All these things that i've done...

Well well well, we meet again .. finally! i do believe its been about 6 weeks since my last blog update or something similar to that at least.

So i have been in Queenstown for about a month and half now and many a things have changed from my last update, first and most important change is i have a job! I applied for a job at the Crowne Plaza hotel Queenstown and with a little help from my brother they gave me the job, so now i am a Housekeeper at this hotel and let me tell you it is harrrrrrrrrdeerrr than i ever thought it could be, its soo physically tiring and it is not stop all day! But i get free lunches which are amazing so thats always a good thing! Plus i get to see my brother a bit more because he works at the hotel too so thats an even better thing!

Whilst being in QT the list of amazing people i have met just keeps on growing, and even though most of them have left and are leaving very soon i will always remember the amazing times we shared... you guys have made traveling alot of fun these past few months! A special shout out to Josh Edwards who became a close friend of mine and Scotty's over the last month, it felt like we all came traveling together and had know each other for a lot longer than we actually had! It was a very sad day to see him leave but i know he is going to be having an amazing time in Australia before he heads home to start university. I wish you all the best and i am sure we will see each other again!
  Before Joshy left it happened to be his 19th birthday, and what better way to celebrate it than with A BAR CRAWL! We decided it would be a good idea to have a 19 bar - bar crawl and we were determined to do it! The bars included


Cowboys
Monty's           Monty's has been crossed off of the list because they didn't accept english driving licenses!
Brazz
Altitude
Buffalo
Harrys
Lone Star
World Bar
Red Rock

Xtreme
Sky bar
Searle Lane
Bar up
Bardeaux
Surreal
Ballarat
Winnies
Debajo    Was added in place of Monty's
Tardis
Boiler room
FERGBURGER!!!!    For some tasty food!


Me, Scotty, Sarah, Viccy, Nina, Greta  all completed the bar crawl and enjoyed the reward of a nice Fergburger before bed time... Josh However made it to Sky bar and decided not to carry on with the rest of the bar crawl but head back to Altitude to succeed in pulling, but it was to no avail! However because it was his birthday we let him off the hook.

Also for Josh's Birthday he decided he wanted to do one of the many activities available around QT before he departed for Aus. It was settled that the jet boating was the best option as it was one of the cheaper activities and basically it looked like fun. Well it was an adventure that took 3 hours and it was alot of fun! Firstly skippers canyon is about an hours drive from Queenstown on a dangerous road, The tour takes you through skippers canyon (obviously) along the original gold rush roads which are barely used any more so as you can imagine they are quite rocky, on high cliffs and very narrow so all the while you are driving towards the boat you are bouncing up and down in your seat knowing that at any moment the driver could make a mistake and you would go hurtling towards imminent death, but hey ho, whats life without a little bit of danger! So we finally make to the Jet boat after an hour on those windy roads... let the fun times begin!

The drivers of these boats are insane!!! its even more dangerous than the bloody 4WD journey to it.. they skim across about 10 cm of water at crazy speeds whilst you can hear the rocks hitting the bottom of the boat and your going so fast that you cant even concentrate on the fact that once again you could die at any minuet and on top of that they steer the boat so close to the rocks that if you where to stick your arm even an inch out of the boat you would loose it! I have not had that much fun in a while! 45 minuets of skimming and spinning and almost losing your head your headed back to the bus to begin the hour long drive home down those same windy rocky roads. Well worth the money and such an awesome fun day out! :)

Now for some Exciting news Me and my best buddy Scotty Mika Sideshow bob Homer have booked flights to the amazing destination of FIJI!

We head out in May, which i have been told by a Native that it is one of the best months to go so that is pretty exciting! We are going for 7 days and plan on spending a night on each island and being real island hoppers! I am too excited. We are even planning a night on the famous Party island a.k.a Beachcomber island which only takes a tiny 7 minuets to walk around the whole thing!

And hopefully we will be able to swim with Manta Rays on Manta ray resort as i have read it only costs a cheerful $15 which is pretty damn cheap!. I am looking forward to be getting out of QT for a short while this trip to fiji will be like taking a mini holiday within a very long holiday! White sandy beaches, clear blue seas and blazing sunshine (hopefully) what more could you ask for? 

