Been around the world and I, I, I

So here we have it, the final blog. Apologies for it's tardiness, in main it is the Chinese government's fault with their slightly over zealous Internet restrictions. As it has been a while since the previous blog this one may be fairly long I'm afraid, but as I said this is the last one and if you are still reading this then I thank you and I hope you have enjoyed reading it.

We landed back in the UK last Sunday (16th), eight months to the day since our departure. In the 243 days we were away we went to 11 countries and had a truly amazing time. A common question seems to be 'so what was your favourite country?'. That's like asking David Beckham what the square root of 4 is -it's simply not going to happen. After looking pensive for a few moments I will usually come back with an answer of 'hmm, hard to say' and follow that up with 'it's between New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and China'.

As we were unable to blog from China I kept a written blog as we went. As a result it may not entirely make sense but nevermind, I'm sure you'll get the gist of it. Had we been able to post it would have looked something like this:


The Orient Express

So China is pretty big. 9.5 million square kilometres in fact. With only 21 days to see Hong Kong, Beijing and a few things along the way we need to get our skates on. After buying a guide book in Laos we set about the task of planning our route across China. We devised 2 plans, 'Plan E' and 'Plan M' before merging them to form the master plan 'Plan China Travel Super'. Due to the time constraints we have decided on only 4 or 5 stops including Hong Kong and Beijing.

Hong Kong Phooey
We arrived in the pulsating city of Hong Kong on Monday. To call it a city is somewhat misleading as it is in fact comprised of some 235 islands with HK island only accounting for 7% of the total land mass. Whilst the built up areas are incredibly developed, I was surprised by how much open space there was to be found.
We spent the first night on HK island but moved to neighbouring Kowloon for the other 2 nights in order to get away from the exorbitant prices. On Wednesday we headed out into the New Territories in search of a walled village in Kam Tin. However, as we failed to take the guidebook with us the village proved elusive. All was not lost though, as we enjoyed a pleasant walk back over Tai Mo Shan (HK's highest peak) and through the Shing Mun country park.
Yesterday we rode the peak tram up Victoria Peak to enjoy the panoramic views back down across HK city before catching a train over to the Chinese mainland in time for the night bus to Yanhshou.

Yangshwow
We arrived in the mountain 'village' of Yangshou at 7 AM, the shadowy mountains still shrouded in the pale mist of morning. After 6 months of perpetual warmth the chill in the air struck us like a cannon-ball of ice. It was time to dig out the warm clothes. Some good hard bargaining secured us a cheap room for 4 nights close to the centre of town.
The 3 full days we spent in Yangshou were all about the scenery. 2 of the days we hired mountain bikes and cycled between the somnolent limestone peaks and along rivers, stopping for the odd photo and to climb 'moon hill' -a rocky pinnacle with a moon shaped hole giving panoramic views of the surrounding limestone peaks. Yangshou is surrounded by a plethora of rock faces just begging to be climbed, so on the middle day we did just that.
It is amazing how much building work is taking place in China. Yangshou, popn 300 000, is called a village and on the south-eastern edge of town there are numerous high-rise residential buildings pushing relentlessly towards the sky. One cannot be sure but I would suggest that these may well be to accommodate some of the 2 million people being displaced by the construction of the three gorges dam which is set to flood an area the size of Singapore as it backs the Yangzi river up 550km.
p.s apologies for the extensive use of the words limestone, peaks and mountains in recent postings but since I have been surrounded by mountainous limestone peaks there really isn't much I can do about it!

Ooodles of noodles
Um, wow. I didn't think I would go somewhere with natural beauty to so easily surpass Yangshou for a long time. Well, I was wrong.
Wullingyuan scenic zone is home to 243 majestic peaks rising from the misty sub-tropical rainforest with over 3000 karst outcrops creating a truly unique landscape and one of the most (if not the most) beautiful places I have ever been. A dusting of snow the day before our visit followed by 2 days of clear sunny skies created just about perfect conditions for enjoying this natural playground. Our journey here didn't exactly go smoothly and infact we're not even staying where we intended to -trying to communicate in China is at times as a Chinaman might say 'yuanmu qiuyu' - Like climbing a tree to catch a fish (a waste of time). All came good in the end though and we have had 2 days of walking in the park enjoying scenes such as 'The supernatural hawk guarding the whip', 'The god of longevity welcoming guest', 'Latent celestial bridge' and etc.

The day we caught the train
We decided to make Wullingyuan our last stop before Beijing so last Saturday we caught a sleeper train all the way from Zhanjiajie to Beijing (24hrs) and booked ourselves into a youth hostel in the snowy capitol city.
Beijing has been nice -very cold, but nice. We've had a week of clear weather and have done the normal touristy sites here- The Great Wall which was er... great, Tienamen square which is er... a rectangle actually!, the forbidden city which is now infact bidden and the summer palace complete with it's snow and frozen lake. Not much else to say about Beijing really, although I should mention that a 600ml bottle of beer only costs about 18p! -cheap cheap!

And there you have it, we left Beijing for heathrow midday last Sunday. Since returning I stopped off in Birmingham for a Uni reunion and I'm now back up in Carlisle with the family for Christmas. Now its time to find me a job and set about putting on the stone I lost on my travels -bring on the Christmas food!

I would highly recommend traveling to anyone and everyone, it has been a fantastic experience.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain

I wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a thoroughly happy new year and hope to see you soon. xx Matt xx

Imaginative blog title #25

So, I'm lying in a hammock on a tranquil sunny island in the middle of the Mekong and armed with nothing more than a limited use of the English language and my questionable jokes I will attempt to write a blog that is worthy of this beautiful country. Here goes.....

We crossed into Northern Laos 2 weeks ago at the Chang Khong/Huay Xai border crossing. After one night in the quiet border town we boarded a slow boat (2 days) bound for Luang Prabang. The scenery in Northern Laos is up there with the best we have seen on our trip. We spent a total of 14 hours on the boat with it's very unforgiving wooden seats but it was well worth the pain in the arse! The landscape in the second day was even more beautiful than the first as the Mekong winds it's way through rugged limestone peaks and karst outcrops.
In the late afternoon we reached world heritage listed Luang Prabang where Buddhism reigns supreme (Yay! More Wats!). Situated on a raised tongue of land that stretches into the muddy confluence of the Khan and Mekong rivers, Luang Prabang is a sleepy French-Lao town where everybody wears a smile. We spent 3 days there but thinking back now its hard to remember exactly what we did with them. We went to a big ol' waterfall one day complete with plunge pool, rope swing and jumping rocks. The rest of the time we spent walking/cycling around enjoying the ambiance and majestic views. We also met back up with Gary, Neil and Rosie and met a whole bunch of new people who we would spend a good deal of time with whilst in Laos.

After a 5 hour bus ride down highway13 the jagged karst pedestals of Vang Vieng loomed into view, shadowing a bend in the West bank of the Nam Song river, a tributary of the Mekong. Many would say that Vang Vieng is over touristy and, to be fair, many would be right. However, it is a damn cool spot to enjoy the scenery and chill out for a few days. We spent 6 nights there, went tubing twice, did some rockclimbing and hired motorbikes to see the surrounding area. Tubing, for those who don't know, is a cracking 'sport' which involves sitting in a giant inner tube, floating down the river and stopping off at the odd bar or 9. Great fun. Highly recommended.

