March 08, 2003  from Oliver & Travis (his last report)

hey everyone.

  well finally another general email.   so I guess you all probably know that Travis has gone home in search of new ventures.   me on the other hand am still down under traveling with a new mate, believe me the last one hasn't been forgotten (don't worry Travis).   right now I'm in brisbane and the last week has been really busy, we packed up our stuff out of the old place and holy shit do you accumulate some garbage and little odds and ends when you actually have a few rooms to sleep in rather than a car.   i told a few people already but yesterday i went out and bought some goggles as preperation for the snow season, trying to get a little bit at a time so i dont have to blow thousands at once.   our plan now is to head up north and check out some stuff along the way.   hamilton island is our goal, its off of airlie beach.   things look pretty promising up there for work, everyone we have talked to says there is, so lets hope everyone is right.    there was a huge surfers comp going on down in the gold coast when we left and the one day, where we weren't busy getting ready the waves were crap so they cancelled the surfing that day, oh well it was just the women surfers anyways....(kidding to all those feminists out there).   and you know what the last couple weeks we've been getting some crazy rain and the drought is starting to dimish, of course it will take a while but with a week of down pour the damn went up from 29% capacity up to 45% with all the run off and such, I guess its doesn't really matter much to me now that we are leaving.   "we" if you didn't know is Aaron and I.  a new traveling mate for the next couple of months.  he is from geelong, its about an hour from Melbourne and I guess they got a pretty good aussie rules footy team there.   so he's stoked to do some traveling which is good cause so am I...................

cheers everyone and ill talk to you soon

-oLiver

well I am not sure if everyone has heard but my Australian trip is over which I am very sad to say. I am going home to hopefully get a job at cifac a forest fire fighting job I have wanted for years, I applied online and was lucky enough to get an interview. I was so happy because I have took two years of training to get this job so hopefully it works out. the last month and a half has been awesome though. I have went to a perl jam concert with a guy I had meet. Oliver, matt and I were very busy doing a lot of things that would be good to do before I left, our old boss Lisa had taken us to o`rialys which is this huge natural park and that was so good to see. after that another aussie had arrived to come along to join the traveling team, he was a real good guy and we were stoked to have him. we partyed hard for a while and every night we did something. it was good and I got to say good buy to all of my friends. I planed a trip to Leeton which is about 6 hours inland between Canberra and Sydney to see some guys we meet while we were in surfers. I took a plain from Brisbane with Oliver and Aaron and we stayed at Aaron's sisters house, and of course we all went out because it was the last night together for us. it was such a good night and poor Aaron ended up in jail for the night for riding a shopping cart, which was the highlight. he was out in the morning and I think all of us were a bit hung over when I got on the plain. I flew into Sydney and took a train to wagga wagga where the boys picked me up in the morning. I spent a week with them and had so much fun we were always doing something . we went on a rugby trip with the boys and spent a night in aubery and of course we partyed hard again. the boys had also took me out kangaroo hunting witch was the funniest thing to me because I couldn't of thought that people shoot these things but they are actually a pest on farms so that made me feel better, it was sad leaving the boys but they had a little surprise for me my trip wasn't over I was planning to get on a bus and go to Sydney to fly out but they had got me on a train from wagga wagga so we could go out one last time and damn did we ever. I was felling no pain when I got on the train and really don't remember much. it was a blast. well now I am in Tokyo and I had to stay for 24 hours and I really didn't know what to do. I actually had a good time trying to talk to people and sort of took it easy. so now I am flying home and I am very sad to say that my trip is 9 hours from being over. I had the time of my life and would defenatly travel with Oliver anytime. I am going to go before I miss my plain so cheers to all. Travis