HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY!

Or as some alternative people (read: hippies) like to call it Invasion Day!

Went to a nice party with my friend from Hobart, and met some great people.

Today, I'm just going to eat some breakie, run some errands, and just hang out.

Smell ya guys later!

F@#king Bogans

Being back at the farm is great. Just great!

On my first day my boss set me to work, and now the farm has changed a fair bit. We have a fridge, a shed, a proper table, an A/C office, hot showers, 3 toilets and a forklift with cement under it to drive on! W00T!

After working about a week, I finally got the balls to ask my boss how much I was going to be getting paid, because I was afraid of the answer. He then replies that he hadn't work it out yet. Not the greatest of answers for me.

There are another three German girls camping by the river with me and the others, and man are they annoying. Whenever they speak, it sounds like they are complaining. Always asking me to cook for them. I just don't get it. At all. But, all I have to do is hang out with the other people, because they just seem to stick to themselves. You know, to practice their IngriSh and all that. I will not say anything else about them.

My warrior friend from last year and I had dinner up with the boss the other day, and we talked shop, and that's when I got to hear how much I'll be getting paid, and it's more than what I was getting paid in Sweden. And some of you know how much I was getting paid there, so I'm pretty happy right now :D However, on that note, there's a lot of French Canadians this year, and they are some wicked pickers, so the season can be a shorter one. We shall see.

Now about the title. We had a worker on the farm who is a hard worker and a great guy, when he's sober at least. The day I saw his son, I didn't get a good feeling about him, just got the feeling of trouble. It's a long story, but here's a point-by-point list of what happened:

• Some of us workers were sitting there enjoying the music and just talking, drinking, and eating.
• D&B (worker and son) rock up in their car, pissed off their faces, and cranks up their music over ours. Already a bit of buzz kill.
• He and his son are talking with people, and it seemed normal.
• Me and a few others ditch because the music they were playing was crap and just really loud.
• We hang out at their camp site, and then others start coming back to their tents.
• D&B drive over to the campsite with the music blaring.
• D jumps out of car with B still in it. I walk up to him to turn off the music cause it's annoying. I end up turning off his car for him.
• Inform him that what he's doing is not cool and that people will complain to the boss if he doesn't leave.
• He leaves, and does a burn out to give us a nice gift of dust as a going away present. Awesome.
• Comes back later and now all the workers are around our camp and just talking shit about him, in French though. I tell them not to fight him and let me do all the talking.
• He gets aggressive and I have to stand in front of him, with 10 people behind me ready to crack some Bogan skull.
• He then drives off and stops shortly and walks back to us.
• His son crushes a beer can he's been drinking, hands it to someone and looks at me and says "Well, Chris, I have free hands now." Me: "WHAT?!" "I have free hands now." I turn to face him straight on with harsh voice "Are you threatening me?! Are you serious?!" "Nah, mate, now I can roll a ciggie".
• He also commented on how I was a visitor, and him a local. Basically, borderline racist comment coming.
• D starts raising his voice and I calm everyone down with the help of one more.
• D&B drive off, and try to find something too eat or drink in the fridge. Don't know if they find anything.
• We drive up to the bosses house, leaving two people at the gate.
• Make a police complaint, and guaranteed the guy is fired.

Happy days in Ouse.

Now what? Keep on trucking, and hopefully he's not going to come and try to finish off some business. We're about 30 people down there. He doesn't really stand a chance simply put.

Other than that, it's hot as hell, I love it, the river is still great, people are good, and I'm pretty happy. And tired. Really tired.

Ok guys, talk to you later!

Twenty-10

It is here, the New Year has finally come. New habits to follow? Meh, we'll see. Any New Year resolutions? Besides keep on being awesome, nah, can't really think of any.

I have a fair bit to update you guys on, my Christmas on the Overland...and New Year. Soooo...maybe not that many topics, but yeah. I'll just get on with it, eh?

