My video has been up on the site for a little while now but those of us not lucky enough to every get listed as the most-recent applicants are struggling to get anywhere near the number of views those lucky few are receiving. Two days on the front page can bring in thousands of votes. So, I’m putting out a second post to encourage you to watch my video and give me a vote. I’ve heard that one New Zealander is guaranteed through to the next round and if you’re here to thank me for my software or after follwoing any of my travel blogs, the best thing you can do for me right now is a 5 star rating, and telling your friends about it too.

To try to drum up publicity I’ve created a page here on my site that I’ll keep up to date and voting progresses and a Facebook group that you’re welcome to join.

Here are those links again
Video: http://islandreefjob.com/applicants/watch/dF_InB2rFvY
Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=48534483691

I was pleased to hear from a few friends of mine that I was the first (only?) person they thought of when news of the island reef job broke. It’s a simple gig: Sit on Hamilton Island, which sits above the incredible Great Barrier Reef, for six months and file regular reports on the amazing life you’re living thanks to Quuensland Tourism. Having done a fair bit of travel blogging in my time I think I’m pretty well suited to the job. So please check out my application video and pass it around to your friends.

Now this isn’t to say I don’t enjoy my current desk-job. And nothing else is tempting me away, but those six months would hone my writing/adventuring skills just that bit more while also making a substantial payment towards getting a house. If you’ve been using my software and not donating, consider giving me a favourable review and we’ll call it even

I got an email last week from “an aspiring traveller” and it’s a question I’ve been asked a few times so I thought I’d share it.

Dear sir,
I am just curios as to how do you continue your travels and have ample budgets for your expeditions. I aspire to do just what you are doing now. I would like to know how do you earn your expenses along your journey.

and my response

Hi James,

If there’s a secret to my travels it’s being careful with my money and being prepared to be very uncomfortable. I take it you’ve seen both my American and Japanese walking sites. For those adventures I had almost no accommodation costs by sleeping in a tent, in temples in the occasional abandoned tunnel. The last 6 weeks of OneManWalking was traveling in a different style. Having a girlfriend along changes things because I wouldn’t want to put her in the position of sleeping in public toilets (a big fancy disabled one with my tent’s ground sheet below). So expenses went up dramatically. When I’m back home I try not to spend too much on things I can do free. I eat in as much as possible and rarely see movies at the cinema. I was really lucky to get cheap rent about 4km from my job so I walked that every day. It was good exercise and it saved me money.

In neither case did I deliberately earn expenses along the way. Once in America I was given a free room for helping spread wood chips at an inn-keeper’s prayer park and in Japan the locals were incredibly generous. Some people stopped and gave me fruit, some bought food from convenience stores and handed it straight to me and some even handed me cash. I never asked for it but they felt like doing a good thing for someone taking the time to see their country in a different way. There’s a similar phenomenon on the PCT called “trail magic”, people leaving chilli-bins (coolers) in the forest full of drinks and snacks, or doing other good deeds just because they like to. You should never get to a point where you rely on these things, be self sufficient, but be open to the idea that things usually work out pretty well.

If you do go traveling and write about it, let me know, I’ll be needing some good travelblogs for next year.

~Craig

I’m settling back in pretty well. On the job/house hunting circuits. I haven’t yet dug back into my code, I haven’t even gotten the latest version of Google Earth. But I will, and I’ll post updates to both projects when I can.

Hello to everyone looking for tech support on GeoTagger or iPhotoToGoogleEarth.  I’m in Japan at the moment and don’t have access to my source code or even a decent computer. It’ll be a few months before I set myself up again so if there are any problems during that time I won’t be able to fix them. I’ve heard that Google Earth 4.3 is having trouble rendering the KMZ files produced by iPhotoToGoogleEarth that worked fine with 4.2, but I can’t test it until I’m at a desk again. Watch this space for announcements and hold tight until then.
Thanks for your patience.

I thought I had made a post about this but there’s nothing here so I guess it slipped my mind. As of April 2008 I’m in Japan walking from the southern tip (Cape Sata) to the northern tip (Cape Soya). Originally I’d hoped for a mountain route and upto 6 months of walking, but I got impatient and missed my girlfriend. Now the plan is to finish on my birthday (and hers as it happens) which will mean a 98 day trek and as far as I know that’s the fastest yet. It’s all documented on OneManWalking.com. While on the move I’m sending home photos and videos which my dad is geotagging and uploading. The videos have been nominated for a prize on Seero.com, so please pop along and vote for me (free registration required) because I need a break from walking 25 miles per day

and I may be some time. I am now in America, walking north from the Mexican border to the Canadian border via the Pacific Crest Trail. I’ll be back in October, you can follow the adventure here.

So here I am in Cairo, where the road markings are just suggestions, and car indicators are aural rather than visual. The are does seem a little smoggy, hoopefully that’ll clear outside the big city. I’m already checked into the hotel and no one else is arriving for several hours, so I have the day to wander around and find a nice park to read a book. Here I go.

I’m almost all packed, just waiting for the traffic to die down so I can get to the super market and buy the last few essentials, and then I’m off. Three weeks in Egypt and Cairo! oh yeah

On Friday night, we (Peter, Mark, Anna, Bree and I) went out to town and headed to Coast right away, figuring if we had to pay their silly $10 cover we might as well get in early and enjoy a whole night of hanging with the beautiful people. It completely failed to get busy. Peter convinced us to drink a bit of cognac, but we hated it, I think Mark especially disliked it having paid $60 for the privilege. The girls left and we decided that since only 5 people had shown the slightest interest in the dance floor we’d go else where. We liked Lenin, crammed dance floor and good drinks. I think we had 4 mohitos each (the vanilla vodka ones were the best), good times. Then taxied home where Mark quickly dropped onto the couch asleep (he’d had much more than us to drink so that was allowed). Peter got into a cheap suit he bought for playing paintball, and I borrowed a business shirt, and that’s where the night really started.

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I did it! I beat my time, I broke the 4 hour limit. Not by much, but from now on I can say I ran a marathon in under 4 hours! My official time is recorded as 3hrs 56mins 27secs. The clever people at Global-Pix.com took pictures of the event and organised them by runner number, so thanks to the wonders of digital photography work flow you can see me finish. I also took some photos after the event, of my feet. Despite having these shoes for 6 years they have refused to make way for my feet and it is up to my body to adjust, which it isn’t doing very well.

But how was the event you ask? Well let me tell you.

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