It's Christmas Jim, but not as we know it!

Let me be frank, the above title is mostly just an excuse to post a link to this video . . . but it's also scarily accurate. Christmas in Australia is a different beast altogether! At first it was quite hard to put my finger on it, but I think I'm starting to figure it all out. I mean, obstentsibly, they do the whole Christmas thing, but really, they don't. It's all very different.

First of all there's the food. You can't eat roast turkey and ham in 38 degree heat. Most Australians go for seafood. Similarly, rather than being huddled round the fire, they're swimming in the sea, or the pool, going surfing, doing lots of things that we would probably do if we got half the chance.

Then there's the trees. We have never had a plastic Christmas tree in my house, and if I have my way, we never will. I know they're expensive, I know they shed all over the floor, I know it's annoying to have to go get one every year - but I also don't care. At all. In Australia, they're a bit more practical - they get plastic trees.

This our tree and as you can see, it is not only made of plastic, but also is rather diminutive. It's a token I suppose, erected with minimal fuss and then quietly surrounded by presents. Most of these are for Sandra's two kids. I'm not sure about in your house, but in mine, putting up the tree is an EVENT and can go on for an entire weekend. It involves, not just putting up the tree, but also retrieving the boxes of decorations from the attic, cleaning the living room, finding a tree, arguing over the height of the tree, finally needing to saw off a bit of the top because the tree was too big, then decorating it, unwinding all the lights, while swearing you'll do this before putting them away next year, and then putting up all the household decorations too. When I call it an event, I really do mean that. And there's a huge sense of begrudged achievement that goes with it too. When it's done, you can switch on all the lights, sink into the couch and think - yeah - it's Christmas.

Though, to be totally fair, and honest, I get the decorations from the attic, sometimes go for the tree, get it into the stand and leave Megs and my mam to kill each other. When I return eight or nine hours later the tree is generally up.

Believe me though, you don't really want three people trying to put up a Christmas tree. Not in a house with knives or blunt instruments, or engaged in tasks suck as holding ladders.

It's not like no one makes an effort, there are a few. I saw two houses with out door decorations. There were probably a few more scattered around the place. But even the idea of over-the-top outdoor decorations is subdued over here. People passed comment on this house down below. No would even mention it if it was at home. This of some of those houses you see in the papers back home that look like they've been painted neon with frolicing Santas!

Even the Cairns city tree is sadly lacking. It's not like it's a poor city - they couldn't be with what they charge for stuff! But the tree still suffers a sad lack. The regular, everyday palm trees tower well above it and t's lights are lost in the pulse of the esplanade's bars and restaurants.

Somethings I also noticed was that the charities operating Christmas drives, like the people wrapping presents in the various shopping centres, seemed to expect a lot less money. Most work off a "gold coin" basis, as in one dollar for wrapping up a present.

At both of the ones I used I was offered change for the money I gave them, and when I said no they seemed to think I was a little odd. "It's for charity," I tried to explain to one of them.

I suppose in the run up to Christmas, I only had one really Christmasy moment. Driving home from Mission beach in the rain, the radio, which had been playing complete shit up until then, played a request for a listener . . . and it really did start to feel a little bit like Christmas right there!

On Christmas morning, I even had my stocking, which my mam sent over, stuffed with books and King crisps, because she is awesome! I ate one of the packets of Crisps and then saved the other one for a later occasion when I might actually be hungry.

However, I did miss being woken up RIDICULOUSLY early by Megan, who still seems to think it's a decent idea to get up at 7AM on Christmas, despite the fact that the other 364 days of the year, twelve is a much more realistic time to wake up at. Instead I just sauntered out of the room when I felt like it and opened my presents.

That said, there were a few people around that day who really did appreciate the whole thing, like this young man here, who is handing out presents from our Kris Kindle. Sari got herself a Wii so that was also a source of much amusement. Little Xavier got a few decent presents aswell, including a T-Rex toy that roared and had a real biting action! After an hour and a half of this thing roaring, Shane found the off switch. Xavier, being four, not a retard, just switched it back on and continued to assail us with, what I am sure, is the present we got him. Go us! We're clever!

Now, back to the food. Because food really is at the heart of every Christmas. Because we were stubborn, we had already decided to go with turkey and ham for dinner, and also some seafood. We cooked the turkeys the day before though, and ate them cold on Christmas. Sandra brought the ham, which was, again, cold, and Colleen Holmes brought the Christmas pudding! There were also prawns and some weird thing everyone kept calling a bug, which was kinda like lobster.

And this was all served up with bottles of Cider, because I can get that again. Yay!

