Dead Sea Not wanting to see anything of the apparently rather bland capital of Amman (In fact I didn't spend one day there, isn't travelling on a time limit fun), I decided to head to the Dead Sea instead. I managed to recruit these two Australian girls to come with me and we all headed off to the lowest spot on the face of the planet, 422m below sea level, to float around in water so salty that nothing can survive but microrganisms and the bizarre creature known to science as the "elderly German tourist". After a pain free trip there, [View Full Entry]

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Beirut is a city of contrasts and one undergoing rapid change. On the one hand you have tall, modern apartment buildings, ubiquitous with any city in the west, on the streets below numerous sleek designer stores compete for your Lebanese Lira. On the other hand though you have the bombed out and bullet riddled remains of a civil war era concrete shell, an armed military presence on most corners in the city and check points on the country's roads. Beirut is not a great city for tourists in my opinion, not too much to do and keep you occupied apart from [View Full Entry]

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Finally the Middle East, after a few weeks galivanting around Europe in an erratic, expensive and unblogged sort of way I had finally arrived in the destination I had planned to come to for months and had done no planning for beyond the rough outline of a route. Isn't travel fun! Aleppo (Halep) I'll admit it, I wasn't much of a fan of Aleppo. For reasons unknown to me (it could actually have been a number of things really, culture shock, missing someone, tiredness) the city and I did not really click. While the famed Souq was nice in parts it [View Full Entry]

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The sky grew darker at 2 in the afternoon on Thursday as storm clouds rolled in and the wind picked up. A massive bolt of lightning streaked across the sky followed seconds later by the accompanying rumble of thunder. We could see the torrential rains sweeping across the tent grounds and as they reached us a few minutes later we took shelter in a vendor tent and laughed. Off to a good start and we hadn't even seen any live music yet! Bonnaroo is a 4 day music and arts festival held in Manchester, Tennessee, which attracts some 80 to 90 [View Full Entry]

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We left Breckenridge late at night, the car full, the winter over, the mountain closed and my snowboard packed away. The next stage of adventure was about to begin. Las Vegas Matt took the first shift driving and I fell asleep for some much needed rest. When I woke we were out of the mountains and down the western side of the Rockies, the snow was gone, replaced by the dry, dusty brown landscape of eastern Utah, a stark contrast to the winter white. We were heading west [View Full Entry]

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I got a ride into Breckenridge with a guy I met on the bus, it was dumping snow, I smiled. For the first few days I stayed at the Fireside Inn, the only dorm in town and by far the cheapest place to stay. It was here that I met future room mates and partners in crime Marcos, Nacho, Pablo and Martin (Argentinian), Flavio (Brazilian) and Nick (Kiwi). First item on the agenda was to secure a warm and humble abode for the winter. All I wanted from a house was a hot tub and a deck covered in snow to [View Full Entry]

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Well that was that, I had handed in my honours thesis and was leaving university for the last time as a student. My flight was departing in 48 hours, surely enough time to organise the many, many loose ends before I fled in a desperate attempt to avoid the real world and prevent myself becoming a contributing member of society/taxpayer/desk jockey! I was determined to be more organised than when I left the country last time. . . . I was slightly successful. I still left in a mad rush but I knew the feeling so I was more comfortable with [View Full Entry]

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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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