What a difference a day makes.....

Or in some cases, 12 months. Reading that last blog now, is like recounting some strange dream. I had a few comments about it and now even I find it a bit scary. Where I was when I wrote that was not a place I really want to go back too. Luckily I've come through with what I would say are flying colours...

I'd like to give the full story but right now I'm limited for time with 1 hour until I need to leave for a plane from Barcelona to Sevilla.

The short story is that I took a break from work after hitting the wall once I got back from Finland. Doubts, questions, regrets entered my mind and I kind of lost it for a bit. I managed to pick myself up with some help from my friends and family, and I sailed through the rest of 08 quite busy at work and enjoying the benefits of my own place and the delights of East Melbourne. A great little suburb and one that I would like to stay in for a while...

Step forward to Jan 09 and I am in Spain on a 2 week holiday seeing the sights and practising some pretty ordinary Spanish... Should really have studied harder when I learned it a few years ago. Still, it's getting me by and I am having a great time. Sampling the local cuisine, tapas, wine, and Chocolate and Churros, Yum...

I've been to Barcelona and admired the genius of Gaudi and spent the weekend in Santiago de Compostela where I caught up with a friend who I studied in Finland with. So today I am back in Barc, and about to jet down to Sevilla for a bit of a look around (maybe some flamenco dancing) and then to Granada before the long flight home again... I won't be apprehensive about going home this time, confident in who I am and what I have in store for the coming year. I've been working on a little business plan for myself and I'll continue that while I spend time with my family and friends.

Losing it in Melbourne

I'm on my last legs, at breaking point and it's unnerving.... I've always considered myself a cheerful, positive, enthusiastic person and I'm sure there are many friends of mine that will testify to this. So when I feel myself slipping into a state of lethargy and pessimism it's totally unnerving and sometimes even scary.

If you happen to have stumbled across these blogs and read some of my travel stories, you'll know that the last 12 months have been nothing less than amazing. But I don't mean amazing in the true sense of the word. It's more about a feeling that the last year has been quite unbelievable. It's been 1 year since I took off from Tullamarine (Melbourne) Airport on a remarkable journey to the eastern Caribbean for the 2007 Cricket World Cup and the subsequent adventures in North America and Europe, including a 5 month stint living in central Finland. If you've also read some of my "Dave in Finland" blog, you'll also know that I returned from the Arctic winter in January to continue my working life in Melbourne again.

I love this city, it has so many amazing things to see and do, great sporting events, cultural activities, music and fabulous cafes, bars and restaurants for everyone's favourite tastes, and of course, great people - my friends and family among them. I've pumped this city up all over the world to many cool people interested in hearing about my place of origin.
Again it hasn't disappointed. It's great to back in Melbourne, a sense of familiarity when I walk down my favourite little alley in the CBD or sip cappucino on my favourite cafe strip.

However, no matter how much I love this place, there's been something dragging me down since I've been back. In fact for all my enthusiasm and cheerfulness over the years truth is .... I haven't really been happy. And now it's getting to me.

I've been to some amazing places and seen some amazing things over the past 8 or so years.
I love the feeling I get when I travel, the sense of adventure, the freedom from 9-5 routine, the knowledge that the next crazy story is just waiting around the bend or over the mountain or in the lounge room of a random stranger. But the question is, how long can I keep doing it? At some point I have to find a job that gives me inspiration and excitement so I don't have to keep packing up and jetting off in escape from the dilemma of uninspiring work.

I've been searching for years now to find employment that I find fulfilling. I nearly quit my engineering degree half way through when I was getting bored and frustrated, but I struggled through to finish. I packed up a left from my first job to go traveling as a release from the mundane. I packed up on a 10 month trip of Australia after my 2nd job became too much to bare. When I returned to start again, it only took me 5 months before I wanted to leave, but again like the engineering degree, I stayed. I don't regret staying because I've met some amazing people as a result, but now I find myself in the situation again. I've returned to work after an extended travel period and it sucks. I'm unmotivated, lethargic and looking for the next big adventure. How long can I do this? There must be something that I can do to entertain myself and get paid to do it? Aren't there millions of people out there doing a great service and loving it?

