Peru

Ok.So the previous entry ended with the fateful words of;
"we´ve decided to leave our wonderful group of friends and head to Copacobana tomorrow and Lake Titicaca and then onwards and upwards to explore Peru."
..this didn´t exactly go to plan. For one reason and another we got our (very easily twistable) arms twisted that very night and somehow ended up with a job at the wild rover itself...What followed was 4 weeks of extensive hilarity,much of which is unmentionable to parents and relatives as im sure you can imagine but it all passed way to quickly in a messy storm of cross dressing,terrible dancing and me trying my best to perfect my irish accent (which is still being judged as average to poor by most..). But seriously it was great fun,and made loads of new mates,two of which we met up with again in peru, and could see me going back in a few summers for a months work.. (like many before i think i´ve got stuck in the whirlpool of la paz!)
Soo,from la paz we finally tore ourselves away from the wild rover family and got a bus to copacabana on the shores of lake titicaca,we arrived just before sunset and promptly chucked our bags into a hostel (for 1 pound 50 a night,score.) and ran up the hill overlooking the town with the rest of the population to watch the sunset itself.A good deal sweatier we made it just and it was well worth it,i hadnt quite imagined the scale of the lake,you´d think it was the sea to look at it until you realise you´re a good 2 or 3000 metres up.
Because we had spent so long enjoying ourselves in la paz it meant we onyl had about 3 weeks to cover peru,oops. Consequently there was a big shock to our systems as we had to a)be organised and b) get up early.
However,get up early we did.remarkably. At 8 o clock we stumbled to get the ferry to the isla de sol on lake titicaca which is stacked with incan history,we handily though only left ourselves an hour on the island so in the blistering sun we sprinted around the island taking in as much as possible and in the process nearly missing our boat.The island was beautiful with amazing views of the lake itself and the mountains of bolivia in the distance,we also managed to take in a few of our first incan ruins which were pretty fascinating,as with all we´ve seen they all seem practically untouched and unaffected even after 500 or 600 years. Annoyingly though, as i said, we had to leg it back on the boat to grab a bus from copacobana to arequipa in peru.
Rich is to blame for the next set of errors,he remarked firstly "we havent missed a bus the whole trip yet..",and yep..we missed it. However we managed to jump on one across the road and got into peru.Once in arequipa,rich again tempted fate, "it´ll be fine-we´ve never failed to get a hostel.." Consequently the first 3 or 4 hostels we went to were full and i was considering letting rich go as he seemed to have become a bad omen..We did find somewhere though thankfully. Arequipa was a beautiful city which could easily have been France or Spain on first look,with a lovely square in the centre where all the people seemed to congregate. The peruvians also seem alot more friendly and open than the bolivians as they all tried their best to get me and Rich to sign up to one of their tours. This we did eventually and were due to be picked up at 3 o clock the next morning o a tour of the colca canon tour.
The Colca tour lasted 2 days and 1 night.We firstly stopped off in the morning at a look out point to catch a glimpse of the condors with about a thousand other tourists (mostly americans),the condors were absolutely HUGE. Their wingspan was something like 3 metres,and they seemed to perform for all the onlookers sweeping right past everyone for some handy photo opportunities..From there on we started our hike,the first day we walked a fair distance in pretty harsh heat along both sides of the canyon (which is deeper than the grand canyon so im told..) with our funny crew of 6 spanish and 2 dutch,led by a tiny peruvian called salomé who looked about 13 and was an absolute pocket rocket. We arrived at our very nice little over night spot as the sun was going down which had a pool to soothe my feet which in standard fashion had been ripped to shreds by my boots which must be about a size and a half too small. The scenery on the way was pretty incredible,alot more of a desert look about it all as we followed the river from higher up,passing through remote villages and crossing dodgy bridges. The next morning at the unenjoyable time of 430, we rose to do the last and hardest part of the trek,a 3 hour uphill slog at altitude. I still hadnt shrugged off my illness at this point (lets call it ´la paz lurgy´) and really struggled which wasnt too nice but we made it eventually,admittedly looking like shadows of our former selves. We then visited the hot springs before catching a night bus to Cuzco which was 40 degrees but good for the phenomenal (yet impressive.) amount of blisters we seemed to have collected between us...
Arriving at cuzco blurry eyed early on in the morning,we could already tell it was a beautiful place,lots of old stone buildings and quaint squares.We spent a few days wandering around the numerous little markets and getting hassled by lots of sweet little peruvian women "mr!you want massage?good price!" (rich did eventually give in one day and get a massage...) We also managed to get a sweet slice of home at an english pub there called the Real McCoy where i finally found a full english breakfast (sorry mum) which was awesome. We then met 3 friends from the Wild Rover in La Paz,2 who we´d worked with behind the bar,Laurence and Dave, and Gi aswell. Rich,Laurence Dave and me booked a trek to Macchu Picchu while we said a fond farewell to Gi who had to leg it up to colombia for a mad few weeks before flying to canada for a year (its a hard life for some...).
The ´Salkantay´trek we booked was 5 days and 4 nights and was...painful. Its one of the most physical of all the treks and we covered just over 80 km in the first 4 days with a visit to Macchu Picchu on the final day. Everyone of us struggled at some point or another but all made it (admittedly looking like we´d all just come back from some epic battle with any number of limps,bruises and blisters..) The first day was a pretty easy 20 km walk to our first camp in the shadow of Salkantay,a real giant of a mountain,standing at a grand snowcapped 6300 metres. We all stayed in tents for the first 3 nights,and teh first night was the toughest because of the cold.Unfortunately,both Dave and Rich contracted the same illness at the same time the night before the trek began (blaming me as the cause...) so really struggled teh first few days. Thus,the first night was ripe with the sounds of the two invalids coughing and spluttering incessantly...The 2nd day was sold as the hardest by our guide,Henry. As all teh guides seemed to be Henry was about 5 foot 3 and had absolutely nothing to him,despite this i´d say he could probably walk twice as fast as us no problem,making us all feel ever so slightly inadequate..Anyway yes, the 2nd day. All teh guides callld it ´The gringo killer´,which was helpful.And 3 hours in we could tell why. The first half of the day was effectively all uphill on rough terrain at over 4000 metres. Me and laurence rather selfishly left the two invalids behind us and raced up,we were very proud of ourselves for beign about the 4th or 5th to the lunch stop,especially as most groups had left about an hour before us-this did leave a 2 hour wait for the rest of our group however which involved alot of sleeping and moaning about general aches and pains..After a stay in a much warmer but equally spectacular campsite we embarked on our longest day, a 32 km epic which finished spectacularly in some thermal springs in the middle of teh Andes at night. The last 16 km were optional and we were the only 4 of about 80 people doing the trek at the same time to walk it as they all took vans to the next campsite. This was foolish,very foolish and we hobbled into teh campsite feeling both very proud,but stupid. Thsi meant teh next days walk to Aguas Calientes(base town to Macchu Picchu) was the toughest for me personally,i was completely nackered and felt as though my thighs no longer existed. We were fairly slow due to our exhausted states so arrived in the horribly touristy but spectacularly placed Aguas Calientes at night...
