Ramblings of the travelling nature

Well my trip to Scotland nearly ended up going all pair shaped as I had managed to organize a 10 hour bus trip to Edinburgh which arrived 30 minutes before the tour started no problems there surely. Unfortunately I didn't count on a pileup on the motorway in the wee hours of the morning. So after a few stressed phone calls I managed to get onto the other bus where my 3 day tour of Scotland was to begin.

In true Scottish tradition the weather turned it on for us and had a beautiful summer’s day of pelting rain & freezing winds, just how you expect a summers day in the UK to be like. For the rest of the trip the rain managed to hold off, although the winds where still quite chilly, it all turned out pretty and the first day of rain definitely added a Scottish touch.

Weather aside it turned out to be a fantastic trip. It was basically 26 guys and girls from all over in a yellow mini bus tearing across Scotland all day with our tour guide Davey and although it was only 3 days we managed to see a fair deal.

On day one we pretty much nailed most of Scotland, starting in Edinburgh and heading diagonally to the North West for the Isle of Skye. The scenery in the highland is absolutely amazing, massive mountains with water cascading all down and a big rain cloud sitting on top covering it in mist, I kept thinking we were on some deserted island like Jurassic Park, cept without the dinos.
Shacking up in a hostel on the Isle of Skye for the night, we spent the next day exploring the island before heading to Fort Augustus on the bank of the Loch Ness for the next night.

The final day of the tour was another biggin, heading from Loch Ness & Inverness in the north east back down through the lowlands to Edinburgh where I would spend the night before heading back to London on Saturday arvo.

A big thanks to Anna for putting me up in her wicked flat for the night. Cheers mate!

So after being cooped up on a bus for a far share of four days I was keen to check out the night life this city had to offer. Apparently Edinburgh has the most bars per capita in the UK, or something like that but the clubbing scene is definitely lacking, well at least when I was thee. After hearing about one of the major clubs in Edinburgh I was keen to check it out and see what the city had to offer. I was treated to some dude playing the sax with his female companion doing some kind of bird mating call all set to trance in the background, all very random. More so than the guy wearing a kilt and playing bagpipes at 3.30 in the morning to a mob of drunken Scotts in the middle of the street and the fact that everyone thought I was a drug dealer of some kind!

On my last day in Scotland I was eager to check out the sights of Edinburgh. First on the list was the infamous Edinburgh Castle which turned out to be the most overpriced attraction EVER, quite a cool castle though. Then it was off to check out the newly formed Scottish Parliament then to the underground "streets" of Edinburgh.
Now I'm not really sure where I stand on the whole ghost and supernatural thing, but apparently these underground streets that have being discovered under Edinburgh are the most "active" supernatural site in the UK. The guide certainly did a good job of trying to make us believe with the telling of stories of past tours where people are being thrown across the room and all other sorts of freakish things. It is a truly amazing thing though, under the streets of Edinburgh there are chambers and passage ways said to be 6 levels deep where hundreds of years ago the poor of Edinburgh lived. Although I'm still not sure about the whole supernatural thing, I wasn't about to go stepping into a circle of rocks where its said that demons will enter and poses you and all sorts of kooky shit will happen, maybe next time

It was then time to leave this beautiful country on the train back to London where I'd be for a couple of hours before heading to Spain. Giddy Up!!!

Check out the pics here >>> http://redmonkey.smugmug.com/gallery/1659154

Well after slaughtering Japan in our opening match it was time to take on the world champions Brazil in what could be a history changing math.

Well history changing it wasn't, but definitely a bloody good match, I think they where quite shocked at out form as we definitely gave them a run for there money.

Now not knowing too much about the game of soccer and never having followed it I was quite surprised at how heart pumping it is when you team is actually playing, I think I might have contracted a mild case of World Cup Fever.