After Vang Vieng it was on down to the Laotian capitol, Vientiane. Lacking the beautiful landscape of the North, and having been virtually destroyed in 1828 by order of Rama III of Siam, Vientiane hasn't got a great deal to offer tourists. So after staying there one night (we went bowling. I was rubbish) we caught a night bus down to the market city of Pakse- a stop off point for visiting the Bolaven plateau. We arrived into Pakse in the early morning and set about finding a room and hiring a motorbike for the day. By 10 o'clock we were merrily on our way to the Bolaven plateau, a beautiful claw-shaped highland fortress of forests, rivers and waterfalls.

From Pakse it was a short sawngthaw and boat trip down to Don Det where you find me in my hammock. Don Det is just one of the Si Phan Don (four thousand islands), a 30 mile section of the Mekong littered with inhabited islands. Here the river widens to almost 9 miles before narrowing again at the Khone falls. This is our 4th (and final) day on the island where we have mostly been relaxing. We are a good way from most of the guesthouses and barring the early-rising cockrells it is veritable halcyon.

Well, there you have it. That wasn't as long as I thought it would be and is just about as good a job as I can do I'm afraid. For a more informative and informed view of the Indochina region I recommend The Indochina chronicles by Phil Karber. Or better yet, go there yourself. Seriously, you won't be disappointed.

Tomorrow we head back to Thailand for a bit of shopping before flying to Hong Kong on the 26th. Right, I'm off to check the internet to find out what the England Croatia score was.
Bummer. Ah well as a wise woman once told me "it's only football".

xx Matt xx

We are family

I've got all my sisters with me. Well that is to say I did have. We also had our parents with us. This of course means that most, if not all, of my blog audience was here to witness the events of this blog and so I shall keep it short and sweet.

5 Nights in Bangkok
And you've got a whole lot of worldly oyster action on the go. It also gives you time to do a bit of online job hunting/applying which took up the couple of days we had there before meeting up with the family. We had one day with the folks in Bangkok for which we had left the sightseeing- boat trip, King's palace and Wat no.'s 11494-11528 (we've seen a fair few of them now)-that said Bangkok has it's fair share of sparkly and more interesting Wats.
Then it was on up to Phitsanaluk for a couple of nights and a day trip to the historic park of Sukhothai -the original capitol of the first Thai Kingdom. We hired bicycles to explore the area and had a thoroughly enjoyable day in doing so.

The life of Pai
From Phitsanaluk we headed North to the much talked about Chiang Mai. To be honest I was a little disappointed with Chiang Mai, I mean fair enough it's got a shed load of Wats to visit and a village nearby which seems fairly good at making pretty umbrellas (ellas, ellas), but apart from that its nothing to rave about.
Pai on the other hand is. Set in the mountains with clean crisp air, Pai has a lively and yet chilled ambiance and activities that could see you entertained for a month. S adly we had but 4 nights. Still we found a 2 day trek/white water rafting trip that was just the ticket. The first day we headed into the jungle to a camp on the river. After a quick dip in said river Myself, Em and Dad went to a nearby cave with Jacka (our guide). I was expecting to just walk around in a cave a bit admiring a few stalagmites and stalactites, so I was pretty pleased when it turned out to be more pot-hole stylee caving. Tho as I was squeezing through gaps I thought I might not be able to make it back through, I couldn't help but think about the people who drowned in Thai caves a few weeks ago. All adds to the excitement tho hey.
The second day was white water rafting. Although the rapids weren't as wild as they could have been it was a really fun day which included a spot of cliff jumping as well as some damn hot hot springs. At this point I should big up my Mum for going white water rafting as she was a tad scared and to be fair you don't see a whole lot of 54 year old women white water rafting.
The next day we hired motorbikes to explore the surrounding area, take in the views and get hugged by an elephant (see photos). Sadly that was all we had parsley sage rosemary and thyme for before going back to Chiang Mai to see M, D + L off for their week down in railey beach.

I went to Tha Ton and all I got was this lousy blog title
From Chiang Mai Em and I headed North to Chiang Dao. The plan had been to do some walking but the elements, they say no. So we looked in the big ol' caves a bit and did a load of reading. Today we went to Tha Ton, decided not to stay, turned back and came to Chiang Rai which is where I am typing this now. We're off to Laos tomorrow. Pip Pip, Cheerio.

xx Matt xx

The Cambodian Job

Today (16th Oct) is mine and Emma's 6 month travelversary!!! Happy days. However, sadly that means that we now have only 2 months left. BOO HOO i hear you say!
We have spent the last couple of weeks in Cambodia and now have 2 days left in Phnom Penh before flying back to Bangkok to meet you (that is if you are mum, dad or liz. If anyone else is still reading this thing then just ignore that last bit).
Our time in Cambodia started off with a run-in with the Cambodian mafia. As advised by our trusty guidebook we avoided the Bangkok to Siem Reap buses as they are notorious for scamming people. However, said guidebooks' advice has resulted in a large number of people arriving across the border in need of transport. This has fueled a scam to rival the Bangkok-Siem Reap bus scam. After crossing over into Cambodia your travel options are limited to but one choice- "THE COMPANY". Basically the deal is you either pay the extortionate $12 for the bus or you get followed around by members of "the company" who exert their authority over anybody else who is willing to offer you transportation in order to make you pay more. As we had time on our side we thought we'd try to outlast them by sitting down and having a beer. At this point we were six having been joined by Gary, Katrina, Neil and Rosie. Contrary to popular belief beer does not solve all your problems and time, it seems, can be a fickle friend- it 'did an Italy'*. Our next plan was to split up in order to lose the company and try to find some transport without their 'help'. Myself and Gary set off to find a taxi for a reasonable price. We thought we had succeeded, however, it turned out that we had been followed and by the time we got back to the others the company were aware of our illicit taxi deal. After three and a half hours and with our good friend Percy Veerance on our side we finally managed to agree to $30 for a taxi between the 6 of us. It was a bit of a squeeze putting 7 people, 6 large backpacks and 6 small rucksacks in a taxi but we just about managed and were on our way to Siem Reap.
* a reference to Italy's switching of allegiance in 1943.

Wat a lot of temples
Siem Reap is the main base for visiting the world famous temples of Angkor, butt loads of big ol' temples built between the 9th and 13th centuries. On our 2nd day in Siem Reap we hired some bicycles and went exploring some of the temples. If you were so inclined you could spend weeks there and still not see everything but one day was enough for us. Twas a good day and we saw the main attractions such as Angkor Wat -one of the most inspired and spectacular monuments ever conceived by the human mind, Bayon -a Jayavarman temple in the centre of all things temple and my personal fave, Ta Prohm -an Indiana Jones sty-lee temple complete with crumbling structures and oodles of sprawling vegetation.
While in Siem Reap we also went to the landmine museum which is rum by Aki Ra(a former child soldier for the Khmer Rouge) who estimates that he has personally cleared around 50000 landmines. Despite such efforts there are still a staggering 3 million mines still to be cleared from Cambodian soil. wowzers.
From Siem Reap we got a boat ride through stilted villages and across the very flooded floodplain of the Sanker river to Battambang. It's a very frenchy feeling town, although many of the buildings have seen many better days. From Battambang we hired a motorbike to ride the rather muddy road to the temple and killing caves of Phnom Sampeau- our first real look into the savage brutality of the Khmer Rouge regime.
After just 2 nights in Battambang we got a bus down to Phnom penh to stay by the side of the aptly named lake Kak in the North of the city. The following day we visited the Toul Sleng museum, a former school converted by Pol Pot's regime in 1975 into the detention and tourture centre -security prison 21 (S21). Of the 14000 people held there only 12 lived to tell their tale.