And so as the sun rose we walked the last few steps up to Macchu Picchu gate and the trek climaxed spectacularly as we looked over Macchu Picchu in bright sunshine.It was really worth all the effort we put in,and Macchu Picchu was more impressive than i´d imagined. The sheer setting of the lost inca city,placed precariously in a seemingly impossible place amidst the high peaks. I was also fascinated aswell at how the stone work was all so well retained,despite 600 years of being totally exposed to the elements,so so worh it. We spent a good 3 or 4 hours lazing aorund Macchu Picchu taking it all in,not just the city itself but the views from the city across all the other mountains and valleys. And it makes us three of the family to make it to Macchu Picchu,Mum all those years ago (i know she wouldnt like me to say how long ago..!) and Barley a few years ago. The four of us stumbled down from Macchu Picchu eventually to the town and rewarded ourselves with an overexpensive but lovely buffet for all our effort before our train back to cuzco.
From cuzco the next day we said goodbye to Dave who´s travelling for a little longer round S.A and us three took a night bus to Ica to play around in teh sandunes. We tooka dune buggy across the dunes,which was a great rollercoaster ride due to a good reckless driver and tried out some sandboarding down the dunes. We were all awful.Me probably the worst of the bad bunch,while the others tried the technique i rather lost patience and just tried my best to bomb it down the dunes,which consequently meant i got sand.everywhere.It was great fun though and nice to have a bit of sunshine at lower altitude after so long in La Paz and Cuzco at high altitude,i no longer feel like an old man walking down the road!And from there we took abus to Lima where we are now.Lima is pretty grim but we are only here one more night before we fly hoem tomorrow!It has been the most amazing trip,covered 8 countries over 5 or 6 months and however many thousand miles by air,sea,campervan,bus,train..and met so many people and seen so many things and then back to sleepy old cheltenham tomorrow,it will all be very odd!But it feels th right time to go back to begin new things at university and beyond. If you´ve bothered to read my blogs,i feel sorry for you being subjected to my awful grammar, spelling and general descriptions that tend to make things sound much worse than they actually were!But thanks if you did.
Over and out.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Boliviaa

My dear followers,Firstly can i put forward the usual sincere apologies regarding my intense laziness in keeping you informed of my movements around the world,I can only put this down to having simply too much fun.I am in La Paz at the moment (capital of Bolivia),we´re at about 4000 metres altitude,which consequently means that i´m hideously out of breath after walking down the street and feel like a decrepid old man, but I´m sure it´s good for me! It´s a pretty amazing city,nestled in a huge bowl of mountains with buildings seemingly built wherever possible,some on impossible gradients (look at a pictures,it would probably do it alot more justice..)I left you last in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was noticeably different from everywhere else we´d been in Argentina,everything on a rather different scale and alot more colonial and high rise buildings.It seemed alot more like a European city to me,perhaps a little more hectic,but nevertheless one of those places where you can just walk around all day without getting bored just seeing the sights. Our pretty mainstream,traveller hostel was just a 5 minute walk away from the widest avenue in the world which provided alot of immature amusement for both us and the argentine public in watching 4 boys race each other across the avenue before the lights turned green.Cheap thrills...Went to a really nice area called La Recolecta and went to the La Recolecta cemetry (which was eerily similar to the Pere Lachaise cemetry in Paris) which housed all the famous various Argentine celebrities and politicians if yesteryear.It´s not like a typical British cemetry,it was like a miniature town,oddly serene and quiet in the centre of this loud,bustling city. Their are no graves,just family mausoleums which were like sets of small houses. The big attraction there was the grave of Eva Peron (Evita) which was a bit liek Oscar Wilde´s in Paris in how tokens of adoration had been left by the Argentinian public. It was pretty hard to get near because it was so popular,but a good thing to say you´ve seen. Also went to the art gallery there which was full of alot of rubbish and some hilarious modern art but I´m sure Mum will be relieved that I´ve done a little bit of culture...!After a week in BA we took a monstrously long bus to Iguazu falls,which were INCREDIBLE. I had nowhere near prepared myself for the actual scale of the falls,about 2.7 km long.It was also nice to be in a more tropical climate,and the park was set up really well so you could stroll through jungle canopies and then ended up on walkways above the falls.I realise this hasn´t been a great description but try if you can to look at pictures..But yeah it was definitely among the highlights of the trip and worth the journey across half of Argentina...In a rather non-sensical route we then almost retraced our steps in an even more ridculous set of bus journeys to the Argentine-Bolivian border. Then from there we crossed the border on foot surrounded by the typical old women who seem to have the ability to carry the most amazingly huge heavy bundles on the back with no effort at all,bolivians are hard.From there we finally arrived in Uyuni,a dead base town for tours to the salt flats. Our tour was postponed a little due to me cleverly contracting a chest infection (which i thought in the middle of the night was anything from a heart attack to a collapsed lung,I was in fact just being rubbish.)We embarked on our 3 day tour with two dutch girls(who as all dutch seem to be were ridiculously nice and laughed alot at our jokes,which is always a rare novelty...) and an argentinian couple who´s english was amazing which was lucky because the driver couldnt speak a word of english,soo i resorted to the old standby of grinning like a lunatic and pointing,god my spanish is awesome. The salt flats were insane in the membrane,it´s basically a massive expanse of nothingness and is twice the size of the english channel but made entirely of salt,and you have to wear sunglasses aswell because you can get snowblindness,weird.We stayed the first night in literally the middle of nowhere and played football with the ridiculously cute kids in the sunset.Our ´hotel´was really odd,made entirely of salt,salt floors salt beds salt chairs,did i mention there was loads of salt?And it was absolutely freezing i slept with 5 layers on,stupid.We had to get up at like 4 and 5 in the morning which was painful...but then we went up to the mountains (about 5000 feet) and saw some awesome scenery and also had a blissful half an hour in this thermal pool next to a massive lake,kind of like an infinity pool but all naturally heated by the sulphur in the ground which was ace.especially as i hadn´t felt my feet in two days...After a nights recovery after the 3 day tour of the salt flats we went up to the highest city in the world,Potosi,which is a pretty cool thing to say i guess. The city gates read " I am rich Potosi,treasure of the world,king of all mountains,envy of all kings", and indeed once Potosi was the richest city in the Americas due to