I was supposed to leave today....

but it's soo hard! When you wake up and you can hear the rain drumming on the roof, the thought of hitching is just so unappealing! So I'm stuck in Nelson once again... tomorrow I'm gonna leave for sure....

Anyway, what's new? I went busking yesterday for the first time ever! It was a glorious sunny day so I picked up my little guitar and headed into town. After trying one spot with no sucess I eventually bagged a spot by an ATM, so people had to stop right by me and couldn't feign poverty as I could see them withdrawing loads of cash! (a trick I learned from the homeless beggars of Leeds). At first no one seemed to even give me a second glance, so I changed tactics and started making songs up about people as they walked past... they were usually too embarresed to give me any money as they passed the first time.. they'd just look back over their shoulders and smile. But when they returned past me later, they'd already have a big pile of cash at the ready and dump on my little tartan guitar case! Woo Hoo!

Anyway, what else is news? Mmmmmm. Starting to learn a little spanish... slowly. Ola! Mi Mochila es Mal! (Hello! My backpack is ill!) . God I hate rainy days! What to do? I'm trying my hardest to remember anything remotely entertaining happening to me but I'm afraid I'm drawing a blank... Don't worry, I'm certain that S America is going to be full of exciting stories to tell! Right, I give up. Seeya!

hello!

I've had a funny day today. I went on a roadtrip with a bunch of guys from the hostel. They wanted to find some cows so that they could look for magic muchrooms in their shit, and after climbing a bitch of a hill we eventually found the cows, the shit, and the mushrooms... but we weren't sure whether they were the right ones because we'd only picked english mushrooms before... so, we headed to the town library and walked in there carrying a box of mushrooms and cow shit covered in mushrooms, and went to the natural science section... after looking at various books and laying out mushrooms and shit on the table, we finally found the right page and discovered that these were in fact magic mushrooms... probably. Which meant that maybe it wasn't really that clever being in a public library with them spread out all over the table!....

Anyway, I'm still in the Hostel Paradiso in nelson, wasting time.... should really leave soon i guess but I'm still quite set on the idea of doing some busking here.. i just need some sun... my little guitar is getting a lot of action ay the moment... starting to get really into this whole guitar/singling malarky.... forget working on computers man, they suck, guitars are the way forward. I think all ofiices acress the globe should switch their whole system over from desktop pc's to guitars, then for every task for which they used to need the pc, they could simply sit on down and sing a song! It wouldn't be particularly efficent, but it would be much more fun, and i think the general wellbeing of the employees would benefit as well.....

I made a thai green curry last night... it was bloody marvelous if i do say so myself... a bit on the spicy side, but that's all part of the experience i rekon... as was my 45 mins in the toilet this morning... ahhhh, thai curry.... :) It's nearly free soup time, so I'd better move soon.... in 5 mins the staff will bring out a big cauldren of soup and all the poor hungry backpackers will form a long tine to wait for their daily dose of nutrition... it's a heartwarming sight i can tell you.. shame the soup is the same every day... vegetable... but hey, free soup is free soup.. "beggers cant be choosers" as my grandad used to say... as well as "a dying man will eat a rat" which was one of his favourite comments when asked how he liked the vegetarian food my mum had made for him. anyway, off on a tangent there for moment... so, New Zealand... it's like an exagerration of Wales... the mountains are bigger, the lakes are deeper, and the sheep are even more attractive.... ok, time to go... seeya!

oops...

logged on to write big long blog entry but ended up banking.... how bring... now times almost up....

