ok wow the last few days have been stressful but brilliant. ok I was at glenorchy, kinloch doing the normal everday thing I do there and Shannon a really good friend that I've kept in touch with over the internet over the past 2 years came up to visit me. It was all planned I knew he was coming and I told my boss I needed a day off etc. had fun went to queenstown, arrowtown (arrowtown is so gorgeous) and cromwell. Shannon stayed for two nights and then had to go. 15 minutes after Shannon left my boss told me I was sacked and to pack my things. I was devastated, I wasn't expecting it and he sacked me coz I was not enthusiastic in the work place. I had one of two choices most prefferable was to get in contact with shannon and tell him to turn around nd pick me up and take me to invercargill. if that failed I had to book my next flight home. After about 40 minutes I finally get in touch with Shannon. By that time I'm stressed, upset, crying etc. and on the verge of booking airflight tickets. Thankgod he came back and took me to invercargill. Shannon is officially a saint and a god send and a life saver, so all bow down to shannon! hehehehe but seriously he's a gem. I then later find out his whole family are gems and within half an hour of meeting them I am invited to stay in their house in the spare room. I was totally taken aback and took me a while to bring myself to accept even though I've always been taught to never look a gift horse in the mouth as they say. So now I've been here since thursday and have been applying for jobs everywhere. Apparently they're quite hard to get here in invercargill which is a bitch. If I can't get one in a fortnight or so I'm going to have to go back to plan B of booking a flight home. Sort of semi-hoping that will happen, I'm tired of travelling and having my life and wellbeing dangling from a thread of hope. Not to mention I miss all my friends and it's F*%#ING freezing here. Anywho I am going back to job searching.

Hope all of you a warm and well seeing as I am cold and could be better.

love and miss you all.

Sharn

Wow. It's been over a month since I put a blog on this thing. I'm soo glad I came to glenorchy. It's gorgeous here. Cold but gorgeous. it's getting into the negative degrees at night. So glad I bought thermals. The work isn't hard, the hours are good, the people I work with are great. My bosses are great (as long as they're not stressing over how long it takes people to do things) the package deal is brilliant. No mobile reception is a huge pain in the a$$ but goodness knows I'm used to it. I really have t take my hat off to my bosses. they're brilliant people. Husband and wife who are very hands on when it comes to running things and they run Kinloch backpacker wolderness hostel, heritage hotel, lakehouse B & B, Sawyers resteraunt, Harry's bar and a shop in town. They also to shuttle pick ups and drop offs for all the walking tracks (ie. multiple day hikes) and boat runs from town to here and from here to queenstown once a week. They also have 3 gorgeous kids (a tad spoilt but gorgeous) 3 dogs and 3 cats. I don't know how they manage it. like I said I have to take my hat off to them.

The place is really growing on me which is nice but it also means I need to move on. I have to wait till I have cash to do so though. which reminds me I have to get onto finding out my IRL number  and etc in order to be paid... I should do that now.

K ciao amigos

I'm having a great time.

get in touch

love and miss you all.

Sharn

hehehe doesn't that sound stereotypical or what? I just don't understand why she get's bitchy about the way I do things when tomorrow is the last day I clean for her. I clean tomorrow then I'm out of her hair, she's out of mine, then hopefully she'll get the bee out of her bonnet so she'll stop snapping at poor eugene. Hmm either it's her time of the month or she's just received a bill that's bigger than she thought it was... o.O

No seriously I don't care that she's being bitchy to me because I leave on friday (bullyah) but she should leave eugene alone, he gets enough crap from his wife (they're soon to divorce).

I can't wait to go to glenorchy. partly to get out of here and partly to get some money and partly because well glenorchy is gorgeous.

any way I just offloaded what was on my chest. I feel better now.

Cheers

Love you and Miss you ALL

Sharn

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They accepted my application! I'm moving to Glenorchy on the 21st! It's much like what I'm doing now but better. I'll be working for a place called Kinloch Lodge. Four hours work a day covers all my accomodation, food, laundry, internet, movie hire and spa use. Anything over that I get paid $13/15-hr for. HOW SWEET IS THAT! Not to mention they have a view. Hell of a lot better than here (a grafitti ridden  corrugated iron fence with lame ass dragonball Z cartoon figures asking to challenge each other in lawn bowls coz its for the lawn bowls club accross the road). I'll be doing mostly cleaning work *sigh* but I'm hoping they'll spice it up for me because I can also garden, waitress, bartend and babysit.

