Bashar

2006-08-28T20:05:00.000+01:00

2006-08-28T19:06:00.000+01:00

Pictures - Freycinet National Park Weekend - Updated 5th May

2006-04-29T07:17:00.000+01:00

Stopping for lunch on the way back to Honeymoon Bay (it is a 3 hours walk and all we had to eat was "corned beef with cereal")

Walking along the beach On arrival at the extremely windy Hazards Beach, we found 2 german girls
After packing up from Wineglass Bay, we made the 30 miknute journey across the peninsula, to Hazards beach. The picture is of me in a tree
After making the 2 hour walk down from the lookout point, and then across the beach, we found an ideal place for our three man tent. We slept in it for one night and this picture is taken in the morning
Juan going for an early morning jog in full support of Real Madrid
Wineglass Bay in the morning
Juan, Ben and Tim in front of Wineglass Bay
Ben, Juan and The Man sitting on a rock!
Panoramic Photograph of Wineglass Bay
After a very tough walk up, with full backpacks, we arrived at the Wineglass Bay viewing point
On friday of week 8, the rest of the team went back to Launceston, but we got dropped off at Freycinet National Park. We would spend the weekend trekking around Wineglass Bay and Coles Bay

Pictures - Week 8 - Bicheno - Updated 29th April

2006-04-19T05:18:00.000+01:00

Fearlessly holding a dangerous tiger snake (not really scared, the sun was in my eyes)
A joey and its mother
Digging holes in the ground for signposts
The kangaroos taking some time off as it gets hot in Bicheno
Me and Juan taking some time off as its gets hot in Bicheno
The koalas awake for a few hours
Wombats playing follow the leader
These very cute wombats are just like huge hamsters
A pademelon with a baby in its pouch
A Tasmanian devil sheltering from the rain
Kangaroo creeping up for more food. This hungry one will make a few tasty roo steaks one day!
Animals at feeding time
Drunk wallaby holds onto the ground
Jan, Florian and the curious Kangaroos and Wallabies

Me and Ben amongst wallabies and swans
On arrival at Natureworld in Bicheno

Catch-Up Time

2006-04-04T07:13:00.000+01:00

I believe the last thing i wrote about was Week 4 in Zeehan, and that was a great week, but since then, i've spent too much time trying to put photos up on the blog. I've put many photos up on photobucket, but they are heavily compressed and therefore don't look that good. Anyway, i need somewhere to put photos up and the blog is the easiest place.

Now onto Week 5 then.

This week we would be down in Hobart doing some conservation work in various areas, and we were going to stay in the CVA volunteer house. Jim was once again at the helm of the CVA van and pointed out many sights and places on our way down there. As well as me, there was Ben, Tom, Jan, Florian and a new guy called Leo, who was Australian, and would inevitably convince us about the goodness of Australian apples. First of all there was a small town call Bagdad, and then a nice area called the Walls of Jerusalem, very historic names i think you'll agree. When we got to Hobart, we started work at the Truganini Reserve, which is named after the last full Aborginal in Tasmania. We spent a couple of hours making flower beds look nicer and then we went to the pub for a well earned...soft drink, in order to meet up with Jim's daughter. Later on that evening, Jim's daughter Linda, invited us over to her house for a barbecue and drinks. The house looked good, the food was tasty and the plasma screen was huge, but we didn't care about all that because Team America was on. We laughted a lot, and then some more -- that film is definately funnier the second time you watch it. On Tuesday we worked with Kingborough council to clear a path near Bruny Island. A bloke from the council had a chainsaw and literally logged the whole forest area, while our job was to take the branches away. It became quite laborious but Jim took us to the Australian Antarctic Building after work, and we dressed up like explorers. Pictures were taken.

