White Night

I thought I'd write a little post on my latest living-abroad experience - Melbourne's White Night on the 21st of February. A few people told me it was no big deal/horrendous/not to bother but I liked the sound of it. Art and entertainment all over the city, 7am-7pm. What's not to like about that? I read an article somewhere in preparation that said to embrace being a tourist, so that's what I've done. I also suspect that having such low expectations helped me have a damn good night.

So, we drank wine while we played board games in preparation, and then had some Red Bull for energy of course, and unfortunately as the evening went on I did drink them both at the same time (but not from the same cup; I'm not a heathen). However, by midnight, when we went out (having been advised by the aforementioned article not to venture out between the peak times of 9pm and 11.30pm) I was only feeling the effects of the Red Bull. I know this is probably not the general consensus, but I think you can enjoy the event an awful lot more sober.

The first stop between our flat and the city centre where stuff was going on was the Royal Exhibition Building, where we watched a light show symbolising the four elements projected onto the building's façade with some cool sounds too. I only had my phone camera so these images are from Instagram.

We wandered down Swanston St, starting from the State Library which had a loooong queue outside so we went on to the Wheeler Centre, where the Emerging Writers' Festival was running an event called Magazine in a Night. Lachy and I both wrote something and put it in the submissions box, so we'll see if we make it into the final magazine! We moved on and discovered a travelling organ in the street; not something you get to see too often.

We discovered the dance stage where a dance troupe were leading the audience through some steps and had fun taking part in that for a while; then we visited the City Library where there was some interactive art that you walked around on with black lights to reveal a pattern criss-crossing over it (it was about integration I think). Around 2am the queue for the State Library was shorter so we joined it, but it was moving so slowly once we got inside that we jumped ship and went to the library's Bohemian Melbourne exhibition, which was really interesting.

After that we headed to Hamer Hall, where a show called Ghostly Machines was running. For a long time nothing happened and then there was all this sound and light and all these machines moving in sync over the stage and I couldn't tell you what it was about but it looked spectacular. Also it seemed that they were just using the actual machinery they use for light/sound/acoustics in all their shows, but in a creative way, which was cool.

At the NGV we walked into a room with a projection of some cool alien landscape which turned out to be a microscopic camera focused on a jar full of chemicals which the artist was adding to, so we could see all these cool tiny reactions projected on the wall, but I couldn't get a decent photo of it.

On the way home we dropped by Sticky Institute, Melbourne's only dedicated zine shop, where there was a 12-hour zine reading taking place. The guy we stayed to listen to was wearing a bird mask and reading from his zine by candlelight; he also played a song from the zine called 'Island of the Dead' - they were the only lyrics and he sang them progressively louder over one chord on his guitar. I didn't get his name but I will be going back there to find his zine - I'm sure they'll know who I'm talking about! 

We hit the hay around 5am and the following day White Night felt like a very trippy dream. Will definitely be going back next year.

Volunteering at Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary

We were back in the UK over Christmas, which was definitely more of a social visit than travels worth documenting on this blog, but a week after we returned to Melbourne Lachy and I had made plans to head out again. You may remember that a year ago we visited Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary, a wildlife sanctuary run by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy. On the 7th of January we were due to head back out there, but a monsoon up in the north-east meant we ended up spending almost another week at home before it was possible to fly out and get picked up.

Last time, as part of a big group, we'd flown direct to Broome and then in a charter plane out to the sanctuary. Easy. This time there were no direct flights, so we flew out to Perth, then Broome, took a Greyhound bus to Derby, then flew out with Operations Manager Dan Swan (Swanie) in a tiny Cessna plane. And there were a few nights spent in hotels in between (some with broken air conditioning...) when transport wasn't possible 'til the next day. It goes to show what I've become used to that the trip still felt like a breeze compared with the living nightmare of a UK-AUS flight.

Camels on Cable Beach (Broome) - the first time I'd seen them up close!

Since we'd been out the year before, we knew what to expect in terms of accommodation, so we were well prepared - except on one front. There hadn't been much rain when we came out the previous year, and this time round one road we had used now passed through a fast-flowing river. The rain seemed to have brought the flies out. I don't remember being troubled by mosquitoes last January, but this time we were eaten alive. I'm terrified of spiders, but I got used to having them in the shower with me - the mozzies on the other hand nearly drove me to an early grave.