So if i remember correctly im my lost update i ranted on about how much we played frisbee, so yer well that phase passed pretty quickly and we no longer play it, now whether thats due to the weather or the fact we are now more lazy than ever, i cant really say but maybe one day we will get back into it, maybe when we play frisbee on the nice beaches of paradise ^^ :)  

The weather in QT is too bizarre for me to even comprehend, it can go from one day being torrential rain on the brink of major floods to the next day being glorious sunbathing/tanning weather... its very strange, you can just never predict it. At the moment it has been turning quite cold with the peaks of the surrounding mountains being covered in snow, making the scenery just amazing to look at.

Definitely going to need to invest in some warmer clothes soon! 

QT is home to some amazing walks 

1 is up to the gondola

2 is up to Ben Lomond

and 3 is QT hill, there is also the walk to frankton but that one isn't very challenging.

Ben Lomond

By far the most physically tiring thing i have ever done, we left to do this walk at about 1:30 and got back round 8:30/9 ish so its not for the faint hearted as it is quite a challenge. Although i didn't personally make it all the way to the top, and yes some of you may see that as a failure, but making it to the saddle which is just below the summit was a major achievement for me because i have never in my life done anything as challenging, which i can remember at least. 

Up to the Gondola 

This walk is the prelude to the Ben Lomond walk, unless you want to be lazy and get the Gondola up the first part, we were not so lazy. So we did this walk and the BL walk on the same day as it kind of comes as a package. This section takes about 1.5 hours and its quite challenging as it is quite steep and most of the pathway is covered in broken trees and rocks, which if your clumsy, im sure can cause quite an accident. the Views from the top of this walk are amazing!... you can see over the whole of QT you feel like God! :) ha-ha.

QT hill

My favourite walk of QT, so good ive done it twice. Still quite a challenging walk, as i imagine any walk up a mountain is ;) but it is manageable because even though it is going uphill it has alot of flat parts for you to be able to give your calfs a tiny rest before taking on the next incline. I also like it quite alot because most of the walk is through heavily covered forest areas and it is so peaceful its kind of eerie, but i like that.  When you get up to the top you get full 360 views across QT and the surrounding areas. There is also an amazing part where people have built those mini structures out of stones and it looks pretty inspiring! Along the walk they also have boards with little facts about the History of QT, which for me is pretty cool!

So as you can see i am thoroughly enjoying my travels and my time in QT! It will be a sad time when it comes to leave this place i now call home but thats all a part of traveling, you come and you go and even though you love a place there is a pretty high chance that there is somewhere else in the world just waiting to be discovered by you and waiting for you to call it home. 

What are you waiting for guys?... Don't spend you life in a job you hate or a town you have never left, there is so much of the world for you too see, so much to make you happy. Remember, you are the only one who can change your life, no one is going to come along and change it for you, so stop moaning about it and get changing it!

Peace out till next time Homies ;) Love you all so much!

'Life is what you make it, so make it worth living' - Amy Charlotte Ward

'Over and again, last call for sin
While everyone's lost, the battle is won
With all these things that I've done'

'Let this train wreck burn more slowly,
kids are victims in this story
Drown the youth with useless warnings,
teenage rules they're fucked and boring'

I have decided on my longer blog updates I'm going to include some side projects that could involve anything. This week i am including mini reviews on all the films i have seen whilst in Queenstown.




Side project 
   All the movies that have been watched in Queenstown.

The Hunger games
 - An awesome movie that shows a chaotic future where the youth of the day are forced to pay with their lives for the mistakes made by their ancestors. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole movie experience with the contrast of the dull and boring colours shown in the districts clashing with the outrageous and over the top colours and decor of the main city, the Hunger games definitely catches your attention from the very beginning. Being forced to watch innocent 12 -18 year olds get slaughtered by each other for the sheer entertainment of the general public, and being forced to play manipulating mind games with each other to save their own lives can be a hard thing for anyone to watch, but for me it was interesting to see the boundaries that people would push in order to preserve their lives. Definitely a movie that exceeds limitations 10/10 from me. 