One of the things that really struck me was when Dylan and Paul Holmes had to head off to work, on Christmas day. I think it was the lack of fuss, the normality of it, that really weirded me out. At home, you'd be every sympathetic to someone working on Christmas, and they'd be pissed off too, but it was just regular, which for me exemplifies the difference between Christmas here and Christmas back home - it really is just another day here.

St. Stephen's Day - named, by the way, for St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr who was basically murdered for suggesting that Jewish officials should maybe stop killing everyone who thought they sucked at being priests, which is a tad ironic really - was also radically different. Instead of being in my Granny's house with most of my extended family, if not all of them, I was just in the pub of an afternoon, listening to Gibb Todd (see uncle's birthday post). It was good, and we had a laugh, but St. Stephen's day it was not.

It's not like I had a shit Christmas though, it's more like Christmas didn't happen. There were a few signposts for it, but we missed the turn somewhere. It's grand though, to be honest. I don't think it was ever going to really be Christmas over here. It was two grand days all the same though, so I don't feel cheated. It just woulda been nice to sit by the fire watching TV for a few hours! Possibly watching some kind of deliriously happy Disney flick. Now that's what I can call Christmas!

Laters,

Shane

"Let's see some fucking nature!"

18th December 2010 - Kuranda

Early on Saturday 18th we got up to go visit Kuranda, via the Scenic Railway and the Sky Rail . . . And since I know you're bad bloggies (that's my new name for you guys) I'll just assume you didn't read those wiki pages and I'll explain all those things to you.

We drove out to Redlynch, me driving one car and my uncle Paddy driving the other. Red Lynch is named after an Irish man who played a huge part in the construction of the railway in the 1880s. Thousands of Irish workers were employed in the construction of the railway which runs up into the Atherton tablelands and had to cut through forest and mountain to reach its destination, and offers so great fews of the rainforest and of Cairns from high up on the mountains.

You take the train/skyrail for the view, not convienence, you can drive there in about half the time the train takes, but the view is awesome from the train, and it's an experience. And, as my title may suggest, we're going to see some nature! So off we go then, shall we . . .

It was bloody hot on the train, even with all the windows open and while we enjoyed the view, I think we enjoyed getting off slightly more. It also didn't help that the train broke down once, or "stopped for operational reasons" as the announcer put it . . .

There was also the one scheduled stop, just over the Barron Gorge, where I got some half decent pictures.

Unfortunately it hadn't rained in awhile so the river is pretty low here (in a great irony, some time later, half the fucking country is underwater and I'm stuck in this part of Queensland until the flooding dies down).

There were plenty of other awesome photo opportunities but I won't post them all, don't worry. There's this one here of a waterfall and that's it for now.

We got off the train at the gorge and following a fifteen minute stop for photos and fresh boiling hot air, it was back into the even hotter train and onward to Kuranda, where we were tee shirt shopping, because there isn't a whole let else to do in the village. It's just a village.

I bought three tee shirts with various funny slogans but I'll keep them to myself - you can see me wearing them when I get home! Oh what a delightful treat that shall be! Aren't you just dying to see them?

We also bought some little doughballs covered in sugar from a very strange dutch man with a stall.

We finished up in the local "Irish" bar, which was the only bar as far as we could see and the non-drivers had a pint before we moved on to the Sky Rail for our way down.

The Sky Rail is a cable car that goes over the rainforest and back into Cairns, if the picture above didn't give that away. Space is limited so me, my dad and my uncle Fran took on car an the others got another. As it turns out, Fran *really* doesn't like heights. At first we thought he was messing, but actually, he was totally freaked out the entire time we were on the things.

Actually the thing was quite safe and comfortable and the view was just amazing! And I have the videos/pictures to prove it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5yFaGYodbM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CJUX_Us8G8

That's the Barron river again, coming out of the Barron Falls we mentioned earlier.

Anyway, bout half way up you stop and get off, go for a little walk round the rainforest. It's really cool in there, and there are guides who can give you a bit of a tour if you want. There's loads to see though it only takes about ten minutes to walk the short trail.

Then it's back on and after a minute or two we crest the top of the mountain range and start descending towards Cairns. Once you clear the trees, the view changes completely from endless forest to a huge open expanse, right out to the sea. You can see all of Cairns and it's surrounds and we could even pick out my uncle's beach and approximate street as we went down.

And as you come in for your landing, they insist on taking your photograph and then trying to sell it to you later on.

Actually, we were already in the station when this was taken, and the background is superimposed on the image. We bought one digital copy, which comes with a print out, so now I can make as many copies as I want! Yay!

So that was the very impressive Kuranda, next (over a week later) we headed out to Mossman Gorge but to be fair, it doesn't deserve it's own post so it's getting slapped in here. Oh the joys of being so very behind on my blog! Ah well, blame the shitty Australian internet, it takes so fucking long to upload videos and pictures!

