Hi everyone!

We are currently relaxing in Phuket after a pretty hectic few weeks. We have spent a bit of time relaxing and travelling around. We had a nice few days in Singapore though it was very hot and humid. The shopping is an amazing experience, if you want something, anything, then it is probably available on Orchard Road! it really is department store central, we stopped counting after spotting 30 big department stores!

We took a train from Singapore into Malaysia to Kuala Lumpur arriving in the early evening. The following day we headed out to get a better view of this bustling metropolis and headed for the KL telecom tower, Menara. At the top we could look out over the city 360 degrees all round. Later in the day we headed off to the Petronas Twin Towers, which, since 9/11 are the tallest twin towers in the world… but unfortunately we were unable to go up to the adjoining bridge on the 44th floor as all the alotted tickets for that day had been taken.

From KL we took the midnight train to Georga…. not really though, we went to Hat Yai in Thailand! We had sleeping berths on the train, which meant that for the first time, out of all our long train journeys, we were able to get a fair bit of kip. Arrival in Thailand though wasn’t all good, at some point during the border crossing Nik had his mobile phone stolen and from the train we were herded off into tuk-tuk’s (taxis) and taken to a travel agency where we booked a mini-bus to take us to Phuket. It’s during the mini-bus ride that Nik’s bag went missing from the roof of the bus… we found out later that the driver had made no attempt to tie down the baggage. We arrived in Krabi, the halfway point of the route and decided to get off as we were losing patience with the driver and nightime was drawing in (7 hours on a cramped mini-bus, like sardines in a tin). Nik made a complaint about the company to the tourist police, who negociated some compensation for his luggage… and then spent the next few days buying more clothes, toiletries and a new bag as he’d been left with only the clothes he was standing up in and his hand-luggage. We decided to have a rest in Krabi for a few days before moving on.

 We took the ferry over to Ko Phi Phi island, which was where the filming of the Leonardo Di Caprio film “The Beach” was shot. It was also heavily hit by the Tsunami and from the minute we arrived we could see the damage it had done and the efforts the islanders were taking to put it right, 14 months later, there is still alot of work to do.

Another ferry ride and we were on the island of Phuket, another Tsunami victim, but the damage was more easily fixed here, with them being connected to the mainland via a bridge, the area we are staying in now, Karon beach, looks pretty much restored after the waves have gone.

From here, we plan to head off to Bangkok (land of the lady-chick-boys… ooh er missus) and then off into northern Thailand to Chaing Mai. We’ll write some more when we get there!

Bye for now

Chez and Nik

P.S feel free to add comments, just click the comments link at the bottom of the entries to add your thoughts! Hope to hear from you soon.

Hi again.

We are now in Singapre and ready to start the Asian leg of our tour. We arrived on the 10th Feb and it is very hot and humid here, We are booked out of Singapore on the train to Kuala Lumpur on the 14th Feb, where we will spend a couple of days in the area before we head off to Thailand.

We had a fab time in Australia, met some great people who we intend to keep in touch with, hey ho… on with the show!

Thats it for now y’all

Chez and Nik

Hi everyone, as promised here are a few piccies from the Darwin to Sydney leg of our tour. Click on the images to view them bigger.

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1-8  Us at Adelaide River Inn, with piccies of all the Staff and locals and some piccies of the pub and petrol station.
9-10 Nik in Perth botanical gardens/a view from the treetop walk.
11. Dolphin Swimming, Rockingham, Perth, WA
12. Melbourne city centre.
13. Sydney Harbour, viewed from the bridge.
14 - 16. New Years Fireworks, Balmain, Sydney Harbour.
17. Chimps at Toronga Zoo, Sydney.
18. One of the locals of Koala Park, Sydney
19. The Three Sisters, The Blue Mountains, New South Wales
20. Niks Mum and Dad, Balmain, Sydney Harbour.
21. Our last day in sydney with our friend Robb.

