All change please!

No i have not become a bus driver too.. i am still very much.. oh wait thats for another blog!!

And i really mean another blog... this one is, to be honest, far too complicated, and hard to keep up-to-date and linked in with everything else online, ie. Facebook, twitter etc. I don't have as much time and plan to do a bit more blogging due to the new addition in the family- an iphone- so wanted to make it easy for everyone to see whats occurring in our silly little lives whatever platform they are on!

The new address is www.worldtravels2010.posterous.com i am working on changing this one, but its a hassle- hence why we are leaving this hell hole. So change your links!

Its easier and more simple, has better links to our photos, and because its easier to upload stuff, we shall be adding to it a little bit more!

There is also a little video of meado on there for your amusement!

much love

jonny, james and steve

Another wierdo gets a job as a bus driver

It feels like ages since I last wrote to everyone out there, excited about my big move to Cairns. So much has happened it really feels like I've been here for months already.

I landed in Cairns on the Monday night at midnight and after an extremely brief job hunt was hired the next day as hostel bus driver for Travellers Oasis. Take a look on Hostelworld.com and check it out. It is generally considered the best hostel in Cairns and I'm very proud. My job however has more to it than you would expect. In between driving jobs, which only take up a small amount of time, I role is to be the hostels Domestic Goddess. In an extremely emasculating way I wake up every morning and assess the weather to determine if its going to be a good "drying day". The result of which has a surprisingly large effect on both my mood and workload for the day. I work hard (7am - 8.30pm, usually) and play hard (8.30pm - 3.30, occaisionally) but the lifestyle is great. Every day a fresh batch of travelers are shipped in and there's more people to meet. You always get the odd nutter amongst them as well which adds to the excitement. The sad times do come though (yesterday) when goodbyes must be said. I get way to close with the guests and then have to see them disappear into the sunset on their own adventures. But its certainly worth it

On the brighter side of things I do actually get a full day off a week and two short days. My full days off have been packed full of new experiences. Week 1 and I went to the Great Barrier Reef on one of the best reef tour operators in Cairns. It was a unique experience. After hyperventilating twice when getting used to the breathing apparatus, I was away in an underwater fantasy land with bright blue "Christmas Tree Worms" the slightly eerie "Garden Eels" and a plethora of bright colours. I was fortunate enough to see a black tip reef shark resting on the sea bed, saw Nemo (Clownfish), and even petted a turtle's shell. For my second week I headed off to the Atherton Table lands and saw some on the oldest rain forest in the world. Here we slid down cascades of granite rocks into the water below (some chap decided wearing shorts was restricting his experience of this which was unpleasant for the rest of us). We also went to a waterfall that all of you will certainly have seen. It was the one used for Peter Andre's Mysterious Girl music video. Those of you that were in a coma in the 90's may have missed it but fear not, you will also have seen it in the Herbal Essences advert on British TV. It the one when the girl flicks here hair back. So naturally everyone had to do the same and photo's will follow.

I think that's quite enough for now. Tomorrow is back to the reef and Saturday I'm taking a rather pleasant plane flight over Cairns. And then jumping out of it. At 14000 feet. Its just how to say goodbye to another character in hostel life. A nutcase Dane who's enthusiasm for drinking games boarders on obsession.

For now,

Steve x x

More to melbourne than meets the eye!

As you may have guessed, or read, Ive been in Melbourne for a little while!

And as you may have guessed, or read, Ive been slogging away working the bars at a winter festival which has traveled from Sydney to Melbourne, via bondi.

Ive been lucky, i must admit, in getting this work, and it been fun, if a little stressful and annoying, but i'm sure that is what ' real life' work is! However all of that of the negatives are forgotten when i think of the number of strange people i have met along the way, and the number of great people i have met along the way.. both being as amazing as each other. From street entertainers taking cover in our bars durign storms, to drunken people reliving them selves in their seats(nice!), they have been an odd few months since i arrived in Sydney.. and i don't think i would have it any other way!

