Being the highly dedicated and passionate blog writer that I am, I have cleverly postponed posting (and indeed writing) the last of the blogs from my RTW trip until many months after I have returned home. Indeed it is only through a sense of wanting to "round off" the chronicles of my year away that I have eventually tied myself to the chair and forced myself to sit down and type out the following witty, enticing and salivating prose. So without further ado onwards.... When last we met our intrepid adventurers (me and some friends), we had just set off from [View Full Entry]

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After a short 4 hour ferry journey we were finally on the South Island after a week and a bit in the North, . We were heading west towards the famed and beautiful Abel Tasman National Park to do a bit of a hike. We found a spot near where all the water taxis leave from and settled down for the night. Us guys mucked around a bit, Deadman lost (and then retrieved) my skateboard over a cliff and Joel attempted to start a fire with wet twigs, the world's crappest fire ensued:) We accidentally slept in a lot later than [View Full Entry]

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As I sat in the plane on the way to Auckland, New Zealand I thought about some of the innumerable experiences that I had been through since I had last left the Southern Hemisphere; travelled through Europe and Africa (well one country each which may be stretching it!), spent two semesters on exchange in Montreal at McGill University, travelled through Western Canada and the Rocky Mountains, San Fran, Yosemite National Park, LA, San Diego, Hawaii and now finally the last stage of my year away awaited me, one month in NZ with friends. As I sat on the plane I also [View Full Entry]

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After the amazing time I had on Maui, , it was time to say goodbye and move on to the last, but definitely not least, Hawaiian island I would visit, The Big Island. The Big Island is actually the island with the name Hawaii, the group of islands commonly called Hawaii is actually the State of Hawaii, got it, good. The Big Island as it were is a nickname relating to the fact that it is in fact, big :P I rather bizarrely flew into Hilo from Maui via Honolulu and if you know you're Hawaiian geography, as I do, you [View Full Entry]

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Jumping on the plane to Maui from Oahu was the shortest flight of my life, no sooner had we climbed into the sky and reached cruising altitude than we began to descend. I think the flight was officially scheduled for just under half and hour. I was staying at a little hostel called the Banana Bungalow, it is not in the best area but it does run FREE tours everyday (repeated weekly) to different parts of the island, you only have to tip the driver at the end of the day. It is easily the cheapest way to see the island [View Full Entry]

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Stepping off the airplane in Honolulu on the Island of Oahu I was immediately greeted by a warm and pleasant breeze, a smile spread across my face and there was a little extra spring in my step. Its good to be alive. I jumped on the shuttle bus straight into Waikiki, found my hostel, put on my boardies and headed straight for the beach where I promptly got sunburned on the area of my back where I couldn't reach and consequently couldn't put sunscreen on:) I met a few people in the hostel and we headed out that night to sample [View Full Entry]

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Los Angeles Arriving in LA I was glad to finally feel the warm after the chill of San Fran, finally it was shorts, t-shirt and thong (flip flops for all you non-aussies out there) weather! I was staying in a hostel in the Santa Monica area for the first couple of nights before moving in with my cousin, Anita, her postcode is 90210, now that's cool. We met up that first night and she took me to a couple of very swanky and very expensive places for a few drinks with some of her friends, a few drinks soon turned into [View Full Entry]

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Yosemite National Park; the Heart of the Sierra Nevada. Everyone I had spoken to had said that it was the most beautiful place in the world so I was pretty excited to be spending some time there on a 2-night, 3-day camping trip. We were scheduled to leave at the ungodly hour of 6.45am so I duly borrowed someone's phone from the hostel to wake me up, it didn't work. Luckily I woke up at about 6.30 stared stupidly at the time, swore, jumped out of bed, panicked, swore some more, brushed my teeth, panicked, threw on some clothes and barrelled [View Full Entry]

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Landing on the plane and looking out the window I was a little sceptical of San Francisco's reputation for being a hilly city, indeed millions of people must have just been having a winge about a few little hills. It was a day or two before I realised my mistake. It was a big one. After arriving at this really cool little place called the Adelaide Hostel I decided to go for a walk in the remaining light of the day, this inevitably turned into a massive trek as these things inevitably do. I walked along the main street towards the [View Full Entry]

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So when last I left you we had just picked up the car in Jasper and spent the night just outside of town in a hostel. The next day we drove the 400km to Edmonton. The Rockies suddenly finished to the east of Jasper and instead of steep mountain peaks to keep us company we were suddenly among rolling hills along possibly the most boring road in the world, straight, wide, no features and only two one horse towns along the way, Hinton and Edson. We got to the HI hostel which is situated in probably the nicest area of town, [View Full Entry]

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