Usually they have volunteers there in the dry season because the sanctuary is so busy with the Wilderness Camp tourists and all the wildlife surveys that are being conducted, so we were kind of out-of-season volunteers. The main task we were set to was the herbarium. Eight boxes of pressed plants to be alphabetised, catalogued and mounted (fortunately they had already been identified by experts!). We also went out on a trip collecting plants from the escarpment next to the camp and did some detective work to identify them ourselves, which was oddly satisfying. We helped out with odd jobs around the camp, like fixing stairs and making railings.

Plants!

Living in the city I've become more interested in birds than I ever was in the UK, which I put down to the fact that they're pretty much the only wildlife I get to see day to day. So I was pretty excited to find out that there's a Mornington Bird List - a list of all the birds around the camp with check-boxes - because if there's one thing I love, it's ticking things off lists. Probably the most exciting bird we spotted was a brolga, but I didn't have my camera at the time. They are huge, crane-like birds that usually wander around in pairs, but this one was alone. I had to do a double-take when I spotted it because I thought I'd seen a flamingo or something in the bush.

We also saw dingoes this time since they hang out a lot near the hut we were staying in. Hearing them howling in the night was so eerie and awe-inspiring. By day, they looked more like big-eared, scraggly dogs, but it was still an impressive sight. One morning I heard something like a door slamming, which was vaguely concerning since our hut was in the middle of nowhere, and I went downstairs to have a look. A red shape went bouncing away from the bathroom and then stopped to have a look at me. It was a wallaroo, and not the only one that we saw hanging around the hut early in the morning.

the guilty wallaroo

One of the coolest things we got to help with was setting up camera traps on the escarpment. These are really tough cameras that can survive in all weathers and are triggered by heat. We collected them up again just before we left and, though the images weren't of great value to science, we were amazed by what they had captured! We had only seen two goannas on our trip so far but we captured no fewer than three different species of them with the cameras, as well as a few selfies taken by a wallaroo and a couple of echidnas.

the explorer

We intended to do lots of walking while we were there, but the time flew by so fast that when we left we'd still only been on one walk, at a pretty poorly chosen time of day (it was HOT). It was a very valuable experience for the two of us in terms of food - we had to bring all our food with us on the plane, so we had to plan carefully. We got a bit sick of rice and pasta, but since we got back we've been much better about planning our food shopping for meals, and not running down to Woolworths three times a day. We also got to know a group of amazing people living in a close-knit and friendly community out on what is essentially an island of civilisation in the bush.

There won't be much travel this year what with our wedding coming up and lots of things to be saving for, but it isn't really travel when it's in the same country, right? Even if the country is the size of the United States? So we can go back again in the dry season without feeling guilty? Yeah? All right then. 

Al's Adventure: Part Eight (the finale)

Meet Al

Hi folks, my name's Al. I've taken up residence on Alex's travel blog as I made the decision to spend my inheritance on travelling the world for a few months, and I'll document my exploits from time to time as I go. Sometimes I'll be travelling alone, sometimes with friends, and sometimes just crashing at somebody's flat (cough Alex and Lachy cough) - it's going to be interesting, as I'm not one to often leave my comfort zone. My journey starts with a tour of the US, followed by some time in Fiji, a few weeks in Australia, and ends with a brief stint in New Zealand. Let's do this.

Part Eight

Here we are, the final leg of my trip. It's hard to believe that three months have gone by so fast, yet my hair is in dire need of cutting. I've spent twelve days here in New Zealand, and I couldn't have asked for a better place to finish my travels. I've been staying in Queenstown, on the South Island, but not in the classic backpacker style. I've done things in a less conventional sense. My mum's friend Tessa has been hosting me, in her big house above Lake Wakatipu; I seriously got lucky, check out the view.

So what really struck me about what I saw of New Zealand was that every day seemed to be in a totally different kind of environment. The first couple I spent on the hills and beaches around Queenstown, just getting to know the place. It's all so bloody picturesque, you're just constantly having to be like "whaaaat? That's not a postcard, it's the view from my bedroom window." And I got a weird sort of comfort knowing these hills are where the Lord of the Rings was filmed, that I was in Middle Earth. The hill right behind my house was used for all sorts of scenes from the Two Towers, can you believe.

