Bradtholomew

One year

2007-12-25T18:10:00.000-05:00

It's been a year since I've posted, so here's something for 2007.

Not much at all new with me so here's some of my favorite photos I took in the last year.

See you in 2008?

-Brad

Some time off

2006-12-26T20:08:00.000-05:00

So much for posting more frequently! If I can do once a month from now on I'll be happy I guess.

I've got some time off for the first time since I started work back in October, so I'm back in Belleville for most of the holidays. In a few days I'm heading out to PEI to help my brother with his big move. He's more of a slacker than even me, he hasn't posted a thing about it on his blog! Then I'm flying back with my dad on the 1st to get back to work on the 2nd.

A few new things in my life, mostly just new toys. I picked up a Digital Rebel XTi for myself a few weeks ago along with a couple lenses. A thousand pictures or so later and I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing with it, but it's a lot of fun to play around with. My parents got me an iPod for Christmas too, thanks Mom and Dad! All these new toys that I don't really need... but I guess this is why I'm making money now, so I can buy junk to play around with.

A few pictures from my new camera...

That's some ducks on the Moira River, a bridge in Milton at night and Schrodinger doing what he does best.

-Brad

Mmm... cats.

2006-11-19T20:16:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post to show I'm still determined to post more frequently... :)

So I moved into my new apartment a few weeks ago, I'm very happy with how it is living there so far. It's very comfortable and the drive in to work isn't too bad. I've started taking the 407 on the way home, it cuts about half an hour off the commute. Costs me $3.00 for each trip, but I think that's worth it. My company owns part of the 407, so I figure I'm just helping to pay my salary each trip. hah. Here's a couple pictures of the new place... it's tough to take good pictures in confined spaces!

Got my new car last weekend too! Very exciting... it's a 2002 Golf TDI GLS. It's got a sunroof, heated seats and mirrors, and of course it's a 5-speed. I'm very happy with the mileage I'm getting, especially after having to fill up 3 times a week with the Fiero. I was getting at the most 250kms on a tank with that, this first tank of diesel with the Golf I got 900.

That's all for now, I still don't have internet at home so I'm borrowing my brother's computer for a bit to upload some pictures on Flickr and do all the stuff I feel bad about doing while I'm supposed to be working. :)

-Brad

Well, they call me the workin' man...

2006-10-28T19:48:00.000-04:00

Been a while since I posted anything, so I suppose I'm overdue. I'm finally doing something again so it's a little easier now to write.

Last time I posted I hoped to start a new job, but it took me a little over 8 months from the time I got back to Canada to actually find one. I started working a few weeks ago for SNC-Lavalin, a big engineering and construction company. Specifically, I'm working in Brampton on a project building a natural gas power station. For a few details about the project, go here. I've only been there for a few weeks now, but I can say it's exactly what I've been waiting for, so I'm quite happy.

Here's a shot of the sunrise yesterday morning from outside the temporary office building I'm working in.

More news... this Wednesday I'm moving into a basement apartment in Milton. It'll be a bit of a commute each day, but it'll sure beat living in Brampton. I looked at half a dozen places in Brampton before I decided on this apartment (it was actually the first one I looked at), and none were even close to being as nice as this place. I've got a spiral staircase going down into my rooms, a gas fireplace, and it's fully furnished.

That's all the current news really... I did do quite a few things this summer, but spent most of my time sitting around unfortunately. Check out my Flickr page for some photos of things I did between my last post and now. Not that there's a lot of things to write about... I'm just lazy :)

So, thanks to my parents for putting up with me living at home again for so long. It hasn't exactly been the best period in my life, but they were both very accommodating to say the least. I should be posting a little more frequently now, even though I'm working... I won't have nearly as much free time, but I should finally have a bit of financial freedom to do things in my time off. (i.e. eat more)

-Brad

Old man, look at my life...

2006-03-31T19:43:00.000-05:00

Yay, turned 25 yesterday! Now I can... uhh... there's really no more good ages, are there? It's all downhill from here... haha

So, once again, nothing really new with me, but I'll post out of boredom anyways. Those are always so exciting!

Let's see... last weekend I went over to Kitchener to visit my friend John, he started a new job a few weeks ago. Me and a couple of his friends went out for a night on the town in Waterloo, that was fun. I took some time to look at some used cars too, not that I can get one until I get a job or anything, but it's fun to look :)

I've been looking after some chinchillas too... some friends of my parents are in Egypt for a few weeks, so I go up and feed them, and clean out the dead. I don't know what's going on, but they're dropping like flies! I mean, how can you screw up feeding them, and giving them water? I dunno. I've got their truck for a couple weeks to get out there too, here's me posing with it. heh.

Oh yeah, I'm a hick.

It's been fantastic weather here this week too, I've had a chance to get outside quite a bit, being unemployed and all. Monday I went out to the driving range at Oak Hills, and this afternoon I went out and played 18. Not the best round ever, I'm a little rusty and my short game is horrendous... but it was still fun.

Not much else new, other than a job interview I had Wednesday in Trenton. I think I did alright, considering that it was my first interview since Harveys back in high school. :) Hopefully I'll get it and rejoin the real world soon.

-Brad

Yeah, I'm a slacker

2006-03-20T13:31:00.000-05:00

Someone recently pointed out that I've been slacking with the 'ol blog, and since being lazy is so against my nature, I guess I have to write something! It's tough when you're doing nothing though... there was always something to write about when I was in Australia.

Well, my flight home was pretty uneventful... it was about 26 hours in the air total. This time I didn't have any problems with missed flights or anything either. About a week after I'd been home I had a visit from my Kiwi friend Murray... he's been doing a round-the-world trip and had a stop in Canada for a week or so. Showed him the sights... went to Niagara Falls, the CN Tower among other far crappier places. But mostly we sat around. :) This is Murray with Schrodey.

So, since then I've really been doing very little. Still unemployed, and living in my parents basement. Yep, I've hit rock bottom. :) It's really not too bad here though, I've got a lot of my own space, and the car whenever I need it, and since I tend to stay up all night and sleep all day I hardly seem to see my parents. (except at meal times. haha) It's still a little strange living back home, but I can't complain. My mom's been really good about it, which is an unexpected surprise. She's been very good about not nagging me to death... :)

Besides sitting around a lot, eating and occasionally looking for jobs, I've been going back to the gym and started running again. I was working out at Goodlife for a couple weeks, but it's ridiculously expensive so now I'm at the YMCA... it's got decent equipment, and more importantly it's far cheaper. So most nights I'll be there or out running... yesterday I ran 7k, and I'm actually not in pain today!

One more picture, here's my dad up at our trailer. Took a trip up there yesterday to drop some stuff off and take some measurements for replacing the roof over the deck...

-Brad

Homeward bound

2006-02-01T17:38:00.000-05:00

As much as I don't want to think about it, it's almost time to fly out and head back to good 'ol Southern Ontario. If that's not a depressing thought, I don't know what is! Well, it could be worse... I could be going back to my old job at Turnpike. :)

The last week here on the North island has been a pretty good trip. In case you haven't seen any of my new pictures I've uploaded, I rented yet another car... and got a pretty good deal on this one. I had a 2005 Nissan Pulsar with only 3650 kms on it, and for a good price since it was an Auckland car and I was returning it from Wellington for them. It's just so much more comfortable than being wedged with my guitar into buses, and I really don't think it cost me much more than it would have to bus it. Plus it was another 5-speed, and a ton of fun to drive through the twisties. heh.

The day I rented the car in Wellington was a beautiful sunny day after all that rain, a sure sign I was about to head out on the road. I think I was in much better shape than Marc as well, so the walk to pick up the car wasn't too bad for me. We did another pub crawl the night before, and somewhat more successfully this time since there were more than two bars in town! I actually managed to drive a couple hundred kilometers up the west coast that afternoon and stayed the night in Hawera. In the morning I checked out Egmont National Park and Mount Taranaki, a famous volcano close to where I stayed.

From there I drove across to Whakapapa, which was just south of Turangi and close to a couple volcanoes. These were mostly covered by cloud, but it cleared up and was very nice the next day. I did the Tongariro Crossing, said to be the best single day walk in New Zealand... Dani tried to do this but said on her blog it was shut down due to high winds. Really too bad, because it was probably the best thing I've done here in New Zealand... besides the fire show in Picton. :) The walk was 17kms, and supposed to take 6-8 hours to complete. I had to do the one side trip though, a climb of about 600 additional metres up Mount Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom). That was a pretty intense scramble... I'm really glad I climbed that one mountain outside of Queenstown so I knew I was in good enough shape to climb this one. I actually ended up being the first one up the volcano in the morning besides a couple that had camped in a hut nearby. heh. I managed to climb a little over 800 metres with only a couple one minute breaks. :) (I know, I'm a showoff. haha) The way down was interesting, even more so because I was wearing sandals. From one guy on the way down: "You're wearing sandals!! Man, you must be tough!" To which I replied, "Tough or stupid?" It wasn't really a climb down, it was more of a slide.

Anyways, I should let some pictures do the talking for those artsies reading. hahaha.. soooooory Mel! :)

Those were Mt. Ngauruhoe with about 600 metres left to climb, Red Crater, and the Emerald Lakes, all along the walk. See the rest of my new pictures.

I had pretty lousy weather the next couple days, where I went to Hot Water Beach and a nice holiday park just outside of Auckland. At Hot Water Beach you're supposed to be able do dig a hole in the sand at low tide, and have your own personal hot tub because of the hot springs. It was cloudy and drizzly though so I didn't feel like waiting around for a few hours for the tide to change. The holiday park the next day was great though, I got to borrow a kayak for free and they had a nice little swimming hole right beside my tent site.

So now I'm at my last stop here in Auckland... had to drop off the car a couple days ago, and now I'm waiting around for my flight in less than a day! Gotta pick up a few souvenirs and books for the plane and I'm done. Sigh... When I get home my parents are leaving for a couple weeks to Costa Rica, and I've got their car and house. (Yes, everyone's invited to the party. Parties. heh.) So everyone drop me an email and let me know what you're up to when I get back, cause I wanna do some more road tripping!

Everyone's asking me how I feel about going home... I gotta admit, it's gonna be pretty strange to have to look for a real job again and start paying off debts. But there's a lot I miss, so even if I had the choice to stay longer I'd probably head back. My first meal when I get back: Kraft Dinner with root beer to drink. Mmmmmm! :)

Anyways, it's been fun keeping the blog updated, and not only because it gives me a chance to get my internet fix. So... I'd like to hear from people who've been reading that haven't left comments, or haven't commented in a while... just leave a comment under Anonymous and put your name at the bottom of your comment so I know who it is! My handy little counter tells me my blog has had over 5000 views in the last year, and I don't think anyone I know has been bored enough to check a few times a day for updates! Well... maybe Mel. :) But I know you only look at the pictures.

See everyone soon!

-Brad

Heh heh... fire

2006-01-23T20:47:00.000-05:00

Woohoo! Thanks to Marc for telling me about this site to upload videos!

The hostel Marc and I stayed at in Picton last night (much better than the Ontario Picton... haha) had to be one of the best hostels I've ever stayed in... called the Jugglers Rest. Small, friendly, they liked my guitar playing and they had a hostel cat :) But this was the coolest, one of the hostel owners Nikki put on this show for us.

She was practicing earlier in the evening without lighting them on fire, and smacked herself in the face with both balls and gave herself a fat lip. Then still did it later with the fire. Heh heh... so cool.

Anyways, the last few days have been pretty relaxing, even for me. Marc and I had our beach day in this little family resort town north of Nelson... great day of a whole lotta nothing. We stayed in a Christian caravan park, which was a pretty good place, except we were the only campers without kids running around. (I ran over my kids at that caravan park back in Australia) The first night we were there we had a few beers each, and one with our dinner... and for some reason we got a lot of dirty looks! The next morning we noticed the "No Alcohol" signs everywhere. Oops! heh

We spent our last full day with the car doing a tour up past Collingwood, checking out some really clear springs (the Pu Pu springs... heh) and a nice beach that you walked through a farm to get to.

Excellent end to the trip. I don't know what I'm going to do without a car though. After we unloaded all our stuff (about 6 trips each) our hostel room looked like our bags exploded or something. I managed to get everything jammed back in my bag though, and I'm only carrying around one extra shopping bag now.