HI everyone! sorry its been a long time since we posted last. After Perth we flew accross the country to Melboune where we met up with a friend of ours, Andy, who we met in the Northern Territory. We spent a couple of days with him before we headed off to Sydney on the train.

When we arrived we spent 3 days in the famous Bondi beach, though why it’s famous we can’t really work out as its not really anything special… looking rather more like Scarborough than a typical image of a sundrenched Aiussie beach.

We decided to Leave Scarborough behind and head for the city, finally settling in the seedy end of town, in a place called Kings Cross, which is a bustling mix of Strip Clubs, Adult Shops, Nutters and kingsize Cockroaches!… how does it sound so far??? We stayed in a guest house on the quiet Victoria Street, Run by an old half Mauri-half Red Indian guy who we couldn’t pronounce the name of so we christened him Squatting Neville! We stayed there a couple of weeks before we moved off into the city centre. We are renting our own flat, with bathroom and kitchen and tv (with really crap reception)

We spent New Years eve with two friends of ours, Jamie and Lynsay, who we worked with at Adelaide River. we watched the harbour fireworks from one of the harbour lookouts at Thornton Park in Balmain, where we had a front row seat and an excellent view of the harbour bridge. And obviously we had a few too many bevies! But we had a really great night, one we will remember for years to come.

Nick has worked briefly for a signage company, doing designs for a planned exhibition about a reservoir in the Blue mountains being filled to a higher level (interesting… NOT!) but the money was quite good from his Freelance agency and has the possibility of more work before we leave Sydney.

Chez decided she liked the idea of the lay-about lifestyle and dispite sending out many CV’s and emails with huge whopping porkies written in them, has still had no replies, but she’s loaded anyway!

Niks Mum and Dad have come out to Sydney for 3 weeks, and have been here for 4 days already, we have been to Manly beach and Toronga Zoo and today we are taking them to Bondi and the southern beaches. This is our first day of sunshine since they turned up, the weather has been suprisingly abismal since they arrived and we are debating wether to send them back home early! We had the hottest day of the summer on New Years Day, it was 44 degrees celcius in the city centre and was 50 degrees at the centre of the Sydney Cricket ground Pitch! Crikey Moses! We sweat a few cobs that day! Though as a contrast it was wet yesterday, with the temperature not climbing much over 20 degrees.

We are planning to leave Australia at the end of January to continue our travels, heading to Singapore, the gateway to South East Asia and China, we’re really looking forward to relaxing on a pure white sunny beach and having a dip in the blue seas and bays…. as well as the criminally cheap food and lodgings of Thailand and Vietnam!

Thats all for now folks, got to go now and meet Niks Mum and Dad for a decent feed.

Toodleoo

Chez and Nik

Sorry for the delay guys, it took us a while to get over the train journey from Darwin to Perth and yes we have been very lazy since our long awaited arrival here in WA. 

Although I have to admit it has been worth the wait, Perth is a beautiful city with its first rate ocean beeches, the people are known to be friendlier than their east coast rivals,    The night life is vibrant with lots of top class food and wine, lots of cultural events and more days of sunshine than any other capital city in the country.

We hopped along to Fremantle which is a 1 hour ferry ride from the city, its a popular place for young people and backpackers.  There you can enjoy the ‘Cappuchino Strip’  where there are rows and rows of cute little tea and coffee shops at nice ‘Rip off’ prices (not really backpacker friendly) and clothes boutiques at not steep prices but b***** vertical i might add!

Oh yes i remember now why its popular with backpackers, there’s Bars, bars, bars and bars and if you get fed up of alcohol, theres always the coffee shops.

Saturday we went swimming with dolphins which was well and truley awesome,  we went to Rockingham which is about 50 k outside Perth, there we got on a boat and climbed into our wetsuits and snorkel gear.  Each Guide had a motorised scooter which dragged them around and everyone would form a big chain which we would do by holding onto the person infront of us so there was no real swimming involved.  We saw lots of  dolphins in their family groups and they were very playful whilst we were around.  It was an overwelming experience and one we’ll never forget.