I'd been told by a few people that I couldn't miss the Shotover jet, a superfast jetboat that flies down a canyon river. Everyone's been on it, judging by their wall of fame: Will and Kate, Peter Jackson and half the cast of LOTR, even Ugly Betty... Everyone piles in, the driver introduces himself and what follows is like the fastest fecking half hour of your life. He flies down the river, turning towards boulders and cliff faces at the last minute to scare folk - but heeee knows what he's doing. Also, a lot of 360 turns. Ooh boy, I should go to theme parks more often.

One of the biggest highlights of the trip was Milford Sound. It's not actually a sound, it's a fjord, but who really even knows the difference eh? I won't ramble on about how amazing it is, but let me just say that's it's become one of my favourite places in the world. It's like a set of prehistoric mountains were just flooded by bright blue sea, and penguins and seals came to live there. The drive over as well: mirror lakes, valley floors, ancient rainforests, snow-capped mountains, avalanche debris everywhere, it had it all. We even got to pull over to fill our bottles with glacial stream water - but then some turdburger threw his cigarette stub in and pissed off the bus driver.

It turns out New Zealand is pretty hard to traverse unless you have a car, but thankfully Tessa took it upon herself to show me around. We went out to the edge of civilisation, like the place you can only go in a 4x4, and guess what it was called... Paradise. Yep, I've officially been to paradise. Awful lot of sheep. We also took a ride out to Wanaka and Lake Hawea, and I can say it's the best lake I've ever seen. And I come from the Lake District. It looked like a solid blue platform you could walk on; yet another place you'll have to believe me when I say how amazing it is.

I saw a couple of gold-mining towns, one of which has a fancy little cinema with chandeliers and padded walls. I saw the new Hobbit film there, and there was a video beforehand where the cast thanked New Zealand for having them; the kiwis loved it until Cate Blanchett joked that it wasn't as good as Australia and people got riled up and booed. I sponsored a native tree to be planted at a bird sanctuary to ease my carbon-footprint guilt, I rode a steamboat to see a New Zealand farm and watch sheepdogs herding sheep (like I can't get that at home, eh?), and Tessa took me to the desert to a winery on Mt Difficulty so I could murmur in appreciation of wines I can't fully appreciate. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the wine, it's just my pallet ain't refined.

And so ends my trip. If you've been following this blog then I'll give you a sticker for making it to the end. I've had the most amazing time, seen countless incredible sites, and been hosted by the most generous people. I even managed to make it round the world without eating any meat (apart from the occasional bit of fish when the situation demanded it, and a piece of chicken I was told was fish and then didn't want to waste it after I found out...); and I really do love meat, I'm just aware of its impact on the environment so I thought I'd test myself. I'd also like to thank my grandma for making this trip possible; I'd like to think she'd be happy with how I spent her inheritance because she was a cool lady. Or maybe she wanted me to invest in future technologies and nobody told me. If that's the case, sorry grandma.

Thanks for reading, and thank you Alex for having me on your blog! Now to get home for Christmas and then try and decide what the hell kind of life I want. Because I know I can't be a Billy Joel impersonator, just not feasible.

Al's Adventure: Part Seven

Meet Al

Hi folks, my name's Al. I've taken up residence on Alex's travel blog as I made the decision to spend my inheritance on travelling the world for a few months, and I'll document my exploits from time to time as I go. Sometimes I'll be travelling alone, sometimes with friends, and sometimes just crashing at somebody's flat (cough Alex and Lachy cough) - it's going to be interesting, as I'm not one to often leave my comfort zone. My journey starts with a tour of the US, followed by some time in Fiji, a few weeks in Australia, and ends with a brief stint in New Zealand. Let's do this.

Part Seven

Let's talk about Australia, as I do like visiting the colonies. Alex (whose blog this is) and Lachy (her fiancé/my brother from another mother) met me at the airport, holding a sign with my name on to make me feel special. We drove back to their kickass studio apartment in one of the hippest parts of Melbourne - that's right, I said hippest - where I was given a quick tour before bed.

So the situation was this: I'd hang in Melbourne with these guys for three weeks, and we'd nip out and do all sorts of activities. So I don't bore you all, I'll list the highlights of my stay.