One better than being at the stadium in Germany, we watched the match in Brick Lane at the X Box Arena and it felt like we where right there, stadium seating, massive screens and a blaring speaker system not too mention the bench seats giving it the German feel.
Watching on with the predominant Aussie crowd my Brazilian mate Rodrigo got a bit too enthused when Brazil scored there first try and proceeded to dance on the bar and in circles in front of the crowd waving the Brazilian flag. Now us Aussies are pretty relaxed, but when everyone has caught the fever, plus the fact that its being 32 years since we have being in the World Cup and we have scored our very first World Cup try in the previous match, we don’t really appreciate having a try scored against us rubbed in our face.
So this in turn prompted the crowd to start throwing beers, some fully laden at Rodrigo until some Aussie bloke has run through the crowd and crashed tackled him the ground. Well that defiantly shut him up. They did buy him a beer latter in true Aussie spirit.

After the game we all got well pissed and ened up in a thai restraunt...in an English pub!!! all a bit wierd, was rather tasty though.

Well Brazil did win 2-0 but we definitely played a good game and still have a very good chance of advancing into the next round.

COME ON AUSSIES!!!!!!

Well what ended up being a rather eventful day, nearly didn't happen at all thanks to my sudden phone drowning the day before and know idea what Dave's phone number is. Thankfully I managed to quite ingeniously get hold of his number about 15 minutes before the train left and scrambled to the train station just in time.

Now I should introduce Dave, he seems to be the only mate that actually wants to leave the smog of London whenever possible and to do something. We met at my old flat share and although a Kiwi he doesn't seem too bad of a bloke, although he does have a weird eye thing doing on when traversing by train.

So off we chugged for the two hour trip towards Gloucester and through the paddocks of ugly sheep until we arrived at out destination and jumped into a cab...destination..."The Cliff"
It has to be said the majority of Brit's actually don't know about this event, when mentioning this activity to fellow work mates, I’d receive a blank stare followed quickly by "Your doing what? Nevea heard of that!, What ya wanna do that for?" So to actually to in a cab with a Englishman actually knowing something about this thing was a first quite informative, until he commented that we'd be better off hang gliding of this hill than rolling down the bloody thing. Ekk!!

Having not actually thought about the whole thing too much, but passionate about doing it, I didn't think the hill would be that steep at all, the pictures are quite deceptive though (as are mine) to the gradient. Upon seeing the hill for the first time, I was quite blown away with the shear drop and the thought of rolling off the side of a mountain was, well starting to disappear quite rapidly as where those ove my fellow cab mates.

Well fuck it I thought, I'd hadn't come all this way for nothing and wake up at some ungodly hour to get here.

Now being only 4 races, each with only 15 people racing and one race for the ladies, that left me with a 1 in 45 chance of actually racing!!, so the plan was to scramble with the side of the hill as fast as possible and placing ourselves in a prime position in the starting pack before the races started.
Needless to say, I hadn’t really thought that getting to the top would be such a challenge and discovered that I’m not as athletic I once was. In the end we blitzed past the families clambering to the dirt trying not to lost there grip and made it to the top in time for the festivities absolutely buggered. Turns out there is practically a paved road on the other side of the hill!

Well there we were standing high and sucking in the fresh country air as we contemplate what the hell we were about to do. "Will I survive? "Maybe I'll just break a leg or something?" "Oh god, I can't afford to be broken!" I thought, until being quickly brought back to reality by the surge of 200 odd blokes all pushing towards the point of no return, no turning back now, where in it for good.

With only 4 races you would think it was a relatively fast affair, besides the fact that there is a race every 20 minutes, the master of ceremonies was having quite a lot of difficulty keeping us contained behind the fences and when the races were delayed even more by the waiting of the only ambulance to return after a 1st race incident, people where starting to get a bit "eager", and Dave managed to be in a prime position to get wedged between the coveted cheese box and the surging pack and nearly breaking his leg. Nice one mate! break your leg BEFORE even racing

To solve all the commotion the master of ceremonies and security stepped back and just let a group of whoever wanted to roll, roll!
Must have being at least 30 or more people all rolling at one and you could fell the vibration from the thumps of bodies into the ground. This led us to being right on the edge and ready for the next race. By this time all the nerves where gone and I just wanted to roll already, hell we’ve being up there for 2 hours now, just roll the cheese mate!