The wheels on the bus break down and down
After a 2 night stay we headed south to Kampot, a relaxed if slightly deserted feeling town near the coast. Unfortunately when we were just half an hour away from our destination the bus broke down. As we were waiting for the bus to be fixed/a replacement bus many people took other transport into Kampot. By the time the replacement bus arrived it was just myself and emma waiting. When it reached us the replacement bus' driver was a bit over enthusiastic with the turning around and managed to get the bus stuck in the mud! leaving us at the roadside with 2 broken down buses. Eventually the bus company paid for us to get rides into Kampot on motorbikes. The plan was that we would take a trip to Bokor national park but sadly the day we had the trip booked we were both ill and so didn't make it there.
As i said we are now back in Phnom penh. Since returning we have visited the famous killing fields of Choeung Ek where approximately 17000 men, women and children were executed between 1975 and 1978. It is a truly sobering experience (not that i was drunk i hasten to add!) walking past mass graves and seeing bones and clothing protruding from the soil. The central memorial holds some 8000 skulls in a glass case to forever remind people of the atrocities of the past. There is a great deal of animosity in Cambodia that not a single person has been tried for the crimes of Pol Pot's regime. However, legal processes are finally in action with trials of former high ranking Khmer Rouge officials due to start next year.

Wow, would you believe that has taken me more than 2 hours to write. You better enjoy reading it! There are more photos online although many are duplicates cos i couldn't be bothered to sort them out. Just time for me to say a big hello to big Chris B. there. you happy now? also hey to everybody else, i hope you are all on top of the world looking down on creation.

xx Matt xx

One night in Bangkok

And you've got yourself a very predictable blog title. However, although we are about to spend one night here this blog is actually nothing to do with Bangkok as we have only just arrived on a night bus from Koh Tao. But that bit comes later, for now lets start at the beginning.

In the beginning
There was rain -and quite a lot of it! After staying one night in Hat Yao we set off in the morning for Ko Lanta. Rather than book transport all the way there we decided to use public transport in an attempt to save money. After a taxi, bus, taxi, bus, minibus, boat, minibus, boat, minibus, van journey taking twice as long as the straight through option we were somewhat questioning the wisdom of the morning decision. Calculating our savings to be about 50p concluded lesson 1 of travel in Thailand -Just book a ticket all the way to your destination cheapskate!
In Koh lanta it rained, we got very wet driving around on a motorbike and then it rained some more.

Millions of beaches (beaches for me)
Beaches come in a can, they were put there by a man in a factory down town. Anyroad, I digress, after 3 nights of rain in Ko lanta we headed north to Krabi where it rained and we were starting to think that coming to Thailand in the monsoon season was probably not the best plan in the world. However on our 2nd day in Railey (near Krabi) the rain finally abated and we had 4 days of good weather to enjoy the views, walking, climbing, kayaking and beaches in the area.
After that it was a switch over to the East sieeeede to Koh Phanghan (you may have noticed that i can't quite decide whether to use Ko or Koh before the islands name and i doubt i ever will as I'm not sure Thai people have even decided yet but anyway I'm getting side-tracked again. right Phanghan. As neither myself nor Emma are very good at doing nothing on beaches we decided we decided to keep moving around in order to see more of the island. So for the 5 nights on Phangan we stayed at 4 different beaches as well as passing a fair few others on the way. Oh dear i forgot to close the bracket) and we seem to have doubly decided along the way, nevermind i think mistakes add character to a blog.

Dancing in the moonlight
Our last night on Koh Phanghan coincided with the full moon party in Hat Rin. It is basically a big ol' beach full of people with different types of music and various rather dangerous fire shows including drunken people walking across fire and drunken people trying to skip with a giant burning skipping rope. They say that the event usually attracts between 8 and 30 thousand people, sadly the crowd just wouldn't stand still for me to count them.
After Phanghan we moved up to Ko Tao for a few nights. The plan had been to do some diving but cost/time/if i do a padi now when will i actually ever need it considerations meant that we settled for a boat trip around the island with a fair whack of snorkeling mixed in. We also hired a motorbike to explore Tao's rater dodgy roads. Apart from that we just relaxed in the islands' relaxed atmosphere.

Yesterday morning we left the room to John the baby gecko and headed up to Bangkok. And here we are. There are a few more photos on the website.
xx Matt xx

We've found Nemo!!!

If anybody is still looking for him it turns out he's been hiding in the reefs close to Pulau Perhentian Besar -just off the Eastern coast of peninsular Malaysia.

So after what seems a very quick 2 weeks in Malaysia we are now in Thailand. Sungai kolok to be precise. At the train station to be even more precise. We're waiting for our train to Hat Yai and we failed to realise that there was a time change as we crossed the border from Malaysia so we have an extra hour to kill. Therefore to I have decided to use said time to write about our jungly and beachy adventures.

After our rainy days in the cameron highlands the day we left was beatiful sunshine. Thankfully it was also clear when we arrived in Taman (park) Negara (National) -Malaysia's oh so inventively named national park (in fairness it used to be called King George V national park, but was changed at independance). Upon arrival we took thge boat over the river from the park entrance from the small village of Kuala Tahan in order to make plans and arrangements for our time there. Having booked Bumbun Kumbang (a hide in the jungle) for 2 nights we crossed back over the river to spend the night and buy supplies.

Day one of our jungly adventures saw us walk on the world's longest canopy walkway -a rather wobbly contraption made from ladders, planks and ropes. After that it was back down to earth to walk to the hide. The walk was fairly short (only 11km) but not easy. It ran parralel with the main river for most of thge time so there were many ups and downs across the plentiful tributary valleys. The jungle was humid, pretty thick and had more leeches than you can shake a guidebook at. We reached the hide with plenty of time to cool off and settle into the hide. Although there was dung promising of elephants, sadly we saw no more than a few monkeys.

On the 2nd day we left some stuff at the hide so were travelling with lightened loads aiming for the caves located further into the park. Sadly a lack of signposting on the trails caused us to walk a superfulous 4km however this did result in us seeing a bear!.............footprint or 2. After backtracking we found the caves in time for lunch, a nice and cool spot, if a little full of bat poo. That night we shared the hide with 3 other people but had no major sightings.

Day three saw us take a different -and far less obvious path back to Kuala Tahan. After a short while we came across a river about 15m wide and 1m deep with no way across it. So it was off with the boots, socks and trousers for a good old wade across the river. That, along with sections where myriad paths criss-crossed, doubled back on themselves and generally made you walk round in circles with a confused look on your face slowede us down somewhat. We still made it back in time to catch a boat to Jerantut from where our train left that night, headed North.

After the train it was a fairly easy 2 bus and a boat trip over to the Perhentian islands -Two small islands 21km from the mainland in the South China Sea. We stayed on the smaller of the islands -Perhentian Kecil in lemon grass chalets on the rather strangely named long beach. I suppose it depends on your idea of what constitutes a long beach, but anyway, thats not the point. The point is.... Wait, what's my point again? oh dear, it seems i've lost my train of thought -nevermind i'm at the station, I'm sure it will be along soon. sorry, bad joke. Lets get this blog back on track. Haha. Sorry.