So now I'm in Wellington, trying to figure out what to do for my week touring the North island. Hmm. I suppose I should be doing that instead of blogging, but meh. This is fun.

One more picture of the sunrise (I know, a sunrise!!) this morning. I had to get up early to catch the ferry across the strait... I was walking through the hostel kitchen when I got up, and saw this out the window. The picture was meant to be I guess, I'd forgotten my camera on the counter the night before when I went to bed. Whoops! That's what beer, fire, guitar, drunken scrabble and fatigue do to you I guess.

Probably one more post from New Zealand then I'm flying home on the 3rd of February. Ahhhh! Later...

-Brad

...Internet fix!

2006-01-18T13:40:00.000-05:00

Whoo, another post! Marc and Dani are probably typing something up right now, so I've gotta keep up!

Franz Josef was amazing... if you haven't seen the pictures I uploaded yet, me and Marc had a fantastic day for the glacier. Our guide told us they get 40 metres of snow at the top of the glacier every year, so having a clear day like that was pretty rare.

That last picture there were two guides making us work to fill in a crevasse so we could continue. Well... they were working, we were playing around. Idle hands, y'know? heh.

Franz Josef was a nice little tourist town anyways... our first night there before the glacier tour, Marc and I attempted a pub crawl... but since there were only two bars, that kind of got cut short. We tried though, we tried. haha

So, after we left Franz Josef we drove further up the West coast, and stayed in a nice little caravan park just north of Greymouth. After that we drove across to Christchurch again, showed Marc the sights, bought way too much cheap chocolate (I didn't eat a bite!!), and started heading up north. Stopped for an afternoon at some hot springs in Hanmer Springs, then stayed in Kaikoura, and now are up in Blenheim. Here's a driving shot just past Arthur's Pass.

I really didn't think we would get up to the top of the island this quickly, and now we've got four days left on the rental, and a quick drive up to Picton to drop the car off. Guess we'll do a little tour around the top of the island or something! It'd be nice to do a little bit of tramping for a couple days, but we'll see whether that'll work out. I know we're going to have a beach day soon anyways... Marc is still disgustingly white :)

Later!

-Brad

Staying high and dry

2006-01-13T01:37:00.000-05:00

Good to be on the road again! Been great so far on this trip too, not only is the car a 5-speed this time, but the roads here in New Zealand are nice and twisty too. Too bad our car is a Mazda Familia (like a 323)... big campervans could probably blow by us going uphill if they wanted.

Well, back to my stay in Queenstown... I figured it'd be a good idea to try and get into shape again, so I did a day walk up to the top of Ben Lomond, a 1743m mountain close to Queenstown. I started the climb down in Queenstown, at just over 300 metres... the walk actually went pretty well, considering the amount of excercise I'd gotten in the last year (basically none). About halfway up I felt like dying, but stopped for lunch and rested for a while, then practically ran up the rest. It was really windy, and cold, and I only had a beater on. Heh... everyone else seemed like they were dressed for sub-zero temperatures, and here I am, the crazy (cold) Canadian. Eeh. Good walk though, some fantastic views of the mountain ranges, plus a nice aerial view of Queenstown.

For a few days after I was pretty useless though... my knees took a beating heading back down, and my leg muscles were almost locked up the day after. I moaned a lot :)

So after we picked up the car back on Monday me and Dani and Marc headed over to the east coast to Dunedin first. Not the most impressive town in my opinion, but we did do a tour of the Cadbury factory there (since I'm off chocolate after New Years, it was an exercise in willpower), and tried to find the world's steepest street, but failed. I still think the 'ol Familia could've made it up. haha.

After Dunedin we headed up the coast past Oamaru and Timaru to Lake Tekapo. I'd already passed by here on the bus from Christchurch, but this time I got to stop. The colour of the water was unreal... a surreal kind of pale blue. The water was kinda rough, but when its clear the reflection of the mountains in the lake is supposed to be quite the sight. My pictures didn't turn out very well there, but Marc or Dani might have some good ones on their sites.

We stayed in a caravan park by the lake, and it started raining that night. My tent is great at holding out water, except when it's running underneath the tent. Sigh... it could have been a lot worse though; some girls staying in a site across from us woke up in a pretty big puddle... and it stopped raining when we got up in the morning.

After Lake Tekapo we drove up towards Mount Cook... didn't see much of the mountain, but the drive was still fun. Part of the road was flooding, that was a blast to drive through. haha. Anyways, when we were about to leave we got a little glimpse of the summit.

Ended up staying that night in Wanaka... that was a pretty little town. The caravan park there was nice too, except someone tried to make a hedge out of all the big pine trees throughout the park. I could hardly bear to look at them... it was hideous. Also... during dinner we were being bugged by some demon child from England. Him and Marc were making fun of each other, and lemme tell ya, you've never heard such clever insults. :)

Ah well. Today we drove through the mountains to the west coast, and up to Franz Josef. Marc and I are taking a guided tour through the glacier near town tomorrow, and according to Dani it's supposed to be really good. Hopefully it doesn't rain too much either... it's been raining all day and was pouring just 10 minutes ago for a while.

Well, back to the hostel to try and persuade Marc and Dani to go out on the town tonight. Surprisingly, we've hardly had anything to drink since we've left Queenstown. That'll change if I have anything to say about it. heh.

-Brad

By popular request...

2006-01-08T17:05:00.000-05:00

Heh... I made a pledge to Pam last week that my next post would involve me and Marc drinking, and one or more of us in a tree. So, here it is :)

Well, there it is. I'm kinda short on time today, me and Dani and Marc are renting a car for a couple weeks to tour around the south island, and we have to pick it up in 45 minutes. And I have to go finish packing and take down my tent. D'oh.

In a few days I'll post about what we've been doing, I really like New Zealand so far! It'll be great having the car too, on the bus ride to Queenstown we passed by so many nice spots where I wanted to take a picture, but we drove on by. So this'll be good. I love road trips :)

-Brad

So... cold!

2006-01-05T02:08:00.000-05:00

I know... I'm ashamed to call myself a Canadian. It was 14 degrees when I got here in New Zealand, and yesterday was colder... and windy and rainy and I was freezing. After a walk, I tried to play some guitar back at the hostel, but my fingers wouldn't move properly. My typing was down to 20 words a minute yesterday instead of 80ish... and people in my dorm room were complaining that my teeth chattering was keeping them awake.

Okay maybe not that last one. But I was cold. Hehe, moan moan moan. This is no longer a travel blog, it's my private moaning log.

Anyways, its a lot nicer today, about 20 out, and mostly sunny. So I'm happy. Christchurch is... well, mostly the same as any Australian town I've been in, except for minor differences. They sell beer (really cheap beer too... Marc, we're in trouble) at the supermarkets, and there's a lot more prostitutes out at night than you'd expect in a city called Christchurch. (And I thought I was cold... the way they're dressed...hehe) A picture anyways (not of the prostitutes)... here's their sad attempt at a Christmas tree in Cathedral Square...

Got my short-term plans figured out... going to take a bus to Queenstown tomorrow and meet up with Marc and Dani. Christchurch is nice, but I wanna see some scenery. Plus I'm in a 38 bed dorm at a hostel here. It's unreal... first on my shopping list this afternoon are some earplugs :)

So, New Years was pretty quiet for me this year, I ended up hanging out with Anette at my hostel, (I wasn't allowed in hers...bah!) cooked us some dinner and then went out to an Irish pub with her and an Aussie friend, then went and watched the fireworks by the lagoon. I was in bed by 1:00... pretty sad again, I know. Here's the lagoon in Cairns.. I forgot my camera New Years and didn't get any fireworks shots... ah well.

Went out and did some snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef while I was in Cairns too, that was pretty good. I went out on a sailboat that used to be a pearl lugger... my pearl boat was a little more comfortable than this! Only got a couple hours snorkelling in though, unfortunately. It wasn't exactly an advanced group I was with... once we got out to the reef and they went through all the safety talk, everyone was still kind of standing around like they didn't know what to do. I hopped in the water, where I got yelled at for going out too far. (About 50 metres. sigh) When I went back to the boat an hour or so later, everyone was clustered in little groups around the boat, most of them swimming in circles with pool noodles. Later we had a group swim (!) from a sandbar to the boat... and I got yelled at for getting too far away from the group. Ah well.

Oh yeah, a bit of dumbassery for you! I missed my flight in Cairns... haha. I got to the check-in counter an hour early, but before I could get on the flight I had to show proof that I had a flight out of New Zealand. I had my ticket, of course... but the original return date out of Auckland was back in September.. I'd changed the date to February back in July and didn't print off a new itinerary. So, I had to call up the airline and get them to fax it to me, but it got there 5 minutes after the flight closed. Sigh. No harm done anyways, I got on the next flight that went to Sydney first instead of Brisbane at no extra cost, and got into Christchurch half an hour later than I would have on the original flight.

Check out new features too! I put maps of Australia and New Zealand in over on the sidebar so you can see where everything is that I'm talking about. I didn't have a clue where anything was in New Zealand before I got here... I only found out where Christchurch actually was a couple days before I flew out. haha

Anyways... I'm off to wander around town some more.

-Brad

Feet? What're those?

2005-12-28T00:22:00.000-05:00

Man, it sucks to be walking again. It's been a month with a car... and now my legs get sore after walking for 10 minutes. Okay, okay, I'll quit moaning. haha

Well, me and Dani made it the last part of our trip without any problems. Total mileage: 3763kms. All in all a good road trip. The problem was we didn't have enough time to do everything along the way, two weeks really isn't enough to do the east coast properly. But I'm moaning again already :)

So, after we left Brisbane we ended up only making it to the zoo; the brewery was kind of in the wrong direction. Maybe that was for the best though. The Australia Zoo was great though... and yep, it's the Crocodile Hunter one. We missed the crocodile feedings though, unfortunately. All the other stuff was cool though... snakes, kangaroos, koalas, elephants, dingoes... we got to see the crocs too but they were just sitting around. Here's me doing what I do best...

After that we were kinda doing the same thing up to Townsville that we did on our way up to Brisbane... staying in caravan parks and checking out some of the sights close to the highway. :) I even got in a little bit of cliff-jumping along the way. Saw a snake too... dunno what kind it was though. Got a little irritated at me, especially when I was going for the close-ups... haha

Geez, it's hard to remember what we did the last week! Seems like all we did was eat, drive, sleep and slap at bugs. Heh, it got really buggy in a couple of the caravan parks... there's sand flies over here too! Those bites didn't get as bad as they were in Broome... mostly just small dots, not like the dime-sized red spots I had covering my legs before.

Well, after a nice Christmas in Townsville me and Dani finished off the drive to Cairns. A few good stops along the way; a waterfall with no water (the drive was a blast though), a nice caravan park with a big pool, a couple more (busy) swimming holes and a little tour up around Cairns before heading into town. This is one of the roads south of Cairns...

Most of the trip after Brisbane was through sugarcane country like this, with lots of bananas and mangos up further north. Pretty nice scenery anyways.

So! I've finally got my flight to New Zealand booked; I fly out of Cairns to Christchurch on the 3rd, and am meeting my friend Marc in Queenstown somewhere around the 6th. Dani flies out on the 31st... I figured a couple days to recover after New Years would be the smart idea for me :) My friend Anette (the Danish girl I was hanging out with in Tasmania) is in town, and staying at an all-girls hostel. Maybe she can sneak me in... :)

Well, Happy New Years everyone! I should be on MSN a bit this week so look for me online in the evenings. Later!

-Brad

Christmas post!

2005-12-25T00:45:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas everyone! Now that it's actually that time it is kinda weird to be in such a warm climate for the holidays, but the lack of Christmas carols everywhere makes up for everything else :) Not that I don't like them, it's just that I can only stand so many elevator-music versions of Jingle Bells. heh.

Well, good to see I'm not missed back home... the alcohol bill is probably a lot less this year too :)

Weird family, huh? hahahaha.

Well, I'm seriously dripping with sweat here, so I'm gonna go hang out in my air-conditioned room and drink some Christmas beers with Dani. Hope everyone has happy holidays!

-Brad

Now off to Cairns...

