This is my Brother

This is my brother.

His name is Dan.

He lives on the other side of the world, and also here.

Once when I was young I slammed his head in my bedroom door so he punched a hole right through it.

Once he also convinced me to trade my VHS vide recorder for his Betamax plus a few old recordings of Japanese Godzilla flicks.

He has grown up a bit since then, but still has a face like cross between Santa and an Orang-utan

Dan is on the finishing leg of his mammoth Dales Walk , a fundraiser that he is undertaking for the Joseph Salmon Trust which you can read about here.

I don't think I have a lot of readers, but I would implore those that I do have to go over to Dans site and see exactly what he has been up to, and give a little bit of money if it can be spared to take that total a little bit higher for Dan on his return from his walk.

Here is a little bit about the Trust

"The Joseph Salmon Trust supports parents who have lost a child by providing financial assistance to those who need it most. This may be to help with funeral costs or to allow the self employed a break from work while they come to terms with their loss. Grieving families have enough to deal with without worries about where they will find the money to say goodbye to their child or pay the next electricity bill. Nothing we can do can make their situation better, but we can do something to stop it getting worse."

Life For Sale

May of you probably read in the papers about this guy in Perth who put his entire life for sale on eBay. He split up with his wife and decided on a fresh start. He then proceeded to sell all of his earthly possessions in one lump sum. His house. His car. His jetski. Even a trial week at his job!

Thats just about how I feel now. I have spent the last couple of weeks putting almost everything I own up for sale on Gumtree. I can't believe how much tuff it is possible to amass in the space of only 9 months.

Its also pretty painful, complete strangers poring over your stuff, casting a critical eye over your sofa covers and haggling over your clothes airer. I really can't imagine how we are going to get rid of all of these things in the two weeks we have left here. 

Thought for the day - the more things you own, the more stressful your life!

Also here is a picture of the view from Cairns to complete my series...

A Torn Heart

I am sitting here posting at work.

I have a lot on, and clients pestering me about various things I should have sent to them. But I am pretty calm and relaxed. Thinking about going to the gym at lunchtime.

What's keeping me nice and relaxed is the thought that any of the work that I do not manage to finish over the next three weeks immediately becomes somebody elses problem. Sounds harsh I know, but I am really finding it quite hard to motivate myself (this is, of course partially due to the fact that I went to Lowenbrau at The Rocks last night and indulged in 1 litre glasses of beer).

Every time I let someone new know I am leaving and going back to the UK, they say "why do you want to leave Australia?"

I can't say anything to them about the company, so I cite personal reasons.

In truth, personally I am pretty torn and struggle to repel their attempts to persuade me to stay.

I miss friends and family, and the support I get in the UK. I miss the work I was doing over there which I felt was very progressive and innovative.

I have no idea, though if in a years time, I will be regretting the decision, wishing I had spent more time in Sydney, cycling, hiking, climbing, windsurfing etc...

What is certain is that I will miss the people over here. I will miss the banter in the office, I will miss the trips to the beach. Despite work issues, I think I will miss my newfound responsibilities that were somewhat forced upon me.

I dont think I will miss the city though. The city is not for me.

There is no doubt that in a few years time, Lucy and I will get the travelling itch again , and have some more different experiences. Maybe even back in some other part of Australia or New Zealand.

Bagara

This one I will imaginatively entitle "Lucy with Sandcastle". Taken in a little town called Bagara near Bundaberg.

We didn't build the sandcastle, we just benefitted from somebody else's hard work.

The Whitsundays

Another day, another place. We went to the Whitsundays (I believe named after the prolific blogger Whit, who is fond of his Sundays) which were all beautiful silica sands and clear blue waters ... blah, blah.

No more of my desolate skylines today. While in the Whitsundays we spied this little fellah.

While he was no Komodo dragon, this little fellah did cause much amusement for some of my fellow tourists many of whom were sat huddled up on their seats.