Wednesday would prove to be a tough day in some ways, but a memorable one in others. We were at Sandfly working with Kingborough council again, but this time we were cutting down trees. Armed with saws we got started on removing pine trees from a large area of woodland. There were scores of pine trees, but each one felled made a better noise than the one before. By the end of the day, i managed about 10 on my own, and another 8 or 9 as a group. Attacking wide trees alone wasn't easy and thus we took turns in sawing. Considering that we are all now experts in destruction, this project was definately one of our favourite ones. That day we had lunch with some Green Corps who were working nearby on a large cricket oval. They aren't as strong as us lads from CVA so they were given the job of painting instead. It was however good to get talking to a few aussie girls, one of whom made quite an impression. I believe she told Leo that she wanted to be a geisha. Which is crazy considering that she's australian. We all had a ni*ce evening. On Thursday we worked with school kids while some of us were still hungover, and then on friday it rained. It was a shame that it was raining because our task for the day was the entire removal of Pussy Willow and Crack Willow. A good thing about friday though was that we convinced the boss of the council to get us a sort of reward for all our hard work [sic] and so he bought us 5 different packs of Tim-Tams, which are probably the best thing to come out of Australia since Boag's beer, Neighbours, and Kylie, of course. They are basically superior penguin bars and i'm sure i'll bring back a few for tasting purposes. On the way back to Launceston we had a lot of fun discussing the many wonders of Australian apples with Leo. Friday night was St Patricks Day -- We arrived back from Hobart to find Jun-Pei, Kazunobu and Juan -- Two Japanese guys and a Spaniard. Jun-Pei would now be known as Sean Penn, and Kazunobu would be known as Casanova because those names are easier to say. On Saturday we woke up and met up Leo again because he was about to leave for Bendigo. He was a good laugh and we're gonna hopefully meet up with him again in Melbourne.

General Pictures - Last Updated 19th April

2006-03-27T06:10:00.000+01:00

Bridport - Juan
Carlos at work in Bridport (picking out sea spurge)
Carlos, Juan, Jan, Ben, Tom
Bridport Action Shots - Me
Bridport Action Shots - Me
Bridport Action Shots - Jan
Bridport Action Shots - Ben
Me and the Columbian
The sea at Bridport
Bridport in B&W
Bridport in B&W
Chilling out in front of the fire as the nights get colder
Ben going for a new look at Chickenfeed - bargains with a smile
Saying our farewells to Jim at the Wok & Grill (he left for China)
All at work, loading weeds and trees onto a flat bed
Weeding out bone-seed at Swan Bay

Week 7 - Swan Bay
Tim quickly took advantage of the free Boag's
The Spaniard couldn't find a glass
I pulled the pump for a joke, and out came free beer lol
110 Million Milli-litres of Boags in that tank. OH YEAH
The Boag's Brewery - second to Guinness
Juan brought down to size by Tom, and a football
Sean Penn, Tom, Casanova, Me, Ben, King Juan
The monkeys at city park, and us
The monkeys again, picking stuff out of each other
Custom-made noodles at the Noodle Box. Udon noodles, chicken and tofu in teriyaki sauce
Tim chillin in our tv/dining/living/farting/burping room
Ben at the BBQ cookin up some steaks
Making the spaghetti with my eyes closed
Tim and his classic garlic mushrooms - mmm... champignones init
Week 6 - Working at Nabowla, Carlos thinks he has found a leech