Any way I'm taking the bus down there on the 21st (8 hour bus ride... blah) I have to spend a night in queenstown before catching another bus the next day to Glenorchy which is about a 45 minute drive north west of queenstown. I went through there once when I was in queenstown with sylvia when we were heading to horse riding. It's absolutely stunning. Simply can't wait. Christchurch is just not the place for me, sorry I know you love it sylvia but yeah I love the queenstown area far more because as you say the mountains are rediculous.

Anywho.

Thats about it.

Love and miss all of you.

Cheers

Sharn

I accidentally poured boiling water over my hand last night when I was seperating pasta from water with a colander. It's alright now. Hands all red and stings constantly but at least it hasn't blistered or anything like that. I pinched my little finger in a door (yes any one who's on lord howe island it's the same finger just in a different part of a door) which has given me a tiny blood blister and I have a wopper of a blood blister on the end of my toe coz I accidentally kicked really hard. I feel like at the moment that I'm just meant to get hurt. Also I'm still waiting for jobs to respond to my applications. I blame it on the fact that it is now the weekend.

Hope every one is going well and I hope every one wishes me to get a bit of better luck... who knows it might work.

Love and miss you all.

Sharn Simpson

looking for a new job, prefferably down south, I want to see a proper friggin snowy winter man. There looks like there'd be a promosing cleaning job down in invercargill to clean the school and some offices. Rent is cheap down there as well which is a pluss. Only draw back is I don't have a car so if there is no public transport to these places or somewhere within walking distance of them then I'm sorta screwed. any who. thats my update for the day. Cooking Tuna Vinagrette pasta tonight! yumm almost can't wait.

Love and miss you all,

Sharn

Gah I wasn't hired by Octagon! starting to get worried again. oh well that's something for me to do tomorrow. don't worry sharn. take a dee breath and calm down. you'll get hired somewhere soon.

wow it's really hard to make friends at this hostel because I counted 11 people ALL SPEAK GERMAN! it's really hard to join in a conversation that you don't understand. It's almost as bad as back at school when the chinese, daniel quiggin and ashley james would get togethor and all speak chinese even though I'm standing right there and was part of the conversation all of 2 seconds before hand and they just decide to switch languages. sigh. oh well I'll keep trying. hell that's all I CAN do.

Miss you guys

Sharn

It was pretty awesome. It's really schmick on the outside but all the staff are so laid back. Last night, some guy when he reserved his seat said he was a trumpet buff and wanted to know if they could have trumpeter play for him (with a cost of course) so they got in the oldest and best trumpeter in christchurch to come in and play for him. Can't remember his name now but I was flabbergastered. A trumpeter brought in just for one person. My face was -->    O.O

 

Any way I was out the back doing dishes. There were two cheffs. Tucker who's an asian guy, so much talent you should see him create a creme brulee... wow. Then there was Johan (Yo-hahn) he was from austria and took care of most of the meat stuff. Before now I had never seen any one flip a steak like some do to pancakes, full on tossing it like.  that was a bit wow. Then there's the kitchen hand, Dean he did a bit of everything. He put the sauces on the dishes, kept track of the tabs, helped me with the dishes, chopped up ingredients helped keep everyone on track that sorta stuff. He was a bit nuts but funny, he was like a cross between chris mason, bradin and my friend amelia. He had me laughing half the night. but ewww he has dreadlocks! dread locks = turn off! I don't know why but I find dreadlocks sooo unappealing. you wouldn't really expect that of me seeing as I am a hippy but yeah.
Crystal is my boss and she looks like a mix of the woman who plays phoebe from friends and and and ummmm oh I know the actress that I'm thinking of but I don't know her name and I can't think of any movies she's in. Don't you hate that? any way she's really nice.