The island was B E A utiful with crystal clear warm waters. We spent 4 nights there, played a lot of volleyball, went snokelling and managed to watch the england match, to boot. The snorkelling, whilst not even comparing to the Great barrier reef was good fun and as i have said we saw 'Nemo fish' as well as plenty of everycolour fish (well thats what I call them) and a shark and a big old turtle. On the whole it was a thoroughly good few days and cemented Malaysia a big Browlesy thumbs up!

So we're now in Hat Yai and it is time to get some dinner and see if we can find somewhere showing the england game at 2 in the morning......hmm, wish me luck.
xxMattxx

If cabbages ruled the world

If my first impressions of Indonesia were- how shall i put it- well, how DID i put it, wow, i used "rather disappointed" -how very restrained of me, Malaysia couldn't be more different. I'll fill in the gaps in a bit, for now i'm going to talk about Malaysia. I love it already. We got a bus up from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur (KL), upon arrival we headed for the chinatown district where the majority of backpackers stay. A guy from one of the hostels saw us and guided us back to his hostel. From the outside it looked like an absolute dump, but inside was perfectly nice with a good atmosphere and loads of other backpackers.

Now, imagine you've never been to Ireland -I suppose a fair few of you haven't but if you have just imagine. Then imagine your travelling around and don't know every countrys' national day, and it just so happens that you arrive in Ireland on St Paddys day. You'd think that was pretty cool huh?. Well, now imagine that, not only is it St Paddy's day but it is the 50th anniversary of St Paddy's day!! Awesome hey. Well my friends, that (in a rather longwinded and slightly random metaphorical way) was what happened to us in Malaysia. Oh except of coarse we arrived into KL (the capitol) so in the whole imaginary thing you would have to arrive into Dublin.
So after a few drinks in the hostel we went out to join in with the street celebrations shouting Merdeka (meaning independance) at the top of our voices. We then spent the next day seeing the sights of KL as well as booking our bus up to the Cameron highlands where i am writing this.

Bus travel in Malaysia is 18249% better than in Indonesia- trust me, i did the math. It is cheaper, a lot faster, more comfortable and you don't get ripped off. Oh and people don't try to steal things from your bags. Now, as I say, we are in the Cameron highlands well Tanah rata to be precise and it's lovely. It's nice and cool with mountains, jungle, tea plantations and ok so it rains a fair amount but hey, we're British- we can cope with a few drops of rain. Yesterday we walked to a nearby tea plantation, learn't how to make tea -there are 5 key stages don't you know, and got rather wet. Despite the rain it was very nice- you can't beat a nice cup of tea. Today the rain has held off so we were able to do some walking of the jungle tracks. The views were by no means amazing but it wern't half nice to do a good bit of walking. Tomorrow we're off to the largest national park in Malaysia for more jungley adventures.

Right. Now for the gaps. I left you in Maninjau, from there we took a 34hr bus trip down to Bandur Lampung. I was a thoroughly enjoyable trip -NAT!!!. Our aim, as i believe i mentioned, was to visit the Taman National Way Kambas but either the tour organisers had all skipped town or they have been taken under the powers of the mighty cabbage over-lord. So it turned out to be the Taman National No-Way Kambas. We toyed with the idea of visiting the famous volcano to see if it was all it was krakatoered up to be but that was looking like it would be a tad too pricey. So with no-where else in our plans we headed to Jakarta. This gave us four full days in Jakarta which is roughly four full days too many. It did have a rather impressive shopping mall which proved useful for escaping the heat/smell of the city. Then it was on to Singapore aka. the Lion city. It is a rather impressive city and when your arriving from Indonesia you feel as if you've travelled into the future. We spent two nights there exploring the city and visiting the rather impressive (if a little too big) asian civilisations museum. After singapore, it was onto malaysia which I won't write about now on account of the fact that i have already done so.
There are at last some more photos on the website and more will follow in the not too distant.
xx Matt xx

It's Indon-easier in Sumatra

We're now in Maninjal- a small village nestled by the side of a lake in a volcanic crater. The landscape makes for a beautiful setting and it is incredibly peaceful here. Yesterday we hired a motorbike and rode around the lake (70km) taking in the scenery and fresh air as we went. We also rode to the top of the crater up a rather bendy road which gave good views back out over the lake. Yesterday there were celebrations for independance day. On the way up to the lip of the crater we saw the locals entertaining themselves with slippery pole climbing- a simple but quite entertaining game.

We stayed 5 nights in Bukittingi in the end. It was a nice small town and we went on a tour of the local area to see the views, historic buildings and arts and craft type stuff. The people in Sumatra are (on the whole) more easy-going than than those in Bali and Java as well as being friendlier and politer. We did have one little toerag send us the wrong way when we were trying to walk from Bukittingi to Koto Gadang. He then followed us until we were looking lost and then offered his services as a guide for Rp100000. Needless to say we didn't take him up on this and went back to Bukittingi. Apart from that and a spot of food poisoning which rendered us out of action for a day it has been a pretty good week.

Tomorrow we head back South in search of rainforest, tigers and the rare Indonesian Rhino in the National Way Kambas.
Still no photos I'm afraid- maybe in Jakarta in a week or so.
xx Matt xx

Its been 2 weeks and I still haven't thought of a title.

So, its been a while. Since my last blog I have been asked if i want a taxi no less than 18264 times and have been lied to/ripped off at least 4871 times. I'm not going to make this one long rant about Indonesia but so far it has been rather disappointing.

I flew in to Kuta in Bali and met up with Emma again. We spent a few days surfing/exploring southern Bali. On my first afternoon there we had a rather entertaining time. A local guy who gets commission if he brings people to a timeshare presentation convinced us to pose as a married couple and attend said presentations. In return for doing this we were given a motorbike for 3 days. The presentation was basically a meeting with a rep from the hotels in which we were asked a load of questions about previous holidays and the like. We just about managed to blag our way through it, although I thought the lady might have been slightly skeptical about us spending our honeymoon staying in hostels in Scotland. It was a bit of a laugh tho and we also earned the local guy US$60 which is a butt load of money to him. Over the next couple of days we rode around on the motorbike and did a bit of surfing. Then it was on to Java and a trip to mount Bromo. We had a nice walk up a volcano (I forget the name) for sunrise and back down to climb Mt Bromo.

After Bromo we went on to Yogyakarta which from the guidebook sounded more promising and more like a down to earth Indonesia I've been waiting for. In reality it was much the same as the other towns- the people have no respect for their country and throw rubbish all over the place resulting in the town centres becoming big smelly rubbish dumps. Also you get constantly harassed by people trying to sell you something. I know that the people are poor and are therefore desperate but the constant badgering makes you feel uptight so you can't enjoy yourself. I am not at all surprised by the downturn in Indonesian tourism over the last few years- I certainly won't be recommending it to other people.

From Jogja (as it is commonly called) we decided not to face the two and a half day bus trip up to mid Sumatra and so we took a flight up to Padang. The less said about Padang the better.