28th December 2010 - Mossman Gorge

Two hours north of Cairns, not far past Port Douglas, there's a huge gorge, falled Mossman Gorge, because it's near the town of Mossman. One morning we elected to drive up here and have a little look at some nature, yet again. In case you were wondering, the titular quote of this post belongs too Kevin, the young American from Chaing Mai, who kept on telling us all how much he wanted to see some fucking nature!

It's in the Daintree Rainforest, which actually is probably the same rainforest as Kuranda and the one where I went rafting down in Tully.

Anyway, huge big gorge, lots of water, but unfortunately I didn't bring either contact lenses or swimming stuff, so I couldn't swim. But it was still pretty cool to see. It's pretty hard to explain the scale because it all becomes pretty meaningless. It's like this right, you could totally die here if something went wrong in the water. See the man in the picture. He's small. The river is big, not far away.

After that we went back to Port Douglas and went up to the view point but because it was raining a misty the view wasn't at all great of Four Mile beach. There was this cool dial though, which shows you in which direction everything is from that spot. How it's helpful I have no idea, but silence - I'll have no neigh-sayers amongst my bloggies!

So eventually we piled back in the car and headed off back home, along a twisting and turning road that should really consider lowering it's speed limit!

So that's nature dudes, hope you enjoyed another random ramble from Shane . . . see you next time (or in about as long as it takes you to scroll to the next blog, if that's what you're planning on doing) . . .

Shane.

Of Keys And Things . . .

This really isn't a serious blog post so feel absolutely free to skip it. If anything, it probably just illustrates how I'm a complete psychopath and very little else.

I mentioned awhile back I think that I wear my keys on a chain around my neck. Mat, from England, thought that these were some weird religious thing, and that dude who robbed me tried to take them but didn't (well I assume he wanted the silver chain, not the keys). Anyway, a few weeks back some guy asked me what the story with the keys on the chain was, and I didn't know him and knew I'd never see him again - I was on a bus with him, only going a short distance - so I thought back to Mat and decided to lie for no apparent reason.

I told him they were religious symbols. I told him the three smaller keys were symbollic of the keys to Heaven, Hell and Earth and the large one was supposed to be the key to home. He thought this was very cool, but then, slowly, the whole thing started working in my mind and now I think that's a really cool idea too. I'm sure he also thought I was crazy, which I am, but for making that up, rather than believing it!

While we're on the subject, I said I'd tell you about something else in my last post. See these little things tied around my wrist? I've been wearing these since tubing in Vang Vienn. One of them is from Bucket Bat and the other is from Q-Bar. They entitle you to a free bucket in each of those bars. Anyway, anyone who goes tubing gets one of these and very so often ya meet people who are wearing them and thus, conversation is born. Conversation that generally starts, "Woohoo! TUBING!" but conversation none the less. I met one such fella while rafting the other day, he still had his on too. It's actually a great conversation starter and gets you on to other things too, like where you've been and where you're going. But it's funny just how many people recognise that little thing! Also, it has been remarked by several people that they are also the Irish colours (sans the white) and I've been asked if that's why I wear them. Answer, no, it isn't. Though I do have this . . .

I got it in Chiang Mai at the fight night way back when. This I do wear because I'm Irish. Also because the other thing I was wearing on my wrist fella apart on me after about two weeks and I needed something else.

So there you go, that's all the crap I wear and the interesting conversations it gets me into.

That's it folks, talk to ya soon,

Shane.

Rafting on the Tully 16-12-10

About ten years ago, I went rafting on this river and I loved it, and I've been dying to get back here ever since. I've already been in Thailand and in Bali, and despite nearly dying in Bali, I wasn't in the least bit put off. Nor was the 200 dollar price tag a deal breaker.

Unfortunately, it did price Fran and Jo (see Chiang Mai and Bali posts) out so they didn't go with me, which was a pity, but I still found a decent guest-appearance crew on the river. You can see them to the right there. I'll get to some introductions later on.

I had to be up at half 5 to get out and down the road for my bus, but thankfully was able to fall back asleep shortly there after for most of the two hour drive from Cairns to Tully, where the river is. Hilariously, the second song to come on my MP3 that worning was Swept Away, by Flyleaf . . . Auspicious!!!

Then we got some tea and coffee and some breakfast and while it was a little early, I had to force myself to eat because I've done this a few times and it can be pretty gruelling paddling in the sun for hours on an empty stomach.

Once we got to the river we were given our life jackets, helmets and were organised into groups. The ideal number of people on a raft is 6, plus the guide. Most people tend to come in groups of between four and two so it tends to work out pretty well. There's also ways a few threes and there's always a a couple of ones (like me) so with some mixing and matching everyone's happy.