The Japanese Macaques at City Park - i have 2 coming back to the UK with me
Graham, Ben, Vicky, Jim
It was good food and Boag's at Paul's
Rod, Graham's wife, Graham, Ben, Tom having our BBQ at Paul's house after golf
Jim, Rod, Tim, Ben, Paul
Playing Golf at Grindelwald - the Swiss Village in Tasmania. (Tom, Ben, CVA Regional Manager Paul)
Having our Pizza Hut pizzas in the park. $4.95 each. Thats about 2pounds sterling for a large pizza :). Tassie is so cheap.
Florian, Ben, Me, Jan, Tim, Sean Penn (Joon-Pei)
Taking a picture in a unique way
Tom drinking from the "Forsaken Bottle"
Jan's 21st. Juan can't describe how happy he is for Jan
Tom, Juan, and Casanova (Kazunobu). The new spanish guy (Juan) has just made us a true Spanish Omelette
Can you spot the eye?
Preparation for curry night
Jim got his van stuck and had to get it towed as we waited. A big blow for Tasmania's greatest driver
Regional Manager Paul's new car
Working with Rod for a day, at Skemps Reserve
Relaxing beside Cataract Gorge - great Launceston weather
Ethel the Frog at the saloon bar
Tom enjoying the coronary taco - this guy has a stomach of steel
Music and boating at Royal Park
Enjoying our hard-earned Tim-Tams
Leo the apple man Kiss chase It was cold while they were stuck in the clouds Looking over Tasmania's capital Up at Mt Wellington in Hobart Florian entertaining the girls at Irish Murphy's The view from the CVA house in Hobart I cooked this meal haha! Its blue rice with flattened rissoles We spent wednesday sawing down pine trees - this one took under 10 minutes
Fun at the Australian Antarctic Division
The Australian Antarctic Division
They were a little heavy
Taking a break at Kingborough
A little town called Bagdad - a place like home, on the way to Hobart
Local wildlife !!
Week 5 - Working hard in Hobart - The Truganini Reserve
Out for nearly an hour, tom had "stepped on a duck" - farted :)
Cataract Gorge bridge
Flower got us wallaby steaks and crayfish! Yum
Ben, Tom, Me, Fergus, .., Jim, Joe, Jan, Florian, Cristin
Having lunch at Strahan - Hats have never really suited Fergus
Ben, Tim, German girl, Jan, Me, Fergus, Carlos, Joe, Florian
Week 4 - Going to Zeehan - Thats Cradle Mountain and my fingers
Nice...
Carlos was a tight squeeze
Going for a spin
Week 3 - Duch Reach Point, walking track - The old car wreck
All facing the same direction, and ready to fire
A nice evening at the local (that is 40 minutes away)
The remains were found later that day
They stayed like this for less than 5 seconds

Gordon Ramsey himself
Steak night! Stuff that legends are made of
1 minute later
X-Rated
Gilligan's Island
Inquisitive tassie devils

Tasmanian Devils 'R Cool
These are probably canaries, but i wasn't listening
Parrots at the wildlife park
The whole gang, taking another break
Having a go at brush strimming

Ben beginning the tradition of wednesday curry night
Our room, with beds and everything
Great Aussie wit

Week 2 - Swan Point - Working hard, digging holes
The biggest, deadliest spider on earth (not really, but it was big)
Tim's goatie just keeps on growing
The McOz burger tastes great Ben, HJ, Me, MJ, Mariko
Cutting and pasting, and destroying
Florian, Jan, Jim, Ben and Tom working hard not to pose

The view at Georgetown

Week 1 - Georgetown - Cutting down my first tree
Trying to get the timers on our cameras to work! (Take 4)

Jan, Florian, Jim, Mariko, Ben, Tom, Suzy, Mi Jin, Juan, HJ, Carlos (DOM JOLY)

Its a steep 3 km walk home
Cataract Gorge Suspension Bridge

Cataract Gorge

Views of Launceston

A llama in the mall

Week 4 - A Great Time in Hitchcockville

2006-03-22T05:04:00.000Z

On Sunday, Fergus and Joe arrived from Hobart, which was a good thing because English people had been far and few between for the past few weeks. It was nice to see them again, the last time we spoke was in Singapore Airport. They were to come to Zeehan with us for 5 days, sleeping in our CVA house for the night, then travelling the next morning. Our house sounds pretty good compared to theirs though; they have to sleep in their sleeping bags, they have to pay to use their washing machine and they only watch videos in VHS!

Early on Monday morning we were up and packing our bags for a 5 hour journey to Zeehan. It takes 3 Hours to get from the top of Tassie to the bottom, but 5 hours to get from the North coast to the West coast?! Although quite a long trip, we stopped over at a town called Sheffield where many of us had Chips N' Gravy. Not advisable if you are going to be winding along a mountain road in a van. Our team leader Jim then took us to see Cradle Mountain and you can take it from me that it was a good piece of rock. It looks sort of like a baby's cradle or cot and as such got its name. We took some photos, at one point handing a tourist 9 cameras so that we could all be in a group photo. We couldn't trust self-timers again since the incident at the lighthouse, but thats not for now. As we arrived in Zeehan, we suspected that it might be a little quiet, and then had our suspicions confirmed. It may aswell be out of a hitchcock movie (yep, hence the title) because there are no people around and there is really nothing to do. That wouldn't mean the town is a complete disaster, as long as the views and the weather were great,...but they weren't. It rains 330 days a year in Zeehan, and it was nice of Jim to tell us that once we were there. We would be staying at the house of the head of the Zeehan council for the whole week. By we, i mean Ben, Tom, Fergus, Joe, Jan, Florian, Carlos, Cristine, a japanese girl, Jim, and me. Thats a lot of people to fit into one bungalow, but we would have such a good time living together. All of the guys are great to live with, so even though Zeehan as a place was rubbish, we had a really good time there.