The next day we got a bus up to Bukittinggi. The guys whose van we got a lift in tried to steal things from our bags whilst distracting us but they did a rather bad job of it. They may as well have used the old 'HEY! look over there!!!' trick- they were that unsubtle. Anyways we are now in Bukittinggi and it is the nicest place I've been in Indonesia so far. Tomorrow we're planning to go on a Jungle trek and I'm looking forward to getting back into the countryside.
I realise I haven't said much of the things we have been doing so for more on that you can read Emma's blog (Link at the side of the page ------->)
Apologies for the lack of photos- the internet here is slower than a three legged tortoise!
xx Matt xx

Destination Unknown

I'm now in Darwin having left Cairns after a 6 night stay. Unfortunately I didn't manage to go walking in Cairns- my knee took longer to get better than I initially thought it would. I probably would have been fine but didn't want to risk it. So I spent a couple of days resting then went on a cruise/snorkel/swim on the great barrier reef, and it is indeed pretty damn great. In fact I would probably have called it the Awesome barrier reef, but hey, it wasn't up to me. As soon as you get in the water there are approximately a bazillion fish around you as well as a few small sharks and sea snakes and loads of other colourful stuff. Was a really good day, I could have done a free 5 minute scuba dive but it took about 45 minutes of faffing around just to do it so i just carried on swimming around. Then I had a couple more days of relaxing in Cairns to allow my knee to get back to 100% before going to Darwin.

Darwin hasn't started too promisingly. On arrival at the airport I was told that the cheapest accomodation available was $140!. So I slept last night on a bench at the bus station. Now I need to figure out what to do, whether I go to Kakadu or I kakadon't. I've got 4 nights left after tonight and tomorrow night is the Mindil beach night market. Now I wouldn't usually care for a market but i've been told by several people that it is worth a look. Plus quite a few people I have spoken to have said that Kakadu is over-rated, but also some local guys said that Litchfield national park was really nice. So i'm not rightly sure what to do.

So in the end I decided that there was enough to do in Darwin for a few days. However, I walked around yesterday and saw most of the things I wanted to including a phenominal sunset which filled the whole sky. I took some photos but thet really don't do it justice. So anyway I decided that infact there wasn't enough to keep me busy for 4 days. So I decided (this is a lot of deciding, maybe i need to look up 'decided' on thesaurus.com) to take a gamble hitch this morning- as in I hitch with no particular destination in mind. For the first 3 and a half hours in which i'd made it a measly 30km it was looking like a worse decision than the war on Iraq. But then eventually a guy called Grant gave me a lift not just to Litchfield national park, but also around it a fair amount as well. So I'm now camped at Wangi falls camping ground after a couple of hours swimming/climbing waterfalls/jumping off of rocks at wangi falls.

Litchfield- Day 2
Wow, that was probably the hardest walk of my life. I left the Wangi falls camping ground and thought i'd do the short walk around the top of the waterfalls. At the top I found that there was infact a path that went to Florence Falls and it was only 20km whereas by road it's more like 40km. Although the sign said that the path was closed due to 'flood damage' I decided to go for it anyway. Silly silly Matt. Stupid infact. The 'Path' in the places where there was no flood damage was damn hard to follow. Due to the low useage of the track there is no clear path to follow. The only guidance you have (well of coarse you should have a map, but since I didn't even know the track existed I didn't have one) are marker polls, placed sporadicly, which point you vaguely in the right direction, but sometimes nowhere near it. This means at some points you have to search around, retrace your steps and generally get very annoyed. The flood damage part was even more fun, with bridges washed away and marker polls lying on the ground. It took me an hour and forty minutes towalk what can only have been 1.5km at the most. On top of the non-existant path it was 30 degrees and blazing sunshine all day. I've had 6.5 litres of water today and I still don't need a pee. Along the path there are no markers to tell you distances travelled/remaining so as time went by i was getting more and more worried. It took me 9 hours to walk 20 km and it was such hard work that when I saw the sign for the turnoff to florence falls I actually cried with relief. All that said it was a very beautiful walk but definately not one to be done on your own. Thinking about it and writing this now you can scrap the probably at the beginning- that was definately the single hardest walk I have ever done. I've already planned tomorrow- I'm doing nothing! for once i'm not going to let my adventurous side win, I'll just walk up to the waterfall and swim/relax all day.

Litchfield- Day 3
OK, so i'm not very good at doing nothing. I got up this morning and walked the short walk to the waterfall. I sucessfully did not much for a couple of hours- just a bit of a swim and climbing rocks to jump from. Just as I was getting bored of that some local guys turned up who knew exactly where to climb/jump from, and they seriously upped the ante by climbing to the top of the highest waterfall and jumping in. I decided to go for it myself but when I reached the top I was slightly regretting it. However, when you climb up a waterfall and have people at the bottom getting cameras out to take photos of you jumping you can't just climb back down. I slightly missed the correct landing spot but have only got a cut toe for my troubles. So around midday I decided to try to hitch back to Darwin so that i've got time tomorrow to upload photos and type this up. I've just got back after a seamless 3 car hitch with no more that a 10 minute wait between each lift- thats what hitching is all about.

And that brings me to now, in the internet cafe. The photos are being rather slow but there will at least be some more online. Tomorrow I fly to Bali so it's goodbye to Australia (sob), I'll be sorry to go and will be back again at some point in my life. And at the same time as not wanting to leave I am also looking forward to travelling in a different country. So it's goodbye from me and it's goodbye to Australia. Loads of love to everyone.
xx Matt xx

The best steaks in life are free!

Hey, hey, hey; hey, hey, hey; Ah, ha, ha, hey, yeah!
What a gret birthday. I'm camping in Hervey bay for Aus$5 a night which can't be bad. Its really quiet here but i met a German couple when i arrived from Noosa and they have been great. When we arrived at the hostel/campsite they asked me if i wanted to join them for dinner. Having planned to have beef flavoured noodles i was only too glad to accept. We had a good meal and they sang happy birthday to me at midnight. Today ((the 12th) my birthday) I planned my trip to Fraser island and explored Hervey bay. I was just thinking what a nice day it had been and was about to cook my self the afforementioned beef noodles when Tilo and Tina (the afforementioned German couple) showed me an advert for a pub offering free meals on your birthday, so i had a big fat steak with chips salad and mushroom sauce for free!! which sadly meant the noodles were put on hold again- shame!. Time for bed now- off to Fraser island tomorrow.

Fraser Island
Day 1- Best laid plans...
OK so I didn't really plan this all that well. I got a ferry at 4 O'clock and so by the time i started walking on Fraser island it was nearly dark. I was headed for the nearest campground and the sign said it was a 4 hour walk-Doh! So i got a march on as quick as i could bearing in mind they say not to walk at night- or on your own- it seems Fraser island's Dingoes (a type of wild dog) can be quite ferrocious. Anyway i marched as quick as i could and made it to the campsite in an hour and 25 mins. At said campsite the sign said it was 14.1km from where i had come from- thats some damn quick marching! Time to sleep now- big walk tomorrow.

Day 2- Big walk indeed!
I've walked 32km today which when you consider that i'm carrying all my camping gear, 5 days worth of food and 6 litres of water whilst walking on an island made of sand is a bloody long way. Its well wort the blisters though- Fraser is such an amazing island. I'm no poet so I'm not even going to try and describe it- suffice to say its bloody lovely. Pretty weird as well- one minute you can be walking through rainforest and the next your on a great big sandy beach by the ocean. Fraser Fact- it is the only place in the world where rainforest grows on sand. As well as it being spigging awesome, there are far fewer people than i was expecting. Most people do 4x4 trips so the walking tracks were pretty much just for me! Right, time to plan tomorrows adventure- I'm thinking slightly less walking.
oh. p.s. i had noodles for dinner.

