Thailand

Well here i am in thailand, been here for nearly a month now and loving it, i havent really been on my own that much as at first i was travelling with a friend, then i have meet so many people on the way. I have been to some amazing places, like phi phi island, phuket, koh samui. I will continue to update my blogger from thailand, i would of done it sooner but i have been having trouble with the internet here, also i cant put up any of my pics as im having a little problem with my camera. Hopefully i should get it sorted fairly soon so keep checking.

Anyways im loving it out here, and im looking forward to going Cambodia and also to Loas, i will visit these countrys when dave goes back home. Thats it for now people.

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Pics Off The Road Trip

Broome And Darwin Road Trip

Well after leaving Balfour downs station, i travelled up to Darwin via Broome. It was about a 30 hour drive, something like that, mad eah 30 hours in a car and your still in the same country. We didnt really have a time limit for the journey so we stopped off several times at motels on the way. There was four men and a dog doing the journey in a relatively small 4x4. First leg was to broome, a coastel town north of were i had been staying. Took about 15 hours, and one stop over to get there. Broome i thought was very nice, a quiet place, but with a good nightlife, and boy did i hit it hard. Being on the station for so long and not really drinking that much, took its toll on me. At 12 i was gone, was wrecked we all were, it was so funny, pity i dont have any pics of the night was to drunk to even think of taking some. Good job really, no evidence is good ha. Broome is well known for its big pearl buisness, it was everywhere, shops selling these amazing pearls and gems. Broome has a awesome beach called cable beach. There is a picture of the car parked right at the water, it was really nice to be able go swimming again, i was like a big kid, ha lol. We only stayed a few nights in broome before heading off to darwin. On route to darwin we stayed at a motel/ holiday camp site. The camp site had naturel hot springs, they were awesome, the water was just right, just hot enough. I stayed in them for ages.There was places like this all over the place in the norhten territory, there is some pics of me swimming in another spot, were during the wet season, crocks go. Didnt know this till after i had swam in it. There was other people in the water so i felt pretty safe. The waterfall and the rock pools were just outside darwin, a place called kakadu National park. It was class, really amazing to see. Had plenty of fun messing around in the rock pools, for such a small pool, it was so deep. couldnt even touch the bottom.