With no telephone reception though, you can only imagine just how backwards this place was. And if you can't, just watch one of those films where bored kids ride their bikes all day long and shoot at passers by. We didn't do any work today, but dealing with this great town was enough work, so instead we sat down to some spaghetti and pictionary. I didn't want it to sound as if this town should be avoided....

The next day, it was raining, and we had about 150 stakes that we had to hammer into the ground so that we could mark out an area of burrowing crayfish. Maybe one positive thing about Zeehan is that there is a 360degree view of mountains, but they are shielded by 100% cloud cover, so i wouldn't go to Zeehan for the view of the mountains either. We found a nearby pub and made it our local because it didn't seem like many other people had it as theirs. There we played pool and listened to Meatloaf all night. Go buy Meatloaf's album, Bat Out of Hell. Its goood.

On Wednesday we worked on the beach in Strahan, cutting gorse. Gorse is evil. We did however get to have lunch in the city, right beside the water. We found a tourist shop during lunch and we all posed for a picture as we put on different types of ridiculous hats, once again handing about 9 cameras to this poor bloke in the shop. Fergus really didn't look trustworthy with a knitted hat on -- in fact he made a grown man cry. After lunch we went to an acidic coastline beside Kings River. It was a nice beach with not much going on, however we had fun knocking more posts into the ground in order to keep some sort of testing ground safe from the elements. It was now that the man we worked for, decided to call Carlos, cuddles. I should explain that from day one in Zeehan, we've been working for a man from the council, a guy who likes to call himself 'the Weedman' and who relishes being in Zeehan's Weed Managers Weekly. We're also sure he bats for the other team, so we began to call him 'Flower', but not to his face -- even though we could have. The thing is that he has started calling Carlos, cuddles, which maybe isn't such a good name to call a Columbian guy who is 40 kg heavier than him. I don't think Carlos differentiated between his name and his new nick name though, and thus flower was safe. Cuddles did give me some spanish lessons as we worked, and i now know a few useful phrases. Useful but rude i suspect.

That evening, Flower brought us 3 freshly caught salmon, and i stepped up to the challenge of cooking them. I only actually cooked 2, but they were enough for all of us. A bit of lemon here, and a lot of oil there, and they were all foiled up and ready to eat. I also made a tomato-ish sauce to go beside the fish, just in case someone decided that lemon and oil wasn't good enough for them. Flower had also gone to the effort of picking up roadkill and laying them on a very remote walking track just out of Zeehan. He had wanted us to be able to catch a glimpse of Tasmanian devils coming out for their dinner, but when we got to the track at night we found nothing. To make us feel better, Jim swerved for a wallaby on the way back home so that was fine!

On thursday we had to pick up really small weeds from a really big sand dune, and that wasn't fun, but once again the view made up for it. We were on a beach, the weather was perfect, there was a nice breeze, and it beats being in central london. The highlight of the day was definately playing pool in the evening. We all went to the pub expecting a few quick games of pool, but it turned out to be Zeehan's regular night for Calcutta ball. 15 people turned up to play a pool tournament and of course we joined in, we had to show them how good the english are. Five minutes later, i remembered that there wasn't anything at all to do in Zeehan, and this was when 14 of them took their own cues out of their cases. We did good though. I got knocked out in the second round, to the defending champion (a woman who's won it all of two times), but Joe made us proud as he flew into the semi-final. He didn't get any further, but we were tired anyway, and the Zeehanites were just too good.

Friday was our last day, and after a few hours work, we went to a nearby park where Flower had brought us wallaby steaks and fresh crayfish. The wallaby had been shot a couple of days earlier and the crayfish was caught in the morning. After a few exhausting minutes of touch rugby, and one injury, we sat down for food. I can assure you that wallaby is good meat, it tastes very different to normal steak, and not like chicken. Ask your local Sainsbury's to stock wallaby meat, cos its good on a barbie. We then made our journey home and once again stopped off at Sheffield. This time for some more Chips N' Gravy seeing as many of us had started missing it. Fergus and Joe left on saturday, and we decided to go to Cataract Gorge for a swim. It was a nice day out, and so good to get back to Launceston where the weather was still as hot as when we left.