Underworld
- The fourth movie in quadrilogy, as an avid fan of most vampire movies and fantasy movies i enjoyed watching the first three and i always knew going in to the movie i was going to like it and that is exactly what happened. A slightly cheesy movie full of the classic cliches that any vampire movie has, but mixed with some pretty decent action sequences even though most of it is CGI, filled with a bit of a twist half way through the movie, threw me slightly off guard because i didn't really see it coming but i guess the movie kind of needed that twist to make it slightly more exciting. It did however have an epic battle conclusion so thats always a plus. 6/10 from me.

Project X
-The worlds greatest ever house party! Starts out with these 3 geeky kids planning a house party for one of their birthday parties whilst his parents are out of town... now at this point you are thinking how can this film be any good, i mean a film about a house party thrown by three nerdy kids can't lead into anything worthwhile. However, exactly the opposite happens, it turns into the craziest mother-fucking house party on earth filled with, thousands of people, midgets in ovens, dogs floating away in balloons, jumping off roofs into bouncy castles, cars driven into pools and so much fire the neighbourhood almost burns to the ground. It is the most ridiculous film i have ever seen but it was too funny so it was also an amazing film 9/10 from me.

A Few Best men
- A story of a backpacker who meets the girl of his dreams whilst traveling and they decide to get married. The groom to be and his best men head off to australia for an extravagant wedding in the brides home town. The story follows the best men and how they all manage to fuck up the grooms big day in many ways, almost causing the wedding to be cancelled. Full of funny gags jokes, some involving a pig in drag which i think is pretty unique. In the end its another romantic comedy favouring a little more to the comedy so i give it an 7.5 /10

Chronicle

- Three teenagers find a crater in the ground a little ways away from a school party they were attending and  in it they find some sort of alien rock, which turns out to hold some mystical powers which ends up giving all of them the ability to control objects with their minds and the ability to fly. As with everything the beginning is great and they are having an awesome time playing around with their new found powers, however things take a turn for the worst and to cut a long story short, two of them end up dead and the other one ends up taking up some missionary work on some mission from god to use his abilities for good.  Filmed on a hand held camera i don't recommend watching whilst hungover, as my brother would tell you. 7/10 from me.

Life is Life

being in Queenstown in awesome! although when you have limited funds thins can become a little boring ... this is why my friends and I have taken solace in the game of 'Frisbee' , albeit for only short periods of the day but non the less when we have little else to do 'shall we play frisbee?' is e phrase often heard. who knows we may even become pros by the time we actually have money.

Here in Queenstown they also have 'frisbee golf' which after the first couple of "holes" can become very tedious. Five of us thought that one day it would be a good idea to give this frisbee golf course a go, and after renting our frisbees, they have a special type of frisbee for this game, we set of for the course. naively we perhaps thought we might be rather good at it and uncover a hidden talent.. this was not to be, although some of us showed promise, we were all pretty shit. the nets were, in my opinion, placed far too far away from the tee and the damn frisbees always seemed to go off to the left. So after 18 holes we were bored and our combined parr must have been like 600+ or something stupid like that. undoubtedly this would be the last time we would play this game and just stick to the classic frisbee, which, we have become quite good at.

On the 18th of February, after again having nothing to do, three of us headed to a BMX event we had heard was going on just up the road from our hostel and it turned out to be a pretty awesome day. It was the 'RedBull Roastit' BMX competition and it was pretty exciting, double backflips crazy jumps and some gnarly falls, my highlight of the week. Below are some of my favourite pictures I took.

Queenstown has held host to some pretty awesome nights out, one not ending till gone 5am, needless to say the next day we didn't arise till mid afternoon. The hostel we are currently residing at is home to some awesome people who are making the nights out as awesome as possible. We are yet to go to either one of the ice bars here which sucks a bit but cause we went to the one in Auckland I don't mind so much.

that's all for now, enjoy! :)

Anarchy in the UK

So here we are, One month on...

So today marks the day that i left home exactly one month ago. It has been an amazing month, one filled with ups and downs, but i wouldn't change anything.

So lets see where did i leave off in my last post... ah yes. beside my little health update, i left you when i got to Queenstown, well now we are in for a story.

We got to Queenstown after our little road trip on i think it was the 26th January and after a few nights staying in a couple different hostels, we got to the one we would ultimately be in for a while Aspen Lodge. Now aside from the fact that i would kill to have my own room with my nice big double bed again, i have taken to aspen lodge quite nicely, the staff are amazingly friendly, the place itself is always clean and tidy and most of the travellers (aside from one rather smelly individual) are all very nice.  So i have been residing in QT for about 3 weeks now and i can only tell you what an amazing place it is. By day, a nice little town in the valley of amazing mountains and by night, party capital of New Zealand.

