Hey everyone..welcome to this weeks addition of mark and russ's trip of misfortune haha. I'm only joking its all good experiance. To be honest all the cockups and mistaken decisions arent that bad and anyway i have done nothing but laugh at them haha..its all good experiance haha. Right where we left off.............we finally left brisbane, yes we got caught in the sydney trap but in brisbane, we couldnt leave it..had so much fun, made a fair amount of friends and got quite settled in our hostel...it come a point when you know you have been there way too long when the majority of staff know your name and what your plans are....russ went to the desk one morning to which their reply was ..yes russ what can we do for you and i walked into the nightclub birdies one night when a bouncer said have a good one markie! thats when you know you have to leave somewhere as a traveller. Oh well we had a cracking time and obviously made our mark. But getting back to my point (sorry i like going off on tangents at the moment just like this one...oops did it again haha). WE FINALLY GOT OUT OF BRISBANE....bit sad though but good. gonna miss some awesome people and maybe a special sort of person but thats the life of a traveller..nothing ever comes of anything..you have your fun as much as possible,you move on and disapear like footprints in the sand...sometimes you hope maybe one footprint might just stick but hey ho. Right so we left brisbane and on route to BUNDABERG....the fruitpicking centre in that area. We phoned the hostel that we needed to stay at where they would find us work when farmers phoned them each morning for fruitpicking duties. We couldnt book, it wasnt their policy..they had plenty of room so they simply said turn up...right sounded abit dodgy to me but f%ck it lets go and book the 4 hour train journey to bundaberg. Th train journey wasnt that bad but it was only 4 hours which means you look at the clock alot more than you would a 12 hour train journey which means it feels like it lasts for ever.

At 9.30pm we arrived at bundaberg train station....yay..let the fruit picking begin. yeah?????????????????...hhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm. we called the hostel to find out where they were in bunderberg but no answer..bundaberg isnt that big so it wasnt a problem but we should have got this information before..our mistake. What we did know is the hostel was in front of the bus station...now here we both made a silly assumption that the bus station would be near the train station or not far...such silly silly w***ers. We walked out of the station to a small town that was DEAD to the world..it was like stepping back in time...roughly ten o'clock at night there was nobody on the streets in the town centre..it was an old town but obviosly had a modern and well kept look about it but was still just so old fashioned..as we were walking with our bags..we were making jokes pretanding to be the town sheriff or gangster hillbilly...."YOU boys look like you lost!!!" haha stuff like that..we were both laughing alot. After about 30 mins of walking we found the bus station and the hostel..by this point we were tired and really needing to get our heads down. we rocked up at the hostel banged on the door which was locked...a fat bold guy came to the door (being fat and bold has no bearing on his personality by the way i am sure he was a lovly man). He came to the door and told us the office shut at 6pm everyday and they dont check anyone else in after. Great they could have bloody told us that on the bloody phone and we would have known..the fecking pilliocks. So there we were, in the misdle of a hillbilly ghost town with knowhere to stay...i didnt dare say cant this get anyworse as it would have been like a comedy movie where immediatly after i said that the heavens would have opened and would have pissed it down on us...and to be honest i didnt want that it was actually a very warm and nice night. So yeah what to do???...we walked to a few more hostels which were also shut. Right just picture us walking through a really lovly and pretty town with our big bangs and guitars, its dead quiet then suddenly 3 or 4 cars full of australian country people/hillbillies went screamaing past us shouting out the window with loud music and no doubt pissed out of their heads....i half expected to see a sherriffs car zoom past after them like something out of the dukes of hazzard...but it seems like the type of town that most people get away with everything haha. The hillbillies drove past a few more times after which wasnt too bad but i was sensing trouble as we were so blaightently travellers...felt like something from the topgear does america show where the guys got chased by some american hillbillies in the south. At this point russ said to me exactly what i had been thinking....." right then mate shall we do shifts?" Yeah we were debating roughing it for one night and doing shifts for who stays awake as neither of us fancied us both sleeping with hilbbiles around and luggage for them to take. To be fair it was a nice warm night and i am sure it could have been done..but then i spotted a town board and they had loads of motels just down the road..we called a few to see if they had room and what the price was...we found one called the bourbong motel. The lady who we found out her name was carmal was so lovly and so nice and really helped us, she directed us to the motel and got out of bed to check us in and what was better it didnt cost much more than a hostel anyway. Bonus.

We had massive beds each and a tv...own shower and a fridge and microwave. Yes i know i sound very sad but anyone who has been travelling will immediatly understand that these small normal things at home suddenly become luxuries when you are away. we didnt use much of it..but it was an upgrade for a night. The room was typical motel sort of room. I personally was bit creeped out by it..the room and motel looked liked something out of psycho or road kill..bit creepy..the walls were so thin and we could hear two chinese guys talking...if anyone has ever seen the film road kill..you will understand why these this walls creeped me out. When we got in the room the first thing i did was check the toilet and shower for serial killers..it was that sort of place. The room and town was so old fashioned on the bed side table there was a bible hahaha...so old fashioned it was unreal. We went out to get some food...we saw a dominos across the road..as we crossed the deserted road we literally stood on the pavement both saying yum yum as we were starving when the owner turned the lights off.......FOR F%CK SAKE!!!!!! I still think he watched us cross then turned them off. So far bunderberg had not been nice to us. We nipped down the seven eleven and got some munchies to tide us over till the morning. when we both had some munch and watched the david letterman show haha, we settled down to go to sleep when i suddenly came out with...."russ did you check the big wardrobe in the corner"... to which russ replied..."no but im gonna f%ucking now arent i?" hahaha was very funny.