Day 3- Haha, less walking...
Me and my feet are not the best of friends right now. I decided in order to see more i needed to travel light. So i packed up and walked 6km to a camping zone on the Eastern beach, set my tent up again and left my things there (except a bottle of water). This my feet were happy about. However, after that i walked/jogged/ran about 23km up the beach (and obviously back again) so i have done around 52km today!! 52km=unhappy feet. There is a lot to see out here tho- i could do with 10 days not 5 but time prsses on so my feet will just have to put up with it. Fraser Fact - It is the largest sand island in the world. Now for some more beef noodles and definately less walking tomorrow!

Day 4- Hot shower, Hot shower!
My route for today was dictated by my need for water. Therfore i had a fairly cruisey 20km stroll to the main campground on the island. On top of the short walk i had a nice hot shower and feel human again. Its my last day of walking tomorrow so i need to finish relatively close to the ferry. Therefore its got to be an 18km walk or a 34km walk. I vote 34, but my feet say 18. we'll see.

Day 5- Pet food pittas/These feet were made for walking...
And thats just what they'll do. So my feet never were going to win that arguement. However, i did come up with an alternative- it meant walking an extra 8km but also allowed me to to most of the walk without carrying all my stuff. So having stuck plasters all over my feet I set off nice and early in order to make it to tonights campground before dark. I'm glad i did- it was a really good walk, plus my feet held up ok. The walk took me past 6 lakes, and in my opinion the lakes are the island's biggest attraction. The only downside on the day was the food. I'm now onto some long-life pitta breads and they smell like dried pet food. Nevermind, i can have a proper meal tomorrow, as well as a hard earned beer!

Day 6- Wounded Knee
I was camping near lake McKensie last night so i got up to watch sunrise over the lake this morning. Then headed back to get the ferry across to Hervey bay. The blisters are now on the mend but my knee is knackered. I think i may have overdone the walking a bit. I'm sure it will settle down over the next couple of days. Had a nice big BBQ this evening and i'm thoroughly stuffed! But still didn't get that beer! Tomorrow I head north to Cairns (apologies to Airlie beach and the Whitsundays but somewhere had to be dropped). I'm hoping to do some walking in the Cairns highlands, but i think i'll have to play that by ear (or should i say knee). I will at least have time to put this on the web so that people other than me can read it!

And thats where i am now. Well, in cairns i mean not the highlands. My knee is getting better tho i think so i should get a chance to do some walking as long as i keep them short. Yesterday I sat on a coach so not a lot to tell you there- 22 and a half hours of reading and sleeping.
I have been trying to upload photos whilst typing this but the internet place i'm in has set a limit on file upload size so no can do i'm afraid. Fear not, I'll do them soon. Also you may be pleased to know that i will actually be in some of the photos- i looked through what was already online and realised there was a distinct lack of me. Thankyou all who e-mailed/facebooked me a happy birthday. Hope everybody is jolly.

There you go, that blogs a bit of a longer one. Perhaps not a cracker as i promised- i think there is a slight lack of jokes. so....
A drunk guy is walking down the street. He sees this nun, runs up and knocks her over. He says, "You don't feel so tough now, do you, Batman!?"
xx Matt xx

Hitch-hikers paradise!

So after finding it hard to get to Byron I found it even harder to leave. It is such a nice place, as a main stop on the East of Oz you may expect a butt load of crappy souvenir shops interspersed (spg?) with fast food chains. However, that is nowhere near the case, there were a couple of said crappy shops but not a fast food place in sight. It is a really nice town. The weather helped- normal service has resumed- wall to wall sunsine. Eventually i left, headed for surfers paradise. I hitched just a short way out towards the highway at first. Then after 6 or 7 minutes -and i shit you not- 2 cars pulled over simultaneously!!!(spg?). I couldn't believe it, but after checking which car was going the right way, i got a lift to within 5 km of surfers. I then met back up with Andre and we went camping on south stradbroke island for a few days. Sadly the surf didn't pick up much, but it was nice and chilled and we had the beach to ourselves. We then went back down the coast slightly to Mt Warning N.P. We climbed in the afternoon and then camped on the summit overnight to make the most of the sunset and rise. Was a really good night apart from the damn possum that stole my last sausage! And now here i am in Brisbane for 2 nights i think before heading up to go camping on fraser island. I seem to be getting good at writing short blogs- apologies, the next will be a cracker.
p.s more photos online today
p.p.s and even more tomorrow
xx Matt xx

Surfing with the dolphins!!

Or at least trying to!! Wow, what a great day. Beautiful sunshine all day- a game of spot the cloud would have ended 0-0. We (myself and Andre-a guy staying at the same hostel) drove about 20km south of Byron to go surfing. It was very hard work to paddle out but was worth it. The longest i was on a wave for was probably only abut 2.5 seconds- it was a bit too big for me, but there were dolphins swimming around us which was pretty cool. The waves were awesome, 8-10ft high, perfect right-breaking barrels. Some of the locals that were out there were amazing surfers, riding waves for hundreds of metres. Have had a more relaxed day today. We (myself and 3 other guys in the dorm) walked up to Byron lighthouse and the most easterly point in mainland oz. We also was humpback whales on their migration so i now have several photos of the sea where i have mis-timed photographing the whales launching out the water. It's really nice here in Byron but I may move soon cos Andre has said he'll give me a lift up to the gold coast. Next stop Surfers paradise.
Hope you get some summer over there.
The Prime minister is dead, long live the Prime minister!
xx Matt xx

One bitch of a hitch!!

Just a quick post, not got much time. I finally managed to leave Sydney after putting it off several times. Had a great time there. I then set off for byron bay hitching on the pacific highway. The problem is that this country is so damn huge!!! It took me 3 days to get to byron, with the nights spent sleeping in my tent at the road side. And i still ended up getting a bus for the last 100km or so cos it was dark so hitching was useless. But I am here at last and tomorrow I'm going surfing!! One benefit of staying in Sydney is that i was there for the karaoke again and won a day trip from Byron to Nimbin which is pretty sweet.
Thats about all i guess not much to say has just been hitch, sleep, hitch sleep really. Now for an early night to be ready for the waves (and the sharks!!).
xx Matt xx

Well that was an adventure...

So I went to the blue mountains, i've heard that they're beautiful. Unfortunately for me I couldn't see for the cloud and torrential rain. I arrived there on thursday afternoon and headed for the tourist information centre. The weather board there said: Today- Showers, Tomorrow- Storms, Saturday- Storms. DOH!!!. However I thought while in Rome and all that... so I decided to go walking anyway. It was dry when I set off so I thought it wasn't going to be all that bad... WRONG!. I walked for about 3 hours on the first day, it was getting fairly dark and was raining steadily so I thought I'd find a place to camp. After pithing the tent in the rain as quickly as I could I stashed most of my stuff inside and went to explore the area a bit. The rain just got heavier and the winds really picked up. I got back to the tent and was just hoping it would stand up to the weather. It chucked it down all night and was still raining when i got up. I decided it would be silly to decamp in that weather so just did a circular walk from my tent. I had a really good walk even tho it rained all day and I couldn't really see anything. That night the weather got silly, the rain came down harder than ever and the winds got even stronger. In the morning I got up to find trees had been blown down across the path right near my tent and there was water everywhere. I decided I'd have to make a break to try to get back into town to the train station, so i stuffed my tent into its bag any way it would go and marched back to town. Consideing the path had been turned into a stream/waterfalls I made very quick time, covering the 13km back in just over 2 hours. I'm back in Sydney now and sadly have once again bought the weather with me. Also I have just heard on the news that 14 people had to be rescued in the blue mountains over the weekend! Not sure when I'll head north, the whole coast is still being battered by storms with many places having flooding problems. Looks like i'll have to make a break for byron bay in a few days. Hope everyone is well.
xx Matt xx

p.s Happy fathers day Dad!