This last picture brings me onto the subject of my BROTHER! :) (he is the one in the white shirt).
My brother, Glen, left to go travelling about 3 years ago and although he has been home a couple times in those years, i hadn't seen him in over a year i think it was, so it was really cool to be able to see him and have a few drinks with him when i got to QT. Last Wednesday we went our for the night and had a few drinks, well me and Scott had a few drinks, i think glen must have drank the entire contents of every bar we went to, he was paralytic, could barely stand, and it was the funniest thing i had ever witnessed. There was alot of staggering, alot of falling over, attempts to sleep in bushes and some throwing of food. Lets just say the next day he wasn't feeling particularly good.

We have met a few awesome people whilst being here in QT and had some good nights with them.

So leaving QT aside for the moment. I think now is a good point to tell you about how this trip has affected me. So i can tell you now, i know that i don't want to go back to England for a very long time, not until after i have seen the world, well i might do a stop over back home if I'm heading that way ;) Now alot of people will be thinking 'dont you miss you family and friends and all the luxuries back home?'  and the answer is yes, i miss all that a hell of alot, and i think for some people when they go travelling it can affect them really bad and cause them to go home, which is fine for them if that's what they feel they need to do. For me, even though the thought is always there, and i don't really think it will ever go away, that ' i could be doing this and that at home' and that would be awesome but i just know that when i got home and after seeing everyone again, i would be like what the hell have i done, things would be boring again, and so i don't think i will be able to go home for good until i feel i have accomplished something on this Journey, otherwise it would be a huge wast of time/money and i definitely don't want it to be that.

I get moments when i get really homesick and i can think of nothing else but abandoning ship, and these are the really low times, but then i think of all the amazing times i have had and all of the amazing things i have seen and that just completely outweighs the negatives. I am happy to be here, this country is beautiful and it makes you realise how grey and dull England really can be.

Right enough with the emotions lets get on to something really exciting.
THE TWO MAIN THINGS I WANT TO DO IN QT:

1. Nevis Bungy. This has to be the top of my list. The Ultimate thrill here in QT. Australasia's Highest Bungy jump.

When i get to do this, i can guarantee it will be the most scariest thing i will ever do. BRING IT ON! 134m.



2. Nevis Swing. This and the bungy you can get as a combo. The swing you can do tandem, so it will be awesome to be able to do it with Scotty.

So when i get a job and am able to save up some money these will be the first thing i spend on. serious adrenalin.

Also, at some point during my time here in NZ i would love to do a skydive. There are so many places in NZ you can skydive but i think i would like to do it at Lake Wanaka, because even though we only spent a night there it was so beautiful that it became one of my favourite places.

I wont leave New Zealand until have done these 3 things!.



So what can i say about travelling? 1 thing, DO IT!

Me and Scotty now have a video blog which you can find on both our facebook pages and also my Youtube channel, which i have posted a link to somewhere in one of these blogs... i think?

Best thing about my trip so far?

     - The Hooker Valley walk at Mount Cook, and our little road trip from CHCH to QT.

Worst thing about my trip so far?

     - Missing my own room. (this took me a while to think of, so it proves there isn't many bad things)

Biggest letdown of my trip?

     - Puzzling World, Lake Wanaka. i was looking forward to this but it turns out, it is need of some serious updating, although some of the stuff was pretty cool, it wasn't worth the $15 we paid to get in. SORRY PUZZLING WORLD!

Most surprising part of my trip?

     - NZ pure natural beauty. its breathtaking.

HAVE A FERGBURGER ...its an essential here in QT :)

So that's it for this post, let me know if there is anything you would like me to talk about in my posts!

Love you all! :) xxxx TTFN 

Defiant till the end...

'A world that sends you reeling from decimated dreams
Your misery and hate will kill us all
So paint it black and take it back
Let's shout it loud and clear
Defiant to the end we hear the call
To carry on...'


A non update sort of update kind of post.... whatever that means? lol.

