AUCKLAND AND LA: 1

Sitting in Auckland airport, have 2 hours before we leave, 1 hour to check in. Flight from Melbourne arrived slightly earlier, so we have longer to wait. We’ve found a business desk in the terminal where you can use wireless . . . FOR MONEY. But I’m too stingy for that.


Az and me.

Instead I can tell you about the clouds that looked like flocks of sheep, the wing bouncing in the mild turbulence on the way into Auckland, the flight attendant who busied himself getting me a vegetarian meal because (surprise, sur-frikking-prise) they didn’t have one for me. Apparently Air New Zealand only do meaty and vegan meals from Melbs to Auckland, and if you’re not vegan you supposedly must eat meat. Bizarre. Have checked to make sure I’ll get vegetarian meals on the way to LAX. I plan to sleep a lot on this next flight.

I was dropped off at the airport by Saj and Es, and got lots of hugs from them and Dan before going through the chompy gates of doom. Met Az at the airport and also got to meet his brother and mum, yay! Have not yet been harassed for gender variance, but have been misread all over the place. The man at check-in had to “go and check something with the passports”, the boarding staff checked my pass and called me “Jonathan” when most other people were “Sir” and “Ma’am”, and the meal-hunting flight attendant (who produced a very nice meal in the end) called me “Miss Williams”. I’ve decided to use the men’s toilets for this whole trip – just suck it up and get used to it.

I watched “The Golden Compass” during the flight. Wow, it’s packed with awesome actors, isn’t it? It was quite fun, but obviously not as rich as the book, and I still feel like there’s something missing, something that makes it all a little . . . flat. I found with the books, too, that they felt a bit “and then, and then, and then” – that is to say, saga-iffic. I suppose, though, that it’s not a whole story, so you have to take it in the context of the trilogy. Of which I’ve only read 2, because the death of my favourite character just made me stop caring. *Sigh*

OK, enough rambling. I’ll write more from LA and post it when I arrive. Ciao.


lights below the clouds
swimming ghostly in the night
I see atlantis

slow, a rim of light
dawn slips across the planewing
we sink through our dreams



Rohan and me

Arrived safe and sound. Was picked up by Rohan, Trav and Tasha, and waved goodbye to Az at LA. The 12 hours from Auckland to LA could have been worse – they could have been slightly better with more sleep, too. Strangely, I’m not feeling too jetlagged, just very tired as I might be on any night if I only got 5 hours sleep.

As soon as I arrived at Rohan’s I felt I was really in America – Venice beach was in full weekend mode, with the footpath market pulsing. Mats gridded with handpainted, bejewelled skulls, a different band every twenty metres, photos, paintings, beggars, people on bikes (all with enormous curved handlebars – seems to be the thing over here). Rohan pointed out the landmarks – the place Romy and Michelle live in High School Reunion, the basketball courts, the outdoor gym where one might linger to admire/gape unbelievingly at the enormously muscled, sweaty and oiled men. The fake boobs. I had strawberry lemonade (lemons, sugar, real strawberries), then we went to the drug store (actually called a pharmacy) and got A GALLON of milk and some bagels and BUTTER IN STICKS. AHAHAHA!

Then I had a powernap and we caught the bus to Rohan’s beau’s house in and played boardgames and drank wine and OMG RAW BROCCOLI WITH RANCH DRESSING! And now I’m nicking their wireless and eating VEGETARIAN HOT DOG WITH TOMATO SAUCE AND MUSTARD. YUM! And Rohan made bean curry!

I can’t wait to go to sleep.

I hope you're all well.

FIVE DAYS

i leave for canada in 5 days. ok, well, technically for l.a. via auckland, but then to canada.

i have yet to redraft my paper, but i *will* get it done!

i have written a large list of things to pack, and am trying to cut back on things. how did i manage 5 months out of a backpack in 2005? ok, i do know how. i didn't really need 'nice' clothes, and i didn't take my hiking boots. i also didn't bring bulky gifts (tins of milo for homesick friends, etc). i'll have to do a test pack today or tomorrow to see how it'll all go.

to make matters worse, IT SNOWED IN VANCOUVER just recently, so i am thinking i might have to take my extra warm winter coat. but since it is warmer than melbourne in l.a. i am also going to have to pack warm-weather gear. argh!

*worries*

it's going to be exciting, but i am going to miss dan lots.