Christmas on the Overland Track

A few days before the hike, I found out that I was starting a day earlier than originally planned, which made logistics a bit iffy. Stubbo was having a house party out at his mom's place (which was super chill and great all around), so getting from there back to Hobart was going to be a bit of an issue and making the bus on time too, but some of his friends had to be back home to pick up their kid so I got home in time and made it to the bus to Launceston: the tripped started now.

I was feeling pretty confident in all my preparations, however, I saw this hike as being an experimental one, mainly because I have never done a hike this big on my own, only when I was in the army. So sorting out food was the biggest problem. I refused to buy dehydrated food just to see if I can make it with "normal" food, and I did. Extremely well, so well in fact that I had heaps of food left over, probably 3-4 days worth of food, depending on how you would ration it out. Yes, it was heavy. Very heavy.

Any who, upon arriving in Launceston, I made my way to the hostel I was going to stay at, and man it was weird staying at a backpackers again. Since my return to Oz, and my last few months here as well, I never went to a backpackers, so leaving my stuff out for strangers was again, something I had to get used to. You just have to trust people. The backpackers was really nice and quiet and had a good standard to it too. Meet a few people there who were going to do the Overland, and quite a few had never done a hike like this before, which in my ears, was absolutely ludicrous and pretty ballsy. To decide to just jump into such a long hike without too much prior experience is something I have to give homage to. One of those people just happened to be my room mate at the hostel, and we decided to start on the same day and depending on how it went, we would maybe hike the whole way.

Next morning we jump on the bus heading to Cradle Mountain at 08.00 in the morning. So, I was expecting to start the hike around 10ish, and how wrong I was, because it made a massive detour to Devonport and then to Cradle Mtn. And before we left Launceston, I felt I really needed a pair of sunglasses, so I came up with an idea to get a pair for free: ask for a pair. At the bus station, I told them I had lost a pair and told them they were black, and it worked! They're not a brand name, but they work and look semi decent :D Ended up starting at around 12.30, and it was the hardest bit too! A lot of uphill climbing, and oh yeah, on the first 100 m, we saw a snake. That set it all in stone that snakes were to be taken seriously in the national park. We saw another one a few hours later too.

First day was just amazing weather, absolutely perfect! Oh, there was a Japanese girl who joined our group too, so we started off with 3 people. It became the C-Ai-A tour! Christofer - Ai - Andy tour! We climbed up Cradle Mountain which was pretty exhausting, and pretty awesome too! A lot of big boulders to climb and conquer, quite the mission, but super fun!

Once we got back down, we started making our way to the first hut, and man, I was feeling really bad from the cold I had just come over. It was reaching the point where I was considering turning back to make sure it wouldn't get any worse. I decided to make it to the first hut, and see how I feel in the morning.

And while we were hiking to the hut, it felt like were in a photograph! The scenery was indescribable with the sunsetting too, it made it all really magical.

The first person to greet us is a couple staying there taking care of the hut, and it's a super friendly guy wearing a Santa hat, with Christmas lights running around the frame of the hut they're staying in. It was pretty cool!

Setup my tent and start making my first meal: spaghetti and salami with some pizza sauce and garlic. It was yum! And to clean out the bowl a bit more, I heated up water in the bowl with the remaining pasta sauce, added some garlic and pepper, a chicken stock cube, and what do you have? Garlic chicken tomato soup! I gave that to the Japanese girl cause she was still a bit hungry and cold. After that little feast, I felt like a new man! Went to bed shortly afterwards and had a one of the worst nightmares ever. Oddly enough, everyday on the hike, I had a nightmare. I'm not going to talk about them, because I found them very very disturbing (and if you know me, then you know I have no real boundaries in my vulgarities).

Something I forgot to mention, on most of the camp sites, the camping spots were on platforms with wires to hold your tent down, it was pretty convenient and comfortable too.