PHOTOS

2006-03-18T01:20:00.000Z

Photos are here:

http://photobucket.com/albums/v603/bash/gap%20year%2006/tasmania

Week 3 - Duck Reach Point

2006-03-11T01:38:00.000Z

This week we worked at Duck Reach Point which is a greenland reserve linked to Cataract Gorge. The project involved building a track, and the first thing we had to do was decide where it was going to go. The problem was that the area was steep and covered in trees, so monday was basically spent marking out the track by placing yellow tape on the trees. The entire length of the walkway was going to be about 4 km and would eventually take about one and a half hours to walk, so you can imagine how tiring it would be to be building the track in 30 degree temperatures. After a decent route had been marked out we sat down for lunch beside an old car wreck. Everything had been stripped out of the car, and most of it looked burnt anyway, but we all jumped at the chance to sit inside it. We didn't look too cool though. Oh and we also came across a bee swarm, but it wasn't that interesting.

On Tuesday we began clearing the track using brush strimmers to cut the grass, while Tom was in charge of getting rid of trees. The welsh boy had a chainsaw license and he was good at taking trees down, aswell as climbing up them. There really isn't a better noise than hearing a tree fall down though. Me, Jan and Kim (a Korean a.k.a. Harry Tosis) took care of brush strimming, which is fun until the cutting wire runs out. Once we had finished our day's work we needed to get back up a hill, which our team leader Jim had driven down earlier that day. Its very steep, has a couple of turns, and it didn't help that we were in a manual van with Carlos inside and a trailer attached. We didn't get up on the first try and ended up slipping a little so we started from the bottom again. This time Jim made it, but it was thrilling nonetheless, especially considering that he nearly burnt out the clutch in 1st.

The rest of the week was much of the same in terms of work. We cleared the track for a few days, adding large rocks either side of the track to stop tourists dropping down the steep valley as they walked around the reserve. We went to a uni night in town on wednesday, and it wasn't really a shock that the place was empty. It was Launceston afterall, a town where people disappear after 5pm. Not empty as in, there were a few people, but empty as in the people at this place were actually stacking away tables and chairs at 9:30. There was no one there but us, so we left quickly and went to Irish Murphys. That place wasn't too packed either, but it was good enough. Poor Guinness though, it tasted a little bit sour.

On Friday, we took wheelbarrows up and down the path about 1 Km, in order to lay down a bottom layer of gravel. It was one of the hottest days so far, and pushing wheelbarrows up and down the hill made us all knackered. Seriously, it was hard work, but we had so much fun joking around and relaxing in wheelbarrows when our team leader wasn't looking. That night we sat down to watch Die Hard, with 2 dominos pizzas and a lot of Boag's beers - el vino did flow!! The next morning Harry Tosis left and i'm sure he took the DVD remote control, so if i see him again i'm gonna squeeze some toothpaste into his mouth.

Saturday was '!!crazy day!!' in town where everything was on sale for one day only. It was a nice atmosphere, and it was the most people we'd ever seen in Launceston. We had our first Subway sandwiches in Launie that day, and they were good, real good -- and also cheap.

The CVA regional manager had got us tickets for an AFL footie game that evening so we were looking forward to seeing our newly adopted team, 'The Hawks' play the 'Adelaide Crows'. We weren't quite sure how to get to Aurora Stadium to see the game so we needed a taxi from our house. There was a card somewhere in our house which had Taxi written on it, and a number. We called it and there was an answering machine. A recorded voice said "press 1 for a taxi", so i followed her instructions, and then i heard "thank you for your requst". And that was it. We weren't quite sure if a request had been sent through, but we thought we'd give it a chance anyway and see if one turned up. We all grabbed our shoes, and went outside to wait. In less than 2 minutes a taxi had come and that was all, we jumped in to go to the Aurora Stadium. The match was great, quite a few people had turned up, and it was the first game of the season. I would need a whole new blog just to explain the rules of aussie football, but basically we enjoyed it. There were a lot of people supporting the Hawks, but we still got thrashed by the Crows. It was a lucky win for them, however we needed to some how recover from the loss. We went to a nearby fastfood stand on our way out, and got a couple of what the australians call, Dagwood Dogs. Its a hot dog shoved on a stick then battered and dunked in ketchup. Yummy! Go and try one, its a mini heart attack :)