Well the time had come, its now or never. Dave has managed to roll in the race before I as three extra races where put on without cheese to meet the demand. So I’m in the second line, nearly there, off they go and I’m looking down watching them tumble and flail about and thought fuck it, I’m going now!
So off I went behind the rest of the pack, about three other have gone just after me and where having our own little race in which we have managed to catch up to the back of the group before us.

For about the first half of the run I was doing quite well after a short run at the start I adopted the bum slide tactic which was all working well until I decided I was not going as fast as i wanted and stood up and started running again. It was at this point that things didn't go as well as I planned, I did manage to pick up speed though until tripping and smashing my left shoulder into the hill where I starting to roll on my side at quite considerable speed. I've somehow managed to be rolled upright again and have started running and the same bloody thing happened again, I’ve tripped and landed on my left shoulder again, only this time I heard quite a distinct "CRUNCH!!" and then rolled to the bottom on the hill in a muddy painful mess.

Turns out I didn’t break anything, just tore a few ligaments in which I can't move my arm about my head. All is on the mend now and I’m good as new.

Would I do it again?
Bloody oath I would. I recommend it to everyone, how many chances to you get in life to roll down a step hill with a crowd "ooooo"ing and "arghhhh"ing while chasing some of Gloucester finest cheese?

Check out the pics here >>> http://redmonkey.smugmug.com/gallery/1518513

Well it started with my very first organised tour that I have ever willingly being on as only having 3 hours sleep I couldn’t really be arsed to work the whole thing out.
After a bit of confusion with our tickets (as we are the only ones actually going to LegoLand) we board the bus with the average age of about 60 years olds. Just when I thought I was about to have a relaxing journey out of London, I hear this mindless chatter over the speakers to which it’s our tour guide, who we have dubbed Marry Poppins, rambling on about all sorts of mindless facts about London. I can’t even tell you what she was talking about as after about the first sentence I was asleep to the tunes of my MP3 player.

After a rather peaceful sleep we awoke in the royal city of Windsor to check out the Queen’s house. Not only is Winsor know for it’s royal connections but it also has the shortest street in the UK and a leaning tea house!!, who woulda thought.
I really couldn’t think of a worse thing to do when your sleep deprived, that of tramping round a overly lavish house. Luckily that’s where our leg of being with the tour group finished, we where free to go where we wanted and where handed bus tickets to get back to London.
Now don’t get me wrong, the Queen seems like an alright bird, god knows what she actually does or why she needs such a big house, but is it really necessary to have gold plated ceilings and walls? Although the gun collection was quite impressive the rest was just pretty much so-so . Suell seemed to enjoy it though, all I wanted was to get a picture with the fluffy hated guard and get the hell to LegoLand.

We where the on the bus to LegoLand, this was what I had being waiting for. Being a self confessed Lego freak back in the day I couldn’t wait to go to a theme park where everything is built from Lego. Well turns out it aint, that the legoLand in Denmark but still was a well wicked times. I was running round like a little school boy, so much to do so little time, only got there around 2pm and had to do the lot by 5pm, arhhhhhh
So on the Lego train to the bottom of the hill where our first ride awaited us…the Crazy Spider. Looking at it, it doesn’t look like much at all really, just your typical spinning ride and being no ques as it was pissing down rain, why the hell not.
Well it might of being the most innocent ride, but fuck me it was intense. Your basically in one of many spider eggs that spin round on a big platform and your spin your own egg to your desired speed…harmless right? So off we go, spinning nice and gracefully until the ride operator stars announcing that “Number 3 egg is in the lead, ohhhh now it’s number 5”, not even realizing that it was a racing ride I’m not one to back down from a race, so there I am heaving the wheel of our egg sack round and round, asking for some support from Suell, well wasn’t going to happen as she was holding on for dear life and looking like she was about to throw up over me. But ignoring her crys for me to slow down we reached the number one spot…top egg if you will. There we are spinning round at break neck speed, my body getting slammed against the seat as the gravitational pulls took over. Now not having being an astronaut, I would liking it to being in your space capsule whilst re-entering earth atmosphere, why its linked to spiders is rather baffling. Well after a couple of minutes of heaving the wheel and clearly not getting any help Suell I became exhausted and we came third. Took me a while for my eyes to stop wobbling and get my feet together again whilst the kids are buckled in for another go, hardcore little fuckers.

