My Videos

I have spent the last two weeks staying with Alessio and Federico in St Kilda, looking for work and making preparations for my trip through Asia. While I may have a job on the way, I haven’t as yet got anything confirmed. The problem is that I only have a limited time before my work visa finishes, although I could potentially stay in a job until the end of my working visa and then get a tourist visa to allow me to travel up the east coast of Australia. I did manage to finish my Southern and East Africa compilation video which many of you may have already seen from my Facebook page last week.

CLICK HERE! to play the Southern & East Africa 2012-13 compilation video!

Last week we took out Alessio and Federico’s ‘Tiger Trolley’. A trolley that has now been customised to house a large speaker, mixing desk and laptop as well as car batteries to power it all. We pushed it down to a park near the beach and had a party until around 4am. Last Friday (6th December) was my 30th Birthday, and the 3rd Birthday I have had since I started this trip. We celebrated by going into St Kilda for a few drinks on Thursday night, then had a group of people round to celebrate on Friday night. But the best thing to happen on Friday was getting a response to my sponsorship request to Vivente cycles. They have agreed to sponsor me, giving me $1,000 off of the cost of one of their bikes. So I should hopefully be riding around on a Vivente World Randonneur pretty soon. I have also ordered some of my other equipment for the Asia trip, details of which, will be added to my website in the coming weeks.

For the last two weeks I have been staying in Melbourne, with Alessio and Federico, looking for work and researching equipment for my trip through Asia. It is now the start of summer, so there should be a lot of work opportunities opening up around the city. The only problem is the amount of other people who are also looking for work. On the day that I went to print out my CVs there were another 3 people in the same place, also printing their CVs. As you walk around in the city you can see backpackers going down the street asking for work. I’m still looking, but maybe it could take a little while. During week 123, the three of us drove out to Gippsland Lake National Park to camp for a couple of days, while Alessio and Federico had time off work, luckily they have offered to let me stay with them for the rest of the time that I am in Melbourne.

I still have a lot of ideas for changes and updates that I want to do on my website. But the task that has been waiting for the longest time is editing my video clips and getting them up on YouTube. I finally got around to doing that this week. I have finished the Europe compilation and Part one of my Africa compilation videos. You can see these on my YouTube channel, Facebook, the Trip pages on my website or by clicking the links below:

CLICK HERE! to play the Europe 2011 compilation video!

CLICK HERE! to play the West Africa 2011-12 compilation video!

As for my Asia plans, I need to replace some of my camping gear (mattress, sleeping bag, cook set, solar charger) for around $500, plus $350 for a new passport, this time I’m getting a ‘frequent traveller’ passport with extra pages, hopefully that will last a few years. Also, after looking at the bikes that are available, I was initially planning to buy a Surly Long Haul Trucker and build it up with additional equipment (seat, racks, peddles, panniers). This would have cost about $2000 for the bike and an additional $625 for the additional equipment, for a total cost of $3125.

However, I have recently found out about an Australian company which makes touring bikes, for the same price as the Surly Long Haul Trucker I can get a Vivente World Randonneur, but the Vivente comes with some of my planned upgrades already done. So after spending $2000 on the Vivente I would only need to spend $475, saving around $150. I am actually thinking of approaching Vivente to see if there is any possibility of getting some kind of sponsorship from them. Fingers crossed.