ok, speed blog time:

went to west coast with friends from Wanaka... stayed in hut by river... rained.... eaten by sandflies... got drunk... awesome. Tried to hitch to Franz Joseph Glacier... ended up on bus which stopped every 5 mins to visit another lame as tourist attraction like a salmon farm or a white bait stall..... arrived in franz Joseph and met up by chance with Irish Guy called Gary who i met on a bus in Java, Indonesia. Hung out for few days with hjim and other friends of his... saw glaciers... big chunk of ice.... rained.... climbed alex's knob... ran down his knob and ended up with fucked up legs... couldn't walk... tried to hitch to nelson in the rain.... got lift with nice german girl twins and french girl.... drove north into sunshine... sat in Spa watching stars drinking beer digesting thai red curry listening to waves break on shore.... then more rain..... then trekked abel tasman national park... forgeot to take a book... got cabin fever sitting in "hut" with nothing to do.... slept in hut full of smelly "trampers" (read: tramps) next to french guy who snored all night.... next day tramped back to start of track, wincing every step cos knees are fucked... stupid bloody knees.... got to nelson, said goodbye to the girls.... checked into Guesthouse Paradiso.... tried to rest but england playing tonga in rugby... wnet out, got drunk.... ended up at live drum and bass night.... tried to dance despite fucked knees.... woke up today... can't walk..... luckily its a public holiday so have excuse for doing nothing!! Pheeeeewwwww, that was faaast! ok, now maybe I'll try to expand on some of that until the time runs out....

bugger, time just ran out...

byeeee!

Hello from New Zealand!

It's been a while I know, but I haven't had internet and it's been so hard to� ahhh, who am I kidding, I've just been having too much fun and I couldn't be arsed!

So I left byron bay after more days of rain and jumped on a plane bound for Christchurch, which is on the south island of NZ. I'd spoken to Rob and Jess, a couple of my old skool friends from home, and found out that they were staying in Wanaka, a small town in the mountains. They told me that if I got a flight from Christchurch to Queenstown, they'd pick me up from the airport. So eventually I managed to buy this second flight online by pretending to be a Kiwi, and set off to catch my flight in Brisbane.

I landed in Christchurch at 10pm, but my flight didn't leave for Queenstown until 7:15am the next day. I'd read in my lonely planet that the airport closed at night, but I was damned if I was going to pay for a taxi into town and a hostel bed just for a few hours sleep, so I set about finding a good hiding place in the airport in which to build my nest. Unfortunately my trolley seemed to be determined to ruin my silent infiltration of the airport, and kept making a very loud clattering noise, which in the silence of the closed airport seemed deafening. Even when I moved really slowly it still made the same noise! But eventually I found a nice spot in the domestic terminal hidden behind some rows of cleared away seats and set about making myself at home. After about half an hour I was fully settled in with my sleeping bag and blankets and pillow spread out over a row of seats, and I stuck in my headphones and lay down to sleep. Then the cleaners saw me. Within about 5 mins a security lady was stood over me with walkie-talkie in hand. I reluctantly removed my headphones and gave her my best "Is there a problem officer?" look. Luckily she turned out to be very friendly and told me that I could probably get away with sleeping at the far end of the international arrivals hall, so I packed up my nest and headed off with my noisy trolley once more.

In the arrivals hall I found one guy already asleep on the bench, so I squeezed myself on and set about rebuilding my nest. I have to say that it was really quite a comfortable bed. My only complaint was that there was a huge fluorescent bulb directly over my head that kept shining in my eyes, but hey, it was a free bed!

I got up for my flight at 6:15am, and it was still dark. After checking in I went to the cafe and sat drinking coffee looking off into the darkness outside. As the sun slowly came up I was suddenly presented with the most awesome view I've ever seen from an airport caf�. I was completely surrounded by mountains. Bloody huge ones! And they were all snow capped, and the snow was pink. It was bloody marvelous.

Then I got into a rather tiny plane and flew right over these pink mountains (which slowly turned white) all the way to Queenstown. I have to say it was the most enjoyable flight I've ever taken. I arrived in Queenstown at 8am, my friends picked me up at 9, we arrived in Wanaka at 10:15 (after the car overheated coming through the mountains), I had a full set of free hire equipment by 11, and I was snowboarding down a mountain by 12. Not bad eh! We did have a little setback when the car overheated again halfway up Treble Cone (the ski mountain) and we had to hitch the rest of the way, but I think 24 hours between being on a rainy beach in Australia and being up a mountain in NZ with a board strapped to my feet is pretty damn good going.