I ended up, through absolutely no machinations on my part, on a raft with five girls (which is cool, but actually four girls and another guy would have been ideal - sometimes you don't want to feel like you're just the "guy"). There was the Twins, who were twins from Brisbane, Elaine and Amy whose name I also forget, from Melbourne, and Didi the Dutch damsel, who just so happens to be a 2004 Olympic Tae Kwon Do medalist. Macca was our guide.

Everyone was a bit shy at the start but after the first rapid, Alarm Clock, we were much more awake and attentive, because we were wet and scared and had just gone down a rapid, totally dependant on each other. Macca was great too. His plan of attack for most rapids was, "Just keep rowing forward!"

And as you can see here, that was more or less exactly what we did as we went down that first rapid. Row row row your boat, gently down the stream . . . or possibly, row row row your boat, or we'll all fuckin' die!

In fairness though, despite there being more water, bigger rocks and higher grade rapids, thise place was infintely safer than the Bali experience. Travelling in a group, each of the 8 rafts on the river would work as a team to ensure that everyone got down safely. This was particularly evident at one of the largest rapids, called Theatre. Here, we stopped to spot for the first few boats down. Meaning Macca parked us up at the bank and went down by land to the bottom of the rapid, waited with a rescue rope for the first two boats, who them took over while be came back up to us and brought us down.

This way, if anyone falls out of the boat, there's someone around to throw out a rope or do whatever might be necessary to get them out of trouble as quickly as possible. That's more or less what I needed when I was in Bali. The last thing you want is people floating down rapid on their own. However, thanks to Macca, we had no serious incidents and managed to get down Theatre fully intact! Look at us celebrating!

I can't remember the ins and outs of all the different rapids, but I'll give you a few highlights.

The next big one was the combo of Foreplay and Wet & Moisty. I fondly remember this particular rapid from the last time. This is where I fall out of the boat during Foreplay, got ground off some rocks by the raft and ended up going down Wet & Moisty on my own. Fun times!

This time it all went a bit better and while we all got thrown around a bit in the raft, no one went for a swim. We managed to get all the way down to the waterfall at the bottom called Orgasm (there's a theme here) where we were able to cool off from the hot sun!

After that we stopped for lunch, which by then we really desperately needed. I ate a burger and some sausage, though I'm pretty sure it wasn't a pork sausage. And I drank several dozen cups of water while I was at it. Also met a bloke who recognised me from my wrist bands but I'm going to tell that story seperately.

Double D Cup is pretty cool (and also kinda dangerous). It's not a big fall, but where the water hits the river it makes kind of a suction pool which if you get stuck in can spin you around for awhile and not let you up. This is actually where the rapid gets it's name . . . sort of . . .

Not long before I was here ten years ago there was a guide on the river for Raging Thunder, one of the companies that does the rafting course on the river, who was rather attractive and well endowed. Running this rapid as part of her normal day, the raft tipped and she got caught in the spin. Somehow, her life jacket came lose and was pulled off her, along with her top, so when she finally did come up, gasping for air, her clothes and life jacket were half-way down the river. After that the rapid was renamed in her honour.

Or so the story goes . . . it could be bullshit, but when I told it, Macca said that's what he'd heard, though he'd not been on the river back then.

It's not all plain sailing though. Sometimes things don't quite go according to plan. Sometimes, you look like this ->

I don't think this is a photo of the story I'm about to tell you, but it's fairly illustrative of the kind of thing I mean.

The plan was to go in at an angle so that when we hit the current at the bottom of the fall, the water would pull us left and away from a large rock. Instead, we went down straight and hit that rock head on, bounced off, spun round and went backwards down the river a bit. We call that Plan Z.

We stopped in a few places to swim round because it was so bloody warm that we were boiling inside our jackets and helmets, and we also stopped to jump off rocks and rather sheer sliff faces and I even lost my cheap 2 euro sun glasses because I forgot to take them off before I jumped off a particularly high rock. As soon as I hit the water they went swimming!

Eventually we got to the end and we dragged our boat up onto the shore and went off to change. Then we piled into the bus and headed back to Rafter's bar where we were to be sold much merchandise at extortionate prices!

By the way, this is the team, I meant to show you them before and I'm too lazy to scroll back up and insert this earlier on. Some things never change!

First there's Macca, our guide, twins 1 and 2 (Eyrn and Xanthia), Amy at the back and Elaine in front of her and then Didi behind me (that wasn't supposed to rhyme, it just happened that way).

Back at Rafter's we grabbed some drinks and I bought the DVD and CD of photographs from the day, which is where all of these came from. I was hoping to get some clips from the DVD up but the internet is so slow that it just isn't worth trying.

After rafters we packed back into a bus and spent another two hours getting home. By the time I got home it was after 7 and I was wrecked but feeling great.

That's something else knocked off the list! And a must do if you're ever here. Well worth the two hundred dollars.