1. We drove down to the coast to stay at Point Lonsdale (Bonus: we had his brother's dog Biv with us). We drove along the Great Ocean Road, threw stones for Biv on the beach, visited the ACTUAL lighthouse from Round the Twist, and made homemade pizzas before watching Doctor Who.

2. We took in some culture in Melbourne. I saw baby penguins being fed at the SeaLife centre, I saw the skin of the famous racing horse Phar Lap and went underneath an indoor forest at the Melbourne Museum, we saw Interstellar at the third largest cinema screen in the world, I went swimming at an open-air local pool, and ate a ton of food from quirky local restaurants (like Trippy Taco and Po Boy. Also Nandos. Although It hasn't reached the dizzying heights of quality like it has in Britain - they don't even do halloumi.)

3. We visited Healesville Animal Sanctuary so I could get my fill of Australian wildlife. Kangaroos, wombats, wallabies, dingos, echidnas, Tasmanian devils, possums, kookaburras, lyre birds, I done seen 'em all. They even have an animal hospital there to look after anything that gets injured in the bush fires. Speaking of which, this country has fire danger levels ranging from low to high to code red. Yep, code red. That's when the whole country just explodes. So yeah, it's taken me this long to realise that wombats and echidnas are two of the greatest animals on earth. Also, dingos are fluffy as hell.

4. We drove up to the Australian Alps (honestly. I'm not lying.) to stay on top of Mt Buller. This was one of the most picturesque places I saw, just endless gumtree-covered mountains stretching off into the distance - and they look blue due to the eucalyptus, little fact for ya there. There's a town of second, or third, homes on the summit, but because we went in the Australian a summer it was a complete ghost town. Very cool. On the peak there's a metal pyramid, where rangers keep an eye out for bush fires (of which you could tell there had been a fair few). While we were here, we took a walk in the humid forest below, following the river, and saw two poisonous snakes and the biggest spider any of us had ever seen. It's like Australia was putting on its best performance for me. We finished off with a balcony barbecue, a dip in the jacuzzi, [Alex note: only Lachy and Al were in the jacuzzi, with beer and nachos.] and the four of us (including Alex and Lachy's friend Tatiana) playing dungeons and dragons. Go team.

5. We went to Equitana, a big horse festival at the Melbourne showgrounds, where we saw all sorts of horseback events -including cutting, where the rider has to separate a cow from a herd and prevent it from rejoining said herd. At one point I found myself at the cowgirl riding school demonstration, and the woman on her horse said "Anyone else a D-cup?" Woahh, hello. Some people put their hands up. "Well I wear two bras, cos these bad boys will knock you out if you're not careful." Then I noticed I was surrounded by women, all murmuring in agreement. It sounds great, but then I realised I was a bit of an outsider - I don't even like horse riding, let alone have breasts.

6. A bit more "culture". We went laser-questing, bowling, served ice cream at a charity event, attended a 'psychadelic' 21st birthday party in fancy dress (two words: free bar), went to an open air cinema by the beach to watch David Bowie in Labyrinth, I saw penguins climbing on the rocks of St Kilda to feed their babies, and I ate vegetarian schnitzel. Oh yes. We also played a feck load of Mario Kart, I'm counting it as culture because I played it with Aussies.

7. One of the weirder things we did was attempt an Escape Room. The idea is you're locked in a room, and you have a time limit to solve the puzzles to escape. When the timer runs out you're just let out, so the only real worry is feeling stupid because you can't solve anything. The theme was called 'endless dream', and we were trapped in this little room full of clocks, locked boxes, a painting of a brain, and some tough-ass puzzles. We asked for like five hints, but we made it out in the end. There's thinking outside of the box and then there's THAT. Still, the five of us left as more cohesive, oiled machine of friendship or something.

8. We visited an old timey town called Sovereign Hill. Who knew Europeans settled in Australia much the same as they did in America, with wild west towns built around gold mining? We panned for gold, tried old-fashioned bowling (you have to set the pins yourself, not worth it mate), took a horse drawn carriage ride, wandered round a gold mine, mimed a shoot-out in the street, drank ginger beer at the saloon, and saw gold being smelted. Interesting fact, the gold bar they use is 19 years old and gets smelted and cooled 10 times a day. Madness. It were a grand day out, I even got one of the old fashioned police blokes to arrest me whilst he told me how sexy ankles were (in character, I hope).

