I just spent the day climbing around on the Franz Josef Glacier and it was fucking amazing. Easily a highlight of my entire trip to date. Between this and White Island, New Zealand has slipped a couple of just fantastic days in under the radar. I thought that it would be just good travelling but I’ve had two days here that rank up with Angkor Wat and The Great Wall and other such things.
I’m so tired. Photos to follow in a bit. I spent most of the day climbing with a German girl, Ellen, and a Chilean fella, Sebastian and now we are going to have dinner and drinks. Hurrah. (So so tired)
Also. Jesus H Christ America, what are you doing??
I have failed at email but I have backed up over 25gb worth of photos and done some housekeeping on Flickr. 29 new photos up today too. Just over 9400 taken since I started travelling and just over 10% of them are up in the Around the World set. When I’m all done I’ll be curious to do a quick breakdown of where I took the most photos and other such things.
The plan for the evening is emails, some reading and a couple of bits of watching stuff. There’s fuck all to do here that isn’t a bar. I did have food in the hostel bar last night and it was excellent. There was also a moment of sheer joy when Transmission indicated that it was downloading at a rate of 6mb a second. Everything seemed fine and bars were moving nicely, oh so nicely along, indicating that I’d get to have lots to watch today. However it seemed to good to be through and it was. Something had happened and instead of showing the DL rates, it was showing the amount of data downloaded. A significant difference I think you’ll agree. A quick restart and check of data and oh well.
I slept very well last night which was good as I’d barely slept the night before, I don’t know why. The bus journey here was excellent. There were numerous quick ‘does anyone want to stop and take a photo?’ and most of our breaks seem to have been built around tourist attractions so that was pretty good.
I read two books on the journey. The first was Patrick McCabe’s Winterwood which wasn’t for me. The story was excellent but the execution was just terrible. I only finished it as I was on the bus. Next up was Iain Rankin’s Tooth & Nail which was good fun. I’ve had to give up trying to read them in order so I’m kinda all over the place but he’s good fun. Another author to add to the shelves when I’ve got some shelves down the line.
I do quite the the new Killers song but the lyrics are a little but odd…
BBC News: New Zealand falls into recession
9 hours later and I’m safe and sound in the town of Franz Josef (pop ~300).
I have no plans for tomorrow other than reading a book or three and writing all the emails that I have outstanding. The weather forecast is dire. The day after however I’m going to spend on the Franz Josef glacier ice hiking and climbing. I’m quite excited by this!
I had something else to say..oh yes. Daylight Savings Time started here today. So we went an hour forward and I’m now 12 hours ahead of Ireland and the UK. Loosing an hour of sleep when I had to be at the bus station before 7am was ideal.
Oh well.
21.01 Franz Josef, New Sealand Sunday September 28th
I’m in Nelson. I’ve just climbed to the centre point of New Zealand and taken the obligatory photos. It has been both a long and interesting day. The crossing was excellent
My bag is in for repairs, it needs a new zip. I tell you this because I would very much like to take my laptop out to the pub and write a bit and get through some of the growing stack of emails I have. I really don’t feel like putting it into a plastic bag or just carrying it, too many wires and then nowhere to put it safely once I’m done.
Today’s XKCD is pretty good: http://xkcd.com/481/
More later.
I can’t believe I just did that.
I’m actually feeling panicked.
Panic on the streets of London
Panic on the streets of Birmingham
I wonder to myself
Could life ever be sane again ?
The Leeds side-streets that you slip down
I wonder to myself
Hopes may rise on the Grasmere
But Honey Pie, you’re not safe here
So you run down
To the safety of the town
But there’s Panic on the streets of Carlisle
Dublin, Dundee, Humberside
I wonder to myself
Burn down the disco
Hang the blessed DJ
Because the music that they constantly play
IT SAYS NOTHING TO ME ABOUT MY LIFE
Hang the blessed DJ
Because the music they constantly play
On the Leeds side-streets that you slip down
Provincial towns you jog ’round
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
HANG THE DJ
According to my sister, she and my mother have dismissed what I write here as (and I quote) drunken ramblings for the most part. Now I shall not try in anyway to convince you that I’ve written every word here sober, that would be a lie. But still, it’s nice to have so much just dismissed out of hand.
This is, I think, yet another reason to kill off this blog and take it back to something private where I can actually try and work out issues without having to worry about the consequences of readers.
Working with this, I give you a pretty significant posting. I wrote this going on a month ago when I was in Melbourne. I wasn’t sober when I started tpying but I was by no means drunk. I’ve been wary of posting this and I’m still not convinced. I don’t think I should hit publish but I’ve given up. This is unedited.
A month ago(ish)
Continue reading ‘I’ve got nothing to do, but hang around and get screwed up on you’