Talk to you soon,

Shane.

We're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz(tralia) . . .

6th - 10th December 2010


I suppose, if I'm going with that particular conceit, that makes my uncle Paddy the Wizard - though I suppose he is kinda Henry Gale-ish in some ways! (see what I did there? No? Don't worry about it!) He doesn't exactly own a balloon, but still.

Anyway, let's back up a little bit. I was just leaving Bali when last I wrote. Flight went without a hitch but when checking in my bags I was told I would need to pick them up again in Darwin at the baggage claim and then get them scanned and checked by quarantine and all that jazz. The Australians do not fuck around with that shit. Never, ever try and smuggle drugs into Australia boys and girls, because they will find them.

Got off the plane in Darwin and walked through to immigration. Went up to the nice, attractive lady and explained that I had lost my uncle's address in Cairns, but I could get it if I could get on the net. She said it was fine and just scribbled Cairns in the address box of my entry card, but then kindly informed me that I would need to follow her.

I was greeted by another, less attractive lady, and when I say greeted, I mean, by name. She had a sheet of questions with my name on it. It was all very informal and casual, but both of us knew one wrong answer and it was going to move from the hall into the nice little glass interview room beside us. Basically I think she was just making sure I wasn't sneaking into the country on a tourist visa with the intention of working. But they were on top of that! They were waiting for me, someone has probably known for a few months that I was coming in on that flight and I'd need to be interviewed.

After that I picked up my bag at the baggage claim and went through quarantine, which is a very serious business. Basically, you declare everything you've done for the last few weeks and everything you've got in your bag, and try not to forget like me. Way back in August or September my cousin Niamh gave me a little bag of stuff for my travels, a 50c coin a mint, an angel medal, that sorta stuff - one of the things though was a set of miniture chopsticks, made of wood. Now, I remembered I vaguely I had the bag, but it's in the end of my bag quietly keeping me safe so I don't really pay it much conscious thought. So when I was filling out the form I completely forgot about it.

While it was going through the scanner though, it popped up and set off an alarm. Next thing there's a lady asking me to open my bag and having me go through it, where upon I find and remember the little bag. And the lady is not one bit happy when she sees the two little chop sticks.

She actually told me, after she'd cleared them, to "be more careful next time, you could get in a lot of trouble." Well, it's grand, because my next flight is out of Australia and home, where we're pretty crazy and paraniod about what you can put in a bag, but not quite as much as these guys!

Then, it was back to the check in desk and then back through security again. But the part of the airport I got into was the domestic terminal, but my plane was a stop over from Singapore going on to Cairns, stopping in the international terminal. At three in the morning they don't have anyone working the international security though, so they send everyone into the domestic and then open a second security checkpoint through there into the international departures lounge.

I bought a cake and a coke and settled down for them to upon the through way at 5, but they actually opened it at half 4. I'd barely touched the coke, but I figured it'd be grand since I was in a secure part of the airport, having been through security already . . . right?

God no.

Then I was randomly selected to be padded down by a large, balding man who looked like he might eat boulders for dinner, but it was only minimally invasive so who cares? Well, some other dude did care. He got very irrate, and there was shouting, and then he nearly got arrested, but there you go, some people are just stupid. You can't argue with airport police - you just can't!

Though, I did hear this one story from a friend of mine about a girl in skin tight pants and a skin tight top who got padded down . . . and you really have to wonder about that don't you? I mean, seriously. Unless she had like a giant Gregory House dimple that she'd filled in with contraband (FYI - she didn't), which seems unlikely.

Once I finally got in, I saw my uncle Paddy sleeping on a couch, but since he was sleeping I decided not to go and wake him up straight away. I figured I'd let him have a little nap so I found a seat nearby until he was ready for me! 

This here is my uncle Paddy by the way, though when I found him he didn't have the glass of wine - or "plonk" if you're in Australia. Also, for your reference, an off-licence is a bottle shop, a "goon" is a carton of wine, rather than some villian's henchman, "hectic" means "some sort of crazy, possibly dangerous situation" and "cold" means "Oh, I think the temperature has tipped ever so slightly below 20 . . ." or the thing that beers are.

Paddy had his wife, Murni, and her daughter, Sari, with him, so I got to meet them for the first time ever. For those that don't know, they're Indonesian, from Balikpapan Murni's English is pretty good, but Sari's is really really good. Like I noticed with a lot of the Japanese I met a few months ago, she has a very American twange to her accent which was weird at first, until I thought about it for three or four seconds and realised that that makes perfect sense. American teachers, American music and TV and film are bound to have a massive impact and unlike in Ireland or many European countries, there isn't an English speaking population that has developed it's own "accent" yet, so inevitably the only way a person learns to speak English is with an American accent.