Balfour Downs Cattle Station

Balfour downs cattle station, what an experience. I stayed at the cattle station for just over three months. I did six weeks working with cattle called mustering and six weeks working on all the machinary at the station. Ill start with the mustering. Mustering is when a group of people gather up cattle fro one of the paddocks and process them. The fun part of the work is the actual mustering. As i said in one of my previous posts, the cattle station is 1.7 million acres. Which if you dot know is pretty big. The 1.7 million acres was split into four main paddocks,with a few slighty smaller ones. Traditonally mustering was done horseback, you would trot through the outback, catching the cattle one by one as you came across them. This was a lenghty process and was often inaccurate. As the paddocks are so big we used two R32 helicopter, small and very maneuverable. These would be sent out at sunrise, to begin gathering the cattle. They would fly really low to scare the cattle into a run, which would then be guided to yards. The choppers usually took a few hours to do this. While they are in the air,the mustering crew would drive out vehicles to a set point. There were usaully 3 bull catchers, 2 quads, 2 motorbikes, 3 utes. Also there would be a road train, there is a pic of one somewere on the site, check it out, 5 trailors, 3 cattle, 1 panel trailor and 1 with a bulldozer on it. F*@k driving that ha. Once at the right spot we would begin to unload the panel trailor, which is basically a trailor with panels on it. It is a mobile cattle yard. It would normally take 2 or 3 hours to set up, depending on how many guys are working on it. It was really hard work, the panels are fairly heavy and awkward to carry. Once set up, it was a waiting game for the cattle to arrive. Once the helicopters had gathered all the cattle and pushed them to our position, we would all get into or onto our vehicles. I was manly on a scrambler or cross bike. We would circle the cattle and hold them here for at least an hour, we did this to give the cattle chance to calm down, as they had been running for upto 2 or 3 hours. This was the best part of mustering. The majority of the cattle would stay in one place and be fine, but there was always several out of maybe a thousand that would try and break free, make a run for it. Cattle tend to follow each other, so if one went a few would go. Team work was important here. Some of the guys normally those on the bikes and quads would chase after the cattle, either retuen them back to the mob or follow them till they are tied and weak and belt up there feet so they couldnt go anywhere, once the majority of the cattle was in the yards we would return and collect them. Those in the bull catchers would cut off the rest of the cattle trying to follow those who broke away. The bull catchers are old land rovers with no roofs on, they have a roll cage, they also have bars all around the buggy to protect it froom the bulls and cattle. You might get two or three maybe even more trying to get away at anyone muster. Great fun, i loved it flyin around on the bikes, i would sometimes spook the cattle to try and get them to run off, ha, it was awesome. Really want to get a bike now.
Once the cattle had their rest we would then push them into the yards, once again this requird alot of team work. Onc the cattle were in the yards we would park the motors up begin the drafting process. The cattle all get split up into groups, male, female, young, calfs and bulls. This is really hard work as most of these cattle are fereal, think thats how you spell it. Fereal basically means wild, never been in contact with humans and dont have a clue whats going on. They are scared and very erratic aswell as angry, towards us. The drafting process could take a full day, depending on how well the cattle behave.The cattle all get ear marked, well i say ear marked, basically the punch a hole in the ear, usaully an ential of the farm, pretty horriable really as normally it involves a chunk out of the ear. All the horns get cut off, really close to the head, this was pretty grusome when i first seen it, blood flys everywere, in all different directions, you get covered, it was definitely a big shock to the system. Alot of the smaller bulls, which arent breeding bulls get there balls chopped off. Sick just sick,ha couldnt watch it, was horriable. ha ha. something ill never forget. Once they had all been sorted out the majority would be released, either in the same paddock or moved to a different for mating reasons or for sale. They also record the amount of cattle that has been delt with, this is so they know how many are on there land. The cattle staion last year around 23 thousand cattle, but this muster was nearly there already and we were only half way through the muster. While mustering we would stay in the outback, camp. We would be up at 4 in the morning and prob be in bed by 8. The food at camp was steak, steak, steak and more steak, i alomost forgot mash aswell. Not the best but it filled the hole.I would stay out for maybe a week depending on how big the muster was.
The second part of my stay on the cattle station was repairing vehicles on the farm itself, after a muster the bullcathers would need work almost everytime they came back, new shock absorbers, radiators, springs and plenty more. Also i was working on bulldozers, fork lifts and the trucks they had onsite. I really enjoyed this, as i love hands on things repairing and building. I was driving the forklift alot which was really good fun. The other good thing about workin on the farm was that i wasnt getting up at 4, it was 6 and i would finish at 5 not when the sun goes down. I would get an hour for dinner which was a god send and i could have pretty much what ever i wanted for dinner, brilliant. The rooms in which we were staying werent that good, well some were and some werent. First off i had a bad room, no tv , one light, a bed and a wardrobe. Pretty grim really. When i started working on the station after 6 weeks of mustering i managed to get a good room. Colour tv, with a digital box, was a big thing at the time, ha ha lol. Nice walls draws, desk , it was like the hilton. lol. The shower was well how can i say this, a bucket with holes drilled in it. The hot water came from a thing called a "donkey", dont know why they call it this. We would sit around a fire heating the donkey which inturn heated the water, now thats central heating. lol. Balfour downs has been a real eye opener, it has made me realise how lucky i am. I have had a good experience and im glad i choose to do it. I have meet some great people, and some not so great people, cant get on with everybody.

More Pics Of The Cattle Station

More Pics Of The Cattle Station

Journey To The Outback

After gaining a job on a cattle station, me wayne and jamie set off from Perth heading officailly into the outback. The cattle station was called Balfour Downs Station and was located about 300 km inland from Newman. Im taking it nobody knows were Newman is neither, its a 15 hour drive, yes 15 hours drive north of Perth. Think there is a link on the right hand side of this page, called "have a look where im staying".We set from perth and drove for a full day it was all going well till nightfall. We had covered a fair few kms. Just before nightfall we changed drivers, jamie took over while me and wayne had a break. I was just about to fall of to sleep when i heard jamie scream, the brakes locked up, then bang. We hit a kangaroo. The pictures show the state of the car, even the airbag had gone off. Sounds bad but we were lucky it was a young one and not fully grown. Jamie was a bit shook up. The car had alot body damage but not much was wrong with engine, the radiator had a little knock but nothing major. I drove again after that, jamie was shook up and wayne was to scared to drive, ha only joking he has bad eyes so he couldnt see jack. I have never driven in anything like this before, i couldnt believe how many Kangaroos were on the road. I felt like i was in a computer game dodging and weaving in out of them, we were travelling at about 60 kph which is not really fast. The only time when we could get speed up was when a road train flew past, i would sit behind it. It was nuts, the knock the roos flying, I drove behind a road train for another couple of hours before stopping off in a layby for a kip. It wasnt till the next day till we seen the sign warning, us about stray animals. Look at the picture they have cows aswell,bloody cows, good job we never hit one of them.In the morning i carried on driving we had about an hour to go. On the side of the road was just loads of dead roos and a couple of cows, couldnt believe it, blood everywhere, was pretty grewsome. As i was driving along, feeding on one of the kills was a eagle, Jesus it was massive,i slammed the brakes on reversed and tryed get a better look. It must of been at least 1 meter tall. Crazy.
We reached Newman about 9:30 in the morning, got directions from the local police and headed out towards Balfour Downs Station. 300 Kms of dirt road, really bumpy and seemed like it was going on for ever. There was loads of cars on the side of the roads that had been flipped on burnt or just crashed. I kept telling jamie it was all the other backpackers trying to escape from where we were heading. The film Wolfcreek Was made pretty close to the cattle staion, so it was pretty funny at the time. We arrived at Balfour Downs Station at mid day. First impressions was that it looked okay. Was glad to finally get there.