Just sitting here in me bed in me hostel having a little think about this trip and I can't help but notice aside from a few ulcers and hangover symptoms, that I generally feel a bit healthier. At home it had almost become routine to have to take some sort of painkiller daily and because of that I brought a few packets of ibuprofen with me and I can honestly say I have taken about tablets about 3 times since I've been here and that's pretty good for me.

Also, as anyone who knows me would know how I used to sleep in fairly late ;) at home, I find myself waking up early doors and feeling pretty refreshed and not needing to stay in bed for half the day.
so generally on the health front New Zealand wins and the UK loses. :) touch wood (literally just did) that I don't get seriously Ill now!

anything else worth mentioning in this post? errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr hostels are a love hate relationship I miss having my own room quite a lot you never fully feel like you can relax here cause someone is always about, I mean that have single rooms in hostels but they are too damn pricy ... on the other hand it is cool being able to meet people from all walks of life and you never know you could end up meeting your best friend :).

sooo that's about it for this post TTFN! :)

it's Going to Happen

SO! ... I have currently been travelling for just over a week and i have seen some amazing things since i have been out here, and even if i had to end my trip now i would not regret it for the world.

First stop was Auckland, and what an amazing first stop it was... OK, so i may have treated it like a mini holiday but i was soo excited to be around the other side of the world, i wanted to start my trip in style!. we stayed in a 4/5 start hotel (i cant remember which it was) and it was fantastic! and after 24 hours on two planes the luxury of a comfy bed and a nice hot shower was just irresistible. We spent the first two days exploring Auckland and doing all the tourist type things like venturing up the sky tower, gambling a couple of dollars at the casino, visiting art galleries and museum and generally spending too much money.

After doing all the touristy stuff we found this amazing bar on the harbour front with those egg chairs which hang from the ceiling, this quickly became our favourite spot!

Our final day in Auckland we spent at the Big day Out festival which The Vaccines and My Chemical Romance were playing at, which was awesome... it was here that i experienced my first bit of NZ rain.

From Auckland we caught a flight to Christchurch where we would be staying for two nights in this amazing hostel that not long ago was home to a load of convicts, yes that's right, we were staying in a renovated prison which Cooley still had most of its original features.

Christchurch was a funny place to visit because even after a year on the effects of the earthquake a still completely full on. They have the 'Red zone' which is the main centre of the town and it is completely fenced off as they slowly try to recover from the devastating effects. We walked around the entire Red Zone and there was a very eerie feeling you get because it was so quiet, it was like a post apocalyptic town. You couldn't help but feel a twinge of sadness because you could Tell that this dead city was once a thriving cool place to be.

We met up with a friend from back home in Cambridge and we went to a few bars and had a few drinks for Scotty's birthday, which turned out to be a pretty cool night even though the nightlife was lacking somewhat. Its quite a strange feeling seeing people you know from back home on the other side of the world, but also quite a comforting one.

After an enlightening few days in CH CH me and Scott said our goodbyes to our friend and got into our hire car with one destination in mind... Queenstown!

However before hitting QT we decided to use the hire car to our advantage and visit some natural wonders in New Zealand including Mount Cook and Lake Tekapo.

Lake Tekapo is the most Blue i have ever seen any lake/sea/river. it was simply amazing, i stood in awe for a while, it was visually stunning.

This picture doesn't do it justice.

Next was Mt Cook. this was amazing, filled with glaciers and ice burgs which you could watch and sunbathe in front of as it was searingly hot this day. We took one of the walks to Hooker Lake which was well worth the achy legs under the persistent sun.

We attempted to sleep in the car here one night, we managed it but it was fucking freezing and we left the next night unplanned and headed to Lake Wanaka to stay in a cosy Hostel.

Convinced i wouldn't see anything more beautiful than what i ad already seen, i was proven wrong when we got to Lake Wanaka. easily the most beautiful place i have seen so far, Its just a small town and it was full of teenagers enjoying the lake on the last day before they had to go back to school, you could tell it was a real holiday town.

From Wanaka we Made it to Queenstown.... but that's another story for another time.



'Warm California sun'

Just a quick update as I sit t LAX airport waiting to board my flight to Auckland.