A short flight later and we were in Cairns, but it was grand for me and longer for them because I had already cleared immigration and quarantine and they hadn't. Apparently they're a lot stricter in Cairns too, so it's probably a good thing I'd already had my little incident with the chopsticks.

Then it was a simple case of finding Paddy's rental car - he hasn't been around a lot lately so he sold his old car a few years ago but he'll be getting a new one soon. It didn't really take too long, considering we had little more that "it says cruising on the back" to go on.

I've gotten fairly used to the heat over the last few months, but still, it was pretty warm to wandering around with my bag on my back looking for a rental car in a carpark full of rental cars . . .

Then we found and it and drove out to my uncle's house (see right), where I immediately through as much of my clothes as I could into the washing machine because, knowing that I was about to have free washing for awhile, I'd let my supply of clean clothes dwindle a little . . . a trip like this can make you pretty fucking cheap!!!

Got that done, started airing out the house, and then it was time to jump back in the car and head back to the airport to pick up my dad!

It's nice, by the way, to see familiar faces after all this time. Like, actual familiar faces. I may have mentioned this before but concepts of familiarity become rather warped while backbacking on your own. Someone you met yesterday is a friend, and someone you hung out in a different city, a week ago, is an old friend . . . seeing actual familiar faces was a real change. Good though!

We went to a huge bottle-shop on our way back and got some wine, a crate of beer and most importantly, some CIDER!!! Got some Bulmers, some Kopperberg and some other random kinds . . . yes, they had a selection! A SELECTION OF DIFFERENT VARIETIES OF CIDERS!!! I was excited, to say the least!

Then it was back for some lunch and some drinks and catching up and some more drinks. We cooked food on the barbecue - my first home cooked meal in months - for dinner! Mmmmmh! I ended up having a look at Paddy's internet and then setting the whole thing up. The modems and all were there so it didn't take too much effort. Apparently he'd scheduled some guy to come and set up that and the T-Box up the next day, and he was gonna pay this guy $150 to do it! People'll charge insane money for simple tasks! 

Then eventually there was sleeping, which was cool since I'd been awake for two days again . . . that keeps happening. It's not fun - though the Masters gave me a lot of experience dealing with it. 

Day two was a day of shopping and not much else, and I think I'll do a seperate post on shopping and stuff like that later in the week after I've done all my Christmas shopping so you can hang on for that! I bought myself Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, though, which came out in Ireland two whole days after I left and I haven't been able to get my hands on it since! How fucking annoying is that? It would have been more use the last part of the journey, but there you go. I've some travelling coming up on the 2nd or 3rd of January so it'll be grand, I'll get stuck into it then.

We also bought two bikes in some place, one for Sari and one for whoever. And then, later that evening, I had the dubious pleasure of putting one of them together. I would have done both, but Sandra, Paddy's daughter and my cousin turned up with Glen (husband) and her two kids, Xander and Xavier, just as I was finishing the first, so I was able to stop instead! Course I had to finish it the next morning instead.

On Wednesday (day three) then, my uncle Fran arrived from Canada. We picked himself and my uncle's friend O'Brien up from the airport at about 4 and then headed back to the house, where there was more reunioning and more drinking! To the right is a picture of everyone. Bren (my dad, for those who are new), me (if you didn't know that, why the fuck are you reading this?), Sandra, my cousin, uncle Fran from Canada, and down in front pretending to be tiny, Paddy.

Funny thing I've noticed about Australia is that I find it impossible to sleep late. The sun comes up pretty early and it gets pretty warm and bright early, so by about 7 or 8 I'm normally awake, even if I lay in bed til about 9. Getting up some early then, you tend to be in bed a bit earlier than you would back home. Though, it gets dark at about 7 so you've normally had a fair bit of night by then anyway. It's a bit different to back home, where 9 is early, or even standard. Here, things that wouldn't open til maybe 11 are open at 9 and everything is closing up/closed by half-5 or six!

Eventually, Friday the 10th of December rolled around and it was time for the Wizard's 60th Birthday (remember who we started this calling him the Wizard? That's apparently not stopped yet). We left the house at about half-5 to be there for 6. It was in a local restaurant, Clifton Capers, and we had the whole inside booked. There were a few other groups seated outside, looking in, but meh, who cares about them?

I'm not even going to try and remember everyone who was there, but there were more familiar faces and even more Germans, because what part of my holiday would be complete without the persence of Germans. They're the new Irish, apparently!

There's Kevin and his wife Lyn, from England, who've moved over to Australia now, and their son Matt, their daughter who's name I've forgotten and her husband Scotty. There was Holmer (Paul Holmes) and Colleen his wife and Dylan/Dillon, who I met a few years ago. That mega-drive I have, and the games from it, I bought off Dylan a few years ago actually. For like a tenner. Fucking steal that was! Haha! Wins! Trevor and his wife Tess, who's house I was in last time I was hear, and Bill and loads of other people and I've just decided I'm giving up naming them because none of us really care who was there that much, do we.