Any way umm what else? oh yeah my umberella broke so had I had to buy another one today. Today was the scottish band competition in cathedral spuare so any one within a kilometre could hear bagpipes most of this morning. umm thats about it.

Love and miss you all.

Sharn

well its rainy and dreary in Christchurch and I don't have a raincoat. I've also been moved into a cheaper room that stinks of mouldy socks. My trial night has been moved to tonight which = EXCELLENT! Hopefully I will be hired and within a fortnight I shall have my first pay cheque... hopefully.

Well I figured out where I went wrong (Though I'll never regret it) I shouldn't have started travelling by having a care free fun time. I should have started as I am now. Pretending as if I can barely feed my self, working for my accomodation and looking for a paying job. The fact that now it's not pretend is really fucking stressing. Cried myself to sleep last night. Feel a bit better coz of that. Going to stick it out for a while though. Half of me is screaming to catch the next available flight back to brissy. But if I don't stick it out for at least a month I will never forgive myself. Hope all of you out there are swell. If you're religious then pray a lil prair for me and if not then just hope the best for me and wish me well ok?

Love you and miss you all.

Sharn

zomg zomg zomg zomg zomg AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!

arrived auckland Feb 14th
What Sylvia and I did. Stayed at a family friends place. We walked around the edge of sky tower and jumped off it (300 metres!) we went to the museum and had a cultural experience and the winter gardens (Absolutely gorgeous) and went quadbiking (Fuckin' ay man! awesome fun and beautiful surroundings)

Rotorua on the 17th
We went to the hot springs and a polynesian spa sooooo nice. Went to the Agro dome went on a virtual free fall that was simulated using a giant fan. Super fun but hell and a half for people with long hair (spent the next 2 hours deknotting hair) we went zorbing, doesn't look like much but fuck it's fun. Saw a sheep show which was funny (I got to milk a cow! feels sooo gross but I got a certificate of Udderance). Ummm we also did a kiwi tour and got to see some new born kiwis (So CUTE!) and then went on a Hitai experience which was a full on maori show and showed us their sacred spring and sacred lands and had a hangi! YUM earth cooked food. soo nice. and then a night walk through rainbow springs nature park. Saw some more kiwis but also rainbow trout and eels and tuatara and kea and a red sacoya tree (Its american) planted there 80 years ago and it was huge. equivalent size of a 650 year old sacoya tree in america. Talk about NZ soil being the equivalent of steroids for trees.

Queenstown 21st (Yesterday)

Today is relax day. shopping and booking what we're going to do. Sky dive tomorrow. Fly by wire, bungee jump and canyon swing the next day. Horse riding and luging on the day after that. Clubbing tomorrow night

We get to christchurch on the 26th

We're hoping to do a LotR tour and a hot air baloon whilst we're there. Sylvia flys back to Brisbane on the 28th :'( Going to miss you sylvia!

Any way having a ball getting broke.

Love Love!

Sharn

hey guys well I've finished putting all my information and music on my new mp3 player and a girl Bonny wants to buy my laptop off me. She says she won't have the money for a month or so. When she buys it I'll be on the internet alot less. But in a month or so I will be packing my stuff getting ready to leave that's no big deal. Work has continued to chop and change my hours around and I'm starting to get really peeved. I know its because I'm the only one who won't openly complain. All the others have 5 days a week and one of them doesn't even like working there! So I'm once again searching for work. I feel like I must be doing something wrong it's rediculous. Oh well up side of it is that now I have saved enough money to cover me travelling completely (Thankyou Sylvia and your mum for repaying that money it helped alot)

It helps that I have no rent. I have no idea how I would survive if I had to pay for everything rent, food, electricity, telephone. Well actually I do have to pay for some food and a third of the electricity and telephone bill. But thats basically nothing. Thank you mum & dad. Golly don't you just love your parents sometimes?

well thats about it.

cheerio then.

~Ursa~

90 Days and counting till NZ. Who ever doesn't count down the days till they go travelling isn't excited enough! Spent the last three days putting information, word documents, photos, pictures, videos & music on my Mp3 player. I'm only about a third of the way through all my music and I've already used nearly 12Gb. It's gonna take me ages. Absolutely buggered today after work but we had chinese for dinner tonight which was awesome.