2005-12-19T06:36:00.000-05:00

Whew! Been pretty busy (for me) the last week, I'm not used to being a tourist! Dani's whipped me into shape though and I managed to fill up my memory card in a week. No stupid little tourist thing is too crappy for me to take a picture of! haha.

Well, we've made it up to Brisbane after 5 days of driving. We've been taking it at a pretty slow pace, and managed to see most of the stuff between Sydney and here I think. Seemed to me it was pretty similar to south of Sydney... not too much tourist buildup (before Byron Bay at least!) and a lot of countryside. I really liked it anyways.

Anyways, to start at the beginning of the week... the bus ride up from Melbourne to Sydney was horrible. Too reminiscent of the long plane ride over... uncomfortable seats and some girl sitting beside you annoying you :) Just kidding Dani. haha. I'm pretty sure it was the other way around... I must've mentioned that "We're definitely getting a car in Sydney" at least a few times on the way up.

Sydney was exactly how I remembered it, but we ended up only staying two nights so I found it easier to bear this time. heh. Saw all the tourist spots again, this time as a real tourist... ended up being a pretty good day around town. Probably because I knew we were leaving the next day no matter what. :) Renting the car was pretty funny... we showed up at 1:00 to pick up the car, and ended up waiting for almost two hours until we got the car. The rental guy was one of the more incompetent people I've dealt with here in Australia... but it was probably a good thing. Our first car we were going to get ended up getting a little crunched by a guy pulling in to return his campervan... that's gotta suck. So instead of the Toyota, we got a Nissan. :)

The next couple days we just took it easy driving up the coast, taking the tourist routes and staying in caravan parks. The third day we stayed in Port Macquarie, where I met up with Ann, the German girl I hung out in Perth and Broome with, and rented the campervan with going up the west coast. Sure was great to meet up with someone I know over here! Ann's over here doing the opposite of me and Dani; she started out in Cairns and is down in Sydney now. I told her I'm going to head down to Sydney for New Years and sleep on her floor in her flat, and I think she believed me. Heh.

The last couple days we finished up the drive to Brisbane, stopped in another caravan park just south of Byron Bay, and drove to a hostel here in town. Byron Bay was cool, there was a good market there and a very nice beach... and we also drove through Surfers Paradise. That place was pretty... garish? Don't know if that's the right word or not, but it was filled with hotels and skyscrapers, seemed very out of place compared to the rest of the coast. Not the kind of place I'd like to stay anyways. This spot was more like it for me... this was a minute's drive from the caravan park we stayed in south of Byron Bay.

Brisbane is pretty nice, for a city. I like Perth better for sure, but this place seems alright. Too hot for my liking, but I'm sure I have it easier than Dani... I was used to hotter than this when I was on the boat, and she just left Canada two weeks ago. heh.

Today I met up with Akbar, another buddy of mine from McMaster, and also a mechanical engineer. Heh, this trip up the coast has been one big reunion for me :) He's been over here in Brisbane since August. We hung out in the city center for a while today, did some shopping, checked out the botanical gardens and the river, then went to an internet cafe and played Battlefield 2. Heh, some things never change.

Tomorrow me and Dani leave to head up to Cairns... and we're planning to stop off at a zoo and a brewery first thing. An excellent start :)

-Brad

Melbourne... again

2005-12-12T01:43:00.000-05:00

Well, here I am in Melbourne... for the third time. It's much better this time around, since I know a lot more people and can talk Canadian to someone again. Even if she's not a hockey fan. :) For those of you who don't know her, Dani's a good friend of mine from university... we lived in residence together first year and a student house second year.

Anyways... the rest of the road trip was pretty good... driving between Esperance and Adelaide was pretty boring most of the time... not a lot to see and a whole lot of driving. After getting on some penicillin I was feeling much better, so that made the trip a whole lot more fun. It took us two and a half days to do that part of the drive... we ended up staying in a couple caravan parks along the way. The first night was the most fun driving, we were trying to make it to the border between Western Australia and South Australia, but it was pretty dark... and there were flocks (packs... gaggles...?) of kangaroos all over. I was driving that leg, and had to do a couple emergency maneuvers to avoid some of them. heh.

Oooh, I'll post some pictures now. My pictures are so much better than any explanation of the trip. In order... a beach outside of Esperance, Lasse and a kangaroo and a nice sunset behind a wind farm.

After staying in Adelaide a couple days we did pretty much the reverse of the last trip I did from Melbourne to Adelaide along the Great Ocean Road. Pretty cool this time though, one of the 12 Apostles (the big tourist spot on the road) collapsed about a month after I was there last. Check out before and after. Kinda rained a lot on that part of the drive, but sunny enough to see everything.

Yep... so Melbourne again! We all stayed at one hostel for a couple days when we first got here.. the most ridiculously expensive place I've stayed in my whole time in Austraia... $28 a night. Most places are around $20... I was paying $11 a night in Perth. So, we've moved to another place that's a little dirtier but much cheaper... my fifth hostel in Melbourne actually.

So tonight me and Dani are leaving town finally... I think she's getting a little irratated at me being so lazy all the time. I keep telling her it's not laziness, it's experience! haha. But we're finally moving on to Sydney... taking the bus up overnight tonight. Our (rough) plan is to rent a car in Sydney and travel up to Cairns, then fly over to New Zealand sometime around New Years. At least I think that's the plan :) I'm not much for long-term planning of details. heh. Should be a great time though. Dani's got some ideas of what to do (including Beef 'n Reef... I think it was a tour of a cattle station then snorkelling on a reef... strange), plus she has a platinum Visa card... so I think I'm in good hands :)

Well, gonna burn some more picture CD's for Lasse and Haruna then I'm off to pack. And by pack, I mean nap. :)

-Brad

We've got snacks and supplies

2005-12-01T01:23:00.000-05:00

Hmm. Well. Darwin kind of sucked, so I decided to change my plans a little. My first two days in Darwin were filled with drinking and sleeping... but only one day after that, I got so bored I went by the employment agency to see if they had any work for a week or so. Yeah, that's boredom. So, my friend Lasse from Broome told me he was leaving Perth last Sunday to head across to Melbourne (where I need to be to meet Dani, woohoo!), and still had a free seat in his car... so I said what the hell, and flew down to Perth last Thursday. :)

So, a couple drunken days later staying at the 'ol backpackers, we left and started heading south from Perth. This was kind of the same route I did last road trip out of Perth, but we're going to have a lot more driving. A lot.

The first night we made it to Margaret River, and stayed at a hostel there for a couple days. Not a bad little town... not too much to do, especially when its raining, but very pretty still. This is the wine country around here, I'll bet you'd have heard of a few wineries here Mom. heh. Lasse tried to do some surfing, but he chickened out because it was too cold (and the waves were massive, and he had to paddle through some rocks... but we'll assume it was the cold. haha).

After relaxing there for a while, we continued on south to Albany. Halfway through the day we made it as far as I'd been, where Lasse and Haruna (a Japanese girl travelling with us) wanted to do that tree climb I did last time I was here. That was cool to do again... and my name along with Stephan and Ann's is still in marker up at the top :)

Another night in Albany, a bit of touring in the morning, and a 500km drive and we're here in Esperence, the last big town before crossing the Nullarbor. We decided to take one more day off, because it's gonna be a long couple days of driving. Here's some of the coast south of Albany...

Ugh. I expected a lot more fun on this trip, but it hasn't been that great so far... the day after we left Perth, I started coming down with something, and my throat has been really sore for the last 4 days now, and I've got no energy. Kinda makes sitting in the car for hours at a time a real chore. I've got an appointment at the clinic in town in half an hour or so... so hopefully it's nothing bad and I can get some good drugs while I'm at it. :) Sure hope so anyways... I hardly got any sleep last night because of the pain and fever. Sigh...

Well, hope everyone's enjoying the snow. Don't worry, I can still enjoy the sunshine :)

-Brad

Sweet sweet freedom

2005-11-21T22:46:00.000-05:00

Ahhhh yeah. I never want to see water again. Well... maybe when I'm thirsty. Or swimming. But that's it!

Well, it turned out to be a pretty good trip all around. The trip up was probably the most boring week of my life... and that's saying a lot. I really do say this a lot... but I've never been this lazy before. It got that near the end of the trip I was missing breakfast and lunch because I didn't want to get up. Yeah...

Once we got there and started working it was alright. It was like working in a sauna though... nothing too strenuous, but when it's 37 degrees in the operating room, it doesn't matter what you're doing. Most days we'd be done work around 1:00, and then just a clean and depaneling the shell for the next day, which took another few hours. We'd always have at least a couple hours of daylight to go spearfishing or snorkelling or whatever. Here's one of our hauls... mostly coral trout.

The first couple weeks we were doing the same thing as the previous two trips, just putting the shell in nets and tying them in when they'd been operated on. It was as exciting as the last trip. After that (and a trip into town) we started on harvesting some pearls. This was pretty much the same, except we didn't have to tie the shell in the nets. Woohoo. Still, pretty cool seeing all those pearls. These here were the best ones after they were all sorted.

After a week of harvesting, we started x-raying shell. Or, we tried to. The x-ray machine we brought up from Broome didn't work, so we had to borrow another one off a pearling boat nearby. This one made it three days before it croaked (maybe had something to do with the rat that was living inside and got loose on the boat? Nahh.) After that one broke, we had another week of just chipping shell before we finished up, that was about last Thursday. Since then it's been more pub in town, and a couple days on the boat heading back to Darwin.

The town we were near was pretty interesting. And by interesting I mean there was nothing to do but go to the pub. That was always a good time though... pool 'n beer 'n music. A couple shots...

So now that I'm free (and hopefully won't have to work in Australia again!) I have no idea what I'm doing. Not a clue... I guess I'll stay in Darwin for a few days at least, do all the touristy stuff, maybe try and get a ride out with someone down South somewhere. It's just too damn hot here. haha. I've got a few weeks before I meet up with Dani somewhere over on the East coast... hopefully she'll have a plan :)

Well, some emails, then I'm off (possibly to the pub). The guys from the boat are here for one more night so I'll have to have one last bash before they steam off to Broome. heh.

Oh yeah, congrats Pam on finishing exams! Heh, that was great, I was writing up this post and your MSN name was "Sweet sweet freedom" too. Excellent.

Later all... check out my pictures too, I uploaded twenty or so this time.

-Brad

Land ho!

2005-10-31T00:33:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm back on land for a couple days! Been working the last couple weeks since we got here, and we've all got some time off. For those of you with maps, I'm in a town called Nhulunbuy, up in the north-east tip of the Northern Territory. Definitely not a tourist town... this is very far from anywhere, really.

Just a quick post I guess, I'm at the local library and about to get kicked off the free computer since I've been on here too long. I had a lot of emails... since when have I been popular? Eeh.

No pictures either, I can't upload anything on these computers. Lots of good pictures though... been snorkelling, spear fishing, drinking... and a ton of boring work. There's a couple crocs living on the island we're anchored near :) Gotta try and get some pictures. I wonder if one of them will mind posing with my head in its mouth? Probably not at all. heh.

I'll write up a real post in a couple weeks... I've got two days here, then another 10 days work, then a couple days while we steam back to Darwin and I get off the boat. And from there, not a clue. But I'll figure something out.

Take it easy everyone... Write emails so I'm not bored when I get back!

-Brad

Here sharky sharky sharky!

2005-10-05T00:00:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm back in Broome again for another few days. This last trip on the boat was great, so I've decided to stay on with the boat when it heads up to Darwin. It's a 7-day trip to Darwin, then another two days to the spot we anchor. We're going to be close to a little town called Gove. (I haven't managed to find it on any maps or anything yet) Apparently we're going to be close to this little island that has a nice beach and some reefs, so I'm going to pick up some snorkelling equipment before I head out. This trip is a little longer... about 4-5 weeks. Heh. So I expect to be finished and back to Darwin by mid-November. On one hand, it's a long time being cut off from the outside world (more than I am usually)... but on the other hand I won't have to work again in Australia. Which would be sweet.

I doubt I'll be able to get on the internet at all there, so this'll likely be my last blog post for a while. I know... I apologize in advance to those who will write angry emails.

This'll be a busy few days while I'm back... tonight is the Harvest party being thrown by the pearl company I'm working for... free food and drinks at a nice local hotel. Hmm... I guess that's it. Did I say busy? Ah well.