It's dragging me down, consuming me..... I'm losing it... losing my enthusiasm, optimism, cheerfulness...

You may just see me wandering the city streets as though I'm on a mission, but the reality is... I'm just passing time.. pretending.. sipping lattes because it's something to do.. catching trams because I can look out the window at the happy people with admiration...

Am I looking at you? Or are you looking at me thinking just the same?

The search continues....

A New Blog Is Born

Thankyou all for reading my Blog. I hope you found these enjoyable.

IF you would like to keep up to date with my current happenings, please visit my new Blog "Dave in Finland".

Losing A Grip On Reality

Sometimes as you journey through life, you find that occasionally the whole world seems to morph into a state of surrealism. Like you are in a movie or the character in a book. You wake up not really sure of what is real and what is fake, not sure of where you are or where you are going, not even sure what you did last night...... Or is that just what happens in Vegas?

They say time flies when you are having fun. I often find that time seems to go fast when you are procrastinating. Now I'm not sure whether I've just been having fun, or whether I have been procrastinating on writing this blog. Maybe both. It's been 4 weeks since my last post, yet it seems like yesterday I was in Colorado. Since then I've not only visited 4 states, but 3 different countries as well.

We finally managed to get T-Rex registered thanks to the reduced amount of bureaucracy in Boulder. A 20 minute visit to the Department of Motor Vehicle in Boulder and we had some official plates to put on the van. Not that the temporary tags had given us any bother since we were pulled over in Montreal in June, but at least it gave us an identity and piece of mind. Fresh with our new tags and a week to get Dale from Colorado to Los Angeles Airport, we made tracks to Las Vegas via the Grand Canyon.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the North Rim of the canyon much less populated than I'd expected after fighting for a car park with the thousands of others at Old Faithful in Yellowstone NP. In fact for the two days we spent at the Grand Canyon, we found ourselves alone for a good part of the time as we hiked a number of short day trails around the rim, in particular a rewarding 3 hour hike from sunrise to mid morning. We had talked about hiking down to the bottom of the Canyon, but with temperatures in excess of 40 degrees C we decided against it. Spectacular views of the canyon at sunset were rewarding and of course getting up for sunrise also worth it... even getting up the earliest I'd been up on the whole trip (that is except for the times I've been getting home at sunrise!).


Ah, Vegas, Las Vegas...... where dreams become a reality. Or more to the truth, where reality becomes a dream. Not sure what I expected here either. Probably to laugh at the development of a city in the middle of a desert, have a few free drinks and win or lose a bit of money in the process.

After a successful 1st night including all of the above and a 2nd night that consisted of much of the same our 3rd night in Vegas showed so much promise. Enter free drink and no food, a little too much confidence and a separation from reality. Point is, we left Vegas with our tails between our legs and a realisation that no one is safe from the city of sin. I mean, I left there with more than I went with, but looking back, I'm really not sure what we actually did. Sit in a hotel, sit in a restaurant, sit in a casino... Maybe that's all you're supposed to do? Especially when the mercury's at 42 degrees C.

So, with a nasty headache and lack of sleep, what better place to go than Death Valley? It had to be done. We had no thermometer but we estimated the temperature at Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the USA, was somewhere close to 48 degrees !! Not the place you want to breakdown or even stop for a picnic. A photo was good enough and we were on our way.

LA gave us one day to try to sell the van before Dale flew out. One day would have been enough had we had the title for the van in our hands. Of course even Colorado didn't have it all together to give us the title on the spot, you have to wait for it in the mail. Every dealer said, without title, no sale.
It's fair to say I was not a happy camper.... With Dale flying in less than a few hours, the options were not looking good. Leave the van as a gift with someone - who? Drive it back to Kentucky to a friend - 5 days straight! Drive it off a cliff and take the insurance - believe me it was an option!. In the end, we cut our losses, decided that the best was to drive back to Colorado to leave it with friends there and try to arrange a sale before I had to leave. After saying farewell and thanks for the good times I left Dale at the check in line at the airport, jealous that he would be seeing friends and family in a little under 24 hours, while I would be somewhere on the interstate in outback Utah!

