roganjosh

Ah, the central line, cancelled trains, drizzle, night buses, roadworks, people offering you crap free papers – it’s good to be home!

It’s also good to be a student again, though the excess of free time I have at the moment looks like it’s going to be crushed by the mindbending reading I have to get through for my lectures. Hopefully at some point everything will start to make sense, possibly after a few pints. I’d best keep a notebook handy…

So here I am in Vegas surrounded by neon lights and slot machines. For the last couple of days on my travels I’ve been joined by some of my buddies from England for a post-event bachelor party. We tried calling it a “stag do” but nobody knew what we were on about. Anyway, there’s been plenty of eating, drinking, gambling and dancing while we’ve been out here – though since what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas I can’t reveal any of the details…

Since I last updated I’ve visited Fiji – which was beautiful and sunny and full of women in bikinis, and LA which was beautiful and sunny and full of rollercoasters! I spent most of my time there in theme parks or hanging out with my cousins playing penguin based games (and losing).

This is very nearly the end of my round the world adventure. In a couple of hours I’ll be jumping on a flight to Gatwick and getting back to my normal life! Well, not exactly – The evening I arrive I’ve got my induction meeting for my Philosophy course, followed by a party for the same this Friday! After that? Well, who knows… I’ll be seeing you all in the pub for a pint at some point though I hope, and we’ll see how things go from there.

So I went tandem hang-gliding in Queenstown, and absolutely loved it! One second you’re standing half way up a mountain clipped onto a metal frame, that for all the world looked like a tent while it was being put together, and the next you’re hanging about 1,000ft off the ground looking down on the tops of trees. It was all very calm and controlled and I even got to have a go at steering it myself. Much, much more fun than jumping out of plane!

The hang-gliding was actually the last thing that I did in Queenstown before hopping on a flight up to Christchurch. Leaving Queenstown it felt like I was starting to head for home, even though I’m still about three weeks and two countries away from finishing my journey. Christchurch was a nice little city, the largest on the southern island and I had a fun time looking around the place. One of the city’s claims to fame is that it’s an international departure point for antarctic missions so I visited the antarctic centre to be driven around in a Hagglund all terrain vehicle and experience a simulated arctic storm. That done there didn’t seem to be any point actually going to Antarctica itself so I didn’t feel too bad about not making it any further south than 45°S (Te Anau, on the way to Milford Sound).

From Christchurch I carried on up to Kaikoura and saw some whales, albatross and some fur seals. Then I headed for Picton and a swift flight on a small plane over to Wellington where I managed to tick off another item on the list of things to do in New Zealand – I met a guy who was in Lord of the Rings! In the film he rode one of the huge elephants in the big battle at the end, though his day job was doing the seal safari, which I enjoyed going on (Thanks for the tip Amy!).

Not fancying a 9 hour bus ride from Wellington to Auckland I abandoned the thought of travelling any further with the Stray people and flew up to the north, and here I am back in Auckland! I couldn’t find much to do the first time I was here, but tomorrow is surely my last chance to do a bungee jump. Expect a compelling excuse as to why I didn’t bother soon…

There are lots of extreme activites you can get up to in Queenstown - Bungee jumping, skydiving,  white water rafting, that kind of thing – but I think you have to go a long way to beat taking snowboarding lessons in weather so bad that all the slopes except for the nursery one are closed and the wind is so strong that gusts of it will actually stop you from sliding down a hill. Slightly worse than that was the horizontal hail that would whip across the slope and hit you like shotgun pellets, leaving us knocked over on the floor and cowering with hands over faces. That said the sliding around part of the day was huge fun, even when I occasionally stuck the wrong edge into the snow and stacked it. gnarly dude!

So what else have I been up to? Well I spent a night in Golden Bay to visit a friend of my sister’s who moved out here a couple of years back after marrying a kiwi. It was nice to spend some time with a family for a while instead of random backpackers! After that I jumped back on the stray bus for a stop in Barrytown – a real middle of nowhere place where I did some carving, and then on to Franz Josef where I walked on a glacier and came second in a pool competition! I did win a t-shirt and a $15 bar tab though, so I guess losers can win too.

Going to see if I can go hang-gliding over here at some point, which might come at the expense of me doing a bungee jump – There’s only so many daft things you can fit into a day!

I jumped out of a perfectly good plane at 12,000ft this morning. Hell of a way to start the day! When I say jumped what actually happened is that I got strapped on to a guy who knew what he was doing (and had a parachute) and then he jumped out of the plane. The first couple of seconds of freefall were pretty baffling but after that it was just an enormous amount of fun! Once the parachute had opened and everything calmed down a bit there was absolutely no sensation of falling, just a gentle drop till I skidded back on to terra firma on my arse. Woo!

After that I jumped back on the bus to Whakapapa where we went tobogganing on an active volcano. Everything over here is extreme! Off to Wellington next, where I think I’ll chill out for a day or two.