Got a few new pictures up on Flickr, but most of the ones I took were pretty similar to the last time I was out. One decent picture of the bigger shark that was hanging around, and one of Lasse jumping off the top of the boat. There's a picture of me jumping off, of course... but his turned out a lot better.

Whew. I don't wanna leave the internet cafe here. It's so fricken hot here... I looked at the forecast for the next week and every day it's 35 degrees and clear. And I'm heading up to Darwin... it'll likely be over 40 pretty often there. It's getting near the beginning of the Wet season in the north too.

Ugh. Not much of a last post before going out, but my head kinda hurts this morning. Can't understand why. All I did last night was have a few drinks at the local gentleman's club. I mean pub. Irish pub. Sigh...

Enjoy the cold weather everyone! (not now I guess, but Novemberish. haha)

-Brad

Yarr... do ye have any spare change?

2005-09-20T23:13:00.000-04:00

Back on dry land... ohh yeah! I've still got sea legs though... hopefully won't be too long before I can walk in a straight line.

The job wasn't too bad at all... well, the job itself was pretty damn boring, but the people I was working with were great. My job was to assist the technicians, who were implanting... dealies (sigh. I didn't pick up the terminology I guess. Little round white balls so pearls would form) in the oysters. Then I'd take the oyster, put it in a net, then zip tie them to the net so they stayed upright. Then repeated 4-500 times a day. Wooo! Those were the days anyways... fairly boring. There were 4 technicians and four of us assistants... two German guys, an English girl and me. We'd usually keep occupied by pelting each other with oyster guts (which really stain)... and making more zippy ties. The thin zippy ties we had weren't long enough, so we had to put two together. Thousands and thousands of them. It became therapy after a while.

Every day we'd start work at 6:00, and usually finish 4:30-5:00... with a couple breaks for breakfast and lunch in between. After work we'd go fishing, or watch DVD's. Nothing that exciting, but we didn't usually feel like doing much after standing around all day.

Anyways, I've decided to go back out again for another 9 day trip, leaving this Sunday again. It's a pretty good way to save some money, and the food is fantastic. We have a full-time cook for us, Julio from Spain. I've never eaten this well. (sorry Mom and Dad, home cooking is great but...)

Some pictures... there's the boat we were on, the Yardie Creek. Pretty comfortable boat... there were only 17 of us on this trip, normally there's over twenty. Also a slightly blurry shot of us playing with a tiger shark :)

The sharks were cool. I didn't manage to get any pictures of the big one we had around the boat though... there was this small tiger shark and the big one hanging around most of the time we were there. So I didn't go swimming, obviously :) Plus I saw whales, dolphins, sea snakes, turtles... great change of scenery for a while.

Well, the next few days are going to be beach days for sure. I figured that since I'm working on a boat I'd have a chance to work on my tan, but we were indoors the whole time. Sigh. Skin cancer'll have to wait I guess.

Today I'm moving down to a caravan park by the beach and pictching my tent instead of staying at this crappy hostel again... only 10 bucks a night, and I know people with cars there now :) I'll probably be hanging out with the girls back at the hostel most of the time anyways. Thursday night'll be a good one, going to the local club with everyone from the pearl boat, plus all my friends at the hostel. Should be great.

Well, maybe another post before I go if I do anything interesting. Probably not though :)

-Brad

Going pearling!

2005-09-08T07:14:00.000-04:00

Lots of new stuff this time. Me and Ann didn't end up moving to a hostel closer to the beach, we moved to the hostel that's connected to three different bars. Heh. It's been a good couple of weeks here in Broome though, four English girls that I'd met in the hostel in Perth came up and stayed here for a week. Once again, it seemed to be me and half a dozen girls hanging out... not that I'm complaining :)

So here's a picture of the walkway in the hostel I'm at now. Best part of the place, unfortunately. This hostel seems to have something against kitchen utensils and pots/pans with handles. Hmm.

The pool at this hostel is very nice though, and it seems I've spent most of the last week sitting by the pool or going down to the beach and sunning or swimming. My tan's coming along nicely... heh. There's tons of little sand flies around though, it's something you really won't get on the tourist brochures. Everyones legs and arms are mostly just itchy little red dots. Very irritating... literally. We're all doing the Itchy and Scratchy thing.

But other than that, I've been searching for a job most days... rather halfheartedly, but still looking. Just today I got a job from an agency in town, working on a pearl boat. Don't know exactly what I'll be doing, but I'm leaving Sunday for 9 days out on a boat :) Can't wait... the pay is the same as what I was getting in Perth, but meals and accommodation are paid for. I've never said this before about any job, but I can't wait to get started. heh.

Huh. Guess there isn't as much new as I thought. Oh yeah, Stacey (from Zimbabwe!) dyed her hair blonde tonight (don't ask me why, it already seemed pretty blonde), and had some left over... and yeah, being the dumbass I am I got her to use the rest in my hair. Yup, my hair's now orange. Sigh... Just for that I'm gonna post a picture of her trying to open a bottle of wine on the beach. Heh.

I'm sure there'll be plenty of pictures of me with the 'ol orange hair, but you'll have to wait. Ann has a day off tomorrow so we're heading out on the town tonight, and I'll take my camera out.

Nothing else I guess until I'm back from my job in a couple weeks... other than a quick Ha-ha Nelson style for anyone I know starting school again. heh.

-Brad

Life's two beaches

2005-08-29T00:15:00.000-04:00

Well, where was I? Next stop was in Coral Bay further up the coast. This was a nice little resort town, with a good beach and snorkeling. We stayed in a caravan park there, and sat on the beach most of the next day. The water was nice 'n warm by now, and the temperature mid-twenties... absolutely perfect. Some time to work on my tan.. some time for the Germans to work on their burns... heh.

Next stop was Exmouth, a few hundred kilometers further up the coast. We ended up staying for a couple days at a caravan park here, it was very nice. We drove to the local national park and did some snorkelling and sunned on the beach. Another nice location, not too many people and lots of stuff to see. I must've spent a couple hours out swimming... I finally had to stop when I was more wrinkle than man. Plus my legs were starting to cramp up. haha

The next day was a big driving day... we started out with Stephan driving, and had our second driving incident. He took a right turn onto the main road in Exmouth, looking for the bottle shop... I wasn't paying attention since I was messaging someone on my phone while I had service. I look up, and there's a car right in front of us flashing his lights (driver cursing too I'm sure). Yeah... my heart was pounding. We didn't get in an accident or anything, but Stephan didn't live that one down for a while.

We stayed that night at another caravan park at a town called Tom Price out in the outback. Cool little mining town... I haven't seen so many trucks since I was back home in Canada. Getting to it was interesting (well, frustrating)... Stephan was driving again, and we got onto a dirt road for 50 kms or so. Stephan and Ann are both German, and neither had ever driven on dirt roads before. It took us well over an hour to go the whole 50 kms... every time Stephan hit a rough patch he'd brake and go 20 km/h for a while. And the ride was still rough. Ah well.

Next day was probably the highlight of the trip, in Karijini National park. I was driving along these dirt roads, and things went a little quicker. :) But the gorges in this park were amazing, and of course nothing beats swimming holes by waterfalls. I have a picture of me sitting in the waterfall (of course) but it didn't turn out that great. Just imagine me sitting down there, I guess. heh.

The rest of the day spent sitting around different waterholes, and hiking around through some of the gorges. Here's one more picture from the park, me driving along the road when it was paved again.

By this time we had close to a thousand kilometers to cover, and only two days left so most of the time was just driving after the park. I probably spent most of the time behind the wheel, because the others weren't very good at staying awake when driving for more than an hour. (with nothing to see!) I don't think they have careers as truck drivers, unfortunately.

Well, here I am in Broome. Not a bad little town, it's not quite the place I expected but it's still pretty good. The hostel we've been staying in since we got here is probably the worst I've been in, unfortunately. They have a free pool table and a swimming pool, but other than that everything is terrible. You're not allowed to bring your own alcohol on the premises (!) and the drinks they serve are horribly overpriced. Also, there's a jukebox, and they keep skipping songs people pay to hear because they don't like them. Heh, just a ton of little things besides that. With hostels, it usually doesn't matter about the facilities too much, it'll be a good place no matter what if the people are good and friendly. That's really lacking here. So tomorrow me and Ann (Stephan has to leave for Germany today... d'oh) are going to move to a different hostel, closer to the beach. Ohhh yeah.

My plans for this week are to start the job search over again, and have a couple more beach days so I'm not quite as white as I am now. haha. Don't really know what kind of work I wanna do yet, but something on a pearl boat or working at a pub in an outback town would both be pretty sweet. I've still got a bit of money saved from the last job in Perth, so I don't have to rush or anything.

That's all for now, just a couple more random things from the roadtrip.

-most times driving on the wrong side of the road: Stephan
-most animals almost hit: Tie, me and Stephan. I almost hit a lamb and a kangaroo, and Stephan almost hit a couple cows.
-most beers in one night: Me. heh
-most times almost lighting the campsite on fire: Hey, also me :)
-best tan: Ann
-best burn: Stephan
-most times getting lost: Tarja. One of those inside jokes from the trip, "Where's Tarja?" Over and over... haha

Heh.

-Brad

Life's a beach

2005-08-26T23:55:00.000-04:00

Finally made it to Broome! And an excellent trip (of course). Stephan and Ann (the Germans) were great to travel with... we had a fantastic time. Tarja was kind of annoying all of us by the end pretty badly (Very early on in the trip I noticed an uncanny resemblance between her and Marvin the chronically depressed robot from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy). Not good when you start thinking of her name as Marvin either :)

I've got too many pictures to post on the blog here, but I'll upload all of 'em to Flickr and you can see them here.

Well, the trip... we left Perth Saturday to a great send-off... about 15 people from the hostel waited around for us and waved goodbye and stuff... when you've been at the same place for a couple months it almost feels like leaving home. (tear) It was kind of a rough morning though, our campervan was dropped off at the hostel at 10am, and I got to bed at roughly 7:30. heh. Plus I was the driver. :)

So the first day we finally left around 3 in the afternoon, and drove a couple hundred kilometers south of Perth, and stayed in a hostel since it was rainy and very windy. At times it seemed like the campervan was gonna get blown right over.

Not much done the first day, but the second was a little better. Still rainy 'n stuff, but we got to see a little more. We went to an eagle reserve, and a chocolate factory, and tried to do a bit of wine-tasting but the wineries seemed to be all closed. Heh, had our first minor incident of driving on the wrong side of the road too, Ann was driving and she pulled out of a gas station onto the right (wrong) side. My comment... "Other side of the road please!" heh. That night we stayed in another hostel again, and had a good night of drinking and playing games. (and keeping everyone else in the hostel awake. Whoops!)

By this time we'd all had enough of the cold, so we decided to start heading north. Mostly a driving (and recovery) day, so we ended up staying in the campervan just south of Perth. The campervan only slept 3, so the whole trip I slept outside in my tent... which was great once the weather got better. But cold at first. Oh yeah, that morning before we started driving, we did a tree-top climb that was in the area. That was a lot of fun to do, even when you're swaying slightly before even getting in the tree. heh.

So the next day we did a lot of driving, and passed through Perth early in the morning. This was Stephan's birthday too, and the people back at the hostel in Perth thought we were going to stop by and stay for the night, so they had a party for him even though he wasn't there. heh. We made it to Geraldton that night, and stayed in another hostel. One of the attractions along the way, the Pinnacles... yet another attraction in Australia that involves rocks. Seems to be a lot of those!

That night we tried to surprise Stephan with a birthday cake... but it was too windy outside the campervan and the candles kept getting blown out. So we made him go sit outside while we lit them in the van. heh. Turns out he knew about the cake anyways, when we were driving earlier that day and someone had to brake hard the cake fell down from where we were keeping it, practically on his lap. Ah well.

The next day we went to another country... very cool. Back in the 70's a farmer seceded from Australia and formed his own country, the Hutt River Province. They have their own currency, and a post office and church. They really made it into a tourist attraction (we even got our passports stamped). That was fun anyways. Plus the guy who started it has a big carving of his head in stone. It doesn't get any better than that.