Well LegoLand has it all, water rides, roller coasters, mechanical diggers, rock walls but by far the impressive is the miniature cities made out of Lego. I would have pictures of these marvellous creations but my camera was a little damp after being submerged in the “Team Challenge” water ride where clearly we were too heavy for the ride and ended up slamming into the wall at the end where my bag contents proceeded to empty into the pool. Turns out my phone was sucked into the pump room never to be seen again.

I have to say I was a bit dejected to say the least but life goes on and after the mini doughnuts I was feeling better already.

Check out the pics here >>> http://redmonkey.smugmug.com/gallery/1518518

Well it was off for another chapter of the infamous Dave & J’s tour of England trips. This time we where off to see the old Roman city of Bath, and what a mouldy bath it was.
After getting over the hilarity of street signs with “Bath” in them, such as the National Health Service sign proudly pointing to the “Bath Walk-In Centre” we discovered the town to my surprise is quite a shopping district with all your big name “High Street” brands flaunting there goods along the streets.

So off we went to the main attraction, the Roman Baths, had a bit of a wonder round checking out where all the old Romans use to go for a scrub down. The actual main bath in the middle is quite big and one would imagine quite deep but yet is not fenced off, so basically anyone can jump into this slimy green cess pit of bubbling hot filth, surely they could drain it once in a while and give it a scrub. It reminds me of a friends swimming pool when I was back in school and “someone” forgot to clean it while it was a sweltering 38°, not happy Jan! At the end of the self guided tour you have the opportunity to try some the water that is pumped from the centre of the earth, none of this fancy fruity water, how about some of god’s finest…fresh, salty, warm water that tastes like fish, that could sell surley, they seem to be able to market anything these days, absolutely rancid water, most probably from the mouldy pond below us. blerkkkkk

Now I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting from bath, surely there is something else to do in the city, but apparently not, even the only bike hire place in town had shut down. So all we where left to do was to drink in the park and throw a ball round. Dave has this thing for tennis balls, give him one and he’ll happily throw it around for hours on end and I was keen to see weather my hand eye co-ordination, or any coordination skills for that matter had improved since I gave up playing any kind of ball sport back in the 90’s. Well I couldn’t believe it I was throwing and catching like a pro baseball player…well that might be a bit of an exudation but it sure felt good , mind you a was bloody sore the next day.

So that was Bath, not all that thrilling but a good day away from London and it was SUNNY

Oh god, I sound a bit jaded in this one don’t I, ekk must be time to leave England soon :D

Check out the pics here >>> http://redmonkey.smugmug.com/gallery/1400841

Well it was confirmed today that im now working in one of London's famous clubs Ministry Of Sound!

As some of you may know already, I've worked in bars for a good few years now, on the floor collecting glasses and just. well too lazy too progress to the next logical step of bar tender.

But no more, im now a fully fleged bar tender, with bar blade and all ready to serve the dance crew of london there whatever beverage tickles there fancy.

It's wierd how this has worked out because after making the decision to become a bar tender, i wanted to work in a club as that's the music I love and need it for my master plan (bwwahahaha) and was knocked back a couple of times as i didn't have the required experience, then along comes Ministry, just like that...who said cold canvassing doesn't work!