As for the Germans, well the head chef and co-owner was a German and one of the bar staff.

Gibb, a guy my uncle knows from Scotland played the music, mostly old ballads/drinking songs, a surprising amount of which I actually knew, which was good. My uncle Fran, who does what Gibb does, but in Australia rather than Canada, played a few songs too, and even played Whiskey, which was awesome, though he plays the old Luke Kelly version, not the one that Thin Lizzy did.

Two funny stories about this song, that you may not know. I heard the first one from a girl I used to go out with, whose brother was there. Way back when, the first time Metallica ever played in Ireland, they seem to have forgotten that they had done a really awesome cover of Whiskey, and thus never rehearsed it at all, or even remembered how to go about playing it. Then the crowd started chanting for "Whiskey" and they couldn't play it, and basically the last half hour of the gig was the crowd screaming abuse and "whiskey" at the band, and the band trying to play other songs. Now, every time they come they play Whiskey as their third or fourth song.

The other story also happened a long time ago in the distant past of like 2008 (?) when we were in Nordweig for the first time and Charlie and Jonathan were just getting it on. Or possibly it was the second time we were there. But I'm pretty sure it was the first time. We asked Charlie to play Whiskey and she gave us a roasting because every crowd of Irish that wandered into the place ended up asking for Whiskey to be played! Because we are that predictable!

Back to the party anyway. There were people, and there was food, lots of it, brought out on plates by a succession of girls who also brought beer! Yay for the girls with the food and the beer, it's a regular Valhalla! All of this food eventually culminated in a large and delicious cake, which looked a little something like this.

Or rather, exactly like this - since it's a photograph, not a painting. 

Everything wound up around 11 because in Australia that's about one in the morning and the guys working there really wanted to get home! Trevor's wife gave us a lift home because she wasn't drinking, which was cool considering I'd gotten lost the day before walking from there home and a ten minute walk turned into a forty-five minute wander as it slowly got darker and darker! I've gotten better by now though!

So we got back and eventually stumbled and clambered back into bed! And that's another thing ticked off the list! List, you say? Yeah . . . there was a list once upon a time!

Visit Sinead in Japan, get bamboo tattoo, have fun, other stuff, get to Australia for uncle's birthday, go rafting (spoiler - have done now), get home!

The list is more or less done (which is scary). Actually, I call that a list, really it was a plan, a very limited, undetailed plan, but still, a plan!

So this blog is more or less done, but before I do I'll provide a few photos of the locality, just so you can think of me as you wade through acres of snow, to get to your job that you hate . . . Sorry, stopping now!

The first time I came down to the beach there was a girl sitting just off the main path, in the world's most summer-y dress ever, a dress so summer-y it makes all of Sarah Lonsdale's dresses look like some kinda winter dresses, eating a coconut that was clearly from a nearby tree, and I thought to myself, yeah, that's more or less what I was expecting! It's a pity I couldn't take a picture of her, because there wouldn't be a better advertisement for coming out here than that photo - but for some reason pretty girls generally find it a bit weird and disturbing when you randomly start snapping pictures of them . . . For whatever reason!

It's a nice beach though, and it doesn't seem to mind me taking pictures, so that's good, right? Can't really swim off here at the moment though, because the box jelly fish are in, but there's swimming nets about ten minutes walk down the beach either way. You really don't wanna fuck around with box jelly fish. Sometimes there's string-rays and crocs too, so really, swim in the nets, or in your pool. Because everyone has a pool.

Time to finish up this one I think, hope you've enjoyed my first few days in Cairns - I certainly have! :-p

Talk to ya soon,

Shane.

The Hard Goodbye . . .

Or The End of The Middle And The Beginning of The End . . .

As this goes live, I will be heading for Bali airport, and then on to Darwin and then on to Cairns. When I started this particular adventure, I divided it into three parts. Japan, with Neena and Sinead (see right). Then South East Asia, comprising of Hong Kong, Thailand, Cambodia and Bali. This part I knew I would be doing alone, although that isn't really how it all worked out. It was, in my mind before I left, and in reality, the truly adventurous part of my travels. And then finally, there is Australia, where I will see my dad, my uncle Paddy and my uncle Fran, so at the least it will be filled with familiar faces. It's also a western country and should be filled, at least theoretically, with familiar things. Thus, while it will still be an adventure, it is not quite the same undertaking as Asia. This, I hope should explain my second title up there, and while I still have a ways to travel, the end of this is slowly rolling forth, and if this seemed a long way off when I first left, it now seems increasingly close.