Alright catchya l8r

ciao amigos

~Ursa~

well life is starting to look good again... For me at least. My mp3 player has finally been delivered and it is gorgeous. All black and beautiful. Works given me another days work a week and I possibly have more work at the bowling club so tis all good. 

My grandparents however are in a bit of a living hell. My grandmother on my mums side (The horrid one I lived with for three years in brisbane) the hot water tank burst and has demolished her unit. Insurance is taking care of it for her whilst she goes and looks after frank (her bf, I know ew) who has just had a colonoscopy (double eww). My pop on my dads side however looks like he's had a head on collision with a semitrailer. He really just took a bad fall off some rocks here on the island because he was silly enough to think he could climb onto them when he could barely walk to start with. My father and my uncle kenny are now on call nurses for him having to spend most of the day with him so he doesn't feel alone coz when he's alone he gets bored, people with alsymers are dangerous when they are bored because they do stupid things because they think they are fine because they cant remember they are hurt or they have alsymers. Like drive when he can barely see (dad has since taken away the car keys).

I recently watched a movie called The Secret. Really cool, but then again its very much up my alley. All about positive thinking changing your life and all that. Alot of ppl would think its a bore.

Any way I'm going back to setting up my new mp3 player.

hope you are all well.

catchya l8r

well life is starting to look good again... For me at least. My mp3 player has finally been delivered and it is gorgeous. All black and beautiful. Works given me another days work a week and I possibly have more work at the bowling club so tis all good. 

My grandparents however are in a bit of a living hell. My grandmother on my mums side (The horrid one I lived with for three years in brisbane) the hot water tank burst and has demolished her unit. Insurance is taking care of it for her whilst she goes and looks after frank (her bf, I know ew) who has just had a colonoscopy (double eww). My pop on my dads side however looks like he's had a head on collision with a semitrailer. He really just took a bad fall off some rocks here on the island because he was silly enough to think he could climb onto them when he could barely walk to start with. My father and my uncle kenny are now on call nurses for him having to spend most of the day with him so he doesn't feel alone coz when he's alone he gets bored, people with alsymers are dangerous when they are bored because they do stupid things because they think they are fine because they cant remember they are hurt or they have alsymers. Like drive when he can barely see (dad has since taken away the car keys).

I recently watched a movie called The Secret. Really cool, but then again its very much up my alley. All about positive thinking changing your life and all that. Alot of ppl would think its a bore.

Any way I'm going back to setting up my new mp3 player.

hope you are all well.

catchya l8r

bad Bad BAd BAD! I bought a $550 60Gb mp3 player from harvey norman so that I could everything from my laptop onto it and then I could sell my laptop so when I go travelling I only have to carry the mp3 player. It has gone missing in the mail!!!!!  GAH!!!!!!!!! $550... *explodes*

It was sent on the ship and when things are sent on the ship they are put on palets that are about 2 metres square and then shrink wrapped (wrapped tightly with tough clingwrap) so that nothing falls off. We've managed to find out that the palet that it was on arrived on the island. So either one of the people working on the ship or sorting the parcels has stolen it. Or that it was delivered to the wrong address and that person hasn't stepped up and said "Sorry I don't believe this is mine". Either way it is BAD NEWS and I've just about been having kittens (which is bad because it's illegal to have cats on the island )

Worst comes to worst I'll tell the copper and make him make a police record of it then ring Harvey Norman and kick up a stink about there courier service sending it via ship rather than airfreight and make them send me another one... *sigh* I just wish things would work out the way that they are supposed to. You order something, they send it, you receive it. What is so hard about that?

As you can probably tell I'm not in the best mood at the moment. I need a cuppa tea.

Catchya later guys.