MARCH (NOT APRIL!) WALK

in mid march, dan, sajee and myself walked along the yarra from heidelberg to templestowe and back. all up it was about 12km. we were once again hit with the curse of the uk08 preparation walks in terms of weather. it was a scorcher. we started at 9am, walked to the manor for lunch, and by the time we had walked back down the hill to the river it was in the high 30s. *sweats* but we made it back, and felt quite pleased with ourselves.



there are a few pictures here, where you can see how enamoured we were with one particular playground! we'll probably do the walk again with es later in the year, and will start a little further down the river and do the whole 17km as outlined in our guidebook (where it's a medium difficulty walk - it's mostly flat, only one big hill up to the manor, and a few bits of incline/decline but it's upgraded to medium for length).

PASS THE PORT, COLLECT $266

finally got my passport. *sighs of relief*

MINI UPDATE

Oh, poor neglected blog!

We both have yearly travel insurance now - it was the cheapest one to get, and it also covers us for any little side trips we might have. And it covers my laptop! Yay!

Still having shennanigans trying to get a new passport. I realise it's just pure bureaucratic incompetence, but because some of it is WRT the name change, I am getting quite rage-ful with the powers that be. Shit, I have to LEAVE in 6 weeks. They'd better have it to me by then.

On Sunday we have our next scheduled walk with Saj and Es. We were planning on an 18km one, fairly flat. However, the weather keeps conspiring against us. After a few weeks of mild-ish weather, slightly appropriate for walking, we find ourselves in the middle of summer once again. Today is forecast to be 40 degrees. Tomorrow is "only" meant to be 30. Sunday is going to be mid-30s. Erk! Maybe we'll just do a little walk - 3 hours or so.

FLIGHT CHANGE

My flight times have been changed, and Friday 16th is now:

Depart Toronto 18:30 (6:30pm), arrive LA 20:45 (8:45pm). Depart LA for Australia 22:30 (10:30pm).

This is better than hanging around LA airport for 9 hours, but it's cutting my check-in really fine. The travel agent says it will be OK, but I like to worry about these things.

LINKITY LINK

I'm updating the side bar to the right with links. Do you have any particularly good travel-related websites that you use? Let me know!

FRUSTRATION

I had travel anxiety dreams last night – trying to book accommodation has clearly addled my mind! It was one of those dreams where people’s flights were delayed, and I had to start walking without them, and then the accommodation hadn’t been booked properly and we ended up having to walk half a day, then walk back to the place we’d stayed the night before and it was ALL SO FRUSTRATING.

Partly this is due to the fact that of the three places I emailed last Sunday to enquire about accommodation for the UK walk, only one wrote back (to say they weren’t around that week). I emailed another place last Thursday as an alternative to that one, but haven’t heard back from them, either. I think that 9 days is a bit crap, don’t you? I mean, if people don’t have an email address, that’s something I can work around, but if they do have an email address, they should bloody well use it. If you don’t check it, don’t offer it as a service. Sheesh!

Luckily, Dan’s mum is a legend and has agreed to ring these places and check things with them. It’s great having a lovely UK contact to do that so we’re not spending hundreds of dollars on phone bills.

FLITINERARY

Last tickets for the Canada trip have been booked.

Depart Melbourne 26th April (12:00)
(via Auckland)
Arrive LA 26th April (12:30)
Air New Zealand

Depart LA 30th April (09:45)
Arrive Vancouver 30th April (12:40)
Air Canada

Depart Vancouver 6th May (16:30)
Arrive Toronto 6th May (23:55)
West Jet

Depart Toronto 16th May (10:45)
Arrive LA 16th May (13:05)
American Airlines

Depart LA 16th May (22:30)
(via Auckland)
Arrive Melbourne 18th May (09:30)
Air New Zealand


We’ve also booked tickets to London.

Depart Melbourne 11th September (15:50)
(via Singapore)
Arrive London 12th September (05:55)
Singapore Airlines

Depart London 9th October (11:55)
(via Singapore)
Arrive Melbourne 10th October (20:15)
Singapore Airlines


I realise this is a boring post for most people, but it’s good to have a record of all this handy! And look! I can post to this blog using my other account, now. Brill.

WE'RE GOING TO THE UK!

Yay! We have tix to the UK, leaving here Thursday 11th September (ha!) and arriving 5:55am Friday 12th. Leaving the UK on the 9th of October, arriving Melbourne on the 10th at 8:15pm. Dan also has insurance, and I’m going to sign and send my forms tomorrow. Tickets were about $2500 each including taxes. Ouch!

I also have tickets from LA to Vancouver, and Toronto to LA. Now I just have to book Vancouver to Toronto, which my lovely Flight Centre person said I could probably get cheaper on the internet (and suggested an airline).