9. Yoghurt, blueberry jam, buttermilk cookie pieces, and protein clusters - that was an ice cream flavour. If there's an ice cream metaphor for Melbourne, it's that. They were both amazing. So there we are. There was plenty of other stuff too, mainly food, drink, films and good times. Oh, and vlogging: I made three guest appearances on Alex and Lachy's book-themed Youtube blog where I pulled a load of book reviews out of my arse on camera. That sounds horrible, I just mean I made them up on the spot.


Saying goodbye to a country where I heard the phrases "far out" and "rad" used in conversation without a hint of irony, I set off to the airport with a taxi driver who asked whether the UK and the US are linked, and if you can drive between them. I had no words. I can't thank Lachy and Alex enough for having me so long, and for sacrificing their privacy for me. I only hope I acted as a catalyst for flipping great times to occur. Final stop: New Zealand.

Al's Adventure: Part Six

Meet Al

Hi folks, my name's Al. I've taken up residence on Alex's travel blog as I made the decision to spend my inheritance on travelling the world for a few months, and I'll document my exploits from time to time as I go. Sometimes I'll be travelling alone, sometimes with friends, and sometimes just crashing at somebody's flat (cough Alex and Lachy cough) - it's going to be interesting, as I'm not one to often leave my comfort zone. My journey starts with a tour of the US, followed by some time in Fiji, a few weeks in Australia, and ends with a brief stint in New Zealand. Let's do this.

Part Six

Bula, my friends. That means hello in Fijian; and about a thousand other things, as they say it NON-STOP. I spent just under two weeks on this set of Pacific Ocean islands, and I'm pretty damn glad I did. When I arrived from LA, I'd missed the entire day of the 28th October due to crossing the international dateline 'backwards' so that means all of you had an extra day in your lives that I just never had. I've finally become a time traveller. I was too early to check in to my hostel, so I slept on a lounger by the beach until an old bloke told me what I really needed was a coconut. I cautiously followed him to his little coconut stash and then started my tropical lifestyle by drinking the juice with a straw. Some local guys came over and were adamant they snap a photo of me using my camera, making me feel like the biggest tourist in the world. Then I got overcharged for the coconut, so I guess I really am.

Every time I'd spent a bit too much in the USA, I told myself I'd make up for it in the cheap cheap land that is Fiji. Well, I was about to learn that the GOOD stuff in Fiji costs quite a bit. It ain't all white sand and clear waters; my hostel was next to a beach that wasn't winning any awards, and a town 10 minutes' drive away that didn't offer a whole lot except fruit. So I got stuck in this rut for a bit: hang around the hostel, living cheap but not really seeing Fiji, or splash out lots of cash to go and visit the islands that everyone thinks of when they picture this country. I hung around for a few days, sunbathing, eating, reading, playing table tennis, and making friends with Eleanor - a girl from London visiting Fiji for six weeks - and Johanus - as German as they come. Quick side note, Germans love travelling, they get everywhere. The day finally came where I boarded my speedboat ferry, and took off for the islands people come to Fiji to visit.

Island 1: Mana. We got the proper Pacific Ocean treatment when we arrived: walked off the boat through the clear water to the beach, whilst being serenaded by a guitar-wielding local before he placed a flower behind each of ears and offered us the mysterious 'welcome juice'. My time here was awesome; I sunbathed, ate the three included meals a day just metres from the sea, went snorkelling with some other travellers I met, the local kids danced for us (less sinister than it sounds, they weren't in chains or anything), the local adults sang a lot, we drank more kava, and played quite a lot of cards.

Island 2: Walolu. Eleanor had briefly seen our resort and said it was a real shithole, a crap beach mixed with a construction site - so our expectations were not high when we arrived. However, it turned out to be the nicest place we stayed at. We were upgraded to a private dorm (away from the herd of Australian surfers) and I could sit by the pool drinking on an outdoor bed - it doesn't get better, am I even backpacking anymore?! I noticed that the huge wad of cash I'd gotten out before island hopping had all been spent somehow, then I found out we had to pay a fortune for the meals there, so I jokingly complained about having no money to the manager. What followed was an insane decision by her to provide us with free meals for our stay, and THEN free cocktails all night because she felt so generous. The resort was putting on a big show for some travel agents that night, so I was also treated to crab racing - literally dumping a bucket of numbered hermit crabs on a table and betting on which one makes it to the edge first. Wooooo culture. Whilst staying here I also visited Cloud 9, a floating bar/pizzeria in the sea where you could just hop off and snorkel around. Trust me to choose the day when it's packed full of wedding party guests - even Grandma backflipped into the sea. I think.