One thing i do have to say is that people are idiots, stupid and moronic... some may say these are the same words, and i agree, i used them just for adding to the intensity of my announcement!

From people complaining that it was raining and that the ice was wet on an outdoor skate rink, to people asking what beer you have, when there is as stack of bottles and two taps in front of them... they decide to look up behind you at the ceiling like that is where the drinks are displayed!!!..... McDonald's effect is taking over of looking up at wats on offer!

And as some of you who know me can imagine the more moronic customers realized they have picked with he wrong guy... A scenario for you to imagine... A sign was put up advertising that we had hot alcoholic drinks for sale, mulled wine and hot toddy's... It was placed in front of the been taps but with the taps very visible and that we were a normal bar serving normal drinks. . The amount of people i got coming up saying, " ah... hot alcoholic drinks ... what are they?" i would say mulled wine, as it says on the sign... they would say, 'what else do you have?' i would reply with the statement of. ...' well its a bar.. all the normal things you find in a bar, as you can see..., we have beer, wine spirits... what would you like'? And then the amount of people that said...' all hot, hot beer? hot spirits?? It was amazing. Its like these people had never left their own kitchen. i would reply with a certain disbelief... 'what??' And they would say, 'well it says hot alcoholic drinks, are all your drinks hot?'

Ive never felt like curling up in a ball and hoping that all human life nolonger reproduces, or at least the people that visited our festival refrain from such activities!

I think Ive just done another blog which moans, and im sorry, but despite this moan Melbourne is great, Ive spent the days drinking coffee in the coolest coffee shops, exploring the coolest bars, and meeting great people, and i still have a day left which i plan to use to see the coast and to see yet more coffee shops!

Its odd traveling on your own again after so long with 2 mates always there, but when i get back to Sydney i have a feelign all will change again!! watch this space!

JONNY XX

Big Update

Hi everyone,

Upon reading my last blog, I decided it was rubbish, deleted it and am going to write you a new one.

Over the past two months while we've been in Sydney we have been experiencing Aussie life in all kinds of ways. From drifting on the ferry across the harbour to the city, to the busy city bars, surfing from Bondi to Manly and even on to Palm beach (setting for Home & Away - we're never too far from the celebs) and just popping into Mosman for a coffee. Its been a cultural experience very different from those of previous countries - aided by the fact we have spent more that three nights in the place before moving town.

For the last two weeks we've has some Pommy guests Dan and Lathy who flew all the way here just to see our little faces. So we've been living the tourist life's again - been to see the Sydney Swans play Aussie (no)Rules Football, the zoo, the blue mountains, opera house, botanical gardens, more Bondi, more Manly and more bars! Its been flat out.

The guys have headed back home now, Jon's in Melbourne, Jim has landed a job just outside Sydney and I have news of my own. I'm off to take on my own adventure. On monday I head off to Cairns to go get some sunshine, some work, some diving and hopefully not see a single spider. Yeah right. No we haven't all fallen out and want to kill each other, we still live in harmony. But its time for me to do a new thing, I can't stay in one place too long - not these days anyway. So my blogs shall come forth from Cairns, while Jon blogs from Melbourne for the next week and then both he and James from Sydney.

So that should just about bring you up to date. I shall be taking photo's on my own from now on and will try to get some up as soon as possible. Now I have to go out and buy some sun tan lotion and a baseball bat for fending off spiders.

Speak to you from Cairns,

Steve x x

The picture you have all been waiting for!

I have been inundated since people heard about this ( steve's mum) and since i confirmed the rumours in the last post yesterday (poppy). Here it is.

This is exactly what i wore, a 100% true represenation except i looked less like a hobbit as i had shoes on. And i actually only wore it for the first few days, as i looked just as much of a prat as this picture... And riley wasn't with me.

Enjoy, and laugh very load if you want. You wont be the first person to have done so.

jonny x