it´s silver deposits,but also has one of teh worst slavery records in history,10 million slaves are reported to have died in Potosi..There was alot of classic heavy breathing,and generally feeling unfit and after a day spent experiencing quite how averge England are at football, we booked a tour down the Silver mines. It was a bit of an eye opener,because the conditions there are horrendous and its not touristy at all,bent double and breathing in nocious gases. We went with a guide called Daniel who was a bit of a nutter,basically we just explored the mines and chatted to these miners for about 2 hours,regrettably they chose to share their drink with us,which was 80 percent poison.brilliant.So yeah after 5 hours in the airless pitch black mine we wobbled out later,with Daniel twisting our arms into going with him to the local ´discotek´ later on.This proved to be h.i.larious.It turns out that daniel is a sex obsessed adulterer,which was great.The club was funny aswell,they are all really old fashioned and the men and women keep an odd one yard rule from each other which i thought was jolly encouraging..And from Potosi we dropped into Sucre which was quaint but not much going on,and arrived in La Paz. We are currently in an irish hostel called the Wild Rover which is famous all over South America. It basically specialises in getting everyone very very merry,but its stacked with irish,which i love as you can imagine and everyone´s so friendly,we´ve met more people here probably than the rest of the trip put together!So yes spending my days with any number of eomaghs,padraigs and siobhans,the problem is the hostel is quite addictive and you can easily spend days just in the hostel (we spent 2 days without leaving the hostel,oops.sorry mum) But have done things aswell!We did the Death Road a few days ago,which is teh most dangerous world in the world,about 150 km of mountain biking along 3 metre wide roads with 200 metre precipices on your left side. There have been I think 30 cycling deaths in the last 10 years?It was pant-wettingly scary,especially considering I haven´t ridden a bike in a good 3 or 4 years.But it was so so worth it,me Rich and a guy called Jack,a young lad from Tipperary (spelling?) whoworks at the Wild Rover did the road with a few others. The weather wasn´t too great up top which made things a little more disconcerting,cycling through fog and not knowing how steep the drop is isnt the biggest comfort...But as we got lower down and a little more confident (I think i might even have let go of the brake once or twice,remarkable.) the weather opened up and we were dwarved by the amazing valley and scenery in the distance. The ride finally ended rather calamitously with me in a moment of bravado serenely careering into a rock in the last 10 metres of the ride,I can cycle down the most dangerous road in the world but not along a flat country track,not sure if that´s a good thing...And at the end we were treated to a buffet next to a pool in tropical temperature where everyone suceeded in getting bitten to death by mossies but were too tired to care,it was more the mental concentration of trying not to be an idiot and keep safe that takes it out of you....La Paz is a wonderful city,so vibrant and colourful and full of those indigineous bolivian women carrying impossibly large bundles. We´ve visited all the locak markets including the Witches market which focuses on anything made of llama but also sells llama foetuses which are pretty bloody rank,but are meant to provide good luck,not sure what british customs would have to say if i strolled through customs with a llama foetus on my shoulder...We also went to the wrestling aswell,which was very very amateur,and very very funny,all the wrestlers were over the age of 40 and indulged in some hilariously fake and rather long-winded warfare.They threw people into the crowd etc which was entertaining,i missed the midget fight aswell which i´m still aggrieved about.So yes,as i am nearly at the end of my 2nd week in La Paz and the Wild Rover,we´ve decided to leave our wonderful group of friends and head to Copacobana tomorrow and Lake Titicaca and then onwards and upwards to explore Peru.
Missing home loads but only 45 days or something silly so we better get our move on and stop enjoying ourselves so much...
Love to everyone xxxxx

end of NZ and beginning of south americaaa

Hello hello hello hello!
As usual I've been woefully unimpressive in my attempts to keep you up to date with my movements around the world,I've been informed by different members of the family to keep my posts less lengthy and more frequent-I've clearly ignored this request rather spectacularly,apologies...
So i´m writing to you now from Buenos Aires in Argentina which is a world away from sleepy New Zealand where i left you last,so i´ll fill you in. From Timaru we drove the old banger up to Christchurch,the biggest city on South Island and very very english.
The next morning I took the bus from Christchurch to go meet cousins,Thomas and Tamsin and the girls in a sleepy little town called Fairlie in the country 2 or 3 hours away close to Lake Tekapo. I was met at the bus by the gaggle of William-Pawlett´s all a fluster with the always awkward arrangements of the children´s birthday party,and as usual I was surprised by how much the girls are growing up-Harriet especially,mainly due to the key fact she now both looks AND talks to me which I had practically given up hope of...The weather around Lake Tekapo was absolutely beautiful and we had a lovely few hours lazing around the shores of the lake,got to see the famous sheepdog monument there in honour of the work all the sheepdogs have done over the years for New Zealand agriculture. After a little drive we had a welcome hot drink at the observatory perched in typical New Zealand fashion on top of a hill that seemed to have no right to be there at all. Surrounding the observatory on all sides was almost a wall of mountains with the rather surreal sight of the famous 'long white cloud' crawling it's way over the valleys and peaks like water,it's quite hard to do the event justice but it was pretty incredible...It was a pleasure to be treated to some homecooked food by Tamsin,the diet in a campervan is somewhat limited to a general plethora of tinned beans and soups.Another just as relaxing day followed as I did my best to repay Thomas and Tamsin's generosity by occupying the kids as much as i could and providing the usual service of human climbing frame. I got a tour of Thomas' school in Fairlie and it was unimaginably small but Fairlie as a town is quite a quirky little place as well i suppose,nestled in the shadow of undulating mountains that brought back memories of many a lake district holiday. Would've liked to get to Mount Cook but Thomas was feeling a little under the weather,and it was just such a nice day that lolling around in the sun at a farm restaurant with attractive schoolgirls serving gourmet pies seemed not a bad option at all...I think Fairlie probably provided the most effective detox and rehab from the temptations of the city that you could imagine and so useful having close family in New Zealand.And so after a lazy morning and send off from Tamsin and Harriet I headed back to Christchurch for Jack's birthday. We went to a really nice restaurant in the centre of town where you could cook your own scallops and fillet steak on a hot stone plate in front of you,although probably a foolish financial decision it was definitely worth it and probably came more under the bracket of 'flashpacking' rather than backpacking...