Clairview

On one particularly mammoth stretch of the Bruce Highway we chose a random little group of houses to stop in and change over driving responsibilities. We were glad we did, for although there was nothing really in the small hamlet of Clairview, we rounded the corner to see some spectacular views of some mud flats at sunset. A perfect photography opportunity:

This one is my favourite:

I also like this one (mildly altered):

For some reason we couldn't help thinking of the film 'the Never Ending Story' (the cause of a lot of my childhood nightmares).

You will notice that many of my photographs has a dark and desolate theme to them! I am not sure whether this is because of my mood, or because it pretty much didn't stop raining for our entire time in Queensland!

Rainbow Beach

We have returned from our little travels and have seen quite a bit, but I will save the detail for future posts (I can hear the excitement from here).

This week will be the week of administration for me, before my return. However, I think I will find enough time each day to post up some of my exciting holiday snaps each day, you lucky, lucky people.

It will be great, just like that times you had over at your uncle John's where you spent hours looking at his slideshow of the family holiday in Skegness and listening to tales of bingo halls and donkey rides! 

Rainbow beach about 3.5 hours north of Brisbane was our first overnight stop in the 'Dwarf'. It rained mostly, but in between the rain (and before we had to get some helpful Tazmanians to haul us out of the sand with their 4x4) we managed to get a brief reprive and took a little run down the beach.

Rainbow beach is called so because of the interesting colours in the sand. I managed to get some good shots of clouds gathering and forming interesting reflections in the shallow waves.

It was pretty sweet waking up to this in the morning...

Ok So I Was Lying

I said I wasn't going to post this week on my trip to Queensland, but I have found myself sitting in an internet cafe in Hervey Bay waiting for Lucy to finish a job application form.

We picked up our camper van yesterday from Wicked Campers (which is the norm for backpackers in Oz - mainly because they are extremely cheap).

I was a little worried by the idea of using Wicked but unfortunately our other camper van that we wanted fell through. I was worried not because they were poor quality, or because they are expensive. Basically Wicked gains product differentiation by daubing graffitti, pictures and slogans all over their vans. Some of the pictures are pretty tanme, this morning we passed one with the cookie monster painted on, but some of them are a lot worse.

When you pick up a Wicked camper there is an extremely high chance when getting one, that yours will be fairly obscene. I have seen plenty of rude phrases and pictures of naked women etc, etc.

Anyway, we got lucky. I am looking outside a the van now and there is just a pitcure of the 7 dwarves from Snow white on the side ... oh no ... let me look a bit closer ... thats right the 7 dwarves are performing unmentionable sex acts with 7 sheep! All with very happy innocent smiles on their faces ... the perverts.

Actually thats not true - only five of the dwarves are perfoming unmentionable sex acts with sheep. One of the dwarves has obtained a little stool from somewhere and is perfoming unmentionable sex acts with a cow! And his little dwarf friend is helping to hold the cow. Nice.

We woke up this morning on Rainbow Beach which was absolutely stunning. Unfortunately I cant post any pictures as I dont have the correct cable.

We also got the van stuck in some sand and had to get it pulled out by a passing 4x4. But thats another story ...

Time Out

This is it. The end. I am leaving you. Goodbye.

Actually we are going on a little trip up to Queensland for a week. Hoping to take in Fraser Island and the Great Barrier Reef. If it is still there. so no blogging for a while.

Oh, and I handed my notice in today. It went a little like: "By the way I am leaving, oh and you remember I am on holiday next week don't you?" 

In which Sam goes to his first sporting event since Huddersfield Town v Liverpool reserves in 1989

In Australia they have this thing called 'football'. Well we have that in the UK too but 'football' (sometimes fondly referred to as 'footie' means something different over here.

Football is a game played on a massive oval pitch with 18 players on each side. They kick the ball to one another out of their hands and others try to catch it. Then they have to kick the ball through some posts ... that pretty much it.