That was all about 6 days ago, and since then I have been snowboarding for about 4 of the days, mountain biking today, and the remaining day was spent caned, wandering round "Puzzle world", which despite sounding a bit lame, is in fact the coolest "museum type thing" I've ever been to. Rob and Jessie have been ace and I've been so enjoying living in a proper flat and sleeping alone in a room. They are managing a backpackers hostel here and have there own little attached flat. The scenery here is without a doubt the most amazing I have seen anywhere, including the Himalayas in Nepal and India. It's just so diverse, and the colours are so varied and beautiful that everything seems like a painting. An average view goes something like this, starting from the bottom and working up: Green stuff like willow trees and bushes and shit; lake with reflection of the following; greeny browny yellowy bluey hilly mountain type stuff; snowy peaks of aforementioned mountains; blue skies and white clouds. The blue skies bit is kind of every other day, but it doesn't seem to rain for more than one day in a row here�. not like some countries whose names I won't mention�.

So yeah, if you like mountains and breathtaking scenery, come to New Zealand!

So what else has happened to me? Well, I have a gay haircut if that's interesting�. It all started back in Mission beach�..

I was travelling down the East Coast with this rather sexy girl called Alex who I met in mission Beach. We ended up having a bit of a fling, and the day before she left to catch her flight to Melbourne, she offered to cut my hair. She was a hairdresser by the way, if that makes things a little clearer. Now I was quite happy with my hair at the time; it was long and unkempt, and the only "styling" I needed to do after a shower was a vigorous towel dry. But Alex convinced me that she could do wonderful things to it, and I figured "right, if she thinks it looks good, then maybe other incredibly fit girls will also think it looks good, so what have I got to lose?" So I let her loose with her scissors, and she told me that she was going to do something a bit Paul Wellerish, leaving the length but taking off some of the bulk from etc etc� When she had finished I went off to find a mirror and examine my new barnet. I went back to the room and she asked me,

"So what do you think?"

"It's a mullet" I said.

"It's not a mullet!" she said, looking shocked.

"It's longer at the back than it is at the top and sides, that's a mullet" I said.

"It needs some wax!" she said, grabbing a tub of vaseline and smearing it into my hair. "Without wax it will look like a basin cut".

With Vaseline it looked marginally better, but as much as I tried to imagine myself as Paul Weller, I couldn't help seeing myself as Cleetus the slack jawed yokel from the Simpsons��. or any number of German porn stars�.. or any football player from the Mexico 86 World Cup��. There was no avoiding it, I had a mullet. In fact, let me rephrase that, I HAVE a mullet! My god, what have a done! I even bought some styling wax in the hope that it really would transform my basin like mullet into a super cool brit pop barnet, but all it seems to do is give me a greasy mullet��

I have to admit that as the days go by I am less and less shocked by my mullet, after all, it is a part of me, and I suppose I should love it just the same as I love my butt or my fingernails. Maybe, given time, my Mullet will grow on me�.. Hehehehehe, sorry, I couldn't resist it! :)

Ok, better go as the sun is shining and I have a book to read..... seeya!

Hey guys,

well, it's been a fairly eventful week i suppose.. in a painfully boring kind of way. The weather has been shit, i.e. rain, cloud, and fucking freezing. Byron bay is lame if you ask me. It's just a touristy seaside town with a packed beach and expensive accomodation. The place I'm staying is called the "Arts Factory".. that's a fuckin joke! The place was founded by hippies in the 60's and gained a reputation as a wild party venue and general far out place for bohemians and artists to hang out and be groovy. Up until a few years ago it was under the management of this guy called Jim, who now runs trips to Nimbin (see later entry), but apparantly his laid back style of management wasn't making enough cash, so it was handed over to a proper businessman who has been sucking the soul out of it ever since. To give you a few examples: Jamming hours are between 10am to 1pm and then 4pm to 10pm.. jamming outside of these hours is prohibited, as I discoved the other night when they confiscated my little baby guitar!! bastards! I wonder if the Ramones or the Pouges ever had this problem when they stayed there... Anyway, I got my revenge: I entered the "talent contest" and won it hands down by improvising a song about what a shithole the place is and how it's run by a bunch of mini hitlers. And they had to give me a prize for it! Ha!