It wasn't an exciting two days driving back to Boulder but I did meet some interesting people at the motel in small town Utah and saw a pretty fearsome rainstorm through the mountains in Colorado. Also managed to turn the odometer passed the 200000 mile marker on the van, at the same time pushing the total miles driven on the USA road trip passed 12000. I drove 40000 km around Australia in 03/04 and somehow that seemed shorter!

Safely back in Boulder, to some more warm hospitality from Christine and Greg, after discussions with more car dealers, the resulting decision was to leave the van in Boulder to be sold once the title arrived in the mail.

Somehow I managed to get a smile out of all the little challenges that have been thrown at me over the last 4 months.. sometimes I go looking for them, sometimes they just come unexpectedly. Back in Los Angeles for 1 more day before flying to Ireland, I considered all of my options. Unexcited by what Hollywood has to offer, and without transport (ironically) to get myself to somewhere like Beverley Hills (not that I wanted to anyway), It almost seemed appropriate to round off the tour of the States, the same place it started - Santa Monica Beach. I don't know, somehow amongst all the freaks and weirdos, all the traffic and pollution, all the try hards and hard tryers I thought it amusing to go back down to Santa Monica on the Big Blue Bus, and just walk and watch... people... I love watching people.... You see, you never really know what that person is doing there and I find that mysteriousness exciting... I often want to just ask some random person to tell me their story because I'm sure it's interesting....

Anyway, my point is, wandering around Santa Monica, I could be anybody and that makes you forget all your troubles for a while, just imagining what might be. I could have been a local for all they knew.... and as I stood at the sign "Muscle Beach " - the home of the fitness revolution of the twentieth century, I found that wanted smile, chuckled at the vanity and said thanks for the memories....

So now I'm in Bristol, England after a couple of weeks in Ireland to catch up with some friends. I've been to the Ireland equivalent of the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival, The Galway Races. I've seen beautiful countryside in Connemara and at the Cliffs of Moher. Fun times were had in Dublin with pints of Guinness at the Guinness Storehouse, a round of golf at a spectacular local course, the quarter final of the All Ireland Gaelic Football Competition between Dublin and Derry at Croke Park and wandering around Dublin Town enjoying the Craic!



I'm going to try to maintain a grip on reality from now until I arrive in Finland. My brain needs some work to do and I'm looking forward.....

Bears, Bulls and Bison

You drive around a corner, looking to cross the bridge over the river when you see this............


A Bison and an Elk. About 1 hour after you've entered Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Cool eh? That's what I thought. And it only got better. 3 days in Yellowstone and Grand Teton NP and this is the list of wildlife that I spotted:

• Bison
• Black Bear
• Grizzly Bear
• Elk
• Moose
• Coyote
• Wolf
• Ground Squirrel
• Bald Eagle
• Pelican
• Trout

We'd arrived in Yellowstone last Thursday after a couple of days drive from Calgary, Canada. I don't think we did Yellowstone justice only spending 2 days there but when your limited by time
sometimes you have to be content with as much as you can see in a short period. Worth it though.... heaps of cool wildlife and fantastic scenery... guess that's why it's so popular and the reason it became the first national park so many years ago. Check out more pics from Yellowstone and Grand Teton here.

I think last time I was with you all, we were on the highway on our way to the Badlands NP. Badlands was interesting, a dramatic landscape carved by wind, rain and snow over time to create a series of sculptured walls overlooking prairie typed lands providing habitat for Bison, Deer, Prairie Dogs and hundreds of birds and other creatures.
Just to be at a place called the Badlands was probably the reason we went.

From Badlands we make a quick stop at Mt Rushmore - along with a million other tourists, mostly Americans paying homage to the heads of 4 presidents carved at of the granite rock face. I mean sure it's impressive, but why?? Why??