I am getting to be so broke! But I will be broke and TRAVELLING, which is so much more exciting than being broke at home!

INSURANCE AND MAPS

Today I got quote for travel insurance. I'm just going to go through my credit union (who use Allianz) for ease and convenience and because they're generally pretty awesome. It turns out that the best insurance for me is a Frequent Traveller one, which covers me for 12 months, worldwide. They're sending a quote out to me - it's a bit under $500 and there's no excess on things. And fabulously, they pay the excess on any rental vehicle insurance (up to $3000, which is . . . more than excess generally is anyway on these things).

Anyway! WE GOT WALKING BOOKS YESTERDAY! A speedy turnaround from amazon.co.uk



. . . and then I procrastinated for over an hour mapping our route on google maps. I LOVE GOOGLE MAPS! So why not take a peek?!


View Larger Map

FLIGHTS TO LA

I have booked a return to LA - leaving at 12 midday from Melbourne on 26th April. Arriving 12:30 in the afternoon in LA . . . ON THE 26TH OF APRIL! Only takes half an hour, apparently! On the way back I leave LA on the 16th and arrive in Melbs on the 18th of May.

There will be a few days in LA before I fly to Vancouver - staying with Rohan, and meeting up with an internet friend. Yay for meeting people! I am going to be so social!

I'll keep people updated as travel plans are made and finalised. I must get my travel insurance sorted. I check with my doc yesterday and he said I didn't need any immunisations. . . though . . . rabies? Can you get shots for that? Do they have rabid bears in Canada? I think that if I would be more worried about the bear than about the rabies in that case.

OMG CANADA FLIGHTS

Why are flights to Canada SO DAMN EXPENSIVE?! The cheapest way I can do this trip is to get a return to LA, then separate flights LA to Vancouver, Vancouver to Toronto, Toronto to LA. And even then it's going to be over $3000 including taxes.

If I fly direct, it's going to be $3500+.

Sheesh. Uni better pay for some of this.

UK08 Preparation Walk 2

Last Wednesday, Sajee, Es, Dan and I headed to the Dandenongs for a walk through national park and the arboretum. There were lots of trees:



We have been doing a walk every month in preparation for our trip to the UK in September, when we are going to walk half of the Ridgeway (some of us with packs). We were pretty exhausted after 10 kms, so we obviously need the training (we’ll be walking 15 kms / 10 miles a day, approximately).



Actually, we were doing pretty well until the last 2 km, which was all uphill. And up a slope like this:



No wonder we had to help each other out:



But the view was worth it:



Pictorial evidence can be found at the other end of the rainbow. See also Essie’s pics.

LOOK AT THAT!

finally! we've got around to changing the name of the blog - only 9 months or so after i officially changed my name to jonathan. but having my old name on it was deterring me from using and updating the blog, so i thought i should fix it up.

anyway, our travel plans for 2008 are as follows:

canada: jonathan has been accepted into transsomatechnics, a conference to be held in vancouver in early may. he is planning to spend 5 days or so in vancouver, then head to toronto for a week or two to meet some friends.

uk: after the loveliness of the thames walk, we decided to do some more! our friends sajee and es are coming with us, and we're planning to walk the ridgeway north of the thames. jonathan and dan will be in the uk for about 4 weeks, and we plan to catch up with stacks of friends, and also do a bit of walking in cheshire/north wales.

walking: in the lead-up to this walk, we'll be doing some shorter walks with sajee and es around melbourne to get into the swing of things (and because we like walking!) we're planning on walking in the dandenongs, wilsons prom, and other locations.

holland: this is sneaking in, though it might not be until january 2009 that we're there, but my grandfather has offered to pay for the family to fly to holland (ameland) for a reunion-type thing! i am thrilled by this, though a little concerned about the COLDNESS!

so, let's hope you hear more from us in 2008 than you did in 2007. please let people know that the address for this blog has changed, too!

PIXPIXPIX! just uploaded pictures from the last leg of our walk along the thames - bablock hythe to oxford.





for more photos click here.

LONG TIME COMING

more pics from out thames walk are up at flickr. enjoy! hopefully dan will post some more when he gets back from his april-may 07 visit for his dad's 60th.

CHRISTMAS PICS

caroline and i at the top of mount bishop.

click here for new pics (of christmas at sandy point) up on flickr.

WHERE IN THE WORLD?

create your own visited country map

this is where we've been - we've apparently visited 9% of the world's countries. how about you?

PICKCHAS

this one's for you, dad. sorry for not updating more!

CLICK HERE for some pics of us and erin in england. we'll put more up soon. promise!