The prize from the talent show was a trip to Nimbin! Well I'd already been but I thought fuckit, I'm bored so i may as well go again... Nimbin is a small village in the hills where the growing, selling, and smoking of drugs has become pretty much legal. It's pretty fucking wierd. Like a mini amsterdam in the hills. Lot's of messed up old hippies who've lost the plot, and young lads selling pot. Anyway, the tour is pretty cool. Jim (see earlier) is an old hippy who drives the bus. He basically takes everyone out there, everyone eats some "special" cookies, and then he drives around the countryside with good tunes blasting, showing you nice spots. At one point he stops up at the top of a big hill and tells a few stoner stories, and then says "ok guys, I used to do this thing where I drove down this hill really fast playing this scary pink floyd song...."

"Dooo iiiit!!!" we all cry from the back of the bus.

"Noooooo, go slow!" they all cry from the front of the bus, obviously freaking out on their first cookie experience.

"ok, I'll go moderately fast and play something a bit scary"... he tries..

"No! go slow!" all the pussies at the front whine.

"ok, I'll go slow.." he says, and flashes us a naughty grin...

He drives to the edge of the hill and we see that it is in fact a natural rollercoaster that goes on for miles. A perfect rolling "big dipper". The music starts to build up... I don't know the name of the track, but it's pretty intense.. and we're off! He floors the accelerator and we start hurtling down as the music builds. All the stoned people start whooping and waving their arms in the air as if they're at the fair... after about 5-10 mins of intense music and near death experiences, the road levels out, and he switches into "Three little birds" by Bob Marley to try and win back the pussies... :) Anyway, highly recommended, go try it....

I had a rather disturbing experience this morning. I came out of the shower in the communal bathroom and went to the wash basins to have a shave. At the basin next to me was this middle aged, red headed, slightly podgy and extremely naked man. No big deal i thought, it's a mens toilet, perhaps the shower was too cramped and he wanted some space to get dry.. I couldn't help noticing however that his dick wasn't quite as droopy as it should have been... But hey, how many dicks have i examined? None (except my own of course), so maybe he's just a bit of a freak... Then it got worse. He started applying moisturiser all over his body, but got a bit carried away whilst lubing up his groin. Bear in mind that I'm doing my best not to watch this, but I'm shaving in the mirror and it keeps catching my eye. Eventually I think fuckit, I have to check that this guy's not about to shoot his load over my leg, and I turn to look at him. There's no doubt now that he's got a hardon, despite the fact that it's embaressingly small, and it's also pretty clear that he's trying to crack one off right next to me.

"D'you wanna go and do that somewhere a little more fucking private?!" I say to him.

"No" he replys, but quickly starts getting dressed and leaves. So what the fuck was going on there?! When he started the sinks were all taken and it was pretty busy in there, but by the end it was just me and him, so maybe he thought the sight of him spanking his stunted monkey was going to get me all turned on and end with me inviting him into the end cubicle... Dirty old bastard. Looking back, maybe I should have clocked him one, but to be honest I didn't really fancy getting to close... eeeew.

I'm flying to New zealand in a few days now! Oz was over so fast! I've spent toooo fuckin much money, and I figure NZ is gonna be quite similar.... Oh well, just have to spend my whole time in S America chillin and doing nothing.... :)

ok, gonna go for now, but have unlimited internet here so maybe if another story comes to me I'll add it later....