be with in our group tomorrow and hoped we weren't with them! Then we slept.

Fraser Island to come later....

Maggies

So, what's new? Well, since the last update, we spent a couple of days on Magnetic, and were joined by Big Rob, the weather wasn't great though, so we spent alot of time chilling and haiding from the rain, we did have one nice day, and Big Rob had hired a Mini Moke, so we went round the island having a butchers and relaxing, at Horseshoe bay the the starter motor gave out so we bumped it, and took it back to where he rented it from, sadly all that was left ready to go without a roof was a pink one, so myself Big Rob and Rob manfully jumped on in to the Pink Moke, named Tinkerbell, according to the bonnet, and proceeded to be fully confident in our sexuality all the way back. lol. It was a cool day, and we finished off eating at Big Rob's hostel, Base. Mammoth servings for $10!
Then next stop was a Greyhound trip to Airlie Beach, ready for our Summetime (the name of the boat) trip, we had to check in hte day before hand so had to get a mid-day bus. It rained the whole way down! all did not bode well for tomorrow's trip.

Doss and Move

11th
Sleep. There was sleep. Then we headed into town about 1 to attack the MaccyD's for a milkshake and some free internet. We met up with Big Rob there, wandered around, got some shopping and headed back to the hostel about 3. well, the bus was due at 3, it arrived at 3:45. The credit on my phone was running low after a call at 3am to england when I got to the hostel, as I wasn't tired. so I went online to buy a top up only to fins that vodafone Australia weren't offering it online anymore! Swines! We then had to scramble to try and find a hostel with room at magnetic island for the next three days, but eventually managed to get one booked. Then Big Rob turned up after dinner, and him, me and Becky (now recovered from feeling ill, and wanting to make up for missing last night) headed out to meet Charlotte and then off to where we went for dinner last night (Rattle n' Hum) to Join Dave and a few pro dive people for drinks, (All arranged via the magic of facebook im between me dave and charlotte) Eventually Dave moved on, and we decided to hit Gilligans, which was cool, there were a couple of guys break dancing in the corner which was impressive, we all had a nice chat and swayed home about 2am again!

12th
Greyhound to Townsville. Worst driver ever, no hands on the wheel scramblingon the floor for a folder he just dropped as he was driving. Swaying all over the place, asking other passengers if there was a train coming as he "can't see that way" eventually he pulled up for a driver change and broke the bus. So we stood in the sweltering heat for 30 mins whilst they tried to fix it. Eventually we made it tow Townsville, 5 minutes before the ferry to Magnetic left, we hopped on and came across. Once we got to our hostel we found out nothing had been booked, but eventually we managed to blag a double room with a bunk bed in for 3 nights so all's good. though it's fairly basic (which is nice) it does have a tv you can't change the channel on, (I'd rather not have the tv!) we settled in and fell asleep. As an aside, between starting the Pro Dive course and arriving in Townsville, I read Carra, Jamie Carragher's Autobiography. It's good. you should read it. :)

Pro Dive

6th
Day one of our Pro Dive Cairns PADI Open Water course (mouthful) started off fairly early, and we spent the morning in the classroom watching dvd's and learning about the equipment and pressures and principles/theories of diving, with our instructor Dave, 'the most qualified instructor in the country' he told us. We have no reason to not believe him. He did rremind me a little of the dad from My Parent's are Aliens though. In the afternoon we got in the pool and had a go. After assembling and dis-assembling our equpiment a few times we headed in to swim 200m (though I didn't like the idea of finishing before everyone and did a couple more lengths - it wasn't a big pool) then had to treadwater for 10 minutes whilst introducing ourseleves again as a re-cap and learnign everyone else's names. Then, time to put on the SCUBA gear and get initiated. No matter how many times you are told, "if you start to panic, just take a big long deep breath in and then out" you never do, and I cocked up my breathing in a panic quite a few times to start with, which inevitably ended up in me resurfacing each time and feeling like a tool, knowing that all i had to do was breathe. But I still wasn't trusting the dive gear. I did have a few moments where i contemplated whether I'd ever be able to and to do the course, I also thought 'Mum, don't ever try and do this, not only will you get your hair wet, you'll panic about the breathing like me!' at the end of the first day we'd done a few skills, like flooding our masks underwater and clearing them with exhaled air, and breathing off of each other regulators whilst under water, and all that scary emergency stuff you need to do, just in case ;) I still didn't feel overly comfortable with it and had a bit of thinking to do of how I was gonna approach it the next day whilst feeling a bit nervy. We did our washing, ate and fell asleep, as the next day started even earlier.)

