Sounds like a Plan

When Paul and I worked in Sydney I would spend somewhere in the region of 80% of my working day on the internet, looking up anything that entered my mind. However Paul had a job where they worked him hard, Roles have reversed in Brisbane and as a result Paul has found the time at work to create a itinerary for the rest of our trip.

We have a flight booked out of Brisbane to Sydney on December the 23rd. In Sydney we are meeting up with Paul Peanut Mountain and Jackie Jax Falls. We will spend Christmas and New Year in the company of them and then our two months of pure travel begin. Below is Paul's plan; In blue will be any notes that I have added.

Australia Tour 2007 Legs:
1 Sydney - Cairns

2 Cairns – Darwin

3 Kakadu Tour

4 Darwin - Alice Springs

5 Alice Springs – Uluru – Alice Springs

6 Alice Springs – Melbourne

Leg 1: Sydney – Cairns, January 2nd

Port Macquarie or Coffs Harbour 1 Days

Byron Bay 2 Days

Nimbin 1 or 2 Days

Tweed heads 1 or 2 Days

Surfers paradise 2 or 3 Days

Noosa (Everglades tour) 4 Days

Bundaberg 1 or 2 Days

Rockhampton ? Days (Its here that we will be meeting up with Steph King who will beworking there cleaning dolphins or summit)

Town of 1770 1 Day

Airlie Beach (Whitsundays) 5/6 Days

Cairns 5 Days (Day trip to Port Douglas, Cape Tribulation
and the Daintree and then a day trip diving in
the Great Barrier Reef)

Total: 26/29 Days
Goal: No more than 4 weeks. Takes us to January 30th

Leg 2: Cairns – Darwin, January 31st

Cairns – Croydon 1 Day

Croydon – Adels Grove 1 Day

Adels Grove – Cape Crawford 1 Day

Cape Crawford – Darwin 1 Day

Darwin 3 Days

Total: 7/8 Days
Goal: 8 Days. Takes us to February 6th

Leg 3: Kakadu Tour, February 7th

Darwin – Kakadu 1 Day

Kakadu – Darwin (towards Alice Springs) 1 Day

Total: 1/2 Days
Goal: 2 Days. Takes us to February 8th

Leg 4a): Darwin – Alice Springs, February 9th

Darwin – Katherine Gorge 1 Day

Katherine Gorge – Tennant Creek 1 Day

Tennant Creek – Alice Springs 1 Day

Optional rest day 1 Day

Total: 6/7 Days
Goal: 6 Days. Takes us to February 12th

OR:

Leg 4b): Darwin – Alice Springs, February 9th

Darwin – Alice Springs 1 Day

Total: 1 Day
Goal: 1 Day. Takes us to February 10th

Leg 5: Alice Springs – Uluru – Alice Springs, February 12th or February 10th

Optional rest day 1 Day

Alice Springs – Kings Canyon – Uluru 1 Day

Uluru – Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) – Alice Springs 1 Day

Optional rest day 1 Day

Total: 2 Days
Goal: 2 Days. Takes us to February 15th or February 13th

Leg 6: Alice Springs – Melbourne, February 16th or February 14th (In Melbourne will finished were we stated, Meet up with Kim and Co and I will fly back to England and Paul will go on to New Zealand.)

Fraser - toss salad and scrambled egg....he done it again

This will need a bit of explaining as despite the heading this isn’t really about Fraser Island more about the freaks we went with. O.k the short version: Paul and I were staying in a hostel, I had work the next day and Paul didn’t so he went to a backpackers bar. Next day Paul comes in sporting the world biggest Man-Crush and bingo we have a new acquaintance: Dan an English lad who has been living/working here in Australia for a fair while as he has an Australian Mum. Any way one thing led to another and before we knew it we were playing in a mixed soccer league once a week with the lad and often sharing his company at weekends on the odd night out. You with me so far….

Dan organised a weekend break for a few of his mates to Fraser Island. Paul and I had Friday off work. O.k the following people were on the trip; Aaron and Pamela: Think two Goths meet two bulldogs eat them and then eat the sofas they were sat on.

Next Adam: A twenty something rock head that looks like he’d be mates with Bam Margera and looked about 28. Was half cut to hell from the night before when we met him at 6:30 am, thankfully he was drinking by 7am but only Bourbon!

Then Alanna and Dan: This will unravel as the story goes on. Uh they came dressed as Pirates and the Phantom of the Opera as you do for a weekend away.

Chris (left) : Ummmmm o.k The Wild Card Me Thinks, a 44 year old former Alcoholic and Drug addict who has criminal charges for hit and run offences aswell as various others. Has those eyes and teeth that I’m always weary of. Eyes that are kind of glazed and he looks at you as if to say I love you but I cold easily stab you. Teeth shorter than his lips so they kind of hide behind his upper lip.

O.k all of the above people know Dan, Work with Dan or are partners of someone that Knows Dan.

Basically this story is far too long and involves far too many layers for me to explain so I will simplify it all. O.k from 7am onwards on the Friday we met Dan, Chris and Adam were drunk and I mean bladdered and when your all in one 4x4 driving over an all sand island it is more than interesting. Chris would get drunk to the point of falling asleep every day by at least ohhhhh 5:30 pm. He would also take part in Dingo chasing and fully dressed sea swimming. It was like being on a an rehab holiday. Dan would get blind drunk every day and would shout expletives at everyone except Paul and I for driving to fast, too slow, caring too much, not caring enough ect ect. This coming from a guy that previously we thought was as passive as a cushion. Dan’s sole aim each day was to get pished. Then come Pamela who hates Dan with a passion, her boyfriend Aaron is as soft as a soft thing. Pamela also has the temper of a hot and sweaty bulldog at a kitten sanctuary. Throughout the weekend Dan and Pamela would exchange pleasantries.