Swan Bay and Steaks

2006-02-28T04:35:00.000Z

On thursday we began work on the other side of the river called Swan Bay. It was just as nice, but involved a lot of weeding. During once rather intense session of weeding, i flew straight into sinking mud. Sinking mud is the wet mud that is left over once the tide goes out, and once you're in, you might just end up sinking. I was covered in mud, head to toe, and even my gloves got soaked. Needless to say i smelled really bad, but i was told mud suits me, so it wasn't all bad. Clothes in the wash (i've had to learn how to do my own washing !!), and all was good again.

That evening, our team leader's wife brought us some fresh meat. We got 3 of the biggest slabs of meat that i've seen, and all were at least an inch thick. Each one took up a whole dinner plate, so you can imagine that it was going to be quite hard to cook. I made the marinade and from that point onwards, nothing inside the house was going to cook these steaks, we had to look outdoors. Out came the BarBQ and with enough space for two at a time, we began flame grilling the meat. I've got many pictures of the steaks, which are probably the best home cooked steaks i've had. Obviously it was my marinade that made them so tasty, but they had literally been cut from the cow less than 48 hours before they landed on the BarB. We had mashed potatoes and garlic mushrooms on the side, but they had to be kept on separate plates because there just wasn't any space beside the meat.

Hands down, awesome steaks.

Swan Point, Devils and a Suicidal Possum - Week 2

2006-02-28T04:14:00.000Z

During week 2 we worked at a place called Little Swan Point, which overlooked the Tamar River and then at Swan Bay for the last 2 days. The river is particularly tidal, but has seals in it, aswell as black swans. I figured thats probably why they called it Little Swan Point. Our work was different this week though, because it didn't (well mine didn't), involve as much weeding and cutting. We dug holes in the ground (2 Foot Deep!), and then had to put some posts in them and cover the hole (buh-dum) thing in cement. It was a sort of green reserve area, so those posts had information on them, just in case you wanted to know. I also got to use a strimmer, a deadly machine when grass is concerned. Its quite heavy and runs out of petrol in a few minutes, but its more fun than weeding. By wednesday, we were mainly just lying around in the reserve soaking up the sunshine, however we found a stupid dead possum which had managed to get itself stuck in the trees. It must have committed suicide a few months prior, but it had basically got its tail wrapped around a branch, and then decided to just wait it out. It looked bad, maybe because its skull was now completely visible. No pictures of it though, i wasn't sure you guys wanted to see it desperately.

On wednesday we had a half day because our team leader wanted to go to the zoo. Well, he offered to take us, and it was more of a wildlife park, but it turned out to be great. I was eager to jump into sum 4 x 4s and plough around the park, but the guide wasn't there that day, and we ended up walking around by foot. (We do a lot of walking every week. In fact i could probably write a whole post about how much we walk. To town, back from town, etc..., its a lot of walking.) Anyway, we got to see some cool parrots and birds, ones who only spoke to me though. Everyone must try talking to a parrot though, and even whistling tunes to it, it can take years off you. You'll get those years back in a padded cell and straight jacket, so its not all bad.

The highlight had to be seeing the Tasmanian Devils. They were asleep til i woke them up, but i felt like taking a few home. They sneeze all the time, make weird noises when they fight, and look like a cross between a dog and a pig. I have a few photos of them, but its better to come face to face with the devils, because they have a lot of character. There were emu's aswell, and apparently there were some kangaroos, but they were too lazy to show their faces. We also got to see some of the country's deadliest snakes, spiders, and blue tongues lizards. They do have blue tongues. Chew a lot of blue hubba bubba and you'll get the idea.

THINGS YOU MIGHT LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT OZ

2006-02-16T06:43:00.000Z

I'll update this post as often as possible with facts about Australia and Tasmania

The people drive on the left.

All the coins here have the Queen's face on them.