7th
Day 2 of the course (less of a mouthful) started with a session in the pool, after a quick chat from Christian from the shop about finding mask that fit and fins that work better etc etc. To point out, yesterday, we used the rental equipment, and my mask pushe dinto the bridge of my nose and came away at the bottom a bit and this did nothing to ease my mind. we spent the rest of the morning trying all the various pieces of equipment they had assembled for us to try and started off with some snorkeling, the first breath underwater was the hardest to get round, once the first cycle was done the rest we ok, this was going to be how it went with the regulator on the SCUBA gear too. By the end of the morning I felt much better about using the equipment and thought, well all I have to do is pas the exam and then deal with being in the sea, and depths down to 18m as opposed to a tiny 4m pool! We then headed off for lunch in town and then to shop. After using the rental mask and playing with proper ones, I ended up buying a mask/snorkel for my own peace fo mind, also, I figured it's not something that's too hard to get the use out of, I'll go to plenty of cool places over time. Then back to the classroom for more learing and the final exam, which was easy to pass, and a bit about the Adventure course which is the next step in the qualifications. So it was all back to the hostel (Calypso) for food and packing ready for out next 3 days on the boat, another early start the next day!

8th
Day 3 (or Day 1 on the boat) was yet another early start, after 3 hours travelling out to the reef we finally dropped anchor off of Milln Reef, and had our first briefing about what we were going to do for our first training dive. Minimal skills on this one, only some on the surface, then heading down to 12m, before going for a bit of a swim, then coming up with a safety stop at the decompression bar. THe sea at the Great Barrier Reef is very salty. I can vouch for this. I drank half of it! but as we started diving all my apprehension disappeared.it was awesome, it should also be moted that 12m down doesn't look that much further than 4m when you're at the bottom! We saw lots of col stuff on our first dive, including Chocolate Dipped Damsels, (everythign has a silly name out here) giant clams, a couple of sting rays, parrotfish and even a turtle! then back up for lunch and a breifing for dive 2. It should be pointed out here a few things about the boat. There were 39 people aboard, 16 on our course, plus some friends/family, plus people doing their advanced course, some already certified divers on a jolly and some more doing the same course as us. We already had kinda started getting on with the people we knew:
Anna from Bolton, a season ticket holder no less. (to the Reebok)
The Ozzie Family, from Victoria. A dad and his two daughters, one dropped out on day 1, for a full refund, but joined us on the boat with her mum to do snorkelling.
The newlyweds, Ness and Robdog. Ness who was bornin Scotland and lived in Perth, and Rob from NZ who went travelling and met Ness on the first stop and neve left!
Philip, the German who couldn't see without his glasses and didn't have contacts.
And the guy to be his diving buddy, Mile Steinbacher of New York, a traditional stereotypical New Yorker!
Anna-Kehala (known as Kiki to avoid confusion) Born in Melbourne, but lives in Germany.
and Team Denmark. Kristine and Kathryn, (who kinda came as a pair,) and Charlotte who was to be buddied up with Kiki.
These people were joined by some crazy moustachioed Americans, Anna from Bolton's friend Anna (yes, that's now 3 Annas.) A 3rd Rob from England, Blind Philip's girlfriend Patti, (the last 3 were all doing their Advanced course) and some other certified divers, Fitz and Rebecca (yes another Rebecca) from england, along with Berwyn (from Wales) and his pregnant missus. Berwyn had the joy of sharing a birthday with me and Rob. And there were a few other bit part players. Also on board were instructors, Daven(UK), Masa (Masao - Japan) and Jeff (Oz) our Dive supervisor Arek (Poland) The Skipper Dave (Oz) and the chef Khinda (Fra) Khinda made sure there was always something fresh and tasty ready for us between dives, made all the more impressive by the fact she was diving too. The chocolate cake was a particular highlight, along with lasagne and garlic topped bread. And there was always enough for seconds. Rob and I were in cabin 14, Becky shared a cabin with Charlotte, but spent most of the time feeling ill and sleeping upstairs in the saloon.
The second dive was there to be one of the worst on the course, just to get it over with and then we could enjoy the rest, it was more skills including mask floods and the like. It wasn't a bad dive though, just a bit more teaching like than fun. An early night was had by all due to the ridiculously early start the next day to get all 4 dives in.