The Big Blog

Things required for reading this post:
1) A nice hot cup of tea.
2) Plenty of time.
3) A high boredom threshold.
4) Maybe a couple of biscuits.

Right then. You ready?
OK here goes.

I last left you in Auckland and in typical blog style that is where I shall pick up the story once more. After a couple of days in Auckland the Fox was off to Oz whilst Em and I had a few days left in NZ. We got a ferry over to Waikeke island just off the coast near Auckland. It was a nice quiet little island where we had a campsite and beach to ourselves for free!. We only stayed a couple of nights but it was nice and relaxing and we had a little swim in the sea. That left us with a couple of days in Auckland to sort out photos and be dragged around the shops.

On the 4th we flew to Melbourne. It is a nice enough city but nothing to write home about- unless that is you count blogs as writing home, because then i guess it is, cos i'm writing about it. What? Oh dear I'm rambling already and there is still some way to go.
After a couple of days in the city we hired a car to drive the Great Ocean Road. We drove out to the end of it in the evening, found a spot to do a spot of cheeky free camping and spent the next day driving back to Melbourne on the GOR. (oh BTW Em and foxy, the Gibson steps really were just those steps we walked down. They supposedly give you a different view of the 12 apostles). Anywhoo, it was scenic and all that but perhaps a better name for it would be the Relatively Nice Compared To Other Ocean Roads Road- Catchy don't you think. The driving of it was fun and I was pleased to discover that I hadn't entirely forgotten how to drive a manual car.

After the RNCTOORR we had one last night together in Melbourne and were surprised to find it so quiet in the city. Then the following morning Em and the Fox set off to Adelaide meaning that it was the end of our Fellowship-(sorry, i'm in Oz now- I'll stop the LOTR references).
I stayed one more night in Melbourne and discovered why Thursday night had been so quiet- everybody was saving themselves for Friday night. The bars were full, there were allyways full of bars which were packed with live music in the streets. I just wandered around soaking up the atmosphere- drinks were too expensive!.

The next day I booked a last minute cheap train ticket for that night, then had the day to see more of Melbourne- The botanical gardens, the MCG and the afternoon to chill in the park in the sun reading LOTR and having a couple of beers. Oh that reminds me. I've bought a shiny new camera!, I was just sharing Emma's but as she is going up the West coast and i am going up the East, that probably won't work anymore.

I'm in Sydney now and your tea is getting cold, but as I was saying, I'm in Sydney and I absolutely love it! Most people prefer Melbourne. Not Me.
When I got to Sydney it was cold and raining and cold- oops I already said cold. Suffice to say it was Shitty. It seems the East coast has been getting battered by storms lately. However everywhere I go, I do as is advised by Crowded House, I take the weather with me and it is now bloody lovely. For my second day it was sunny and warm (and sunny). I went for a walk down to sydney harbour bridge, the opera house and the botanical gardens. It was 'the long weekend' for the Queen's birthday so there were street entertainers and music in the streets.
I've found a really cool place to stay and it's pretty cheap. Last night we dressed up as women so that we got free champagne at the karaoke. I will try to get the videos of me singing Britney Oops I and Hit me baby on u tube, but i fear that may be too technical for me. I had a great night and didn't spend a penny. Had free champagne plus i got free drinks for my awesome singing. Luckily I had shaved my beard off a couple of days ago (NOT THE BEARD!!! - Ok thats the last one) so i was a passable woman.

Yesterday I walked the Bondi-Coogee coastal path where i took a copious amount of photos of water crashing on to rocks. It was also a really nice walk, plus that means i've pretty much seen what I want to in Sydney. Tomorrow I'm heading out to the Blue Mountains to have a bit of an explore and do a bit more cheeky free camping. I'll then head back into sydney afterwards so that i can leave some of my stuff here. But thats the future- theres no need for me to tell you that now. I will also get some photos on the website and hopefully make links to them as well as Emma's and Foxy's blogs. The links should appear somewhere over there -------->

So there you have it. Your bang up to date now, so that will be all for now I think. I am leaving now. Goodbye
xx Matt xx

Was it really that long ago...

that i last wrote a blog. ok will do one tomorrow.
xx Matt xx

Isildur!!!

Greetings from Mordor!! It's 10 O'clock in the morning, on May the 29th, if you want to know. Yesterday we climbed Mount Doom!! (Mt Ngauruhoe). We are staying in National park village and set off yesterday morning to walk the Tongariro crossing. With it being a one way walk you have to travel with a track transport company. As a result we had about 8 hours to walk 18km- pretty cruisey. However after about 7km there is a side trip up Mt Doom which takes 3hrs, so we decided to do it. Mt Doom is a bitch to walk up (fair play to Sam for carrying Frodo up), it is basicly a big pile of scree with some rocks on the top, so for every 2 steps you take up you slide back down 1. That said, it was well worth the effort, not only for the views from the summit, but also I can now say that I have climbed Mount Doom!!!-(you can call me sad- I don't care).
Anywhoo, it meant we had to walk fairly quickly for the rest of the walk, but we still made it with half an hour to spare.
Since the last blog we have been to Picton, got the ferry over to Wellington, met up with the Fox* again, broken down in Jen's** car, gone back to Wellington and come up to National park village. The back packers here has a climbing wall- and a good one at that. So we have climbed both days we have been here, as well as pioneering the sport of climbing wall megaswing resulting in only 2 minor injuries!!-result!.
I am writing this whilst sitting at the road side waiting for a hitch to Raglan but sadly there is little traffic. I sense a change of plans is on the cards.
Yep, i was right. We are now in Aukland having decided to ditch the hitching and get a bus. So we now have a few days to see a bit of the Northern North island.

* Mike's new name. For those of you who don't know Mike, His name is Michael Jones. From this I was calling him Michael J Fox and have since shortened it to 'the Fox'.
** Jen is Mike's friend who lives in Wellington. We broke down on the way to do a weekend walk.

Hope everyone is HunkyDory.
xx Matt xx

Put your best thumb forward

Right so, where was I?. Just about to set off for Te Anau I believe. Following a few sucesses at hitching fairly short distances we thought we'd try our hand(or thumb at least!)- sorry bad joke) at hitching a bit further, and it has proved very sucessful. On the way to Te anau it took about an hour and a half to get a lift which still left us enough time to start the Kepler track that afternoon. It wasn't the most exciting walk for the first couple of days, just fairly flat and in the forest. The 3rd day was quality though, it was raining and hella windy but really good fun ridge walking. We stayed a night in Te Anau after the walk and treated ourselves to a pub supper (mmmm steak). In the meantime Mike had decided to walk another track whilst Em and I headed back to Queenstown before heading up the West coast. So it was just the two of us hitching the following morning and just as Emma was singing her (soon to be no.1) '29 minutes to Queenstown', we got a lift from a quality bloke from bath- sorry if your reading this it seems we didn't catch your name. He took us all the way to Queenstown so we were back in time for lunch.