Around now the weather was starting to get a little better, but I kinda caught a cold or something and ended up sleeping a lot of the next couple days in the van. Sigh. While I was out we went to Monkey Mia, a fairly big tourist resort along the coast. Every morning they feed the dolphins in the bay, and everyone crowds around. Pretty neat seeing dolphins up close like that.

Well, this is gonna have to be a two-part post. I'm having a hard time thinking of all the funny stories.. most of them were inside jokes anyways (a lot of Old School and Wedding Crashers stuff. That glass IS half full! hahaha)

One more picture, a shot of me driving the beast. The road to the Hutt River province was really muddy, so we kind of had a red van for a while. heh.

Couple more days and I'll post again. It's kind of a shock to have to pay for internet again after getting it free for so long! Hope this appeases all those living vicariously through me. :)

-Brad

6 months!

2005-08-10T09:50:00.000-04:00

Yay, been in Australia for 6 months now. I can hardly remember what Canada is like now... I have to concentrate for a while to remember what it was like to drive on the right hand side of the road, or what our 110V outlets looked like, or how stinking hot it gets in the summer. haha. Hungry Jack's instead of Burger King seems normal, I agree when people complain about how cold it is when the temperature is +15 degrees... and no pennies (which is fantastic).

So my plane ticket's good until the beginning of February next year. I don't have a return date set yet, but I'll have to decide pretty soon I suppose.

Lets see... updates. Hmm. Well, there was a reason I haven't posted in a while, and thats cause I've been doing nothing. The odd bit of drinking, working, sleeping, guitar... same as the last couple months. But the next couple of weeks are going to be great! We're leaving mid-day Saturday, and have two weeks of freedom. And beaches. I can't wait.

So nothing really new until after the trip. Then I promise heaps of good pictures, and plenty of stupid stories. Our drinks of choice for the trip have already been planned, good 'ol White Russians. Our route hasn't been figured out yet, but our drinks have. heh. We have our priorities straight, that's for sure.

One picture this time, yet another sunset over the ocean. There doesn't seem to be much else I can upload right now, just parts of town that I've been to, jobs I've done at work, and parts of my walk to work. Nothing that interesting.

Work has been pretty busy. Steve's taken on a few too many jobs the last couple weeks, so we've been working flat out the whole time. He's still behind on just about every job... his phone is ringing almost non-stop all day (mostly customers wanting to know when the job is going to get done). Only two more days though, and I'll once again become a bum. Hopefully a beach bum this time.

Okay, time to go keep people awake with my guitar for a while, then off to bed myself.

-Brad

On a lighter note...

2005-07-26T10:37:00.000-04:00

Well, this week is off to a good start. Monday afternoon I went with my friend Gaston to the airport where his girlfriend from Japan was flying in. He had the great idea to sing to her when she appeared in the terminal, and recruited me to play accompany him on guitar. He wanted to sing a romantic song, so we picked "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith. Now, first of all... Gaston isn't exactly the greatest singer. And he's certainly no Steven Tyler. We were practicing in the morning in a quiet corner of the park nearby, and an old guy walked by with his dog. Gaston doesn't have much in the way of volume control, and this guy just glared at him, and walked away shaking his head. heh.

It turned out really good though. After waiting around for an hour with Gaston getting more and more nervous (he sweats and hops around a lot), he spotted her coming out, and started singing at the top of his lungs. We practised the song pretty slow, but he was blasting through it. I had a hard time keeping up... but what Gaston lacks in talent, he sure made up for in volume. The look on her face was priceless when she saw him... and the whole arrival terminal gave us a big round of applause after we finished (possibly because we'd actually finished. haha). Here's a picture of them afterwards... if you look close enough you can still see a few stunned looks on people around them.

So that was fun. Other than that I've got my travel plans pretty much figured out. Stefan, Tarja, Ann and I are going to rent a car in a few weeks and travel around Western Australia for 2 weeks, ending up north in Broome (break out your maps). Should be much warmer up there... and nothing more exciting than a road trip. There's should be plenty to do also... go swimming with dolphins, learn to surf, whitewater rafting... who knows what we'll actually do, but it'll be fun no matter what.

I had a request to see how I'm living here, and what my room is like, so here's a picture of my corner of the room I'm in. There's two bunk beds behind me, currently occupied by three English guys who came in last night as I was getting up to go out to work. :) At least they didn't wake me up! haha

And yes, I know... it's a pink blanket. It was handed to me, and I was cold. haha

Nothing else for now, other than to show off last week's profits. The only thing better than being paid in lots of cash is to be paid in lots of colourful cash :)

-Brad

We'll miss you

2005-07-24T10:45:00.000-04:00

This has to be by far the worst part about travelling and being halfway around the world. My nana died a couple days ago at my parents house in Belleville. I always felt I was close to her, especially since I lived a few blocks away when I was in university in Hamilton. It was always great to have her close by whenever I needed to borrow her car, use her laundry machine, eat some of her cookies, or just to have someone to talk to and forget about the pressures of school for a while. Heh... how can you not love a lady who calls her grandson a dumbass? :)

Anyways... it's hard not to feel guilty about being out here having fun while everyone else in my family was helping to take care of her, but I hope nobody holds it against me. I know everyone knows that I wish I was back home right now more than ever. I've been hit with a double whammy the last couple days too; I've been down with the flu or something and haven't moved out of my bed much. Being sick in a hostel, with people in and out of your room all the time isn't much fun.

I wish I was better with words, but I'm not... so all I can say is we'll all miss you Nana.

-Brad

Bam ba lam

2005-07-17T09:37:00.000-04:00

Heh, been a while. I promised drunken bar pictures (I think) and drunken bar pictures there are. See them here. Nothing anyone hasn't seen before anyways, me drinking.

Still working at the same job... it's really not too bad and Steve is a really cool guy. He knows that the hostel here has nights out at the bar Wednesday nights, so he suggested I take Thursday off so I could go out. How cool is that? I think he may have just wanted to go golfing, but still.

Been keeping busy otherwise... still going to the gym with Murray most nights and as soon as my running shoes get here from Canada I'm going to start running again. I went out today with Gaston and a couple other guys to play a bit of football (soccer) and it was kind of an eye-opener to how badly I'm out of shape. Went down to Fremantle again Saturday, and went on a tour of the prison there. Interesting place... seemed a lot like a prison out of the movies. They shut it down in the early 90's because of sanitary problems; they had no plumbing in the cells, just buckets. Ugh.

Anyways. Most of the pictures I've been uploading so far have just been of places... since I haven't been to many new places in the last month or so I guess I'm overdue to post a few of the people I've been hanging out with here. Most are at the local backpacker's bar, Black Betty's. Every night a live band, and lots of cheap drinks. There are a half dozen people that have been at the hostel as long as me, so you get to know them pretty well. Other people, like Val, Karen or Anne are just passing through and only stay a week or two. It's a good mix though; keeps things interesting and you're always meeting new people. I tried to find the most flattering pictures of everyone, but it's hard when everyone's making faces at you all the time :)

As always, a couple more random pictures. Here's me posing, out for a walk in East Perth. Also, City Hall in Fremantle.

Nothing much else is new. I dyed my hair, in case you hadn't noticed. It's kinda dark brown now. I like it... still could be a little longer though. Ummm... other than that nothing really new with me.

Well... my plan anyways is to work at this place for another few weeks likely, then head south towards Albany. It might be a little cool at nights to do now, but I'd like to do some bushwalking along the coast down there. There's supposed to be a nice track that runs from Perth to Albany; some 900kms long. I think walking a section of that would be cool. I'm having a great time here right now though... it's good to be kinda settled into a place like this where you get to know a lot of different people. And Perth is a really nice city, it seems like a much smaller place most of the time. Still, the urge to get moving is starting up again, so I'll probably stick it out here for a while longer then head out. I have to do cheap things now though; I'm too far in debt to go spending like crazy again.

Another post later this week; I've been slacking :)

-Brad

Stayin' aive.

2005-07-06T07:48:00.000-04:00

Ahh... despite the urge to go out drinking the night before the run common sense prevailed. Stupid common sense... what's it ever done for me? haha

So my leg of the run was 9.4kms, and I did it in a little over 45 minutes. Not too bad for very (very!) little training. Getting out of bed the day after was a bit of an adventure though.

I was very happy with how it went... I didn't even have to stop and walk or anything. Plus, the whole time I was blowing by old people running the full marathon. A few people tried to pass me, but since the track was by the river in town here it was pretty easy to bump them over the railing into the water. Some people have no sense of competition... I have no idea what they were yelling about afterwards?

heh. A couple pictures from the run; me sprinting to the finish of my leg at the relay point, and a group shot of three of us that did parts of the run. Yeah, I know I'm not exactly styling it up. I had to run in my crappy black bar shoes, and the hostel gave us all shirts to wear so I wore a yellow collared shirt.

L-R; Gaston from Argentina, me, and Murray from New Zealand. The fourth guy was from South Africa, and he was kinda missing in action for a while. He ran to where I started, which was the furthest point away from the start/finish line. His plan was to ride his bike back to the finish here, but he left it at the wrong relay point. He ended up walking about 15km (after his run) to get back to the hostel... since he forgot his bike key also :)

Other than that bit of fun, it's been work work work. I've been going to the gym steadily with those two guys in the picture (it's tough to keep up with Murray!), plus the crappy job and jobsearching on my day off.

Guess I've done a bit otherwise... took the train to Fremantle down by the ocean on the weekend with another Canadian (Kevin, from Moose Jaw) and took some pictures. Got a nice shot of the sunset...

Well, to make up for not going out Saturday night tonight'll have to do. I have the day off tomorrow so it should be a good one. It's almost been a couple weeks since I've had a drink! (almost longer than my attempt at taking a month off...hahaha)

Eeeh. Sorry about the lack of interesting posts lately. It's hard to do anything but boring stuff when you're working or working out most of the time. Go read Pam's blog; she's actually doing exciting stuff :)

-Brad

Got the haircut, need the real job

2005-06-26T05:42:00.000-04:00

So I started that job last week, it's not too bad so far. I'm still looking for something a little more permanent though. This job is mostly playing with power tools, and doing odd stuff around the shop. There's only me and the owner working there right now... there was another guy working there before but he didn't show up to work all week. The owner Steve used to be a backpacker from the UK but he ended up staying here and has been here for 16 years. :)

My first day on the job was fun. I did a little bit of work around the shop, then we hooked up Steve's trailer on the back of his ute and went to pick up some panels at a yard across town. We were sitting there at a stoplight and Steve says "Shit" and I hear a screech of tires, a loud bang, then get thrown against the back of the seat. A guy in another ute slammed into the back of our trailer hard enough to push us into the car in front. Luckily for me the headrest was adjusted to the right height for my head, and I didn't have anything worse than a headache for a few hours afterwards.

I wish I had my camera then, cause the accident (or smash as they call it) was a huge mess. The guy who hit us worked for a window company, and there was glass everywhere. Heh. The damage to our ute wasn't too bad... the roo bar on the front got pushed back and broke one of the headlights, and the trailer hitch got bent up to a 45 degree angle. Other assorted lights broken, and other stuff bent... shouldn't cost that much to fix it all anyways. The trailer took most of the hit.

Other than that the week's been pretty slow. I joined a local gym with a few other guys in the hostel, so I can whip myself back into shape now. My mom's shipping over my running shoes from back home so I'm going to start running again. Next weekend I'm signed up to run a quarter of a marathon with those guys at the hostel here... I have no idea what I'm thinking. For the record, I really was drunk when I signed up to do it :)

Huh. Last night was a good night... went to the local bar with most of the hostel. They have $10 nights here every Saturday... everyone pays 10 bucks and we get a huge bar tab. It's basically all you can drink all night. We ran out of pitchers around 2:00 last night though :( Probably a good thing. I'll try and get some pictures from the bar this week, a few people brought their cameras. It's been too long since I've posted drunken Brad pictures on here. heh

Couple pictures... the hostel I've been at the last few weeks, and the outside of the shop I've been working at. Note the puddles... it's been raining just about every day still. Although 20 degrees during the day in the middle of winter here isn't bad :)

Next post should be more interesting... I'll make sure I get some pictures of me dying after the run next weekend. heh

-Brad

C'mon people!