9th.
Awake before 6 to go diving at 10 past! today we started going deeper, the first dive went down to 18m, my knees made it down, but I didn't get the dive computer down that far, as it didn't bother me too much. so that went to 17.8m we had a good time and did a few more skills and saw more fish. The second dive therre was a challenge. e all had to get our dive computers to 16.0m 15.9 was fine, 16.0 got you a free chocolate bar or soft drink, and if you went over you had to do a vegemite forfeit. As we got there we noticed a shark, so, we did the 16m depth challenge whilst keeping one eye on the white tipped reef shark about 1.5/2m below us! Just to make it a little more difficult! However, all of us that managed to descend without having equalization problems and having to cancel their dive hit 16.0 exactly. Apparently a first for Dave's groups, shown by the fact that Arek called out 16.1 at one point to wind him up, and Dave was instantly a bit defensive about it! Also, we finished this dive with a full face mask removal, replace and flush at depth, Rob and I went first, and after this got bored waiting for everyone else, as happens and so we arsed about a bit again, doing windmill hi-5s, making gestures (I need a wee! my eyes sting! and one finger out of the pockets etc) and pulling faces, Dave then showed everyone a slate saying we had passed our course and were now certified divers! Rob and i bumped regulators as if kissing, we found this highly amusing, so did Dave and we ascended to the surface. At this point we had a choice to make, there were 5 fun dives left, 2 today (1 at night) and 3 tomorrow, or we could choose to take the Adventure course, losing one dive tomorrow, but meaning we would be certified to dive down 30m as opposed to 18m, and therefore could pretty much do any dive we ever want to. it was going to cost $175AU (works out in the region of £80) which was a bargain compared to the $600 odd it will cost at any other time! So I had to go for it! We all got to do the first fun dive, where Rob and I proceeded to get a little mis-placed, but always came up looking at the boat. then the first dive of the adventure course was the night dive, and now i was buddied with Mike, and diving with Masa, diving at night was awesome, we saw loads and loads of stuff, bigger sharks, a massive turtle (called Brian) crayfish, and so on. It was brilliant. when we headed up, we had dinner and Charlotte and I chatted for a few hours about the course and denmark and england and jobs and travelling etc etc. Then time to sleep as we had 3 dives to do (as a boat,) before noon the next day!

10th
We woke up and did our first dive before breakfast again. this was the big one, down to 26+m where we saw how objects were affected, like a bottle of water, a can holder, how a green torch is drained of colour at depth, and how you can crack open an egg and it will remain intact until the bloody fish have at it. we also did a timekeeping count to 30 seconds in our head as a check for nitrogen narcosis, which essentially is you, pissed, underwater and clears as soon as you start to come to lesser depths. Robdog was most affected, taking 60 seconds to count out 30! I was more accurate underwater than on the boat. It was a very cool dive, but meant that we had passed off the limits on out dive planner (which is fine as we were using a dive computer which kept us under the no decompression limits) but meant we had to have a 3 hour break before diving again, this is why we only had the two dives on the last day, and we were warned this would happen.) The second dive was a speciality dive so Mike and I took a camera for the underwater photographer speciality, and took some pics to pass our course. We nearly got lost but managed to surface right next to our boat, just as we were low on air, with impeccable timing, mostly because we both had a fair grasp on the compasses and could navigate to a point!
We then got to the top, finished our papaerwork and came back to land. where we got ready to go out on the lash with the guys!
Sadly on good friday, you can't buy a beer without a meal, stupid bloody Ozzies, imposing religion on everyone! but as we had a wristband as we were a group booking, once we'd ordered would buy beer all night til we left at about 12, which meant it was a new day and the Woolshed (read meat market dive pub/club where people can dance on the long wooden bench type chairs and tables) beckoned. We'd spend most of our time on the boat talking with Big Rob and the Anna's and the night out was fairly similar expcept the anna's went home early and i spent more time chatting with a member of team denmark. Big Rob, Rob and I swayed home about 2:30am. :)