Ciao

Hey guys well its taken all that time from my last post to today for the electrician to come over here and get the lights done. It's a nice change to have ceiling lights but I wish the electician wasn't so useless as to take a week to come back and do them. Works also cut my days from six/seven days a week down to only three. This = BAD! I am saving to go travelling. I can't afford to get my hours cut that severly. I knew they were going to get cut because Bonny some new chick who arrived today was hired but I thought it would be down to four days minimum. However in a few weeks Dai leaves so hopefully I'll be given another day or two then. Meanwhile I'm going to put up a babysitter for hire notice at the local store. Or maybe I should apply for another job. Blue Lagoon though is real cruisey and I know the ropes as well as any one there and even though the bosses are old and going balmy they're good friendly people and thats a rare thing when it comes to bosses. Gah I dunno. I need a coffee. That tends to cheer me up a little.

Catch you guys later.

Luv!

Sharn

 

Hey everyone, My internet is so slow that this is barely working. I'm still on Lord Howe Island. Working my toosh off to save. Next year on February 14th Sylvia and I are flying from Brisbane to Auckland New Zealand! I can't wait. I've booked just about everything already.

I've bought myself a mailing address there that will activate the day we fly in which is Valentines' Day! For those of you who don't know the date valentines day it is the 14th of February. My mailing address  there is

Sharn Simpson

#5093

Nomads Fat Camel Travel Desk

38 Fort Street

Auckland City

New Zealand

For some reason they didn't give me a postcode  Maybe it doesn't need one for Auckland.... I dunno. Sylvia are going to Auckland, Rotorua, Queenstown and Christchurch. She flies out of Christchurch on the 28th then I'll be travelling Solo. I'll be sticking around in Christchurch then for a few days figuring out what I'm doing.

 

I've bought myself a 60GB Creative Zen Vision W MP3 player which is being mailed to me right now and when I get that and put all my music on it I can sell my laptop and gear coz then I can use the Zen as a portable Hard Drive, much easier to handle and lug around than the laptop. Then when I get to NZ I'm hoping to buy a duty free unlocked mobile with a good quality camera in it. That way my only two valuable items are the mp3 player and my mobile. Much cheaper to insure. 

 

I'm currently working at Blue Lagoon Lodges. Wish I was working at the Liquor Store. My work collegues are all over 40 which is a difference. I used to working with 20-odd year olds. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing or simply different.

 

My cousin Elouise came over to visit from Sydney for three weeks, twas awesome to see her again. She's such a cool chick. We took heaps of pictures and we went kayaking over to a secluded bay over here that doesn't have any roads leading to it and had a picnic on a rock platform that juts out of the cliff on the opposite side of the island to that bay (The island gets very Narrow near that bay so it was easy to walk to the other side). On that rock platform are pristine rock pools that are about 3 or 4 metres deep. beautiful to swim in. We saw a whale swim past 50 metres away which was awesome. I had a brilliant time with ellie. Sorta sad she's gone.

 

I went partying the other night at the radioshack. It's so awesome down there. Deon Owens kept trying to get me to go home with him and I'm thinking ew leave me alone! Because he's like the missing link in human evolution from apes to human. Not to mention hes a distant relative! YUK! (Ellie if you're reading this! You KNOW why its so gross and he asked me to come back with him like 3 times XS) But other than that it was groovy, dancing, good music, lots of grog. I tried ginger wine for the first time and I dunno wether to love or hate it. It's thick and syrupy sweet and tastes just like ginger and leaves your mouth feeling spicy. I'm not much of a ginger fan but that wine had a certain appeal. I had to work the next day and felt alright just needed more sleep untill I walked out the next morning and took a swig of juice and i didn't know my mum and dad had mixed wine in with it! Nearly puked. Worst thing to have first thing in the morning after a party night.

 

Ummm other than that for the past two years my mum and dad have been living in a not quite complete house. Doing things when they manage to save for it. So for the past two years we've had all our power running off two powerpoints next door with a load of extension leads, powerpacks and double adapters. Our only source of light being multiple lamps what with having no ceiling lights. Not being able to use things like the kettle and the toaster at the same time. But just yeaterday Jeff Deacon the local electrician finished the powerpoints! So now we can have tea and toast at the same time! We can have a freezer! (we've been using the deep freeze next door) and no more tripping over extension leads. And sometime this weekend he will finish putting up all the ceiling lights so then we don't have to be satisfied with just lamp light! Believe me, after all this time, its a luxury.

 

Umm thats about it.

Luv

 

Sharny-moo