Its a beautiful hot spring day and we are preparing to head off to Melbourne tonight where we have been told the weather is a bit like London but not as cold!  Yikes!  bring back me coat!

Toodle-oo for now

And in the words of Jerry Springer ‘Take care of yourself and each other’.

Hello World, we have returned!

It feels like an eternity since we were in civilisation and we really noticed it as we entered Darwin yesterday morning. After 7 weeks at Adelaide River Inn, we are exhausted but glad to be travelling again. Although our time at the Inn was very enjoyable, even though we didn’t like some of the jobs we did, we met some great people and really felt part of the comunity. We felt priviliged that we were accepted into the town from the day we arrived.

Chez worked in both the Bar and the BP shop, getting to grips with frying all manner of unhealthy foods and sampling them herself… especially on hungover days! Nick also worked in the BP shop, though for the last month he was tied to the 4.30 am till 2pm shift, and was left feeling very tired practically all of the time.

We’re both glad not to have to fry anymore Barra and Chips for a while and plan to get some more healthy food from now on.

We met some amazing charactors including the permanantly drunk Seagull, John the Vietnam vet, Jenny and Mort, who became more like parents as the weeks wore on… and Justin, who at first seemed a little strange, but soon became part of the gang. And Johns friend Andy who returned to Melboune to work and who we are going to see when we travel back down to the south…. not to forget Charlie the stuffed buffalo, who Chez had the pleasure of dusting down when the bar wasn’t busy.

Hopefully we’ll update with some pictures of the guys in future posts.

We catch the train to Adelaide on the 2nd of November and arrive there 2 days later, we spend two days in Adelaide before we catch the train to Perth, arriving there another two days later!! Which will bring us to the 8th of November

Thats all for now, will update again in Perth

Chez and Nik

Chez and I have secured ourselves jobs! We will be working at the Adelaide River Inn, in the Northern Territory. Chez will be behind the bar and I will be serving in the petrol station. Adelaide River is a small settlement about 100kms south of Darwin.

Charlie the Water Buffalo, who shot to fame in the film, Crocodile Dundee lives here… or rather did, until he died… but he lives on! Stuffed atop the bar!

 
Click on the image to see it bigger

Apparently the mobile phone coverage is lousy there, so we may not be able to recieve your txt messages, and alas, the internet coverage may also be poor, so we may only be able to check emails on our days off… maybe once a week.

We’re really looking forward to this, we leave Darwin for Adelaide River on Wednesday at 1pm, with our first rostered shifts on Thursday!

We’ll let you all know how we get on

Bye for Now

Nik and Chez

Just a few more pics that we thought you’d like to see!

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1. 90 Mile beach, Northland, North Island, NZ
2. Hot Springs Waterfall, Hells Gate, Rotorua, NZ
3. Franz Josef Glacier, South Island, NZ
4. Sunset on the South Island, NZ
5. The Girls of the Uluru Group, Uluru, Northern Territory, AUS
6. Uluru, NT, AUS
7. Us with Uluru in the background
8. Katherine Gorge, Katerine, NT, AUS
9 & 10. Jumping Crocodile Cruise, Adelaide River, Darwin, Australia

Click on the images to view them bigger

Bye for now

Nik and Chez

As promised here are a few higlights of our tour so far

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1. Our camping expidition with Amy, Dean & Shiobhan
2 & 3. Cleland Wildlife Park, Adelaide
4. Us in Fiji
5. Malamala island, Fiji
6. St Kilda Botanical Gardens, Melbourne
7. Our Trip Mascots L-R Keiran Kiwi, Pete Platypus, Keith Koala & Dave the Lion
8. Chez & Campervan, on the Road to Glenorchy, Queenstown, NZ
9. Chez waiting for a train!, Waitomo Glow Worm Caves
10. The road to Glenorchy, Queenstown, NZ
11. Chez & Mack the Koala at Cleland Wildlife Park

Please click on the images to view them bigger

Bye for now

Chez and Nik