So it seems like I've been travelling forever! Saying goodbye at Heathrow airport this morning, or whenever it was, ( time zones confuse me) feels like a lifetime ago!...I made the goodbyes short and sweet, not because I wanted to get rid of them but because I knew I would end up crying loads of they had dragged out, I welled up a bit but I managed to gain composure. As I have never flown on my larry before I couldn't stop shaking when going through airport security but the truth is I wasn't even that scared I think there was just a lot of emotion built up inside me and it came out in the form of shakes! lol.

the flight from Heathrow to LAX took approx. 10 hours 45 minuets but it was a good flight with clear skies pretty much all the way, we hit a rough patch which just had to be when they were serving the tea and coffee, the girl next to me lost half of hers in her lap, in the end she downed it before anymore went over board. the rest of the flight was pretty uneventful. I saw a lot of frozen wasteland as we flew over Greenland and Canada, what's all this nonsense about global warming! It was an awesome sight though.
Coming in to L.A was simply amazing, first of all the sunset was just magical. perfection. and watching it from 25000 feet was just inspiring. then as we started descending, LA was lit up and on my life the traffic was insane, and I could see that from 10/5000 feet, tips folks, never drive in LA it looks MENTAL!!!!. The landing was pretty smooth but LAX sure has a busy runway.

Now after reading up on connecting flight at LAX I was dreading it because all people kept saying was how it took like2-3 hours to clear customs, I was thinking great it's going to be a rush for my flight. BUT it was the polar opposite I had to wait no longer than 30 mins at each station and now I am sitting outside my departure gate waiting to board at 22:40 local time. I can also say I've been to L.A because I had to go curbside for 10 mins and go through security again.

one thing I have learnt so far on my travels is that I have to come back to LA and stay more that 5 hours, it looks like a fun place, well at night at least, I won't get to see it at day time unfortunately.

Signing off.... see you in Auckland!!!! x

so it wasn't so short after all lol.

God and Satan

ONLY 3 WEEKS TO GO!!!!

Woweee, so no posts in a while, in a very long while in fact, but here i am, ready to pour my feelings out to you.

So today (Monday 26th December 2011) marks only 3 weeks till i leave to go to New Zealand, and recently ive been going through a wirlwind of emotions which range from pure excitement to disbelief and then to sadness and terror.

I suddenly get these strange moment of realistaion that im actually going to the other side of the world and when i say it out loud to myself it sounds completely mad and bonkers, like its some kind of dream and im going to wake up any moment. Then when i actually start to think about and after spending an amazing christmas with my family i start to think about all the things im going to leave behind and how much i will miss them, even as im writing this im getting a little teary-eyed, but thats what i need this blog to be... a place where i can come and write about my feelings and get them out of me and onto this page so im not so tortured by mixed feelings building up inside of me.

I'm going to miss my family more than you can imagine and im already dreading the good byes at the airport because i know it will be one big tear-filled mess which will be hard to get over for a short time, but i think it will be needed so everyone can get it out of their systems. This is probably going to sound weird to those of you without pets but im seriously going to miss my little puppy Molly mostly because you can't explain things to dogs so i dont want her to pine for me and think im never coming back, but i know someday i will, and i know that in the mean time my mumma and puppa will take very good care of the little devil :). I'm not so much going to miss all the luxuries you get at home that i wont see so much in new zealand, but thats how i want it to be! completely stripped back, just me, my backpack and the open road (so to speak) this way i know i will appreciate my experiences a whole lot more. :)

Now on to the overwhelming excitement i get in small doses every now and then!... When i talk about my forthcoming adventure with people from either at home or at work i start to get crazy excited because i can see the jealousy in some of their eyes and i can tell that they wished they had the chance to do what im doing when they were my age, after all, your only young once and this is the best time to see the world, when you have no responsibilities, no cares and no worries. HAKUNA MATATA, as some of my animated friends would prefer to say. It is now actually only 2 weeks and 2 days till i go as i got too tired to finish this post when i actually started writing it, and now im even more excited and the looming departure date gets closer and closer with each passing day!

I realise that because this is like a major step to take the good feelings don't come on their own, running up behind are the bad ones which you just want to push down and forget about them, but you can't do that, you have to take the good with the bad and i know i will have to remember this whilst out on my travels because it wont always be fun and games. However i am going to try my damned hardest to make sure it is :)

Peace out xxxx