As the others left for Auckland due to a slightly earlier flight I had a day wondering around on my own in Christchurch and successfully saw every possible cultural thing there within the space of an hour,the cities there really don't have too much to them,especially in comparison to some of the South American cities..

Met Rich who had been down in Dunedin with some of his family in the evening and we were kindly allowed to stay in his godfather's house in the suburbs of Christchurch on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. The Storey's had some envious sporting pedigree,one of the sons rows for New Zealand,the other son plays hockey for new zealand and the daughter,Jenny rows for Junior New Zealand,made me feel ever so slightly inadequate!(I blame the parents...)Jenny and the parents were lovely though,if not slightly mad and it's always nice to have free accommodation once in a while!We ended up spending another day at the Storeys having a nice walk along the beach just outside the house and being educated in the complete other world that is the life of a New Zealand teenager from Jenny. We finally escaped the homely surroundings and embarked on an epic road trip spanning both islands back to Auckland on north Island,me and Rich made a stop at Hamner springs and lazed around for a good few hours in 40 degree natural sulphur heated pools,which had an impressively disgusting aroma...Me and Rich then subsequently spent the next few hours awkwardly trying to retain some sort of manly pride by drinking beer and eating burgers to try and counteract the effeminate fact that yes.we had gone to a spa together.
After a pretty rank sleep in the car park at the ferry port we got a 6 o'clock ferry to north island and made some more boring progress up North Island.We stopped off in Taupo to further confirm our manliness by watching two super 14 rugby games back to back. We finally arrived in Auckland the next day for a quick change and then off to our third and last rugby game against local rivals Waikato Chiefs,again not a full crowd,for a country where rugby is their national game the turnouts are rubbish. After a strictly uncultural night me and Rich began a bit of a sit-in in our hostel in Auckland for 3 or 4 days before our flight to south america.This consisted of much sleeping,films and chats with mostly dull public schoolgirls...Then after an incredible 5 or 6 weeks we finally got a flight out of rainy New Zealand to Santiago in Chile.I think i can safely say that Fiji and NZ were a bit of a holiday and South America signalled the beginning of travelling.
It was so refreshing to get to a country where they spoke a foreign language,neither mine nor Rich's spanish is particularly fluent or in real truth,existent at all...However Rich being basically fluent in French means he can communicate in some sort of Franco-Spanish ramble. I however have resorted mostly to the old standby of grinning like a loon,shouting random Argentinian footballer's names and pointing,the general result of this pantomine is poor Roberto,Miguel or Eva thinking i've asked for a guinea pig when all i want is some water-but hey ho it's all fun and games in the end...
So yes,back to Santiago,it consisted of a-lot of sleeping,we crossed the international date line on the flight from NZ to S.America which basically makes me unable to function apparently.Although going to bed for 19 hours is fun I couldn't help but think i was missing out on some sights. But we did have a good explore of Santiago,absolutely stacked with street stalls and just generally a phenomenal amount of people.We walked around for hours which was nice just to be able to experience a different culture,although South Americans have an unnerving of habit of staring,probably because we're the only two teenagers in the whole continent with blonde hair...Took in a bit of culture to keep my old mother happy,a few abominable churches with some terrifically tacky scenes..From Santiago we took a funny little minibus with a selection of Chileans over the border to Mendoza in Argentina through the Andes. It was a pretty amazing car journey,new snow had just fallen on the massive mountain passes which we drove through and it was stunning.After a short stop at the mountain top border crossing with lots of shivering (there's no danger of us getting a tan here i fear..)and hoping no one on the bus was trying to smuggle a substantial amount of cocaine across the border we made it to Mendoza.
The uncomfortable perch of a campervan bed has now been replaced by the dulcit tones of snoring germans in bunk beds,i'm not sure which atmosphere i prefer but jolly entertaining either away. Mendoza was a lovely city,it was the 200th anniversary of something patriotic and important so the main plaza where everyone gathered during the day had live music and huge crowds which generated a nice carnival atmosphere..We met up with Alex,Jack and Suze who seemed rather more shocked by the language and culture change from New Zealand,convinced that a mugging was only just round the corner but everyone here's really friendly and doesn't seem threatening at all-perhaps i'm a little too laid back!Mendoza signalled the start of my search to find my greatest ever steak and proved pretty fruitless,probably due to a limited budget but I continued to get steak every night in my carniverous quest. Among the standard strolls and shopping in Mendoza over the next few days we went on a wine tour through the Argentinian countryside. The company was run by a fantastic old man called Mr Hugo,who's a perfect version of everyone's favourite,borderline alcoholic uncle.Between the 5 of us we hired two tandem bikes and a single which was awesome fun. In a homage to my two elder sibling's ridiculous buy of a tandem at home,we wobbled around the probably fairly dangerous argentinian roads sampling any number of olives,olive oils,chocolate,beer,absinthe and wines to the apparent joy of the argentinian public who honked their horns and chatted to us as we struggled to fight against our obvious lack of fitness.. This rather devastating diet was indulged in under a lovely argentinian sunshine and as the sun started to set the group of fairly sweaty teenagers wobbled back to Mr Hugo for some free wine and dodgy spanish conversation with much merriment. After a lovely few days we got a bus down to Cordoba which was nothing special,apart from a very odd exhibition at the museum of real human body parts displayed in rather too much detail which showed how the body systems worked etc,jolly interesting but pretty nauseous stuff!And from there we arrived here in Buenos Aires.
I'll fill you in soon on the events of Argentina's massive capital but I'm afraid the long queue of 10 travellers behind me waiting for the computer means i'll wrap this up as i fear being mobbed...
Lots of love to general friends and family from an unwashed Theo in desperate need of a haircut..
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

skydives and scenery

hello hello hello!
so i left you last time when i'd just got to auckland so sit back and prepare yourself for some dodgy grammar and overexcited rambling.Right, after a right off of a sunday due to overexertions the night before in Auckland,me and Rich rented a car and decided to head east to the Coromandel peninsula on a bit of a whim.The drive was pretty incredible,navigated wonderfully by yours truly we drove along the pacific coast and from that headed across a particularly treacherous mountain pass which nearly proved too much for our cheeky little toyota (named diana,goddess of the hunt) and arrived in Coromandel town. This area of NZ is pretty backwards and like alot of new zealand towns revolved around one main street,it was a picturesque little place in a lovely bay with quality fish and chips and sleepy pool bars. The few days after we visited a selection of amazing beaches and coves,especially Cathedral cove which was almost the furthest east anyone can be in the world-where the old explorers thought the world ended,weeird.Talking of weird-Barley's just sent me an email wondering whether new zealand "is a really odd place populated by odd people"?Bluntly,yes.The people our age are all annoyingly massive but have an odd passion for sculpting their hair into a 'mullet' resembling the road kill we pass every day and are epicly unapproachable but hey ho NZ is stacked with travellers anyway!To please various parents we planned a walk up some mountains called the pinnacles (only about 2000 metres)from the start it was immediately apparent we were desperately out of shape,luckily (and very oddly) we didn't see one person the entire walk so noone had the pleasure of coming across two sweating english wrecks struggling up the mountain...it was actually a bloody hard ascent and descent,ladders and proper rock climbing involved so it was good fun and the view was ridiculous,in fact the scenery everywhere is just mindblowing..we did absolutely race it up and down however,which might have explained the immense blisters that still are decemating my foot as we speak..
