Hi everyone. I'm currently in Malaysia. I arrived here yesterday from Melbourne. I was in Australia for nearly 3 months. After Christmas in Bali I flew to the west of Australia to Perth. I spent a month in Perth. It was fantastic being in Australia after spending 4 months in Asia. Just not hearing ''tuk tuk'' or cheap watch, special price for you'' every two minutes was fantastic! I stayed in a cheap s***ty hostel but met some quality people there! I loved Perth for its beautiful weather! It never really drops below 30oc and tends to have a nice sea breeze running through the city. While I was there I also met up with my cousin who lives in the north of oz and met up with my mum and dads old friends, who moved over there 28 years ago. While I was there their house nearly got burnt down through bush fires. It took three of them all day with hose pipes trying to keep the fire from their home. Some of their neighbors weren't so lucky though, and unfortunately lost their homes due to the fire.

While in Perth I did some odd jobs, I was a removal man for one day and also helped a bloke move warehouses for 5 days in total, this bit of extra cash came in handy for me as Australia, and especially Perth isn't cheap. After a month here I decided to visit my mate Alec tat from back home in Brisbane on the east coast. Tat has been out here for 2 and half years now, so it was great seeing him again after so long. I stayed with him ad his girlfriend Alex for 5 nights and had a great time going out going and spending a day on the beach on the gold coast. I then left Tat and Alex and headed for a place called Stanthrope in a regional area of Queensland……

Well there are very little words I can say about this place. s***hole comes to mind! I got a job here picking fruit (peppers), it was back breaking work but that wasn't really the problem, the real problem was the mundane ritual of it all, oh and my supervisor Kev! Kev was a strange bloke, a true aussie outback guy. He was the type of guy that had never left his little town and had no plans to ever leave. He had been married and divorced four times, at when I left he was shacked up with some 19 year old Estonian girl. The bloke lived the dream, if the dream is living in a caravan and working on farm for 10 hours a day everyday, for 200 dollars a day!.... He also had some beautiful tattoos. One had a love heart on his arm with his ex wife's name on it, then had it changed with the writing a 'real b****' underneath, or something along those lines. Then he had a tattoo on the inside of his arm saying 'I love you' in Estonian! He had been with her the whole 3 months I think when he had this done, but the best of all were the two eye balls in the back of his bald head! My respect for the man was overwhelming as you can imagine…..

So anyway the day would start off by waking up at 4.30am, have breakfast then be on the bus for 5am. Getting to the farm at 5.30am and then the misery starts…… kev would roll up looking angry as ever, (just his normal look) then it would be 'get in the back of thaa truck'! (in his thick aussie outback voice) No pleasantries with our kev, like maybe good morning or how you all doing? Nope we were just the s*** of his boots….haha

So the day would begin with him telling us all that he was the Billy big b******s around here and if you don't like you can f*** off etc. as the guy was mentally challenged he didn't have a large use of the English language, so he tended to repeat the same words or quotes, time after time. It was sometimes like listening to a broken record. Some qualities sayings were; 'it's either my way or the high way' (classic!!) 'There's the fence, there's the gate, your choice?' say what you see Kev, say what you see. Another classic was 'this is my crew' and the best of all 'I have eyes in the back of my head….LITERALLY!!'' obviously referring to his beautifully tattooed eyes balls!

So the plan for me was to get my head down, and not to answer back. This lasted a whole 13 days I think, then I couldn't take it any longer so obviously me and him started having a few ding dongs because basically I got bored of listening to his idiotic nonsense and just started winding the guy up because it was just to easy! This then became tiresome, so I didn't go into work one day, then it was paddy's night that night and I got hammered and never made into work again, so it was two strikes and you're out of there. I believe I have never smiled so much than that day, knowing I was leaving! Thank you and good bye stanthrope!!

After here I went back to tats in Brisbane for the weekend where we went out on the saturady and I met up with a mate who I befriended in stanthrope. This was a messy night, but a quality night because it was my first night out away from stanthrope!! Haha I then flew to Sydney on the Tuesday and met up with Karen and Naomi who were friends from back home, I also got together with a couple of girls who worked with in stanthrope and I met my mate Milan who I lived with, in Beijing, China. I had a great time in Sydney and will definitely be returning in the near future. After Sydney I then moved onto Melbourne and stayed with a girl who I met in Shanghai, so I spent 5 nights with her. Staying in her apartment was great for me because basically I am fed up with sharing accommodation and living out of a backpack now. Staying in 10 man dorms does really start to wear you down!! While in Melbourne I got to see my first Aussie rules game. There was a crowd of 50,00 to watch the game in the world famous MCG. (Melbourne Cricket Ground). We also went to a comedy night, and went out a few times for food. I had a great week and then on the Monday morning I flew to Kuala lumpur. This is my first day back and I think im going sunbathing in the park today, then I will probably catch a movie later and wake up for the United v Chelsea game. That is me so far, I hope you enjoyed the blog!!

I hope everybody is well back home, I really can't wait to come home now! I'm so excited about seeing everybody as it has been 6 and half months of being away and living out of a backpack! When I return to the UK in May, I am in London on the 4th-8th visiting friends, and then head home back to sunny Rossendale!! Where on the weekend of the 14/15th I will be the best man to my friends wedding!! I can't wait and really need to start thinking about my speech! After this on the 21st/22nd i am in Edinburgh with my family, I am competing in the Edinburgh marathon. My training is going well, but we will see in 6 weeks time! 26 miles seems a daunting task!! After this I have one more weekend left in the UK before I fly back to Melbourne on the 1st June! I hope I can get to see as many of you as possible before I leave!!

Love you all,

Danny x x