It appears to me that there are a couple of misconceptions relating to Aussie rules football:

The first one banded around by people in the UK is that it is very violent. 'There are no rules' and 'you can do what you like' being common points of views. This is incorrect as there are plenty of rules in Aussie rules football and it is barely more violent than what these crazy people call 'soccer'. The main issue with the game (it appears to me) is that the rules can be interpreted in about a million different ways by the 'umpire' (there are about 6 umpires so far as I can tell). This lead to a lot of berating of the ref (as with any sport)

The second is the myth that footie fans are rowdy. As a part of our 'trying to do as many Aussie thing as possible' campaign Lucy and I went last weekend to see the Collingwood Magpies take on the Sydney Swans. We were made to be Collingwood fans as the friend of ours who took us there is an avid supporter. Collingwood are notorious throughout Australia for having the most hated, violent, rowdy fans. 

We saw none of that. The supporters for each team were mixed in together (if you did that in a European Football match, there would be death somewhere) and the atmosphere was friendly and relaxed. Most people hardly got up from their seats. Now thats my kind of live sport!

So for those of you who don't know what Aussie rules football is, here is a little taster:

(I was actually sat behind (one of) the sets of posts)

Two Minds

So one big step involved in returning to the UK is my job resignation. I find it very hard.

Its not as if I think I have been treated particularly fairly by my oz company, ands it not as if I am particularly enamored with my job, but I still find resignation hard.

I have however helped my company to make some big wins and get a motley assortment of good projects together over the last 10 months. I will try to finish some of them off, but it wont be possible for all.

Also, deep down I am a very loyal person. It took me 6 month to quit my washing up job when I was 16, because I basically don't like letting people down.

Tomorrow I need to get my act together and do the deed.

Night and Day

Tonight, I am stranded in a little hotel room in the middle of Melbourne, having to stay another day with work as some measurements that we were taking went a little bit wrong today and I have to go back tomorrow.

Lucy is sitting alone in the flat bored and with no friends (if you know where we live, dont break in though - she has a gun, honest), and I am sitting alone in my hotel room ... bored and with no friends.

I have no picture to post of Melbourne. I have nothing specific to say. I think I will just ramble on about the city a little from my (limited) experience...

Melbourne is a pretty common destination for Brits who decide to migrate here. The Aussies joke that it is because the crappy weather reminds them of England. I think it runs a little deeper than that.

Melbourne to me is the night where Sydney is the day.

Sydney is kind of the beautiful but airheaded surfer chick. Stunning to look at but with not much underneath, a lack of culture.

Melbourne is the slightly uglier grungy type. Not so pretty, not the popular one at school, but when you look a bit deeper, full of intrugue and promise.

Melbourne suffers from none of the strict liscencing laws I previously took issue with in Sydney, on Sunday night we went to a bar (I forget the name) that was essentially an old cargo container covered in graffiti surrounded by crates for sitting on. It was a blooming refreshing. Not a suit in sight.

I think I could spend a long time exploring its ways. Its back alleys are covered in cafe's and bars, the people are multicultural and interesting and even the tourist spots have their charm.

I still couldn't see myself here though. I (we) have kind of come to the conclusion that living anwhere that it takes more than 20 minute to drive to some form of countryside is not for us. We find really large cities stifling and a little uninteresting to be honest. Bring on the Peaks!

11:12pm

Its 11:12 pm here in Sydney (actually probably later by the time I post this). Lucy was asked to call a school in Sheffield for a telephone interview for a teaching assistant job.

Apparently all of the other applicant are having face to face interviews today with the board. They also wanted Lucy to face the school board for her application. 

So she called up the school and began here telephone interview. Upon calling them, they came up with the bright idea of asking her to write responses to the interview questions and submit them via email to the board members within one hour so she could then be assessed as with other applicants. This is causing her great distress.

Alternatively they could have pressed the speakerphone button...

... just an idea.

Miscellaneous Stuff

I forgot to post this picture up from the weekend:

This is a picture of Lucy and I at a murder mystery party we (she) hosted last Friday. If you ave never done a murder mystery party, it is a little like Dungeons and Dragons for people who consider themselves cool and sophisticated. And it involves more drinking!

I had to look like an idiot all week growing the beard for the part.

I also just got back from the final day of some site work I have been doing in Canberra. The site was very interesting and without giving away the client name. And they let me take some photos...