Island 3: Beachcombers. The party island, apparently. A tiny little circle of sand and palm trees in the sea, we arrived here to a big old buffet lunch which suited us just fine. There weren't many people staying so there wasn't much of a party atmosphere (no matter how much the staff tried to make one: "anyone who wants to take part in the coconut relay, come to the dance floor now! Oh, nobody? Okay, it's cancelled." Just like that.) I fed some turtles, rode on a glass-bottomed boat over the coral, sunbathed, drank beer, the classics.

My time in Fiji ended at the cheap and cheerful hostel back on the mainland. I got a bit under the weather, praying to the Fijian gods that I hadn't caught Ebola (I still am to be honest), so it wasn't a very strenuous few days. I did, however, go to a Hindu temple in town, where they kitted me out with a dhoti around my waist and a bindi on my forehead; I caught a Hindu wedding which was cool -those guys know how to do stuff with pizazz. I've become a long-term guest at this hostel, so it's easy just to walk around and see people you know. Now here I am, saying goodbye to all the people I've met and to the SLOWEST COUNTRY ON EARTH. Seriously, everyone here is on Fiji time and just takes life easy; I've spent more time in a hammock here than I ever thought possible, and the biggest decision each day is what I should eat. Time to move on somewhere with a bit more energy: Melbourne.

The ICELAND Expedition

Some of you may know (perhaps if you follow me on Pinterest) that I'm a little bit obsessed with Iceland. It pretty much tops my list of places to visit - why, you ask? Let me see... Volcanoes. Geysers. Lakes. Valleys. Glaciers. And that's just the landscape. Let's talk about ponies.

image from National Geographic

Icelandic Horses are unique. Horses came along with some of the first settlers of Iceland (around the tenth century) and have been selectively bred ever since; the law not only prevents horses from being imported to the island, but even exported horses aren't allowed back. They're very careful to keep the bloodlines pure. This doesn't really happen anywhere else in the world - it's difficult to prevent breeds from crossing over when you have a hundred different types of horse in one place. Icelandic horses are small with wonderfully thick manes and a super awesome extra gait. Most horses only walk, trot, canter and gallop (a pretty good range already!) but Icelandic horses tölt AND flugskeið. These gaits are supposed to be very smooth.

But back to the point - Iceland. I have an ambitious plan, and I usually come good on my plans. I want to ride (on horseback, if you hadn't guessed) from one side of Iceland to the other, a distance of roughly 600km. This is hardly a groundbreaking distance for the world at large (see the Long Riders Guild, which I one day aspire to join) but for me personally it will not only be an awesome challenge but the chance to see Iceland, and better yet, to ride its unique horses long-distance.

image by Jvlivs on reddit

A number of obstacles need to be overcome before such a thing is possible. First and foremost, I need to fund said expedition, and since my friends and family have supported so many of my projects over the years I definitely want to do this one alone. There are many hours of toil ahead. I need to learn proper survival skills (Duke of Edinburgh just doesn't cut it) and find out how previous long riders factor in food and water carrying. My plan is to ride one horse and have one or two others carrying the gear, but there are so many specifics to be considered, and horses drink a lot. I will need to practice long distance riding, which is complicated by the fact that I live in a city and have no horse. I will need to plan a realistic route that doesn't have me riding through volcanoes and over glaciers. I will need to learn emergency veterinary skills in case a horse gets injured. I will need to learn enough Icelandic to get me through necessary situations. I will need to pick a realistic date for the expedition to start when I know I can be on the other side of the world, in a couple of years, that doesn't clash with my wedding, but gives me enough time to complete the trip and negotiate the buying and selling of horses and gear either side.

There's a lot to consider. But I've made a start in buying an 'adventure map' of Iceland and a book of walking trails, and starting my planning noticeboard. On the bottom left are pictures of Tim Cope, whose book I'm reading - he rode across the Eurasian steppe - and Robyn Davidson, whose book Tracks is a phenomenal record of her journey with camels from the centre of the Australian desert to the Indian Ocean. Oh yeah. I do plan to write a book about my travels, and make a documentary. 