2005-06-17T09:26:00.000-04:00

Okay, first things first... I've gotta admit I'm a little disappointed in how many people actually thought I got a mullet. C'mon people! :)

Yeah, that was halfway through the haircut. The barber thought it was pretty funny too... I promised to send him a copy of the picture so he could put it up in his shop. haha. It's really different with short hair... the first couple days I must've looked like a psycho, twitching my head to get my imaginary hair out of my eyes. It just wasn't working though... my hair gets really curly and puffy and just disastrous when it gets long. I'm sure cutting it was for the best.

So... not much to post about this week. I'm starting a job on Monday, just some casual labouring work, helping to install walk-in fridges and freezers. A hundred bucks a day cash in hand, so that'll be alright. I've been applying to a lot of engineering jobs, but haven't had any luck there yet.

Huh. The last couple weeks have been pretty lazy. Now, I know I've told a lot of you that I've been lazy at one time or another. But this time... Lazy with a capital L. Hmm... lemme think of an example. Okay, picture a rock. And think of me sitting beside the rock... having a staring contest with it. And winning. I have an excuse for being lazy though.. it's been rainy. So there.

Okay, maybe not that bad. But they have a small bookshelf full of books here at the hostel, and I've gone through a good pile of them. I read the Da Vinci Code in one night. :) That's a good book by the way... seems every other backpacker I meet that's reading something is reading that. I've been out looking for jobs plenty of times too. A lot of time on the guitar also... I've been making some good progress on Classical Gas, so that'll be cool when I get all that figured out. I seem to have to practice for a couple hours before I make any headway at all, but it'll be worth it, as long as I don't go insane.

One picture from when I actually made it out for a walk and it wasn't raining. Just the casino from across the river. This computer I'm on sucks and I only managed to get one picture off my camera, so this'll have to do.

This weekend should be good... my mate Joe that I worked with in Tasmania is here for a couple days before he goes to Japan for a year, so I won't feel that bad about having a few drinks with him. The name of the game is moderation now :)

Too bad I'm not back home this week though.. I'm missing the annual canoe trip with my brother and dad. I'm sure they'll have lousy weather though :) Happy Fathers Day by the way!

-Brad

End of another era

2005-06-08T07:49:00.000-04:00

Perth has been pretty cool so far. It's been very rainy though... every time I leave the hostel to go for a walk I seem to get rained on. Other than that, I haven't really done that much here, other than look for a job and sit around playing guitar :)

Yesterday I actually went out of the hostel and hung out with Kristen... we went to the museum and a cafe downtown. I met her on the plane ride from Canada, and we hung out in Hong Kong... she's here in Perth going to teacher's college. Good to talk to someone without an accent every once in a while. heh

So... end of an era. My brother sells his good car, and I finally got a new haircut. What do you guys think?

-Brad

No beer makes Brad something something...

2005-06-05T02:04:00.000-04:00

Y'know, this no drinking thing is starting to get tough. I've been to four bars this month so far, and have had more Coke in that time than I'd had the entire year before. Sigh...

Ah well. So I've made it out to the West Coast. The train ride out here was... well, very long. I ended up sitting on the train for about 36 hours, which was actually longer than the flight from Canada to Australia. It was an experience anyways. There's a whole lotta nothing between Adelaide and Perth. The majority of the trip was across the Nullarbor, which is an area with (surprisingly) no trees or hills, just a lotta scrub brush. Interesting at first, but gets quickly boring. Part of the track along here is the longest straight section of railway in the world. I can think of more exciting records, but there you go.

We stopped in a couple outback towns, one called Cook (permanent population: 3) and the other Kalgoorlie (30,000). Cook was interesting... it actually used to have a school and a hospital, but now it's just a souvenir stand and a bunch of cottages.

Kalgoorlie was a little better. We had a 3 hour stop there, so I got to see a good part of the town at least. One of the bigger tourist attractions in town was the brothels. Picture a tour bus full of old ladies with cameras driving by with all the prostitutes out front. heh. One of the brothels even offered tours (which I went on, of course) :) Had time to go to a couple pubs in town to check out the live music and drink Coke.

A couple pictures; the sunrise from the train, and the train plus an outback sign in Cook.

So, now I'm in Perth. One of the most isolated cities in the world. Seems pretty quiet so far, but I haven't seen too much yet. My plan for today is to hire a bike and have a look around town. Tomorrow is a public holiday (can't remember why) so on Tuesday I'll have to start the job search. I had a quick glance through the paper yesterday, and it doesn't look like I'll have that much trouble finding a job. A guy in my dorm room here told me he has a job clearing tables for twenty bucks an hour, and that he's leaving in a week and could put in a word for me. Almost too easy.. but I'll try and find something better at first. I think I'll apply to some golf courses or something... that'd be sweet.

One more picture; a view over the river in Adelaide.

-Brad

She'll be right!

2005-05-29T08:11:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm now in Adelaide. Good 'ol Southern Australia. Melbourne was getting kinda crappy anyways. I ended up moving to a different hostel there, in St. Kilda. That's a suburb south from the city centre on the water. This had to be the dirtiest hostel I've been in yet. The room had an odd smell to it because some guy from Alaska was using the room as his personal garbage dump. Ugh...

So on Tuesday I took a tour from Melbourne to Adelaide along the Great Ocean Road. My first time going on a tour bus... it was actually a lot of fun. Most of the time on the tour I was hanging out with a few Scots and a few Irish guys. Needless to say... the nights were the best part of the trip. Although waking up the next day was usually an adventure.

Our tour guide's name (no kidding) was Steve. He was absolutely hilarious... he was so stereotypically Australian we were all laughing just from hearing him talk. To him, everything was "sensational."

So a few pictures. I've lost my download cable for my camera so pictures are gonna be harder to post all the time. And a new one is forty bucks... just for a stupid cable. gah!

In order: a lizard at the Melbourne Zoo, the Twelve Apostles along the Great Ocean Road, and some koalas. Heh, so cute.

Lotsa cool stuff to see. Heh, we made a lot of picture stops along the Great Ocean Road, and looking back through my pictures they all look the same. It was all so pretty that it was hard not to take another picture. Ah well.

Hrm. Last night here was an interesting one. Me, the Irish guys and a couple English girls went out on the town. Not the best night for self-control. I ended up spending an absolutely disgusting amount of money on booze, so I've decided to take from now until the end of June off. No more alcohol for a month... should be healthier at least. Its a good thing this hostel I'm at here is really quiet... I slept in until after 3 in the afternoon and have had a good day of lying around feeling sorry for myself :)

Ah well. I've booked a train ride out to Perth on Thursday. So I've got a few more days to hang around town here. Tomorrow I'm going to hire a bike for the day from the hostel here and tour around, and hopefully later this week I'll be able to get to a hockey game. (there's an arena pretty close by... woohoo!)

Well, I'm off to nurse my hangover some more. Sigh...

-Brad

Beertopia!

2005-05-20T13:10:00.000-04:00

In an effort to make up for the lack of posts the last couple weeks I'll do one while I'm drunk. Woohoo!

Anyways, I decided to skip the trip to Hobart and head back up to Melbourne. Since my plan was to go drink in Hobart, I don't think I've really missed anything by skipping that trip. Whew... its been a good couple days here. The hostel I'm staying at had a pub crawl last night... excellent time. I met a couple Canadians from Calgary, and they were both mechanical engineers like me. So it was a good night, that goes without saying. I'm a little disappointed they didn't keep up with me, but then again I've been drinking with an Irish guy the last week so they had their work cut out for them.

So tonight we went out to the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. They had a thing going on called Beertopia. 400 beers from around the world. Ohhh yeah. No Canadian beers, I was kinda disappointed... I'd heard that Keiths was gonna show up there but I didn't see them there. Ah well. I kinda hung out at the Belgian beer tent anyways (lotsa free Hoegaarden. Yes.) Then another pub afterwards where I showed that I still had coordination and whooped them at pool. haha

Its after 3:00 in the morning at the hostel here, and I'm about ready to fall asleep at the computer here, so I might have to cut this short. No pictures or anything this time, but those guys from Calgary are going to email me some of the pictures they took tonight. I'll make up for it next time. Whew. Me so tired.

Well, g'night all.

-Brad

Step step Plunge! Tree, stomp, kick kick, repeat.

2005-05-06T23:03:00.000-04:00

Yeah, that sums up my life for the last few weeks. The world of tree planting isn't as glamorous as I thought it might be. Turns out its hard work! haha. I ended up planting over 23000 trees in the last few weeks.

I'm all done now though. In three weeks I made close to two thousand bucks, so that should do me for a month or so... hopefully. I don't think I could've taken much more of that job... we were in a little town up in the mountains, pretty close to where I finished the Overland Track. There was nothing there but a bunch of trailers and a pub. And a lotta drunken locals... haha

It was good money though. I was making around $20-25 an hour, which is interestingly enough more than I made at my last job. The work is better too :) My best day was last Tuesday; I made $225 in seven hours work. Over $30 an hour... not too bad for a crappy job like that. The accommodation wasn't that bad either. I had a single room which was alright, and the pub meals were excellent. I now have a very healthy addiction to banana splits :)

Hrm. Sorry about the lack of posts the last couple weeks. I've received numerous emails (well, none) from all my fanatical readers telling me to post more often, so I'll make sure I get on that. I've got a couple pictures at least!

Here's a shot of a field where I was working this last week, and one of a tree I planted.

And one more of Joe giving me the finger. Joe has kinda been my partner in crime (well, not really crime, just a lotta drinking) the last couple weeks. The French-Canadian guy didn't end up working there, but I'd hung out with Joe at the hostel before we started working so we knew each other already.

So, right now I'm just relaxing for a couple more days in Launceston then heading to Hobart for a final Tassie bash. Me and Joe left the crappy hostel we'd been staying at, and are at Irish Murphy's in Launceston. Staying above the pub in a hostel there... that makes for trouble. Tonight is gonna be a good night. heh. They have live music every night, and last night the band played a few Zeppelin songs. I was happy. :)

By next weekend I'll probably fly out of Hobart and head back to the mainland to Melbourne. From there, to Adelaide and across to the West coast to Perth. (break out your maps...haha) Joe there is from Western Australia, so he's told me about a few good places to go already. Plus apparently he has a sister who likes to feed people :)

Well, I'm off to do some shirt shopping. You get surprisingly dirty planting trees, so I'm down a couple shirts that I had to throw out. Ah well.

-Brad

Beer... thats good!

2005-04-24T21:25:00.000-04:00

Okay, one last post before I join the working world again. heh.

I'm starting a job tomorrow (Tuesday) doing tree planting. Woohoo! It has free accomodation and free meals so thats good. And its supposed to pay around $17 an hour, but it depends on how hard you work. So hopefully I'll be able to make a little more than that. This is for the same company I worked at briefly a few weeks ago, so I already know a bunch of the guys that're going to be there. Also there's a French-Canadian guy I met (who has a car, sweet!) that's supposed to be working there too.

So I'm in Hobart right now anyways. Its the capital of Tasmania, down to the south-east of the island. The day after the last post I called about this job and found out I could start on Tuesday (Monday's a holiday here). So I wanted to travel around a little bit before I started that, and spend what little money I had remaining. :) So I met a Dutch guy at the hostel in Launceston that had a rental car for another couple days, and I asked if I could tag along. heh. So we went to a place on the east coast called Wineglass Bay, that was very nice... and a good spot for a swim too! We were the only people swimming, I can't figure out why... :) Lets just say I almost disappeared completely after swimming. haha

Hiked around there for the afternoon, then went south to Port Arthur. This was an old penal colony back in the day.

We stayed in a hostel there for the night... and I ran into a German girl who I met on the Overland Track. Kinda cool running into someone you know out here! Me and Karel (Dutch guy) had to return the rental in Hobart Friday morning, and Mel (German girl) was going to Hobart also, so we went out for some beers Friday night.