I saw orion's belt on wednesday night, and just in case you've seen it before in London, then you might like to know that its upside down in Tasmania.

Another thing too, we can't see the north star. Not a huge problem though because we've got a southern cross.

NEW I've found out which way the water goes down, but i'm not quite ready to reveal it.

End of first week

2006-02-16T06:35:00.000Z

I'll carry on from where i left off about the pine tree which i was going to cut down. It came down in about 15 minutes of good sawing and fewer things sound better than a tree falling down. As conservationists you'd think we shouldn't really be cutting anything down, let alone a christmas tree, but apparently, any plant, bush or tree which isn't native to Australia is fair game.

The next few days would be much of the same. More sawing, more navigating across trees, over trees and under them and all in 30c sunlight. On Thursday it actually hit about 35c, but being beside the sea made it easier. Blue skies, again, and a good breeze and i worked up a good sweat.

Its tough work, but someones gotta do it!

I cooked a good steak dinner on wednesday night, but i wasn't quite sure what to have with it, so i got my housemates to whip up a mean egg fried lice.

We're having spaghetti on thursday courtesy of Tom. He's welsh, so it should be easy to knock up a decent spaghetti dish.

Roadkill

2006-02-16T06:07:00.000Z

This week's journey to work would be from Launceston to Georgetown and then back again. Its a 50 km drive each way, and on the journey home we decided to count just how much roadkill we could see.

The day after the full moon, we ended up counting 44 individual pieces on this 50km stretch of road, ranging from wallabies to possums. a little disturbing, but you do the math.

Thing is though, i had a brainstorm. Why leave the animals in the middle of the road when you can push them to one side? And so my $weepstick was invented. It may look like a stick but it isn't. You can open your door and brush roadkill aside, or use the provided attachment to aim the $weepstick out of your window and hurl any unfortunate carcasses away from the road.

Retailing for just 1 British Pound. Its good value for money.

First day of work

2006-02-14T05:32:00.002Z

We woke up at 7am this morning and had to be ready to leave the house by 8:15. I put on my work trousers, work shirt, work boots, and obligatory Aussie hat and shades, and we headed off to Georgetown. We picked up 5 people on the way: a Japanese girl called Suzy, a colombian guy called Juan, a danish guy called Jan, a belgian who's name i've forgotten, and another colombian called Carlos.

We call Juan, Fidel Castro
Jan is Matt Damon (according to Suzy)
and Carlos looks exactly the same as Dom Joly.

The Belgian doesn't look like anyone.

I'd been waiting for days to get started with the work. We basically got to choose our weaponry for the day and were then told what to cut down (which evidently meant keeping everything else standing up.) I picked a machete and a very sharp saw and as you might imagine, most things in my way, were no longer...in my way. We would hack down bushes and weeds and thick roots and then spray poison on it to stop it growing. The sun was shining bright and all our work this week would be beside the sea.

We had such a good time taking things down that by the end of the day i wanted something a bit more challenging. In the area we were working at there were two pine trees, one was enormous and needed a chainsaw-i'm hoping to get a chainsaw soon :), but the other one, even though quite big, wasn't going to be impossible to take down.

Weekend

2006-02-14T05:15:00.000Z

The first weekend seemed to go pretty fast actually. We would spend most of the day in the city centre of Launceston, we needed a few things at first and then we'd just "chill". It was no mean feat to get to town as we'd walk there and walk back. In all, the journey would be about 5 or 6 miles, and going up and down hill constantly and in the heat, was doing us (me), some good.

On Saturday we went shopping to get some more food that we needed and then we had a barbeque. Its not quite the same using a gas BBQ, but then again, meat is meat, and meat is good. We got a few movies from the local (3 miles away), Blockbuster, namely; True Romance, Pulp Fiction, Aliens 2, Anchorman and Gun 2 1/2! A good selection i'm sure you'd agree. Its quite weird that in London i've never even thought about getting a Blockbuster card, but in Tasmania i've already got one (for use at the 46 Wellington St, branch). We didn't end up watching any of the films that night, the s felt like watching Father of the Bride. Again.