We don't have picture hooks yet.

So, I may sound crazy, but I am so, SO excited at the prospect of this trip. If you have any useful information or ideas that might help me, please get in touch!

Al's Adventure: Part Five

Meet Al

Hi folks, my name's Al. I've taken up residence on Alex's travel blog as I made the decision to spend my inheritance on travelling the world for a few months, and I'll document my exploits from time to time as I go. Sometimes I'll be travelling alone, sometimes with friends, and sometimes just crashing at somebody's flat (cough Alex and Lachy cough) - it's going to be interesting, as I'm not one to often leave my comfort zone. My journey starts with a tour of the US, followed by some time in Fiji, a few weeks in Australia, and ends with a brief stint in New Zealand. Let's do this.

Part Five

Here we are, the last section of my USA tour. There's a lot to cram into this one so bear with me. Me, Jonny and Maria set off from Portland in our rented Mazda - which cost a fair amount for two days, mainly because we're under 25 - and headed south towards the Californian coast. I don't count Seattle and Vancouver as being by the Pacific as they technically lie in the Puget Sound Bay, which isn't really ocean, so arriving at an eerily misty seaside town late at night was our first exciting glimpse of the Pacific. That night we slept in a motel run by the creepiest family, to the sound of sea lions barking. The next day was a mad dash down to San Francisco, admiring the amazingly tall redwood trees, checking out the coastal scenery of Route 1, and crossing the Golden Gate Bridge during rush hour (the carpool lane, however, was a big bonus).

San Francisco is one hell of a city. Rammed full of people, about twenty forms of public transport, and hills too steep to be in a city, it's just crazy, colourful and loud. Our first night was spent at an Indian restaurant/Irish bar (that's right, combined) before enjoying a whisky in Little Italy. The next couple of days saw us playing old fashioned arcade games down on the pier, riding the cable car up and down the hills, climbing Coit Tower to admire the view, cycling to the ocean and then up to the Golden Gate Bridge JUST missing sunset by a few minutes, couchsurfing with a woman named Jess who treated us to a meal in Chinatown, bumping into a guy from St Andrews in the street, and watching fireworks on Pier 39 (the famous one) whilst eating Mexican food.

Just a quick mention about the cycling: they told us to return the bikes on the other side of the city by 9pm, but what we didn't realise was they didn't give us lights on our bikes. This meant that after sunset we had to cycle along pavements illegally, and through pitch black parks avoiding pedestrians and just whistling to be make ourselves known - it was stupid and difficult, especially after getting lost. However, we DID play an on-rails interactive zombie laser-shooting game on the pier, as well accomplishing a Mission Impossible style laser maze (where I showed a nimbleness I didn't know I possessed) - so that made things better.

Anyway, one of the highlights of the trip was renting our own campervan and driving through the streets of the city while people admired our paintwork (a massive osprey, for some reason). We even rode down that famous steep winding road in San Francisco, win Jonny telling me "This is it Al, we've made it in life." We took the van down the Californian coast, then camped under the stars just outside of Yosemite. That took a lot of driving, and we did have crappy salad sat in a dark, misty car park on the way there, but it was worth it when we finally camped and saw how many stars were above us (hint: a crazy amount).

People will think we're crazy for not even spending a night in Yosemite Park, but Jonny didn't want to camp in the cold (we were at 8000ft, can you believe), and our lack of time meant we decided to head out for the desert sooner rather than later. However, the day we spent in the park was amazing; the trees, the lakes, mountains like I've never seen before. After all the hectic travelling we'd been doing, it was nice to just sit by a silent alpine lake and do nothing. Hiking's for chumps.

So yeah, that evening we just drove and drove until we'd descended about 7000ft and camped by a desert road in Death Valley.

The next morning, stood outside the campervan underneath a big blue scorching desert sky, I threw a Breaking Bad reference Jonny's way. "Yo Mr White!" I shouted, pretty chuffed when Jonny grumbled "Yes, Jessie?" "When we gonna cook, yo?" It was a good moment, but maybe you had to be there. (If any adults reading don't know Breaking Bad, then just ignore this whole paragraph)

Death Valley is an insane place. Just like a massive, empty park where people drive miles and miles to see each attraction. You just pass each other on the big empty roads with a thought like "I wonder if they're going to see the abandoned mining facility, or the canyon full of colourful rocks?" We camped at a ranch with a pool, golf course, tennis courts, bar, cafe, buffet restaurant, everything. A bit TOO much for one of the driest places on earth... Still, chilling by the pool was a treat. So was watching the sunset from a rocky hill in the middle of the desert, beer in hand.