Friday night came and Paul and I decided to get a tad boozy and escape from the freak fest and go for a late night (I say late it was probably 7pm but as there is no natural light) Paul and I had heard there was a bar and cos we were drunk we assumed it would be full of young interested ladies and that it would be merely 20 minutes away. Four hours later and Paul is in the undergrowth looking for his flip flops and I’m talking to shadows thinking they are Paul. Meanwhile back at the campground the mentals have called the Fraser Island Police cos they think we have gone missing…Woops.

Saturday, wake at the sociable hour of 6am. Drive to the woods set up camp, every one starts drinking. Chris is naked in the public shower by 3pm whaling like a banshee, so much so people came from neighbouring campsites to make sure everyone is o.k. this is a 44 year old man less we forget. Any who he was in bed by 4pm and Dan tied his feet together for a laugh and it was during this sleeping period that a group of Americans decided to turn up. So imagine if you will the look on these people’s faces when Chris decided to get out of his tent to urinate against a tree. A drunk 44 year old with his feet tied together, his mothers pride hanging from himself staggering towards a tree, any tree will do. Ummm more arguments went to bed at 11pm got up at about 6am again.

Went home with the two Goths and Paul and it was there that we discovered that the Dan we thought we knew isn’t the Dan we know at all. To be honest I dont think Dan is actually English though I do think he has visited, He is also not in a band and if he his then they dont play very much. Also Im not entirly sure if he has been to the moon with his cousin Micheal Jordan...though he does drink Gatorade.

The lsat picture is a result of a new camera, some rum and boredom:

Off The Rails

People that know me will know the following, I don’t like confrontation, I don’t like public situations that lead to embarrassment (towards me that is, I can’t get enough of embarrassing others) and I don’t like paying for things and if I do then I certainly don’t like paying over the odds.

Next I have been told that I think too much and not about the good stuff, Things like someone will say to me, “You would look good in Pink:” I would go home and think jeez, maybe he thinks I’m gay or maybe he is gay or maybe he thinks that if I was wearing pink I would look like one big pink blob with a dash of ginger hair on top. Any who imagine if you will, putting all these personal elements in a big jar so everyone can see and shaking it up and you get the following incident.

Monday comes and usually I will buy a weekly ticket for the princely sum of $20.80, however due to a combination of being in a rush and not having any cash I chanced it and succeeded. Come Tuesday still riding high on the wave of low level crime I decided to hedge my bets again, playing the flash the old ticket game. Now I get to the ticket gate and I’ll set the scene, there were police to the left of me, police to the right, the joker in the middle was me, I had gone too far, there was no turning back, I flashed the ticket and made it about half a metre before I hear the words “Sorry mate can I take a look at that”…..heart doubles in size. I keep on walking thinking if I can get to the street I’ll run. Any who I get about ten metres and I get a tap on the shoulder. Turn round and there are two coppers stood there. The conversation resulted in a warning ticket and a telling off, despite me trying to bamboozle him with long words like “implications” and “suffice to say” just to let him know that I wasn’t an Oik or a Chav. This incident has played heavy on my conscious of recent and has sent my thinking levels into overtime. The only positive to come from it is that I can reassure myself and parents that I will never be one of the backpackers who smuggles drugs out of the country.

Just cos I’m street don’t mean we can’t still be friends, that’s all I’m saying.

Le General de update

Just a little blogaroo to keep you up to key in the world of Tommy B.

Uh o.k, Work is work, I might write a letter to the rainforests of the world apologising for the gargantuous amounts of paper my company seems to waste but if I did that I would be wasting even more paper and it would take me at least three drafts as I get so nervous around large trees. So thats work, Everyone seems to be very nice and I seem to have aquired the nickname Tom the Pomme on all three floors, they also tell me to be quiet in a kind of sarcastic way cos they think I dont say enough. - little do they know.

Next, off to Frasier Island for a long weekend next weekend with the (go on you can say it) soccer team I play with. This consists of Dan and Alana (who I think might be seeing each other now, a bit like Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole in their Man U days!!) and their freinds but it should be a laff!


A few weekends ago we had a house warming party and I acheived a life time ambition ( No, there were not Twin sisters there who got a tad drunk and needed to stay in my room...Actually there was but nothing came of it) You see the party was infact fancy dress and I went as Napoleon Dynamite ha ha and Paul went as an all too convincing Pedro.

Time here is honestly zipping by at a scary speed, Went into town today and whilst strolling along bumped into some friends and turned around to see the entire Australian Soccer team stood on a stage, so listened to Tim Cahill and the like chat about their dillusions of probably winning the World Cup next time out and then went back to work.

Lastly...Um oh brought Killers and Jets new album and The Kooks live, excellent. Off out on a big one tommorow night at a club called Family in the Valley, Brisvegas's best club so im told. Must get some glow sticks. The women here are getting better as the weather is getting hotter were as I seem to be getting redder and hotter - vicious circle.

Thats it! - "If things get real for me down here, take me back to the song we played before I went away, if only for a day" Aint that pretty, answers on a postcard as to who its by.

Thomas FB