Second day was going to be a pretty easy hike, however the weather wasn't the greatest. Didn't really see anything all too amazing. It was just a bit chilly with some slight rain. And this is were Ai decided to keep on going leaving our trio to become a duo, because she had miscalculated the amount of time she was going to be on the track.

Third day was the real killer. It was a long 16km in amazing weather. Nice and balmy. Scenery was spectacular too, just unreal. Once we got to the hut, we decided to add another 8km to the hike by climbing the mountain by the hut because the next day was meant to be a wet one. Getting to the base of the mountain was super wet and muddy. Saw another snake and got a photo of it too. The two Germans I was doing this bit were pretty insistent on getting a photo of the snake and felt that they were borderline harassing the snake trying to get their perfect shot. It was a pretty steep hike up the mountain and when we got close the summit, we were greeted by a policeman and paramedic. Someone died about 30-40 minutes prior. We then had to walk around the body through the bush, and when we got back on the track, we met some other hikers and the guide to the man who died. She had given him CPR, which made her a bit shook up. For obvious reasons. He was 59 years old and in good health. Don't really know what to say anymore, except it was a pretty big buzz kill. And when we got to the top, I couldn't really enjoy the view with what we saw and being complete exhausted. The other people I was there with didn't bring any torches with them either, so we couldn't walk all the way to the end (the peak was sort of a plateau) and had to turn back before it got too dark, because the markers for the track were hard to see and the track was pretty technical. Newbs.

From the top, we could see helicopters flying around picking up the wife of the recently deceased, and transporting the body too. Pretty awkward.

Make our way down and have a feed and go to bed with a nice surprise on my door step: a jar of crunchy peanut butter as a Christmas present from one of the hikers. Yum!

Next morning was Christmas Eve, and it was raining. People were deciding to wait for the rain to die down, but I decided to just go for it. Popped on my rain gear, and started pushing through it. The start of the hike was through the forest, which made it not as wet and windy. However, once I got up to the exposed bit, I my temperature dropped pretty quick. After standing around for no even 5 minutes, I had to get a move. I was getting pretty close to start freezing, which would of been really bad at that point, but just started hiking again, and then got my temperature back up.

Once I got into the forest again, I found a rock and took a small break, where I was having a really calm, peaceful moment, and started to think about my friends and family and felt pretty good. It was like I was in moment of Zen. 10km later, I reached the hut (Kia Ora Hut) which was nice and toasty full of people who had started a bit earlier than me. Clothes hanging everywhere, like the alley ways of Naples in Italy. Funny. One of the girls there started drawing Christmas pictures and using the condensation on the windows as glue to put them on the window, added a bit of spirit to the cabin.

And my Christmas dinner was nothing exciting, except for dessert: chocolate dunked in the peanut butter. It was a bush version of Reese's Pieces, yuma-dum-dum!

I decided to crash in the cabin that night cause it was a warm and because all my gear was completely wet. What a mistake. A guy next to me was snoring like no other. And on top of that, had an awesome nightmare. Yay.

Next day was going to be long one, decided to hike all the way to Narcussus Hut (final hut) because the chaffing I had going on was pretty horrible. Like, really horrible. I was running out of skin basically. Checked out three waterfalls, a really nice hut which was setup just last year, and on my last few kilometers, I had a young German walking with me, who was serious unprepared and had hardly any packing. I then just gunned it, cause my feet were killing me and I wanted to make some proper dinner, so apparently I pulled off the last bit in 40 minutes, it was about 5km I think, and I totally destroyed the kid. He couldn't believe I was walking at the speed I was. It was funny to hear him wine like he did.

Stayed at the hut for two nights, just to enjoy the scenery. On the 2nd day, I went off the track and tried to find Lake Laura, which was probably the dumbest thing I've done in a while. Tassie bush is pretty intense. I got about 500 meters into and then decided to turn around because I told some people at camp to call emergency services if I didn't back at a certain time. I wish I had told them to wait longer, because I didn't find the lake and I'm pretty sure I was close.