Right the morning..yes we survived..no murders or CSI investigations..we were safe..in fact russ was very excited to find harry potter on the tv early in the morning which was totally random but hey i watched abit of it...at 10 oclock we got a knock on the door to check out..we hadnt been told it was 10am we had to be out. So yes we rushed out again having a small wash but not good enough and we headed back down the road in the blistering heat back to that hostel to check in at last. We rocked up to the hostel literally sweating from the heat...a lady came out and said yeah you boys can stay but there is no fruitpicking work for at least a week and a half....GUTTED! There were people watching tv in the hostel waiting there week before they can get some work. I was not waiting in bundaberg for over a week with nothing to do. We sat down for a bit outside mulled over what to do then i made the decision for cairns to get our van and just do the coast trip..screw it lets just do it. We walked to macdonalds to sort ourself out and had a quick ice cream at 11am in the morning...see dad i am eating healthy haha. We then headed for the train station..so in a space of about 12 hours we had walked bundaberg so many times and sweating so many litres of water i was ready to leave. The guy at the train station told us the next train the cairns was 4pm that day....result abit of luck as the next train didnt leave till friday...it was tuesday. Lucky I think. BUT................................the trian didnt arrive in cairns till 4pm the next day....yes your calculations are correct fans...24 HOURS ON A SODDING TRAIN!!!!!!!!! it was unbeivable i had to just laugh haha..our bundaberg experiance was certainly a memorable one. We both agree that in a few years time we will just have to say the name bundaberg and just laugh histerically for hours..was funny at the time as it like soemthing out of trains planes and automobiles with john candy and steve martin haha and it will certain be funny forever now. a great travelling experiance. After we booked our tickets we had a few hours to burn..we got some lunch in the park and went for a wonder to find stickers for our guitars. Bunderberg is a small town with not many people but it livened up abit more during the day but it really is very well kept and a very cute little town..for those at home it was like an oldfashioned and bigger version of stubbington haha. I enjoyed wondering about but couldnt stay there too long.

We got on the train for our epic journey...the people around us werent too bad...i had an old lady called glenice sat next to me, russ was unfortunate he had two complete annyoing people either side of him...he went to find another place to sit and was successfull i didnt see much of him after that. These two people were unbelievable....an old Kiwi lady and a middle aged ozzie guy that just talked about s*** and trees and fruit all the bloody way...apart from sleeping which was when i was asleep they just kept talking..so loud at some point i could hear them over my ipod. The little olf lady sat next to me was absolutly class..so funny she cracked me up..she was a sweet old lady that had a sense of humour. the annoying kiwi lady kept moaning about things so glenice would turn round and humour her without the kiwi lady realising it was so funny as glenice was just ripping the piss out of them without each of them knowing ..was very funny for a 65 year old lady..class act. We had a nice long chat..talked about our families and lives..relationships..her husband stuey had died a few years back..she had 3 daughters to which the youngest was 25..i was pushing for a picture but her camera had died lol.....i know im a nightmare but hey why not ha. She told me about her life i told her about my short life and quite boring compared to hers but she gave me cracking tips on how to make a marriage work so i have those on board stored in the memory bank. She told me some rude jokes for a 65 year old women bless her. She also told me she collected different coins from all nationalities...i so happened to have one of each coin in english money in the bottom of my bag..i gave them to her and she was so excited bless her..its such an old fashioned thing to do but bless her she was excited..she wanted to give me more australian money for my troubles but i refused naturally. She said she wanted to give me one of each of the different 50 pence australain coins she had collected through her life..i said not to worry but she insisted on my address to send them to me...how could i refuse a little old lady who wants nothing more to send me old coins....i think i am going soft. she asked my birthday and said she was going to send them for then...very sweet as no doubt i will forget by then and it will be such a nice surprise. haha I think i have an old penpal now haha..she cant use computers haha...funny experiance. She got off the trian way before me so for the 2nd half of my trip i had to endure the mindless twoddle of the kiwi lady and ozzie guy for 12 hours...oh joy. We arrived in cairns 4pm the follwoing day and found our way to our hostel.......this is where i shall leave it till my next blog as i have been here a few days ann will update later.

I have had a very funny few days..some memorable expriances...i love travelling and cant wait to just keep moving on and seeing new places and things. it looks like i will be eating into my savings as i cant even get fruitpicking for work..but screw it thats life this is a once in a lifetime trip and lets face it i could die at any point and in the worlds of the old lady glenice... I cant take it with me to spend when i die haha..quality old lady. So once again i hope you have all enjoyed this blog and what a special and funny blog it was..especially for me i am just laughing writing it and thinking about it again..cracking times....so once again till my next blog..love you all and miss you all...keep updating me and stay safe.

Goose Out!!!!

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