You can do some crazy things in New Zealand. I’m travelling around on a Stray bus at the minute and they’ve been stopping off in some cool places. I spent the night in Raglan a couple of days ago which is the big surf beach on the north island, so obviously I had to hire a board and get out there! All the pros surf on a small piece of land surrounded by rocks, but thankfully there’s a nice long sandy beach for people who only have a vague grasp of what they’re doing. After being beaten up by the sea several dozen times I did actually manage to stand up on the board, which surprised me so much I fell off! Still, definite improvement – I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it all in California.

After that the Stray bus took me to the Waitomo caves where I saw lots of glow-worms on a sedate boat ride through the caves. I only did that to pass the time before going to the Shearing Shed at 12:45 to watch an angora rabbit being sheared! They strap the bunny into a kind of rotisserie device and then give it a US army haircut. They seem much happier once they’ve been defurred though, they’re just big ungainly balls of fluff beforehand. Anyway, it’s the only place in the world you can see a rabbit being sheared, so a must-see as far as I’m concerned!

I hopped off the bus in Rotorua so I’ve been here a couple of nights now. Rotorua lake is surrounded by geothermal activity, so the whole town smells of eggs. I’m still recovering from my cold though, so I can smell nothing – nice timing really. I went white water rafting yesterday down the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world – a six metre drop! It was enormous fun, even when our raft capsized coming off the fall. Today I went zorbing, which is jumping inside an inflatable ball and then rolling down a hill. They threw some water in too so the whole experience was like being inside a washing machine. I’d been looking forward to trying this the whole trip and it wasn’t a disappointment! Fun, in a very stupid way. I did a swoop too – which is being winched up about 100ft and then dropped into a huge arcing swing. After that I got thrown around a water course in a jet boat. Like I say, you can do some crazy things over here!

I’m in New Zealand - I can’t travel further now without getting closer to home! I’ve spent my first day here buying cough syrup and a waterproof coat, but actually the weather in Auckland is beautiful. I hear it’s a bit wetter down on the south island though, and I’m off on a bus tour from tomorrow.

My last couple of days in Sydney were pretty touristy. I visited Manly beach and was tempted to hire a surf board, but I’m struck down with man-flu at the moment so didn’t want to get wet. On the ferry back I got a great view of the harbour bridge and the opera house, and took a moment to take exactly the same picture as everyone else on the boat. The opera house is stunning though – shame I’m not an opera fan… A couple of people I met were going to do the harbour bridge climb, but at AUD$180 I wasn’t too keen myself. I also visited the national maritime museum where I got to have a wander around on board the replica of the Endeavour, and then in the evening watched a film called Jindabyne just because I’d stayed in that town a few days earlier.

For my last full day in Australia I took a train out to the blue mountains, and rode a london bus around Katoomba. My English and German companions and I then drank wine at the echo point lookout and ate some fudge, much as the early explorers of the region must have done.

And that was that, a month in Australia – far too little time to really see the place, but I had some fun. At least New Zealand’s a little bit smaller!

it was cold outside and I was a bit bored, so I’ve uploaded some of my photos (as far as Kuala Lumpur)

Looking through tourist brochures when I first arrived the phrase “rug up warm” kept appearing before some suggestion of going outside and doing something exciting. Not only is this a fantastic turn of phrase (who doesn’t want to get ”rugged up”?) but it’s sound, sound advice. The weather during the day has for the most part been glorious but the nights are cold, particularly for the odd couple of nights I’ve been in hostels. I’m back at my cousin’s in Perth now though, and he’s cooking a roast! life is good.

One of the things that took me a while to get used to in Australia after being in Asia for a few weeks is that I’m no longer completely foreign, and can blend in with the man in the street with such ease that I get approached by charity muggers. Last Saturday I even started the day by going surfing and finished it with a barbeque! Admittedly any standing up that I did on the board was only a brief prelude to falling off, and standing by the barbie was like a cold bonfire night back home but it was all great none the less. As for the rest of my time in Perth I’ve been to the zoo, been shopping, eaten kangaroo and baramundi (not seen any emu on the menu anywhere yet), visited Fremantle and seen the first australian ship wreck, that kind of thing.

I spent the last couple of days doing a tour of south west australia, down to Albany and back round via Augusta and Margaret River. I think my favourite place was Elephant Cove, simply for the rather dubious resemblance of some giant rocks to elephants. The Valley of the Giants was good too, a canopy walk among the huge Karri trees. Actually, wine tasting at the wineries was a hightlight, though it would save time if they’d just put all the little samples in one glass! There was a pretty good crowd on the tour considering it’s winter and we had fun, although the tour guide did have a tendency to play Dire Straits on the long journeys.

Not too sure what I’m up to next, though I’m hoping to find a way to get out to Lake Ballard near Kalgoorlie to see the Anthony Gormley statues in the desert (he’s famous for the Angel of the North). I hear you can go on a guided tour of a brothel in Kalgoorlie too, so I’ll have to see what their gift shop is like. After that I guess it’s Melbourne and Sydney – I’m running out of time to go anywhere else!