Being as sincere as possible, with no over-exaggeration whatsoever, things here have gone from bad, to worse, to dire. A concise version of what has happened would look like the following:

• Bought & returned a s***ty 4x4
• Bought a campervan
• Broke a campervan
• Been stranded in Townsville
• Ben was suspected of having Malaria (turned out to be an viral infection)
• Had a swedish guy try and have sex in the dorm (in the bunk bellow me)
• Been blocked from my online bank account

So far Australia really has been a series of up&downs for me and Grim. I genuinely think this all began from our refusal to give a begging aborignal man some change... Cursed from the very heart and soul of Australia. Some aboriginal man is sat on Uluru right now screaming our name to the spirits (in the interests of political correctness it could be an aboriginal woman).

As some of you may know, it was my birthday yesterday and so in an effort to bring in my old age with some style - we spent the day in the doctors and trying to deal with finding a new engine for our previously functioning van. We only managed a 300km escape from Cairns til our luck ran out and now Townsville just seems an extension of all the wasted time we had in Cairns trying to sort the vehicle out.

For this reason I'm officially moving my 19th birthday celebrations until Grim and I hit up a major party hub further down the East Coast. Thanks to everyone for the Birthday wishes as well. Greatly appreciated! Fear not, I will be staggering around an Australian party capital near you any day soon.

Tomorrow the engine should be fixed and we should be outta here. Its such a relieving feeling to be on the road, hurtling away from the cities in the north here, they all seem to be exactly the same. Its the national parks that really need visiting (during the sober hours of the day).

It really has got to the point where our bad luck has reached comical proportions. It's taken a few days but when it does sink it... it's pretty damn funny- all this crap happening in such a short period of time. It comes with the territory I guess.

Please be aware that our bad luck may not have run out, so if you hear news of broken bones, kangaroo roadkill or something as dire, please spend a moment to laugh for us as I'm sure we'll be having a pissy by the side of the road somewhere.

Buenos Dias Hombres