We met up with the 6 others who we were with in fiji back in auckland and also met 4 cheltenham college girls from home,very small world-throughout we've developed an amazing knack of picking up over excited private school girls with big hair,nothing really changes!We then all went to watch Auckland Blues play Western Force at rugby which was awesome again,even if it is the most frustrating brand of rugby to watch ever..After some monstrously expensive nights of debauchery in auckland the 8 of us hired some campervans to tour new zealand with. Mine and Rich's is a beautiful streamlined thing (kind of..) called Deano,and so we set off from Auckland on the open road in a convoy of 3.
Apparently in NZ they call campervans 'maggots' due to their white sluggishness on the motorways (this very much is the case),we however travelled in ignorant bliss through north island with the sound of R'n'B classics volume 1 blaring through Deano's primitive speakers..on the way south a few issues occured..1.Deano's spare wheel came off his undercarriage,2.Deano's wheel bounced into the path of Jack and Suze's van which they missed narrowly. To various parents,this never happened.(To everyone else it did,and ended up to be rather amusing..) With the help of an english policewoman,Jack's handyman skills on the chassis of our van,bungee ropes from Gotley and some unhelpful attempted project management from me,we got Deano back on the road. It seems the van has hardly anything that works to it's full capacity,while others would find this annoying I find it slightly endearing and pretty retro to be honest..

We had some great stops along the way down North island. We went luging in Rotorua which is basically just bombing it down a phenomenally dangerous track at a huge gradient on tea trays on wheels-great boyish fun!Taupo was a really cool town and Lake Taupo was pretty stunning-its the size of Singapore after all-the weather was a real pleasure aswell and we came across something called 'the craters of the moon'-it was fairly phenomenal though lacked alot of resemblance to the moon..Basically all over NZ there are lots of sulphur clouds that decide to burst out of the ground in a fairly dramatic fashion and so we went through a kind of apocolyptic battlefield picture filled full of sulphur geysers and red hot craters...We've stayed in some funny places so far.. from campsites to caravan parks to the side of the road. Free campsites are hard to come by though, and sleeping on the side of the road is not particularly loved by the locals,i'd personally find it quite amusing seeing 6 unshaven,grossly unclean teenage boys tumbling out of vans in the morning wondering round town looking for a shower,but each to their own.
Our last stop in South Island was Wellington,it is the tiniest capital city you will ever see-it's only just bigger than Cheltenham set in a bay at the very end of S.Island,got a look at a colossal squid in the museum which was impressive (and hilariously ugly) and after being overloaded with lots of useless squid-related facts decided we'd treat ourselves to a few nights in a hostel. Wellington basically consisted of lots of going out (sorry Mum) even though it is meant to be off-season in NZ it is still packed with travellers mostly our age and you find that a massive group of travellers (tour buses etc) seem to follow each other round New Zealand which is jolly amusing!Yes so after lots of unmentional antics in the eventimes and a tiny amount of culture we took the ferry across to South Island.
Firstly,South Island has the most INCREDIBLE scenery i have ever seen,even just the drives we make between places are impressive,and unfortunately you do have to do a-lot of travelling because NZ has alot of open space..So yes we raced it down to Franz Josef Glacier,we got there in a literal hurricane which wasn't much fun-we didn't actually see the glacier for two days it was that bad. I've been hardened to this kind of situation thorugh many a holiday with the family in the Lake District crippled by rain but it was massively frustrating as i wanted to do my skydive there,but it was called off because of the weather. The next morn Me,Alex and Rich got up remarkably early for us and finally managed to do the walk to the base of the glacier before it was engulfed by cloud and it was well worth it.I'd always wanted to go see the Khunbu icefall under Everest and this seemed to be the next best thing,a huge expanse of ice that seemed to have just jammed itself in the middle of the huge range of mountains and all around were waterfalls and massive boulders left there by the retreating glacier.awesome. I'm afraid my photos will be rammed full of views and hope it does them some kind of justice!)Following Franz Josef we drove down via Wanaka to Queenstown,the adrenaline and traveller capital of NZ-it did not disappoint..Queenstown is a funny little town plonked on the banks of Lake Wakatipu surrounded by really striking mountains and the beginnings of the Remarkables range which are like no other mountains i've ever seen-imagine the mountains you draw as a kid,loads of pointy triangles..then times them by about 10000.These mountains are the main ones used in the Lord of the Rings films and were pretty special..Though it's a town-Queenstown is basically full of a city's population of travellers-everyone was in the same position,tight on money but just too much temptation everywhere to not spend money.Whether it was Fergburger (best burger bar in new zealand-Barley,just imagine roosters,minus the charming general manager and plus the use of real meat),the numerous sports shops,ludicrously cheap bars or enormous selection of bunjee jumps,jetboats and skydives..It was Rich's 19th birthday while we were there so we celebrated it in typically restrained style (ahem) and saw him another year older with a bang. The nightlife was awesome in Queenstown and we met loads of hilarious and chilled out people (alot of them Irish) at the blessedly warm bars (NZ is freezing!big shock from Fiji).