Since then we have headed up the West coast, firstly stopping in Fox glacier where we spent two nights. On the first morning we got up at 5am to ride down to lake Matherson where we

took some photos of sunrise over Mt Cook reflected in the lake. We then stopped in Greymouth where it rained so we read books and watched films (if you ever get the chance to watch Dead poets society the don't bother- its rubbish with a capital RUBBISH). And that brings us to now in Nelson where the tinterweb is free!!! and as a consequence we will be uploading photos on to our newly formed photo website. There are already some on there but will add a load more tomorrow. Hope everyone is fine and dandy. Oh almost forgot

http://mattandemma1.myphotoalbum.com/albums.php that should work but if it doesn't then

let me know.

Oh and also..... What do you call a halfling with one leg?... A Hoppit!!

xx Matt xx

He's trying to bring down the mountain Gandalf!

We must turn back! So we're back in Queenstown now having had to change our plans somewhat. We headed to Kinloch (near Isengard) and then walked over to Milford on the Caples track. Had a bit of a break in Milford and went out onto the sound in a boat. We then came back over to Kinloch on the Routeburn track- one of the great walks which was all good. However after a rest day in Kinloch the weather has turned against us. Althogh fine now, snow has been forecast for tomorrow and thus our plans to walk the Rees-Dart track have been scuppered as the bridges over the rivers have been removed. So we have hitched back to Qt today and now plan to head to Te Anau tomorrow to walk the Kepler track. I have sorted out the bank transfers- i was putting the card number instead of the account number- FOOL OF A TOOK!.
What do you call a wizard who knows how to hit a little white ball with a club?........Cangolf.
xx Matt xx

woooooooooooooooooo!!!

WOOOOOOOOO HOO HOOOO. WOOOOOOO!!!!. Thought i'd get that down on paper whilst it was still fresh in my mind.
That was bloody fantastic. Sooo much fun. I wanna go again. Seriously everyone if you ever get a chance to go skydiving then do it. It was awesome. The views from the plane were quality and the freefall is out of this world. Then after the parachute was opened there were still gret views of all the micro sheep in the micro fields with the micro farm buildings and micro cars on the micro roads. Awesome. We're gonna be away for a while after this to do some walks, so will say happy birthday to Birts and Rich birts and Becky H. oh and henshaw but i doubt hes reading this, he'll be off doing his hair somewhere.
take care all. I like half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve!
xx Matt XX

What a difference a day makes! mark 2

Ok so this blog should be before the mt cook one but whilst trying to edit to see if i could add photos i seem to have deleted it and yet i can recover it. i dont know whats going on but anywho it means the blogs are slightly out of order.
So it turns out that in Fiji during the summer it rains, and it doesn't take any prisoners. Yesterday in Suva it rained silly rain- heavy for 22 of 24 hours. Even so the short break gave us time to see the botanical gardens and go in the Fiji museum. Since it was raining we decided to head back to Nadi that evening ready for our bags the next morning. We stayed overnight in Nadi bay and today it is beautiful sunshine and we have our bags back!!!! Oh yes today is a very good day.That was saturday. It is now tuesday afternoon and we have just landed in New Zealand- YAY!!We spent the last few days in Fiji in Nadi bay to stay with the good weather. It was nice but not a great deal to do. Now we are in NZ and the real adventures begin.xx Matt xx

Mountains Gandalf, Mountains!

Ok so now we're in NZ which means my blogs may contain several references to LOTR. I make no apologies for this but thought i would warn you none the less.
We have now met up with my sister's boyfriend Mike and after a couple of days in Christchurch we have headed down to Mount Cook village. Today we walked up to mueller hut and had some spiggin awesome views over to Mt Cook. The walk was only 10k but felt a lot more cos of the amount of climbing involved. We plan to head on down to Queenstown on sunday where we may well do a skydive! Bring it on!
xx Matt xx

Change of plans

Ok so apparently we missed the bus stop for Cuvu which seemed to consist of a shabby bus hut and a muddy road so we decided to stay on to Suva- the capitol, where hopfully there will be some form of civilisation and an internet cafe. So you could be reading this very soon. It is now Friday morning and we are in the aforementioned tinternet cafe. Afer the 5 hour bus trip to Suva we set about finding out some local info and places to stay. We found a fairly decent place with backpacker dorms for FJ$15 (about a fiver), so we had a shower then a bit of a rest which turned into a 14hour sleeping marathon. We had woken in the late evening and it was pissing it down outside so we thought it best just to stay in and sleep. Today has already been more productive, we have established that the next flight from LA arrives saturday morning at 5, we have found some food and also this decent air-conditioned interweb place. After this we are off to the Fiji museum then the afternoon/evening bus back to Nadi so we can get to the airport in the morning. Sorry about the lack of photos in the blog so far i will endeavour to include some in future posts.
xx Matt xx

--------STOP BLOG-------STOP BLOG--------

We interrupt this blogcast on this dark day to bring you some dreadful news.... our bags have been lost!!!! So i am now in Fiji wearing the same jeans for yet another day, only today isn't england or air conditioned airports, Oh no, TODAY is 25 degrees at 8 in the morning with a relative humidity somewhere in the region of 763 Bazzillion%.
Oh well, chin up (ouch my chin), off to the shops to buy some oh so stylish clothes to wear. I am now at Nadi town bus station (stylish clothes in tow) waiting for a bus down to Cuva where we now plan to spend the next 2 days before heading back up to the airport to collect our bags- i'm staying positive on this.
It's a bit of an arse to need to hang around near Nadi for 2 days when we're only here for 5. The kind lady at the airport said that they 'have facilities to transport your bags to the islands'- Yeah right!!- i've not heard a worse idea since 'Lets find somewhere to lie down'.
Anyway if all goes to plan you will probably be reading this when we are back in Nadi, happily reunited with our bags. Which also means you won't be reading this until after Cuvu resulting in some sort of crazy triple edition blogerific bonanza!
xx Matt xx

Sweet dreams my LAX!!

Bula! from Fiji and welcome to my blog.
After an uneventful start with the flights to LA, upon arrival the fun began. HSBC for some reason unbeknown to me seem to have decided not to transfer money into my account i'm using whilst travelling even though they had debited my HSBC account. So after a panic at the cashpoint when Emma suggested i might have accidentally transfered it into someone else's account, we checked online to find it back in my HSBC account. So panic over i'll deal with them later.
On through security- it seems the main prerequisite for working as airport security in the US is to be a patronising asshole- anyhoo we went through to departures for our flight to Fiji. With an hour to kill before boarding Emma came up with the genious idea of 'finding somewhere to lie down'. Needless to say we both fell asleep and woke in time to get to the gate to hear staff on the radios 'we have located Bowles' whilst simultaniously an announcement on the tannoy 'Bowles to gate 105 please'. Which brings me up to now writing this on the plane so you probably won't get to read it before i post one for Fiji as well in some sort of double edition blog opening extravaganza.
xx Matt xx