Tattoo Time

Well i have finally been able to update my blog, so here goes, Before i left Perth to head up North i got myself a tattoo. The pictures just show me before, during and at the end. I always wanted something here so thought *@$! it go for it. The tattoo says " FACE YOUR FEARS, LIVE YOUR DREAMS". Thought this was a pretty cool Qoute. I wasnt sure how painful its was going to be had loads of people telling me it was nothing, then people saying it will kill. Imust admitt it was i little more pain than i was expecting, especially when he went across the ribs, but hey done now. Thought i would stick pic up as evryone wants to see it. The tattoo cost me $260 dollers which was pretty good, it took him about 2 hours to do. $260 dollers is about 100 quid.

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Leaving Perth

Well in been here in perth now nearly two months and have really enjoyed it. Really like it here. I have got a new job in the north west of australia, working on a farm station, doing odd jobs around the farm but more exciting we will be doing mustering. I say we, its only going to be me, wayne and his misses jamie. The gang has started spliting up now, people want to do different things and like me, rob has already moved on to another farm up north. James and pete are going to stay in Perth for another month and work, try and save some money.
Mustering is basically hearding up cattle, large groups of cattle in the outback. I will be riding a scrambler most days in the outback. The farm stations that im going to be working on are huge, 10,000 acres or even bigger. We will be hearding cattle for maybe three or four days at a time, so that means ill be sleeping in the outback, real cowboy style, ha ha lol. Really looking forward to it, think it will be really funny. Start the job on monday i think, we are driving up from Perth to a place called Newman, the farm station is called balfour station and its about an hour and half from Newman.
As i have only been working a few days here and there i have had plenty of time to mess about. Me, Rob, Wayne and Jamie thought we would go sandboarding. It was at a place called Lancelin which is about an hour north of Perth. It cost us $10 dollers for the rental of the boards which i thought was a bargain. We headed to the dunes, the were class, really steep and smooth. Perfect. I thought it was alot lie snowboarding except you didnt go as fast. The pics are of us just clowning around. You could hire out 2 types of boards, sit down and stand up boards. We got two of each. I loved this it was really good fun,but really knackering, after a few slopes you were wrecked. We tried to get three of us on the one board going down the steepest slope, i drew the short straw and was stuck on the bottom of the three. If you look at my face when we come to stop on one of the pics, im covered in sand, well my face was. Affter about 2 hours of boarding we were knackered, the dunes and the heat had really got to us. We had sand everywhere, up ya nose in ya ear, mouth, eyes, its was bad, andin need of water.
The other pics are just of me, Wayne and a couple of others just messing around at the beach, the beach was really nice, quiet and clean. The water was really nice aswell as you can probably tell from the pics.

Perth

Been here in Perth for about a month now i think, i really like Perth, it not a busy city but busy enough if you know wot i mean. Work has been harder to find here than we had first hoped.My first job i managed to get was a window cleaner, glamoures as it is. Never done it befroe just blagged it to the owner that i had some experience. ha. Little did i know that we would be working on skyscrapers, i dont really have a problem with heights so i went along with it. It wasnt half as bad as what i thought. It was a tall building but once u look down once or twice you get over the height thing. The pics are of me stood in the craddle and the view looking down.After a week of work i decided to packk it in, it was the worst job i had done while being in oz, it was so boring, plus the owner was a bit of a freak. I had a bit of a problem getting my money off him, as he said i had left windows open on another job, i knew this was rubbish, he just didnt want to pay me. I ended up sorting legal advice from a government funded association. Got the money back about 10 days later 580 dollers worth. Like i say work is hard to find, transport to the industrial sites is non exsitant, If you have a car then its aloy easier. Ive done a few jobs here and there just to get some cash. Me and james are currently working in Perth CBD building office stations for a farily big company. We only started this week so hopefully we will get maybe a months work. Went Go Karting at the weekend was good fun, of course i won. ha lol. There was also a full size racing track next door which had motor bike racing going on. There was some awesome bikes managed to get some good pics of them on the track aswell, but the pics are on my mates camera. Ill post them as soon as i get them.Hope everybody is okay.

Take Care