Cairns, NZ, Melb

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I havent posted on here for ages now so thought i would put up a very quick blog. I have tried to blog frequently during my year away but have never really got round to doing it so but i will try and keep everyone updated as much as possible as i have a lot coming up as i travel through asia in around 5 weeks.


In my last blog I was still in Cairns, I had just been fired and i needed money so i could head off travelling round New Zealand, i started to work in a bar/ brewery which was a really good laugh but wasnt i wasnt saving as much as i wanted so i had a word with the manager of Gilligans (hostel resort that i was working in) and surprisingly he agreed to re-hire me! I was now working 2 jobs and making good money for NZ, I was working loads of hours and over the weekend i was doing late nights in a bar n working early mornings in gillies so would get no more than 2 hours sleep a night....sounds hard but i was still having a wkd time! Cos i working quite hard and had already saved loads of money i started to become a little bit slack at the end and I ended up getting sacked a 2nd time by Gilligans, i think the turning point for them was when i turned up 3 hours late to a shift. Made a lot of my friends laugh, getting sacked twice but tbh it made no real difference to me as i was leaving in around a week or so. However, they did try and kick me out of my accommodation for the last week which was a bit of a pain! Anyhow i managed to stay in my room until me n vicky got our flight to NZ. Overall I stayed in Cairns for around 5 months, for good or bad it was a pretty eventful time in Cairns but i think its safe to say that Carins was the best 5 months of my life, i had such a laugh, went out all the time, met so many amazing people whom i imagine that i will stay in contact for a long time!

Anyway me and Vicky headed off to NZ, around 30 staff stayed up in our room til 5 in the morning to see us off which was a nice touch. Anyway, we arrived in Auckland an met up with a couple of ppl we know from Cairns and stayed with them, as we had worked quite hard in Cairns i saw NZ as a bit of a holiday, we stayed in Auckland for around a week, i mainly have a drunken hazy memory of auckland but we did to do cool stuff as well as boozing; one day we went dolphin and whale watching, the whole way dolphins were swimming alongside the boat and we managed to get a close look at a Brydge whale, which was nice. Me and Vick also went up the sky tower to a fine dining restaurant at the top, it was a great meal and we were 220 metres high and the restaurant looked over the whole city and rotated 360 degrees throughout the course of the meal so it was a great view, best restaurant i have been to! Anyway after auckland we got on a bus and over a 3 week period and travelled through the north and south island. NZ isn't as big as you would expect and the towns you stop at are pretty small, the main attraction of NZ is the activites and the scenery, im not really a scenery person buit some of the views are really quite amazing! Anyway through NZ me and Vick went on some great outings, the first major thing we did was caving. We were under ground for 3 hours, absailing through massive canyons, crawling through tight tunnels, climbing up underground waterfalls and we did this thing called tubing where there is an underground stream and you float in this stream in a tube, and they turn all the lights out and you float along, on the roof of the cave there are glow worms, so when you float along and look up it looks like a starry night! The second major excursion was glacier climbing, not a lot you can say about this aprt from we climbed this glacier, it took around 2 hours and was quite physical but agian was brillant! The last major excursion I did was in Queensland, I decided to do the Nevis bungy, it was 134m high and an 8 seconds freefall!! It was similar to my first bungy but a bit higher!

After New Zealand Me and Vick flew to Melbourne, we have been here for around 10 days now, we stayed in a hostel initially but now we have moved into a house with a few friends. The best way to describe this place is if anyone has sen the film fightclub then it is like a slightly nicer version of the old house in that film, its a direlict old factory! Haha, we have have a good laugh there though, we are moving out there tho soon into a nicer apartment soon hopefully. Last thing to add is that I have found work in Melbourne i wil be working as a salesman for a bit, its good money, they think that I will be here for a year but im only there for 4 weeks, they might be a bit pissed off but nevermind, the job has a really buzzy and young environment so loooking forward to starting there on Tuesday! Anyway I dont think that i have left anything out, I will be leaving Melbourne and heading off to Asia in a month, cant wait til that! Sorry bout the quality of the blog, hope ppl like reading it tho. Right i have to head off for a Saurday sesh now, starting with a barbeque and then heading out 2nite! speak to everyone soon.

Glen.

ps Congratualtion to Mr and Mrs Barker on their upcoming baby!

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