Seattle - sometimes it's nice to do something different than the usual tourist stuff in a city. We spent a few days with some new friends Micah and Jenny (wonderful hosts) walking around the local area, listening to live music and playing Frisbee Golf. Think there might be a challenger to lawn bowls for a sport that you can drink beers and wear whatever you like at the same time as competing with mates.. Micah in action.....










From Seattle to Vancouver for a few days. More time to just relax and enjoy the wonderful weather, walk in Stanley Park, chuckle at the locals at the beach, watch some cricket (really!) and drink some beers (what's new?).

I've driven the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia heaps of times and always with awe at it's spectacular scenery. What we experienced from Vancouver to Banff, has to be on par with that. Different type of scenery but spectacular none the less and oh so worth it to have taken the long road through BC, via Whistler and Kamloops. Rugged mountains, picturesque lakes, beautiful cascading rivers.. oh, and the Black Bear that we saw just off the side of the road, absolutley awesome. Of course, we shouldn't have got so excited if we had have known we were going to see 2 moose swimming in a lake at Sun Peaks followed by 5 black bears including a sow and two cubs (climbing trees!)..
They say a picture tells a thousands words... so to save me explaining the majesty of the Icefields Parkway I'll just give you a couple of pictures...


After the spectacular scenery of Jasper and Banff, it was on to Calgary for the Stampede... for craziness and hilarity.

Our amazing hosts, Gerry and Karen, were more excited than us to have some Australian travelers staying at their house... I think it was like they had kids again! We didn't complain... As Gerry would say, how often does it happen that you run into some people and invite them to stay at your house and they actually take up the offer..... We thought since they'd invited us (in Montreal of all places!) we better make the effort.... And we were highly rewarded for taking the detour to Calgary..

We watched rodeo, chuck wagons, ate corn dogs, drank beers, went to Cowboys (an institution of the stampede where girls serve drinks in Cowboy hats (and not much else), went to birthday parties, rode the train, had breakfast at the local golf course, made friends with the family and of course partied like Karen had urged us ("you boys should light a fire under this town!")... Needless to say, hilarity ensued.....


We would have loved to have stayed for longer, and Karen to have us for longer too, but we had to fly, time restrictions you know... So that's when we headed to Yellowstone for those awesome experiences of northern hemisphere wildlife......

So now in Boulder, Colorado and heading to Vegas once we get this stinkin' car registration sorted (to be told another time...)

Oh Canada... to the Badlands of the USA

Dale and I are giving the Wolfmother symbol, White Unicorn is on the CD player........

The land is flat, real flat, like the land between Mt Isa and Tennant Creek, in the Northern Territory, Australia, but the land here is green, real green..... We're about 10 miles from Fargo, North Dakota.... We're on our way back through the United States after the weekend spent in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada where we stayed with my buddy and his folks... Good times all weekend, with Shrimps on the Barby for the Australians, Ice Skating Lessons with Woody (my friend) at the local Hockey Rink, and golf at the Meadows, a links course that chewed up my game and spat it back in my face... I told my hosts I'd hopefully only need one ball...... I needed about half a dozen!

We'd arrived in Winnipeg after a 22 hour drive from Lexington, Kentucky. We'd done the long haul, eager to head west after a few days of lost time, waiting in Atlanta (again) for the registration plates and papers for the van. Of course, America being the land of the free and the home of beauacracy we endured two painful afternoons of waiting in the Department of Motor Vehicles at the Tax Commissioners offices on the phone with forgetful car dealers and public servants with no concept of two Australians buying a car to travel throughout the USA.....

In the end we must have looked so disparaged that the kind lady at the DMV gave us another temporary license plate to last us another month... We figure when the papers finally arrive we'll just register the van in any town USA.... We don't care where it is, so long as having a real plate means the cops don't keep pulling us over like they did in Montreal about 2 weeks ago... I'm not sure what the French Canadian police officer was more surprised by... our dodgy registration plate and story about buying a car for traveling or the blank look on Dale's face when he greeted him in French....

Now there's some Jurassic 5 testing the acoustics in the van and Dale's trying to remember the last time he saw a hill in this state that wasn't man-made... We're also commenting on how far we've come in a few weeks....