We woke up early before leaving the valley, to watch the sunrise at the lowest place in the USA (200ft below sea level! I've never spoken about feet so much in my life until I got here.) It's called Badwater Basin and it's just covered in salty crust, salty pools, and surrounded by a mountain range that looks badass in the rising sun. Oh, and we saw a desert fox being all mysterious on some rocks. Like the nomads we've become, me and Jonny then hit the road for Las Vegas - not an ideal place for a campervan.

It turns out that you can park in any of the casinos for free, so we picked one and it turned out we were right in the middle of the Strip. This is the weirdest city I've ever been to: people walk the streets drinking huge cocktails, they smoke cigarettes indoors, they walk past homeless people right outside the casinos where they'll spend hours throwing their money away into slot machines. And then there's the buildings. Pirate ships, castles, volcanoes, the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Canal (complete with fake blue sky overhead so it feels like daytime all night), Roman palaces -they have everything just crammed together on this one road, with outdoor music and escalators to help you move from casino to casino. I put a dollar into a slot machine, and won twenty, which was pretty awesome. Vegas ain't dragging me under.

Me and Jonny spent some time playing arcade games, and spent our prize tickets on some tat from the gift shop (including fake tattoos for him and a sheriff's badge for me), before trying our very first oxygen bar on the Strip. The idea here is that you get tubes up your nose to breathe in oxygen from different coloured cylinders and it's supposed to energise you, while the girl walks up and down giving head massages. Nice. That evening we went to a Vegas comedy show, where Jonny built a little fortress out of our passports and wallets to hide the fact that we were drinking cocktails and so wouldn't get picked on by the comedians. We ended our night by just wandering the length of the strip, watching the volcano spout its lava, and the Bellagio fountains dance to Frank Sinatra. It was then we realised camping in the car park of the Linq casino might be a bad idea, what with the security racing round on segways, so we had to camp out by some casino in the middle of the desert - a real pain in the arse after such a long day.

The following morning started off with an unplanned detour to Hoover Dam; not much to say other than that it's an insanely big wall of concrete built in a big old gorge and it's bloody impressive. No wonder it's one the modern seven wonders of the world. We hit up a classic diner for some ranchos heuvos (I can't even tell you what that is, eggs and cheese and stuff) then rode our way along Route 66 in the sun, blasting Queen's greatest hits on the radio. I then fulfilled a dream I didn't know I had: camping in a Flintstones themed campsite. We drank beers round the campsite and listened to Mumford and Sons which was nice. (Although is it sexist that the campsite laundromat was called Wilma's laundry? You tell me...)

Conquering another classic American tourist landmark, me and John visited the Grand Canyon. It's big. Bigger than it looks on TV. It just stretches off as far as you can see, so obviously we took loads of touristy photos of ourselves, before visiting the geology museum right on the side of the cliff. The next couple of days was just road tripping through the desert back to California to visit Los Angeles, a city so big it's actually made up of 53 cities apparently. It's stupidly big, and not in a 'woah' Grand Canyon way but rather an 'urgh, it's just miles and miles of concrete strip malls' way. We slagged off the city quite a bit on our long drive through it. However, we finished the day driving through the Santa Monica Mountains to camp by the sea at Malibu - that, my friends, is a nice place to camp. Better than the truck stop from the night before, that's for sure.

I'm going to be honest, LA was not what I've seen in the movies. The traffic is horrendous, the pavements are packed, and to get between two places worth seeing it'll take you hours. We still managed to do some cool stuff though: open-top bus through Hollywood led by a tour guide in Slytherin robes, saw Nightmare Before Christmas at the El Capitan theatre with added snow and smoke effects etc., saw the red carpet premiere for Interstellar and even caught a glimpse of Matthew McConaughey, and walked along Santa Monica and Venice Beaches to work on our northern England tans. I'm sure there are many reasons to love LA, but it wasn't mine or Jonny's favourite city, meaning I felt even more guilty hopping on a plane to Fiji and leaving him there.