I first found the creek was being fed by the lake, and then tried to follow it to the lake, but then it just disappeared into the ground and I didn't really know what to do. On my way back, I tried a different route, which mainly meant walking over all the fallen trees to cover ground a lot quicker. On the last two trees, once I got to the end of it, I realized I was about two meters above the ground. After doing some amateur monkey skills, I got to the ground and kept on moving. I reached Lake St. Clair (way back to the hut) and walked back along the shoreline to my tent. And man, I was just completely pooped.

Oh, I had to cross a river which was pretty nippy to get started on the hike, so once I got back to the crossing point, re-packed my gear into the dry bags and swam across. Cold as shit, but good ole army training taught me how to cope with that shockingly cold water. Breathe slowly and don't stop moving. Once I got back to the other side, a woman who watched me gave me the great news that if anything were to happen to me, she wouldn't come in to get me. And I'm pretty sure she meant it. People can be really great.

Rest of the day was just hanging out and talking to the people there. I also couldn't be bothered to walk the finally bit, so I reserved a spot on the ferry boat and had a nice cruisey ride to the bus.

Lake St. Clair had a visitors center where I got a book called Road Kill Recipes, sadly it's only for satire purposes. Funny recipes. Also ended up getting a ride back to Hobart instead of having to wait ages for the bus. Got back to Hobart and felt super good.

I'm not very proud of how I wrote this, it's pretty simple and what not, but I'm pretty exhausted and have some more stuff to write, so here's a quick conclusion of the Overland Track: Do it. Just do it. 10/10, except for the underwear department, need to find something to help against my chaffing.

Before Falls

Before the Falls Festival ate some great food at the Taste Tasmania Food and Fine Festival, and then Stubbo's friends decided to make Milky Joes (watch the Nightmare of Milky Joe from the Mighty Boosh to understand this). Basically, people made of coconuts on bamboo sticks. Funny as hell! Also texted the radio station and got our names mention, and the hostesses felt we shouldn't do such creepy things on our free time. Greatness!

Falls Festival

This was my first several day Music event, it was for two nights, and it was freaking awesome! I only knew of three bands playing there (Moby, Hilltop Hoods, and Sarah Blasko), and the rest was a surprise. And it was a great surprise!

Festival was a lot of fun! Was hanging out with Stubbo and some people from the Overland Track, which was really cool.

Also did something called 10 minute Disco which entails going into a shipping container, and then the DJ just plays all of this random dance music and you just go ape shit inside. The DJ had this funky wig which resembled the center character of this picture, he was also in some scary old grandpa type loose fitting underwear. Also, there was a dude wearing Mexican wrestling mask. And another one wear giant star outfit made of foam and people kept of pushing him around and making him crouch surf. It was funny as hell to watch and experience.

The band before the main act, The Midnight Juggernauts, played an awesome set, and had the best weather for it. There was a lightning storm going on all around us, with rain, and their music is the one you want to play when the world is coming to an end. It wasn't like, I hate my life, it needs to end. No, it's...just awesome. And watching lighting crawl along the bottom side of cloud while intense music is being played. Holy hell! I don't want to forget that, it was just incredible!

The count down act was the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and oh yeah, they know how to rock! Just surreal, all of it.

Festival gets a 5/5 rating for sure. Full points! And for the backdrop of the main stage, you could see the ocean. The venue was incredible, and very well organized. And also got to see the good side of humanity too. I took a nap during the day, and when I woke up, the group next to saw me, and started making sure that I was alright, seeing if I needed anything. Cause that day, it was easily 35 degrees. An absolute scorcher of a day.

Ok, my fingers are bleeding now. I'll leave you with some photos to enjoy. In a summary, every since I got back to Oz, it's been fucking awesome in every possible way. I truly love my life some times, and the past few days have been pure love for it.

Here are some photos.