And as I say goodbye to Asia, I want to say some thank-yous as well. Not least, I should be thanking Neena and Sinead, and I do, but more than them I want to thank the unfamiliar faces I've met along the way. Hopefully this is not a goodbye, and I will see many of you again, if I don't see all of you!

To start then, there is the Kyoto Crew, a mad bunch of messers who I hope are still loving their time away. Thank you for taking us into your fold, even if it was only for the briefest of days. You guys were great and I really loved that weekend . . . knacker-drinking by the river.

Next up, there was Mat and Dave in Bangkok, who were great drinking buddies and I'm glad ye followed me to Chiang Mai, hope to see you guys in Sydney. At the time, I really needed some company and I probably owe ye one for that!

Then there's Team Spicy, and probably too many to name you all. Actually, there's a few Team Spicys since I spent so long there. First up there's the crew from the night of the big party!

I can't remember everyone's name, but that's okay, because if I don't remember, then that's saying something in and off itself. Marc Taylor, for being awesome despite being sick. Kenny, for just being hilarious. Mat and Dave for being in Spicy after Bangkok. Kevin, for not being dead despite all my fears.

Special mention has to go to Josefin and Anna, who I just keep on running into, because you guys are really cool and I'm so very glad I met you and that I saw you again in Pai. That started the whole ball rolling I think. Siem Reap and Full Moon followed, but Spicy you shall remain, and if I don't catch ye in Sydney, I really hope to see you in Dublin for Shane's Grand Tour - and we'll head Galway too see gay Ryan. My word of honour.

Then there's Fran and Jo-Anne, who I saw so briefly at Full Moon, and then ran into in Bali - glad to have met you and I will definitely be seeing you guys in Cairns, but please, no more early wake-ups! Another two people I hope to see in Dublin - I really better start brushing up on my tourist crap! I'm afraid I don't have a good picture of you guys so you'll have to do without! Don't think me rude!

In Pai then, there was Steffan and there he met James, who we all met on the Slow Boat to Luang Prabang. Glad I met you guys, and I'm glad your Gibbon all worked out. Maybe I'll see you in Amsterdam Steffan. Thanks for teaching me how to ride a bike and thank fucking God I didn't manage to kill myself!

Back in Chiang Mai there was Matt and Chris and Duncan, my second Team Spicy and my Laos travelling buddies, my Tubers, if you will. It was great to meet you guys and I'm really glad I went back to Chiang Mai when I did and that I waited to get the boat with you guys. 

Then, the fathers and mother of Team Spicy - Noom, Lpong and Sow. Seriously, you guys rock and I think my trip would have been a lesser thing had I not stayed at Spicy. I have sent people your way, and I intend to keep on sending them until I run out of people! I hope I get back to you one day!

In Laos, there were some awesome people, and we made a new little Spicy Family for a day or too, and it was good to meet you all. Especially all of you people in this picture.  



Then there was Cork and Bekaa, who were good enough to put up with me until we hit Vientiane, and then to ask me out again on Koh Phangan, even if I did get robbed that night!

Also, gotta say hello to the Irish girls I met in Vang Vienn. Especially Laura Creegan's sister Amy . . . because it wouldn't do not to meet someone you're vaguely connected too anyway.

To the Maltese boys, funny fuckers that ye are, glad to have met you! Glad to have lost to ye at bowling as well!

Then there was Hannah who I met on the bus. And then Domnic from Donegal, and then the crowd of Limerick girls. Certainly made for an interesting night in Siem Reap.

Finally, there's my Munchies Crew, the Scots boys, and Simon and Woody and Hannah and Kiah and all the rest, and thanks to Andy and Kay for running the show and making it such a great place to stay! Was so very worth it, even if I didn't win anything for drinking two beers out of an old shoe.

And last but not least, to Larros, for the entertainment value, you were priceless, but still I wish I hadn't met you. There's always bloody one. Still, I hope you aren't dead, but by rights you probably should be.

So thanks to everyone who has made my adventure so far such a pleasant and amazing experience. I really hope to catch up with many of you again and I really really hope that if you ever make it to Dublin I'll be able to extend a very warm welcome to you, and repay some of the fun that I've had. This adventure of mine would have been little or nothing without you all.

Go Raibh Maith Agaibh! (That means "thank ye" since I've been learning to say it in other languages, I might as well try and educate the rest of ye!)

Know that I will miss your company as I go along the rest of this way, and it will be lessened for each of you that I do not see again!

And to Asia in general, goodbye - it's a hard goodbye, and I will remember you fondly, despite tuk-tuk drivers and dodgy roads and 40 hour trips from place to place. I came looking for an adventure and I found better than I hoped.

Australia, you have a lot to live up to!

Shane.