Sunday was a good day, even though the weather wasn't perfect. We walked into the city to see one of Launceston's major attractions, Cataract Gorge. I'll upload some pictures soon, but the whole area looks very natural and overwhelming. It is the site of an earthquake which ripped through the mountainside years ago (you can do some background research on it). We walked through it for a few kilometres, eventually reaching the highest point we could. The views from the top were awesome. We also took a chairlift from one side to the other, and it was on this ming numbingly slow moving "ride", that the weather turned. It began raining on us, and by the time we reached the otherside, our t-shirts had not only been soaked, but the sun had come out and dried them again!

On our way back we stumbled upon a sports bar, which had a pool table, and english footie on TV. We sat down to a glass of Boag's Draught beer, brewed in Launceston, and what a beer it was.

Boag's may aswell be called Kipling's. It tastes exceedingly good. Go and try it.

Friday

2006-02-11T02:36:00.000Z

By now it was 10am on Friday morning and i was shattered. The house looks good and its quite big, sort of the same size house that was used in Halloween 5. It has a BarB-Q outside, and a kitchen etc... . We had our shopping done for us almost immediately and we got; sausages, eggs, pasta, pizza, juices, cereals, chocolate spreads, ice-cream, garlic bread, burgers, 2Kg of minced meat-to make spaghetti bolognese, and rice..for the Koreans.

I managed to sleep on five separate occasions between 1PM and 9PM that day. I did something unimaginable and actually slept through a big part of Cool Runnings, but then i slept twice during Father of the Bride aswell. Two classic movies, but i was just too tired. I still got another 8 or 9 Hours sleep once i finally got to bed at 3am though.

We have 3 Korean s in the house and the joys of listening to them speak are infinite. They mainly mess up their r's and l's, and we should correct them, but it wouldn't be as fun. They should be leaving soon, and then we might finally be able to use some of the lice [sic]. They're pretty cool though, cos between 10 pm and 1am, they made us pizza, a nice beef meal with rice, and served up some ice cream.

Over the next 3 days we would watch Father of the Bride at least 4 or 5 times. It seems to be the only thing they can put in the DVD player.

Flying to Australia

2006-02-11T01:57:00.000Z

Got to Heathrow airport at 10PM on Wednesday and it was great that Ben and Colz turned up. We had some drinks and nachos with them, but then had to leave to go and check in our luggage. Before boarding the 13 hour flight, i had realised that they would force feed us snacks, meals and drinks, but i didn't think that they'd then make us go to sleep. Pulling the blinds down was their way of making us sleep.

The food was quite good (you can email me for a complete menu), and regardless of the number of movies and TV shows available, i managed to catch '40 Year Old Virgin', 'House' and 'Jack Dee Live', each and every time they were screened (thats a total of 5 times each). As you can imagine i didn't get much sleep, but 40-Yr-Old just seems to get funnier and funnier, especially considering i'd already seen it 4 times.

Met up with Patrick and my fellow gappers (Tom and Ben) in Singapore airport and then proceeded to board our flight to Melbourne. It was only 6Hrs 45Mins but that was no consolation considering i would once again be forced to sleep (due to the +8 Hour time difference at Singapore making it night time again!!). This time i chose to watch Lord of War, Simpsons and Fraiser, back to back, going from one to the other. The flight this time was a Qantas plane, compared to a BA plane before. The Qantas seats were actually more comfortable and even the service was so much better. We got similar meals and snacks to BA, but the meals were followed by ice-creams, and we were regularly given bottles of water.

QANTAS 1 - 0 British Airways

The third flight was a VirginBlue flight from Mel to Tasmania. It was so fast you could have blinked and you would have missed it, and it was cheap enough that i actually considered buying Branson's autobiography to say thanks. I didn't though.

At arrival in Launceston, Tasmania (pronounced Lawns-Tin), we got a taxi to the CVA office and then got dropped off at our house. Needless to say, my backpack was heavy enough that i was glad to throw it into the back of the taxi, adding an extra person to the fare.

48 Hours on and the whole journey eventually seemed worth it when we saw what Tasmania looked like. It looks like a cross between California, Hollywood, and Australia. Loads of trees, loads of mountains and it was very hot.

Day Before Leaving

2006-02-08T00:01:00.000Z

Just testing to check this blog is working.

All future updates will be made here.

I hope you enjoy reading it.