And then i did my skydive. I've wanted to do one all the way through New Zealand and i did it yesterday. I'll warn you now this could be an embarassingly hyperbolic, self-indulgent and gushing description of the event. To start with,the weather was perfect,not a cloud in the sky (so lucky considering they had floods in Queenstown a few days before) and a fresh layer of snow had been sprinkled over the Remarkables. I took a bus out about 10 km from Qtown with the usual mix of loud public school girls and silent asian men and rocked up at the skydiving centre. You rather disconcertingly see everyone take off and land as you wait to do it but i wasn't nervous at all which was odd,so we all got suited up and checked about a million times that all the equipment was safe(which i was glad about!) and i met the 'divemaster who i'd do the jump with called Flash. All of the instructors are complete maniacs but great at doing their job and calming you down etc,i was just one of two jumping from 15000 foot,the highest you can do it in NZ (i thought if i was going to do it i'd do it properly..) so consequently was last out of the plane. The plane is more of a glider and is so so tiny,they cram in 4 jumpers and 4 instructors in a tube about 5 metres long and 2 metres high.THe views were mindblowing,you could see both coasts of New Zealand and Mount Cook perfectly from the plane.Everyone jumped out in what seemed like an instant and it was just me left,we shifted over so i was hanging out of the plane and i nearly wet myself. The first 2 seconds were the most terrifying/exhilirating thing ever,basically we backflipped out so we were looking at the plane as we went down. We freefalled for 60 seconds and reached 200 kilometres per hour in the process,after the first few seconds of terror you enjoy it immediately and the adrenaline is the most amazing thing ever!The noise and cold just attacks you as you fly but i was making sure i remembered everything and the incredible views because alot of people say it's a huge blur. So we fell from 15000 feet to 5000 in 60 seconds.mad. And then he pulled the parachute and the explosive noise turns to complete,serene silence.And that gives you time to take in the view,the most incredible i have,and might ever see,the Lake,all the snow capped mountains of South Island with Mount Cook rising serenely from the blanket of clouds."How was that bro?sweet as,ey?"That was a bit of an understatement Flash...(i also have no explanation as to why all New Zealanders say 'ey' after everything they say..) He has the best job in the world,he let me fly the parachute aswell for a time on the way down and we got to do flips and spins etc and finally landed calmly back on the grass,it seemed to have been forever but in fact took a matter of 5 to 10 minutes. So to avoid being emotional and gushing it was the best thing i've EVER,EVER done.seriously.The feeling as you freefall i'll never forget and that plus the most incredible view of those mountains,everything came together perfectly,simply awesome.
And so i write from Timaru midway up the east coast on the way to Christchurch where i'll hopefully spend a few days with my cousins very near there!Just come from Dunedin which has alot more going on than just rugby(we did admittedly go to the new zealand sports museum which was suitably geeky and improved pub quiz knowledge significantly...) and at just before sunset we went to a beach on Otago peninsula and had an amazing experience with the sea lions there. They all came out onto the beach together,first of all they are the most ridiculous animals,the way they move across the ground is pure comedy,they skim across it with their flippers and after 10 minutes get tired and collapse on the sand and yawn (awesome life if you ask me..) but were just incredible creatures to get close to under the sunset. We also got a glimpse of the yellow eyed penguins who were cool too but didn't look like they could kill things (i have a very blunt view of nature,i'm only interested by things that look like they eat people..)
I'm very tired out from this blog,firstly, i apologize for the massive wait for it- i've been having way too much fun.2.sorry for the lack of amusing quips,i'm struggling to even write like i'm not a dyslexic 13 year old..3.sorry for the gushing account of the skydive,very hard to put in the words..
Another blog will come much sooner before i get to south america,so i'm off to go spend recklessly money i dont really have (i wish i was joking..) and i'm having the time of my life but missing friends and family loads aswell!
lots of love!
theo
xxx

That's so fiji..

bula bula bula!Hello,firstly sorry for the lateness of this next post,fiji's internet is pretty primitive!OK sooo,Sydney.We are in a group of 8 now which is alot more hectic but awesome fun (very much a hawkins/rawlins style of travel, family...). So there's now six boys and two girls so alot of laddish tomfoolery has become prominent (to the girl's pleasure..), Sydney was a really cool cosmopolitan city,it's the first place where we've found loads of travellers all quite similar to us,especially in the hostel we were in (5 bunkbeds a room,and thousands of rooms so very good fun!). Got a bus to Bondi beach which is absolutely huuge,full of beautiful beautiful people of all ages making me feel particularly pale and english,weather was a bit dodgy all the time we were there but it didn't matter,it's the kind of city where you can just walk around and keep entertained.The prices are ridiculousy expensive (2/3rds of a pint for 3 quid..) but apparently it's like it all over oz,me alex and rich tried to hit the zoo but the weather scuppered our plans-however instead we went to the biggest imax screen in the world (literally.) and watched alice in wonderland in 3D which was mindblowing-didn't feel like much of a traveller though coming all the way to sydney to go to the cinema!Our hostel was right next to Darling harbour and a short walk from sydney harbour,it was a little surreal being up close to a landmark that everyone world round knows,but lived up to expectations!Had a very weird nigth during a rainstorm when we sheltered under the Opera house-not the worst place to hang out overlooking the lit up opera house.Only in sydney for 3 days though but didn't regret being there for such a short time too much..
So we flew on to Fiji,the first real leg of our travels,the forecast was for 10 days of thunderstorms but these never really came to fruition thankfully...I think i've lost about half a stone through sheer sweat throughout fiji,it is stupidly hot-in the middle of the day it is seriously unbearable,me alex and rich stayed for 3 nights in Nadi Bay which was a really quaint little resort,had a pool and the people are so so friendly,a particular highlight was a fijian george michael lookalike playing and singing very dodgy eagles covers on his guitar every night. Nadi itself was more undeveloped than I expected,there is no wool pulled over your eyes to make it seem a tourist attraction which I quite liked (and i'm sure mum is pleased i saw some REAL culture..) We found our local haunt on the first night,ED's bar down the road which was a funny place lots of initmidating men and pool tables but loads of travellers aswell so a nice late introduction to Fiji!We lazed around in Nadi for a day,indulged in a chicken burger which was very much not Fiji (and not a touch on Roosters Barley..) and flirted generally with middle aged Fijian women.
