the end

as promised these are my remaining photos from new zealand.

ive been back in england for two weeks now and things are starting to feel normal again, ive been enjoying fresh air and the smell of grass. it was good to get down to cornwall last week with all the guys and hit the waves for a while then the new frontiers conference this week was a very special time for me. all i can say is i am overwhelmingly happy to be with my friends and family.

thanks for reading and being interested in everything ive been up to i hope youve found this blog good. i havent always spoken about my faith in christ openly on these pages but i can confidently say that it is the one thing in my life that kept me going and gave me hope. there is nothing or no one who can ever compare. amen.

far far away

well as tony blair said yesterday. 'that is that...the end.' good one tone.
much has changed in myself and the world since i started writing this blog and i am grateful to it and everyone who has shown an interest in it and in me. i am glad to have done something worthwhile with the most forming years of my life and cant see how i will ever regret anything that ive seen or done in the past year, i look back and know how much i have been cared for and looked after and will really never forget all my friends and family in cambodia. i know now that my time there has finished and feel a strong leading elsewhere but i am glad to have been able to experience life in another country and on another continent and in another culture, there are not too many people who can say they have done that. more than anything through the life experience i have learnt alot about myself, i feel like if i hadnt achieved anything this year at least learning something about myself makes the whole thing worthwhile.

it may sound arrogant to consider these past few years an 'era' but i felt at christmas after all that had happened that this year was the last of an era, perhaps because im 20 now or maybe something else but i know it is time to move on. i am, therefore, annoncing my defection to buddhism....joke. i have sadly seen far too many buddas in the last few months particularly in bangkok where they seem to hold a much greater significance in daily life. i will be glad to leave this city.

this is not my last post i will put some more photos on here and leave a final note next week but this is my last from far far away.

adios amigos,
Ben.

my own worst enemy

new zealand was colder than i expected and bangkok is hotter. going from -8 to 35 is quite a shock to the system, although im glad for it if it means im half way home. the khao san road has changed little in the last 10 months since i was last here. they do have a burger king and starbucks which would probably come as a shock to any fearless traveller who was expecting nothing but a street with the sign khao san and a bunch of phased backpackers hanging around wondering what to do.

my flight from aukland was very bumpy which i dont appreciate a bit, despite the amount of flying ive done recently i still feel quite nervous flying, maybe something to do with all the episodes of lost ive been watching. i am my own worst enemy.

my last night in queenstown was a laugh, me and DJ went out for a beer which turned into an all nighter as i discovered what new zealands nightlife had to offer, we soon ran out of money so went down onto the street to busk for a while and earn enough for a couple more rounds. we spent most of the night convincing these two kiwis that we were sweedish, isiots didnt even know where the country was. that stopped working for a while so we evolved into danes until a guy from denmark came up to me and asked what part of denmark i was from so i broke the sad news that we were in fact from england, i think we left him very dissapointed. the bars are full of tourists like myself who were ignorant to the fact that it is acceptable to dance on the bar, they even have a pole to stop you falling behind into the staff. so DJ quickly surprised me with an out of character move by polevolting onto the bar and displaying the greatest show of english patriotism by dancing like no man from anywhere else could, of course i quickly joined him and the whole bar was watching these two english hobos dance on the bar. soon after the dance floor was empty because everyone was on the bar with us. we retired to the pavement to get some more beer money. what a laugh, i havent been out on a night like that for quite a while!

looking forward now to being home, also a little apprehensive. i struggled to relate to the social element of the church in aukland and can imagine it will take me a while to settle back into life in england, not that i really want to settle anywhere just yet. i guess we will have to wait and see.

kath&andy,steve&heather in aukland pass on their love to all in england.

see you all soon,
Ben.

frostbite

it has been snowing for two days now almost completely solidly. we had a snow fight with some guys across the street yesterday which was funny and ended up with this poor japanese woman and her kid getting caked in snow, not by me though. i had to move out of the lodge i was staying in because they were prebooked so me and rich are going to stay in DJ's abandoned villa down on the lake, as you can imagine its pretty basic but it does have a log burner so i guess we will set up camp there for a couple of nights. its the beginning of the winter festival tonight which means lots of live gigs and fireworks, theyve set up a stage down by the harber so i guess its going to be quite a party in the snow! the plus side is the whole place looks even more incredible covered in snow. i did wake up this morning thinking i had frostbite though, ouch.
two guys i was sharing a room with at the backpackers loodge invited me up north with them on saturday, sadly i have a flight back to aukland in sunday, that could have been fun, they have a camper van and a few months with no plans, i can see the attraction but not sure i could manage two months in a van with two strange canadians. mental.

square peg

so those were a few pics from kiwi land. the mountains and lake is queenstown where i am currently residing and the boat and volcano is aukland, sorry they got a bit mixed up!

everything down here has been a bit funny the last couple of days. me and DJ have played two live gigs with his new blues songs which are great. the music scene here is great we saw a fantastic band play last night at one of the clubs for free and stayed most of the night, then headed down the road because D had a $1 beer cupon so we ended up at this bar where they were having a jam night so we got up and played for a while. theres nothing quite like rocking out with some groovy blues tunes. as they say down here...'totally sick man, so heavy...'

ive been bunking in a travel lodge with these two cnadians who managed to crash the camper van they hired. im not a big fan of the communal living arrangment in these places but hey-ho not long to go. need to go out and find rich i havent seen him for a couple of days, no one has any credit on their phones because all the money is spent on food.

i must confess although i have really enjoyed playing and hanging out with the guys down here the last few days i still feel like a square peg in a round hole, in many ways this is my old life. i dont think ill ever fit in to this way of life again, i feel a little uncomfortable but thats ok, im only here a week and its worth the sacrifice to spend some time with the lads.

in reply to your comments...sorry about the date on my carera...every time you turn it back on it needs to be re-set so i never nother. and jeni.....last time i got some photos printed you complained that i was in them too much and the only ones of you were the ones you had given me, so now your saying take some more of yourself? far out man...far out.

Ben

NZ

fit for a queen

well i arrived in queenstown after a short flight south over miles of mountain ranges. fortunately it was a cloud free day so the views from the plane were incredible. spent yesterday catching up with Rich and DJ and reminicing about old times and playing some old songs. DJ is busking as is rich for money and neither of them have any money. rich is sleeping on the sofa at this big house with a bunch of other people and DJ is squatting in an abandoned house outside the town. we hitched out there yestersday and back then spent the night at some friends closer to town.

the scenery is really amazing...

(sorry this is a boring update, i dont have the patience or energy to write anything descriptive or interesting even though there is plenty i could write about)

...and its been great to spend some time with these guys although they are a bit all-over-the-place. we went out to arrowtown yesterday to find DJ who was out there busking. it is a pretty nice but really small prospecting town from the days when a few farmers found gold in the local stream. so its all very posh down that way.

its been a bit of a shock going from 33 degrees to 3 degrees but im adjusting ok. steve tipa in aukland lent me some thick wool cardies, which despite being a bit too big are very cool. its a bit trendy to look like a bum here it seems, probably because most of the people ive met so far actually are bums...sorry rich, i know youll agree! i dont really know what im goin g to do for the next few days but it doesnt really matter there is plenty to be doing if it doesnt include busking, hitchhiking and building big log fires in an abandoned house. david did quite proudly turn to me with a smile and declare 'it does have running water.' which i found both surprising and novel. the saga goes on. this is life on the other side of the world, strange it seems.