Uhhh... what a night. We started out in a pub called Irish Murphys, which wasn't that bad. It was a dark beer night for me, so it was a good place to get some Guinnesses. (y'know, a pint of Guinness or five...) I'd already had a few beers before we got there back at the hostel too :) Anyways, we left that bar and went to another one where they had Hoegaarden. Mmmmmmm. A few of those, then we left and went back to Irish Murphys again. There was a band there by then so that was cool. Dancing and drinking the rest of the night, till we stumbled back to the hostel. Goood times. heh. I ended up spending around $55 in beer that night though :( But in my defence, my parents told me in an email to go out and have a beer or two on them. I must have misread it at the time though, I could have sworn my mom wrote a beer or ten :)

The last couple days were about the same, just smaller amounts of beer every night. My bank account can only take so much of a beating. haha

So right now I'm just sitting in the hostel in Hobart waiting around. This place is kinda cool, its called the Pickled Frog :) Its kind of a pub/hostel, which is a good mix. There's a few Canadians here too, so its nice to talk to someone without an accent. But anyways, I ran into another girl here Saturday that I'd met on the Overland, she's the Israeli girl I mentioned last post. She wants to work at the same place as me so we're gonna hitch up to Launceston later today. She is kind of a magician at getting rides :)

Oh yeah, congrats to everyone back home who finished school! Have a beer or two (or ten...haha) on me!

-Brad

I'm an experienced woodsman, really!

2005-04-19T07:23:00.000-04:00

Yeah... yeah... what a great week. The walk was excellent and the weather was great. On the bus ride to the start of the walk we were told the area gets rain 300 days a year. We ended up having rain two out of seven days... and both times you couldn't really call it even rain. When it comes to weather I must have a horseshoe up my ass... doesn't make walking any harder at least :)

There's just too many pictures to post all on my blog here, so I'll put up a few of my favorite ones. But check out my pictures (link on the right) to see all of 'em.

The walk was pretty different from any of the others I've done in Australia so far. There's supposed to be around 10000 people doing the walk every year, so it gets kind of crowded at times. We ended up travelling with mostly the same group of people who set out on the same day as us and were staying at the same huts. Even still, I can see why this walk is so popular. I would have needed a far bigger memory card on my camera take a picture at all the pictureworthy things.

Lots of wildlife still... but mostly possums and wallabies. I'm kinda disappointed I didn't see any Tasmanian Devils, but they're pretty rare (and nocturnal) so I'd probably have to go to a zoo to see one.

Heh, met a lot of interesting people on the walk. I think its part of the package; to be a bushwalker you have to be a little crazy. Lets see... there was a girl from Israel, she was hilarious. She kinda said whatever popped into her head... her comment to a couple German people she just met talking in German was "You two talking remind me of Holocaust movies!" ...to which there was kind of a stunned silence. Heh, that was funny. There was a guy who didn't really pack very well (he brought two sleeping bags??) and had over 30 kilos in his pack. Heh, he was hurting by the end of every day I'm sure. There was an older guy who was probably the craziest of the bunch; he kept telling all the girls walking on their own stories about how people disappeared over the years, and how people have been murdered out in the wild before. Heh, very reassuring!

Sure was nice to get a shower today. I'd post some more pictures of me towards the end of the walk, but you can literally see the stink lines coming off me :)

Anyways, its getting past my bedtime here now. When we were out on the walk everyone kinda went to bed very early... since there's nothing at all to do after its dark! (you can only play so many games of Shithead (a card game))

Here's one more picture for good measure I guess. I like this one.

Well, looks like I'll be in Tasmania for a while longer yet. My bank account is gonna kind of slip into the negatives when I have to pay my Visa bill at the end of the month, so I'll have to work for a while so I can get off this island in decent shape. So probably no new posts for a while. Oh no! hahahaha

-Brad

That's bad!

2005-04-10T05:44:00.000-04:00

Well, the dream is over. My career as a tree pruner appears to be at an end. *fights back tears*

The job kinda sucked anyways. I was paid based on the number of trees I pruned, at a dollar a tree. On Tuesday, my first day I did 100 trees, the second day 110. Then the third day I went to go to work and everyone had a day off because of the rain. Rain... hmmmmm... it was kind of spitting for about 10 minutes in the morning, then it cleared up and the sun was shining the rest of the day. Rain my ass! Friday was the same, another rain day. It actually rained some that day but I still could've worked for half the day and made some money. Ah well... So I told them I wouldn't be back Monday. :) Instead I'm gonna walk the Overland Track with Annette (the Danish girl who was pretending to push me over the cliff last post). So if I mysteriously disappear, it was probably because I annoyed her enough that she actually pushed me instead of just pretending :) The walk is a little over 80km so it'll be the longest one I've done here so far.

We're leaving for that early Tuesday morning, and it should take about a week to finish. Its possible to do it in 3-4 days, but I don't see the point in rushing through this kind of thing. Its not like I'm pressed for time or anything! A couple pictures, even though I've hardly gotten out of town at all. First is part of the hostel I've been staying at, and the second is from a drive I went on today to a mountain nearby. A guy from Wales is staying here and rented a car for a few days, so Annette and I tagged along.

I don't think I've posted this link before, but its the photo site I use to post my pictures. I upload more pictures there that I don't post on my blog here, so check them out if you feel like it: Brad's photos. You can download full-sized pictures 'n stuff there too.

Oh yeah... stupid stuff... hmm. Don't think I did much of that last week, sorry! I got a leech on my foot today... thats about it for dumb stuff. Oh yeah, at the job there I had a couple pine branches come down on my head and I got sap in my hair. :) I'm working on doing some more dumb stuff, don't worry.

Time to go laze around some more :)

-Brad

The frogurt is also cursed

2005-03-31T05:22:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday to meeee! heh... well, close enough. I missed posting about it by a day.

Well, nothing stupid unfortunately. Sorry Mel. Well, nothing extraordinarily stupid that is. Plenty of day-to-day dumbassery; stubbing my toes, bashing my elbow into chairs, stepping in front of oncoming cars, etc... waitasec, scratch that last one.

The last week or so has been pretty boring. Mostly I've been sitting around waiting for calls about jobs I'd applied for, and not much else. I got sick of that, so I bought myself a birthday present. Its my Precious :) (as my dad asked, does it make me the Lord of the Strings? The answer is no. haha)

So that's taken up a lot of my time lately. I had a tough time deciding on an acoustic guitar or acoustic bass, but the price of the cheapest acoustic bass kinda made up my mind for me. The guitar is a little more versatile also, I suppose.

Other than that, I did a couple days bushwalking the last two days. An Aussie girl staying at the hostel was also bored and had a car, so we went on a walk to the Walls of Jerusalem National Park. Its close to Cradle Mountain and the Overland Track; both probably the biggest tourist attractions in Tassie. That was a good little walk... lots of nice scenery 'n stuff. The mountains are no Rockies, but they're pretty spectacular still. So I spent my birthday sleeping in a cold hut in the mountains. :) Better than my last birthday anyways... studying at school right before exams. Bleh. (oh yeah, hahahaha suckers!! :)

As always, some pictures... the first couple are from a little hike close to Launceston. The first picture if you can't read it... the hut's called the Hoo Hoo Hut. Have I mentioned I love the names Aussies give places? heh. And the second... as you can see, everyone here is very nice and they seem to like me right away, just like back home! :)

The next two are from the walk the last couple days, in the park.

And yeah. Looks like I'm going to be hanging around here for another weekend, then hopefully starting working on Monday. Another guy thats staying in my dorm at the hostel here says the place he's working at is hiring, and they're going to call me tomorrow. It'd be work for the Forestry; pruning trees 'n stuff. The same kinda work I did a few summers ago at Davey Tree in Mississauga anyways. I'm getting tired of waiting around for other jobs, I just wanna get working and make some money and get travelling again.

But like I can complain :)

-Brad

It was the blurst of times?

2005-03-21T00:05:00.000-05:00

You stupid monkey! Heh. I never realized before I got here what a popular show the Simpsons is overseas. In most of the hostels I stay at the TV room gets kind of taken over during Simpsons time and everyone sits down to watch. Its fun even though I've seen most of the episodes at half a dozen times :)

Well, I made it to Tassie. Seems like a great place so far, too bad I have to work though. It'd be pretty easy to get a crappy job fruit picking (apples or grapes! yay!) but I think I'll kinda hold out a little longer and try and find something...well, less crappy I guess.

Melbourne sucked. I don't like Toronto, didn't like Sydney or Hong Kong... I don't know why I thought Melbourne would be any better. Still, met tons of people at the bed-bug infested hostel I stayed at and had a mostly good time.

I got off the ferry from Melbourne at Devonport, and stayed there for four days while I was out job-searching. Pretty place, and the people are great here. I met one nice lady at a job centre who loaned me her kayak for a day. That was a lot of fun, kayaking in the ocean. Except when the ferry comes by and throws off huge waves and you almost get swamped. :) But meh. Couple pictures of town here; there's the hostel I stayed at and a shot of the countryside. The whole island is like this so far, seems a little dry. Hmm.

This has been a lazy week. I've been kinda feeling like crap... one of my tick bites (not that one) got infected a week afterwards, and I've been taking antibiotics to keep the infection down. So its been quiet.

Well, I left Devonport and have moved onto the second-biggest (I think) city on the island, Launceston. Should be easier to find a job here... I've applied for a couple mechanical engineering jobs that are just short-term contracts, which would be perfect. We'll see. There was a job I just missed out on in Devonport at a call center. It paid $17 an hour! I can put up with dumbasses calling about stupid problems for that!

Ahh, sigh... Starting to get tired of living out of my backpack. I keep seeing stuff I wanna buy and I can't, cause I don't have any room for anything. Maybe thats a good thing though. I really want to pick up an acoustic guitar, but that would be a real pain in the ass to haul around. Eeh, I'll probably get one anyways. I've already checked out the local shops and its getting harder and harder not to pick one up.

And yeah, thats it. Its gonna get pretty boring for a while until I actually do something again. I'll make it a point to get drunk and go do something stupid this week so I have something to talk about. heh

-Brad

Okay, now I'm really sore.

2005-03-13T03:04:00.000-05:00

Lots of pictures this time, by popular request. Requested by at least one person. I think. eeh. I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I've got a lot to blab on about. hehe

Well, the last week I've been camping out in the bush. To summarize, I had an excellent time. The scenery was fantastic, every person I met was extremely nice, and it hardly cost anything. :) My plan to hitchhike into the town at the start of the walk worked out very well, the third car that came by stopped and gave me a lift. The guy even went out of his way to give me a little tour of the town before he dropped me off right infront of the motel I was staying at. heh

So that town was called Mallacoota, it's right on the ocean over the border into Victoria. Pretty little place, it has a permanent population of about 1200 people, and during the summer gets up over 10000. Spent a couple days there anyways, I got there Saturday and had to wait till Monday morning when the Parks Victoria office opened up and I could get a permit for the walk. One picture from there; I went for a little walk around town just after it rained and got a nice shot of a rainbow over the inlet from the ocean.

Anyways, on to the walk... the first day the weather was great, just under 30 degrees and sunny. I started out the walk from Mallacoota, the official start of the walk is about 5km out of town so I could pick my own route to the beginning. I decided to do some rock-hopping along the beach to get there. Saw some nice caves... the tide was low so I had no problem getting through most spots. Just after I went through this cave (below) I had to kind of backtrack and climb up overtop of it. Of course I was doing it in my sandals, and of course a small piece of rock broke under my foot, I slipped a few inches, and cut my heel open nicely. Great start to the walk :) It wasn't that bad; I didn't even realize I'd cut myself until I was about a kilometer down the beach from the rocks and I realized my jeans were a little bloody. heh

It was about 17-18kms walking that day, once I got to the campsite it was getting kind of late. There were only two other people there, and they'd driven in. I was just sitting down to cook my supper over the fire and they came over and offered me some cold beer :) Very nice people, they didn't stay around for the night.

The next day was pretty short, only 12km. Half of the day was through a forest and across some plains (see picture), the other half along more beaches with some more rock-hopping along the way.

The third day was pretty similar, except the track across the plains got a lot thicker. And I met lots of happy little guys called paralysis ticks. So, it wasn't the snakes, spiders or crocs that got me. It was the ticks. After I'd gone through a particularly overgrown section, I was starting to get sore...uh, down there. (trying to put it delicately since I know my grandma and other relatives are reading :) It was kinda weird, cause I was sure things weren't sore from over-use... hahaha. I went on walking for a half hour, until I stopped and had a peek. And yeah, I had not one, but two ticks happily burrowing into... uhh, me. So pulling them off was an adventure, I'm glad there wasn't anyone around cause I was kinda half naked down in the middle of the trail pulling 'em off. hehe. No pictures of that, sorry. :) I ended up pulling off another couple ticks that night before going to sleep; one on my neck and one on my back. Not to mention the dozens I brushed off my clothing and backpack before they could latch on.