When the 8 of us came together we set off on our trip round the islands,I can't even explain how beautiful the scenery is,it's not just white sandy beaches and palm trees(though these are a standard-its a hard life) but some awesome mountain terrains,it was quite reminiscent of Halong Bay in Vietnam just mountains that seemed to have popped up in the middle of the ocean. Our first night was at Coral view resort at the most northern of the islands (the plan was to just work down north to south)-i succeeded at getting burnt to within an inch of my life (sorry mum..) but the pain only lasted a few days,resort was pretty huge and the group came to 11 with the introduction of 3 posher than posh girls from Clifton college bristol,lots of bantah and gap yah which gave me many opportunities to me rampantly hilarious about their private schoolisms,they were really really nice though and sured up the male female balance..We only stayed at Coral view for a night and got the boat to white sandy beach for literally the best 3 days of my life. As we approached the island on the boat the whole staff greeted us in a gaggle of sarongs,guitars and ukeleles on the beach-they were amazing from the word go. The fijian women have that rare quality that only the greeks seem to have of growing mesmorising facial hair,the leading lady of the resort (who i nicknamed 'Burns' due to her admirable sideburns and moustache combo) was the perfect host. I 've always had an unerring ability of being able to charm middle aged mothers (mainly dinner ladies admittedly..) and the 'dinner lady charm' was used throughout,they couldn't say my name for starters (the 'th' sound just doesn't exist in fiji) so i was dubbed 'fredrick.' or 'cheeky boy' which was fine with me. However the women were one thing, the men however were the absolute highlight,the main man was Epi, who for those interested (mostly joe and dad) is Moses Raulini's brother (no joke)-he had the body of an adonis and the biggest grin in the world.His right hand man was Joe who was our age and was Joe Rocococko's cousin (no joke again). They became such good friends in the 3 days we were there we just sat around all day chatting to them while they lolled around in hammocks with guitars. Everyone in Fiji can 1. play the guitar and 2. all have cracking voices. On the first day in the twilight of the Fijian day we had our first game of beach rugby with the Fijians-and got destroyed. Rugby is everything here and the sheer speed of these men is scary-Epi merely shouted 'touch!' across the island and 10 fijians wondered on to the beach,there hands our lightning and they seemed to float across the sand while the gaggle of us 6 burnt english waded through the sand in their wake..
Rugby played a huge part in our stay-on the we moved on to their 'rugby pitch'-i say pitch,it was more a huge patch of scrubland with grass at places up to your shins,the staff absolutely loved it- we woke up in the morning to see the activites board containing the message '4.00 rugby, England vs Fiji'. So we rocked up to the 'pitch' at 4 and faced 5 minutes of absolute embarassment before we admitted defeat and we mixed the teams up-we must have played for at least 2 hours,it was very surreal playing touch rugby in scorching heat against a backdrop of rainforest and mountain with a group of 10 or 12 muscle bound fijian athletes but an experience I'll never forget.I don't think i've ever been more tired,at the end after many handshakes and hugs I almost crawled into the sea-a shambles of a man. All the fijians were sure i was Matthew Tait's brother-probably due to my prodigious rugby talent(although they are all related to fantastic international rugby players I had to reveal that in fact I was not..).What Epi had failed to mention about the guys we were playing with was that two of them were current Fijian age-group internationals (joe was under 18 fiji and the chef,Sammy plays for Fiji under 21's), which made sense considering they were untouchable on the rugby pitch. And afterwards we all,Fijian and English sat around and had a great chat and alaugh,we formed such a close bond with all the guys on the island from that one match,it's funny how sport (especially rugby) can do that-I got the impression that they liked us so much because we took a real interest in their lives and culture whereas alot of people only stop over for a night for fleeting visits.
So every day we got breakfast lunch and dinner,the food was a-mazing,every night was a buffet (awesome),the first night was a selection of currys and we even saw the snapper that was used for the fish curry being caught and gutted in the sea by Epi and it was all so so fresh. The food is so healthy-so i used it as an excuse to eat massive amounts of it (that makes sense right Mum?). I haven't even mentioned the nightly entertainment yet,blimey.After dinner Burns got up in front of us and introduced the fijian dancing-now the Fijians can move,every evening a selection of four or five of the men in grass skirts and traditional Fijian gear strutted their stuff supported by the rather more restrained women (check the photos.). They seem to have boundless energy the Fijians, they all start the day about 5 am(Epi runs up the mountain on the island and along the beach before he starts his day-madman.) And after plenty of dancing from the staff it was our turn and we played loads of games with the staff all partnered by a fijian,the dancing was so so funny and went on late into the night-the fijians particularly liked alex whos 6 foot 6 but moves like Rudolf Nureyev..And after we all sat and had a long drink on the beach,Fijian and English alike-absolutely mindblowing. On the 3rd day we went to the local village in the day,I was fully expecting a bit of a tourist trap with lots of people selling tat but it was really nice actually. We started off with a kava ceremony,now kava is some kind of root juice (i think?) which has hallucinogenic effects in large doses and numbs your tongue and mouth,it is foul,tastes like muddy water basically but has funny effects and you have to drink all of it out of respect.We then visited the school,the village seemed so close-knit and friendly i like that in Fiji it just seems to be one big neighbourhood,everyone knows each other-the kids all came out and did a show for us,each year sang us a song from the little ones to 13 14 year olds and we were also treated to a crazy fijian war dance by 6 8 year old jokers-there were very surreal renditions of english classics and a cute song from the little ones "banana for you,banana for me,banana for the monkeys up in the tree". I'm not really sure what everyone does in Fiji, just relaxes as far as I can tell which is ace,I guess they are all basically self sufficient,but so welcoming of these 6 loud boys invading their village.
A big player in our trip who i have mentioned is Avram,Henry's guitar which has been played non-stop. The people on white sandy absolutely loved it and at least one of the staff seemed to be strumming it at any one time,they sang their fijian songs (and the odd baffling cover of 'Hotel California'..) while we sang our English ones late on in the night.And so we decided on the last night to give them the guitar as a thank you, we all wrote our names on it and they were so touched (I think,it's so hard to tell because they just seem to smile all the time..) the last night was the craziest dancing yet, and taught Epi and Joe some English drinking games.it had been preceded by another seminal rugby game on the scrub (gatecrashed by some annoying americans who we proceeded to embarass at rugby and they soon went away) and afterwards we celebrated our last game with Epi and Joe on the beach with some coconut juice (we were sooo fiji.). And as we left the next day with Epi's words still in my head ('the best friends we've ever had') I felt ever so protective of White Sandy and so sad to leave,it was worth going to Fiji for White Sandy alone,not for the sscnery (which was amazing) but the people there who were phenomenal and I'll always be able to tell people about the time I played rugby with Joe rocococko's cousin and 10 fijian machines on a beach,only in Fiji...It was hard afterwards to not compare anything to White Sandy but had a funny time handline fishing in the middle of the pacific in a storm,only Jack caught something-don't think I'm cut out for fishing I tend to be viciously impatient.. We stayed that night on the island where 'castaway' (with tom hanks) was filmed but were all really worn out from white sandy so had a nice quiet night chatting with the 3 posh girls. And then me and Rich had to go back to the mainland,I desperately wanted one more night in White Sandy but it didn't work out-I almost regret only going to Fiji for 10 days but it leaves me wanting to go back and some of the best memories. One more night in Nadi Bay then we flew to Auckland yesterday for the first of out long stays, we are here for 6 weeks and I cannot wait to get going,New Zealand appeals to me already,Auckland is a really quaint city (a bit like cheltenham and san francisco mixed together is the best way to describe it family) and had a night of debauchery last night in the NZ bars and clubs-it is not cheap but hey ho got to know the city pretty well and Tom WP was right-the beer is crap. It has a lovely harbour but me and Rich will try and have a little nosey around north island for 3 or 4 days before meeting the others who fly in on thursday.Oh yeah,went to a super 14 game last night as Eden Park,Blues versus the Stormers and saw Bryan Habana and Rocococko live which was amazing,really odd style of rugby but something to induce jealousy in Joe and Dad hopefully!