The weekend we spent in Boston was fun, couchsurfing with Titto and partying with him and his mates in the funky area of Somerville... Ooh, except for the loser bouncer at the Irish bar who wouldn't let us in without our Passports! Who takes their Passport out at night time?? Maybe my Dolphin Trainer ID didn't impress him as much as it does the ladies.....

After spending a lot of time in Eastern USA including the big cities like New York it was refreshing to drive in New England, from Boston to New Hampshire and Vermont...

Luke Dale and I stayed in Gorham for a night before what was meant to be a short hike in the Mt Washington area near the Appalachian Mountain Club in NH...

Of course, Murphy's law usually prevails when you least expect it and a short detour turned into an extra 7 kms in the pouring rain along the main highway... no -one stopped to give us a ride though.... probably just wondered WHAT THE HELL three guys were doing walking along the interstate in the middle of the afternoon in the cold driving rain!!... Hot cups of tea back at the AMC and a change of clothes sharpened our mood and we trucked on to Burlington, Vermont.... my favourite place so far... Not sure if it was because of the exceptional hospitality shown by our couchsurfing host Brandon, the relaxed vibe of the town during Jazz Festival, the Burton Snowboard Factory, Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream or the fact that I got such great pleasure in telling all and sundry at places like the Vermont Pub and Brewery and the Vermont Teddy Bear Company that I was raised in Vermont, Australia... I could definitely live in Burlington, Vermont USA and if I did, I'd get a bumper sticker like the one I saw that said "I'm from Vermont, I do what I want!"

My first taste of French Canada was Montreal and the weekend of the F1 grand prix.... just another weekend of rev heads and bling bling as far as we could tell from the people walking around the Grand Prix events area, however our couchsurfing host Denis, showed us some great places in Montreal’s bohemian area of cafes, bars and street markets... more my thing when I'm traveling... to immerse yourself in the local culture is, I think, much more rewarding than hanging out with other tourists.... especially if you try to speak the language as well, then you feel like your really somewhere else... unfortunately my French only extends to Desole ju na paul pa Francais, which (if I've spelled it correctly) means "sorry, I don't speak French".... Of course the helpful bar tender taught us how to say things like, "I see the Universe in your eyes" but I thought that might have been going a little far... particularly if I mispronounced it and said something like "I see the world in your thighs!"

Toronto came and went in a flash, more of a stop over to catch up with a friend, take the obligatory photo of the CN tower and then on to Niagara Falls.....

We enjoyed a couple relaxing nights at a winery in the Niagara region of Ontario staying with the winemaker Phillip Dowell from "Angel's Gate" - winery of the 2006 Canada's Best White Wine..

Luke and I participated as guests in a wedding at Niagara Falls.. Well not really, just that the couple next to us on the Maid of the Mist tour at the falls, got married while the boat was making it's half hour journey to the base of the falls and back...

Glad to have been a part of such an occasion... as for the falls, impressive but touristy - I look forward to seeing Angel Falls someday as a comparison...

State College, Pennsylvania, we dropped Luke to hang with some homies, or rather to hang with some from home..... Shame to only spend one night there and listen to all the fun things that were planned... but we had to push on to Kentucky before the rego ran out........

So after the hassles in Georgia, we got the hell out of the south and headed West, the real road trippin’ USA…. 6 states in one drive… arrived in Winnipeg, Canada at 5am! Crazy… but fun, and plenty of time to get sick of all the CDs we’ve burned for the road….

Wolfmother is long gone now, and it’s official… There are no hills in North Dakota…..

Derbys, Empires, Bourbons and Miles, lots of miles.

The bitumen stinks.... Roadworks on the side of the highway, interstate 78 east, about 10 miles from Lebanon.... New Jersey, USA..

I sit in the back seat of Tomato Rex Sex Machine, the red GMC Safari Van bought in Atlanta about 2 weeks ago, and named by some random girl in a club in Atlanta. We call it T-Rex for short. It runs well, has done for the last two weeks. Air con, cruise control, power everything, style, class, and set to be a legendary vehicle for this road trip through the US and Canada.