The rest of the walk was pretty easy, mostly along beaches. Lots of rock-hopping; generally there would be a stretch of beach for a few kilometers then some more rocks, then another beach. All very nice, and very deserted. I ended up seeing only 7 other people over the entire 5 days. Here's one of the beaches I had to myself...

The last night's camping spot was the best. I couldn't find the actual campsite I was supposed to stay at; there was supposed to be a clearly marked sign on the beach pointing it out, but I'd probably overshot it by a kilometer, and I didn't feel like backtracking. So I found a nice little sand dune that was sheltered from the wind, and pitched my tent there. Got to see a nice sunrise and nice sunset there. A couple pictures from there... there's me after getting to the site and having a dip in the ocean, and another of the sunset over the beach.

The last day was nice and short, a quick 8km hop along a long stretch of beach. My plan was to grab a ride out with people leaving the campsite in the morning, but I kinda ran into a problem... the place was almost deserted. There were about 45 campsites, but only a half dozen of them had people. I was running out of food and had no ride out.... and it was a 42km drive out to the nearest town. To make a long story short, I met some very nice people that insisted on feeding me (I ate kangaroo!) and found some other people that were heading out the next day and had some room in their truck. So I had to stay an extra night, but I made it out with no problems and picked up the bus to Melbourne just last night.

So yeah, what an excellent trip. Australians have to be the nicest people... so friendly, so helpful... even when I insisted I didn't want anything to eat the family there gave me a plate of some of their kangaroo stew. (they must've seen me cooking the last of my food over the fire; some rice in a Campbells Chunky soup tin and had pity. heh) Then I hung out with them around their campfire the rest of the night and played Trivial Pursuit with them. :) Good times.

Well, now I'm in Melbourne. Its kind of a shock being in such a populated place (3.5 million) after being so secluded the last week. Today was great here though, they have a Waterfest going on (like Belleville's Waterfront, but far less sucky) and there was a carnival and some waterski-jumping going on. Lots of things to see and do here.

Anyways, I apologize for the length of this post, but I figured it was worth typing it all out. Still so much more to tell but it'd probably get too boring to read that much. Well, me so hungy, so I'm gonna go shopping and make myself something to eat. The hostel I'm at here in Melbourne is enormous; there's close to 500 beds they have here. I'll probably stay one more night there then find a smaller place that's... well, better. heh

-Brad

Stupid clouds

2005-03-03T21:56:00.000-05:00

The last few days its been overcast, and only like 25 degrees out. Sigh... I know, its rough. Anyways, I've been in Merimbula the last few days after Bateman's Bay. Most of these little towns along the coast are pretty similar I've noticed. You've got a couple main streets with all the shops, a bunch of motels and hotels along the coast, and internet cafes that charge way too much. haha

Some pictures... this is from a walk to Pambula, about 11-12kms round trip from Merimbula. Heh, I love their sense of humour around here. I couldn't stop laughing for a while after I saw this one.

A couple more...

There's the beach from Pambula back towards Merimbula, and a shot of some of the locals. These kangaroos were pretty tame, they just sat around waiting to be fed. Quite different from the others I'd seen in the wild. Those ones took off before I could even take out my camera most of the time.

Eeeh, not much to do around here when its not sunny out. I still went out snorkelling a couple times yesterday and today. Can't see all that much compared to when its sunny, but I saw a couple big sting rays, and tons of fish. Pretty cool.

Anyways... my plans for the next couple days are kinda sketchy. There's a 5 day hike along the coast down in Victoria that I want to do, but its kind of out of the way from the highway my bus goes down. So, the plan is to get off at the closest town (at 1 in the morning when the bus passes through) and find a place to stay, then probably thumb my way to the start of the walk. Should be nice though, if I make it there. Coming out at the end of the walk is the same deal, but I doubt I'll have any problems.

After that, I've gotta start working so I'll be heading all the way to Melbourne and looking for an apartment for a month or so and a job. Woohoo!

Yeah, thats it. I know, exciting stuff! Well, I'll post again in a week or so if I live. haha

-Brad

Wollongong is le pew

2005-02-24T18:54:00.000-05:00

Yeah... the similarities between here and Hamilton are eerie. Wollongong has a steel factory on the water, plus an escarpment. The smell is even similar. Guess thats it for similarities, but meh.

Gotta few pictures this time, first one is from my hike last weekend there. This is Sunday, after it rained. Ver' nice.

The next couple are Wollongong. This is a nice place and all, especially compared to Hamilton, but the hostel here kinda sucks and the people aren't all that friendly. There's not much selection when it comes to hostels, so there probably isn't much incentive to make the place nice. The communal fridge smells like something crawled in there and died a few months ago, and the dorm room I'm in has a hint of wet dog to it. And the dogs... they've got at least 5 that I've counted here, and kinda run wild around the backyard. Eating the garbage, lying on the picnic tables... yeah. So one more day here then I'm heading out.

Oh yeah, the pictures.

First one the beachfront with the nice steel factory in the background, and the second a shot of the city with the escarpment behind. Ahh... feels just like home. haha.

Eeeh, got one more night here then I'm heading out again. I'm working my way towards Melbourne nice 'n slow; my next stop is in Bateman's Bay... supposed to be a nice little beachfront town. This place has a couple hostels at least so maybe there'll be a better chance of staying at a good one. I managed to get a bus pass for $59 bucks that'll let me stop anywhere I want to along the way to Melbourne for as long as I want. Pretty good deal I think.

Meh, thats it for now. You'll notice as the boredom goes up, the number of posts also increases. Guess I'll just go sit on the beach and burn... I mean tan... for a while longer. Sweet...

-Brad

Yay pain!

2005-02-22T02:22:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I am a dumbass. I finished that 3-day hike a couple days ago, it was brutal. Here's a couple of excerpts from my brain during the trip:

Friday, 10:00 AM - Yeah, this walk is gonna be cool, I feel great!
Friday, 10:15 AM - Dammit, my feet hurt already and my back is getting sore.
Friday, 10:30 AM - First of many breaks. Crap.

It goes downhill from there. Well, mostly uphill.

So yeah, carrying a 45lb pack for 45kms or so with a lot of ups and downs kinda wears you out. It was an awesome time other than the soreness. Saw dozens of roos, wallabys, a couple types of spiders that can kill you, tons of birds and reptiles 'n stuff. No pictures of any of that yet cause I can't get pictures off my camera into this computer. Ah well.

Now I'm heading out of Katoomba after two of the most relaxing days ever at the hostel here. It was great doing absolutely nothing... other than sampling (yeah, just sampling... haha) the local beers and sitting around playing cards. Great time here. Anyways, I'm heading south of Sydney to Wollongong, its supposed to be the Hamilton of Australia (a big steel factory). Lots of nice beaches and national parks around there. The plan right now is kinda to travel further south to Melbourne eventually then over to Tasmania for a while before its winter. I've got a couple weeks left of travelling before I'll have to start working, so I'll probably look for a job in Wollongong.

Well, I'm off to go do some more nothing. hehe

-Brad

Katoomba is kool

2005-02-17T04:12:00.000-05:00

Well, I've left Sydney. It was pretty nice, got to see the Opera House, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Bondi Beach, Manly Beach... all the tourist crap. Very nice weather the whole time, it was at least 25 degrees and very sunny the whole time. My first day in Sydney wandering around I got a nice sunburn on my face, even though I put sunscreen on twice. Sigh...

So I've headed into the mountains, about 80km inland from Sydney. Staying at a very nice relaxed hostel in Katoomba. I've gone on a couple small hikes the last couple days, now I'm going nuts and doing a 3-day hike. I'm supposed to see some roos on my second night, so that'll be cool. Got a couple pictures, one of Bondi Beach in Sydney, and another of the Blue Mountains.

Well, thats all for now. The hostel I'm at right now doesn't have free internet so I'm on the clock here. heh.

-Brad

Ugh, so sore

2005-02-12T21:53:00.000-05:00

Yeah, 30 hours on an airplane will do that to you. So I made it to Sydney, no problems with anything. Hong Kong was cool, I took a 3 hour tour there. It wasn't wall-to-wall people like I expected; it was the last day of Chinese New Year so most people were home sleeping off hangovers I guess. At least I would've been.

So a couple pictures from the tour here. This was some nice role-reversal; I was the one in the bus taking pictures in an Asian country. :) The first one is a bridge. I had a hard time understanding the tour guide lady so we thought she said that the Hong Kong airport was a lot like the suspension bridge in San Francisco. Yeah... confusing at first. Second one is a nice smoggy shot of the city. All the expensive houses are up on the top of the hill there. From what I made out the farther up you go the more expensive it gets.

You can get the full-sized images from here.

So yeah, I'm in Sydney now. Pretty cool place so far, haven't had much of a chance to wander around yet but that on my list of things to do after I get a decent sleep.

Not much else to tell other than a minor fiasco with some guy getting lost in Hong Kong when a girl on the tour was holding his plane ticket for him. Ouch... still don't know whether that one got sorted out or whether the guy even made it back to the airport. Ah well, I'm beginning to see that maybe I'm not really a dumbass compared to a lot of people.

Yeah, thats it. Me so tired.

-Brad

Now's the time, the time is now

2005-02-08T20:52:00.000-05:00

Yeah, the big day's almost here, I'm flying out tomorrow night. Everything at home here is finally sorted out, no thanks to my dumbass brother :) Not only did he forget to bring all my stuff back last weekend from the house in Stoney Creek, but when I drove all the way from Belleville to pick it up he didn't leave the house keys for me to get in.

Just goes to show, me being a dumbass really is genetic after all. haha

Well, not much new to post other than my tale of dumbassery. Got one new picture that's pretty good; the Oshawa GO station in the evening. Full size is here. Could've done with some cropping and such, but I'm lazy.

Well, thats it till I'm in Sydney. 30ish hours in the air, plus I'm stopping over in Hong Kong for half a day and doing a bus tour around there. Should be interesting, even though I'll be a complete zombie from lack of sleep by then.

-Brad

Oh yeah, bonus points for whoever knows what song my post title is from.

Two weeks...

2005-01-26T23:11:00.000-05:00

Yay countdowns! Seems thats all I ever do. Those of you on my MSN list will probably remember me counting down the days till I finished university from about Day 60. heh

But yeah, getting excited to be leaving. I finish work on the 31st, move all my crap back to my parents house for the next year then visit friends and laze around until I leave. Awlright!

So not much new to post about. Surprise surprise... so here' s a nice picture (I think) of a bridge on the Dofasco trail out by my place. Lookat the full-size image here.

-Brad

One month(ish) to go!

2005-01-11T11:20:00.000-05:00

Eeeh, a little under a month now till I'm leaving. I guess a month from now I'll be arriving in Australia though.

Went to MEC on the weekend to get some travelling gear. Sigh... that place is the devil. My credit card and I need to be separated if I'm ever near that place again. But, on the plus side I have a lotta cool stuff. :)

-Brad

bluefiero

2004-12-21T23:56:00.000-05:00

bluefiero, originally uploaded by Bradtholomew.

Apparently my blog isn't "exciting" enough, so I'll post some fun stuff. Or, I'll just test posting from flickr.

...that and I'm waiting for the dryer to finish so I can go to sleep. If this isn't excitement, I don't know what is.

Anyways, thats my old moneypit. Sold it back in September to fund my trip to Australia/NZ. Which hasn't quite happened yet... but the ticket's booked (Feb 9th) and I should have a bit of coin to do some fun stuff before I have to work on my vacation (gasp!)

Eeeh.

-Brad

Yay blog!

2004-12-15T17:26:00.000-05:00

Welcome... 'n stuff.

I guess I'll be using this when I go travelling to keep all my friends and anyone else who cares up to date on what I'm doing, and where I'm currently lost without money or clothing. Lots of fun pictures of that also.

Well then! Come back in a couple months when I'll have something worthwhile to post. heh

-Brad