Missing everyone tons and hope Easter was as fattening as usual in paradise,very jealous!Having the time of my life out here though, so spiritual and political and cultural yah yah,thinking about getting involved in some camper van action tomorrow which could prove amusing,soon to trek out to lord of the rings country and seeing some real mountains,can't wait!
Lots of love everyone
T xxx

So it begins..

So,me and rich departed heathrow in a slapdash,generally disorganised manner that has stayed with us so far,plane journey was all fine,one of us pretentiously watching ancient french comedies with subtitles in the obvious hope some beautiful(and ignorant) girl would take a chance glance at his 'intellectual brilliance',and one of us watching crap romantic comedies unabashed (sure you can guess who's who..). And so we touched down in Hong Kong airport,a sterile, almost weirdly clean place and got the bus into Hong Kong which took around an hour.Tried to take photos in moving bus that was built for 3 foot pigmys,attempts desperately unsuccessful.Very obvious as you move from the suburbs into the main city of Hong Kong that welath increases proportionally, across some insane bridges that probably would've been a highlight in another country,but child's play in terms of HK architecture."suit,suit?watch,real rolex?(hashish?)"-the gloriously untactful salesman of hong kong, these were the words that greeted us, and after a day we had learnt to ignore them completely..our hostel was in a huge sprawling complex called Chung King mansions in Kowloon, it was a bit of a hole but very entertaining. The downstairs of the building was a huge set of shops,generally dodgy currency sellers,fake phones and dubious food, ahighlight being 'Ali Baba's food emporium'-Ali Baba as far as i could tell hadn't sold any of his 'genuine indian produce' in the whole period we stayed.Our hostel could have been called,germany,paris,singh or paris hostel,noone really knows;run by a bunch of indians who reeked of dodgy dealings- but we were paying next to nothing and they entertained us.The room also had an added bonus of having a shower,toilet and sink in a 2x2 metre square space-remarkable piece of invention if you ask me. We dropped our bags and strolled into the city,very sweaty(hardly surprising) and really smoggy (the sun only tended to break through at about 4 each day) we made it up to the botanical gardens but were both crippled by jet lag so crawled back to the hostel and slept till 10.badly needed. Then we went out in Hong Kong,was absolutely mad!The HK 7's was on so we strolled to Lan Kwai Fong, streets and streets of bars on Hong Kong Island, they ahd closed the roads due to sheer numbers of people, loads of fancy dress and rugby supporters of any number of nationality-alot of Aussies and Brits especially. It was awesome fun,rugby balls being thrown around and makeshift street line outs popping up all over the place-we were in our element. Alcohol was bloody expensive,though beer was sold in yards (lush) but cost 6 pounds a yard (not so lush), however in true cheap skate fashion me and Ricardo just popped to a 7 11(these shops are evrywhere-and a lifesaver) and sell 2 cans of most beer for about 1 pound 50-we therefore just stood and drunk these in the street, like loads of other people, no police around but a really cool party atmosphere.Next day was a little fragile,stumbled in at 6 after a night of debauchery (notabley a bar in Wang Chai (clubbing area) where we could dance on the bar-alot of regretful photos.) I must remind you we hadnt eaten in 36 hours and a night in hong kong during sevens isn't advisable,safe to say we only got up next evening and repeated actions,same fun occured if not even busier-encountered alot of english 25 year old toffs,wiiffing of Jack Wills and private school,generally nice but hi-lariously pompous..Oh yeah,we also went with alot of excitement to see the 'symphony of lights',big disappointment.In reality a few torches coming off the main buildings to a cacophony of crap classical chinese techno.baffling.Woke up before 12 next day,gave ourselves a big pat on the back,rich still pretending to have jetlag (or 'jet lad' as he has so wittily decided to call himself.yep,me neither.) but just being a bit weak. We took the famous star ferry across the harbour (only 25p people!) across to the business district,the buildings are ridiculous, the HSBC building and bank of china especially impressive, we climbed to the 43rd floor of Bank of China and could see over all Hong Kong and more.Had lunch in business district, food has been a great success in HK,sooo cheap,our haunt has been 'cafe de coral' which does lightning quick really nice chinese food which we attacked with chopsticks with limited success. Went up the peak over HK to get more spectacular views, bit of a tourist trap and a little regret we didn't do it at night, but the tram up was nice and exciting going to some crazy angles up HK mountain. HK also we have found is just an absolute maze, me and rich must have walked nearly 2 kilometres just in walways across hong kong without touching teh ground, everythign is planned perfectly and there are escalators everywhere,i have never escalated so much in my life-seems all a bit needless but one thing i'll say about HK is it is bloody efficient. Before flight yesterday went to museum of history, alot of expected propoganda about the glories of Hong Kong,but refreshingly showed some real accounts of death and destruction in the last 10 percent and a jolly funny chinese film which made the 1 pound entry fee totally worth it.Got to airport stupidly early-a bit of a curfuffle with visas, apparently me and rich can't just stroll into Australia without visas,honestly...sorted out by awesome staff in about a second.Rich,or calamity jane as we shall dub him from now on then left half his posessions on the other side of the border,lost a pile of documents and generally stumbled around like an oaf but somehow stumbled on the plane and then proceeded to lose his passport,which he eventually found in his shoe (the obvious logical safehouse.)After a sleepless flight we landed in Sydney today which is a-mazing.the city is really really nice and loads of people our age,met up with friends from Cirencester and around who are all really laid back and welcoming (T only met them properly today) went to the famous bondi beach later on which was mentally busy but alot of beach rugby and general relaxation in ridiculous heat,hoping to lose doughy physiques soon!(unlikely). Have really taken to Sydney, an improvement from our stop off at HK which was a bit too much of a big shop (especially considering we couldnt spend any money!)and seemed a bit sterile(but nightlife was unreal) Having an amazing time in huge hostel in central Sydney and will keep you posted soon!G'day xxxx