Dale's driving at the moment, Luke's asleep in the front passenger seat, on the right hand side of the vehicle, Matt's back in Australia now after leaving New York the other dayI'm in the back for the first time to catch up on some photo uploads and write this blog.

It's Friday today, tonight we'll be in Boston, Massachusetts after spending the last two nights in Zionsville, small town Pennsylvania, with my friend Josh and his family. Today's a relaxing day of driving compared to our crazy week in New York City. Oh sure, we did the usual tourist attractions - Empire State Building, Central Park, Downtown Manhattan, Ground Zero, Staten Island Ferry, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Subway, but it's always the random nights that make the headlines. Like the night we went to the comedy club for a show and the 2 drink minimum turned into a maximum and one of us got robbed by two hookers after mistakenly getting into the same taxi as a quick way to get to the next bar. Riding the subway at 4 in the morning is always fun, unless you go the wrong way, or express through your stop and you end up in Harlem at 7 am.

Washington DC was a little quiter, heavy on the legs after 12 hour days walking around all the Smithsonium museums and laughing at the irony of the Whitehouse Security in the land of Liberty.






Big cities are great for seeing the sights in a relatively small area, but it's the small towns that often make your travels memorable, like the historical town of Colonial Williamsburg, in Virginia, near Yorktown and the scene of the last battle for independence in 1781. A change of route took us there and to the Bed and Breakfast where we enjoyed some fine colonial hospitality in the quaint setting near the College of William and Mary (a prestigious law school among others).

The strawberries were tasty that night..... the ones we'd picked for $1 per pound outside of Carrboro, North Carolina, two weekends ago. We'd spent the weekend exploring the University town with it's Co-op supermarket, Sunday morning jazz and coffees in the park. It was great to chat to the locals about the culture and atmosphere of such a nice little place away from the hustle and bustle of the big cities. Of course it helps to know someone in a place you're traveling through and Mary, Jack, Mandy and Miriam were excellent hosts, particularly with recommendations from the 100 or so beers from the menu at the Milltown Bar or what to eat for a hungover breakfast afterwards at the friendly Elmo Diner.

Hospitality from friends is great to have when you'r on the road. A place to sleep or wash some clothes is always appreciated but it's the gathering that I like, the chance to do some grocery shopping and cook your own meal for once in a while. I think the Red Thai Chicken Curry was a hit, or was it the Australian wine or the cheese..?


Speaking of hospitality, I guess you have to be careful not to overstay your welcome and whilst I don't think that has happened so far, we certainly left imprints on the loungeroom floor at Holly St Atlanta where we parked ourselves while we searched for T-Rex. Of course we were told that it was no problem, but it may have been because at least while we were on the floor, there was less chance of Brittain receiving a knock at the door at 4 am from 3 Aussies fresh from the Caribbean having driven 14 hours straight in a rental car from Miami airport!

And of course, we cannot forget the exceptional hospitality shown by Nelda and Skinner, Brittain's parents, in Georgetown, Kentucky where we spent a week after the Kentucky Derby on the 5th May. Dale met the Governor of Kentucky, right before we hoed in to a breakfast of bacon, eggs, cheese grits, biscuits and gravy - obviously the health food section of the annual breakfast feeding a few thousand people at the Capitol in Frankfurt. Of course Dale informed the Governor that he would like to vote for him but that he was probably ineligible!

Luke and I nearly cleaned up on a horse at 50 to 1 but were, as always, pipped at the post. Dale's horse came first in the Derby, although I don't think I saw any of the winnings by way of bourbon after the race! We did all have mint julips though, and won't ever again!

And there were a few bourbons drunk later that Derby night with some Kentucky guys and girls. They drink it like water up there. We resisted the urge to show them how much Fosters we all drink and joined them in sampling the local cuisine and beverages. Of course we spent a good part of the next day in bed.


So Boston awaits and Vermont State after that, then into Canada for a break from conversions of gallons, miles and pounds.