some photos yo

hello all! first and foremost, i regret to say that this post contains no photos of my experiences so far on the cattle station. for one, i haven’t really had much time to take many pics. and for two, i just haven’t really thought about it.

but life is good here, peaceful, and i’m able to focus on certain things. a couple of the guys left (jobie and kat) so now there are only four of us working on the station. right now you may wondering how only four people can run a 420,000 acre cattle station… well i’ll tell you: we are done mustering (rounding up cattle) and it’s the off season. so now it’s a whole bunch of checking for bogged cattle (cows stuck in mud), checking bore water levels, fixing broken fences, blah blah blah meh. but in about a week we’re mustering again so that’ll be cool cuz it’s kinda fun chasing cattle around.

anyhoo, at the moment i’m in the northern city, townsville taking a few days off to go exploring a little bit. and guess what? i found an internet café to post pictures from my travels after china: vietnam to before chudleigh park. a lot has happened within those few months so below are some of my favorite photos of that time.

laters!

thanks for still reading this, ashley.

and much thanks to iben. some of the pics below are hers :)

phu quoc, vietnam

some dog who blended in with the cement

phu quoc

phu quoc to mainland vietnam

western australia (wa)

wa

wa

the van!! 

coral bay, australia

one of my favorite pics. my danish homie, iben, freaked out when a SMALL fish touched her foot

broome, australia

 i can't remember, but somewhere in australia

(same place as above)

kakadu national park

like glass!

a frog

kakadu national park

my german friend i picked up on the way to chudleigh park. a car or truck would pass like every 20 minutes

kakadu national park

kakadu national park

much love :)

chudleigh park, queensland, australia

since my last blog of china i’ve done some traveling south. i went to vietnam for a few weeks and traveled with my danish homie, iben. we saw some of the most beautiful beaches i have ever seen on the island of phu quoc. it’s small, remote, and easy to get around.

from vietnam i decided to go even farther south to perth, australia. i honestly don’t know why i picked perth of all places in australia but the tickets from ho chi minh city were pretty cheap so maybe that partially had something to do with it. i landed in perth at 10pm and found a place to stay. the next day i bought a toyota van with a mattress in the back and started driving north along the west coast of australia.

for 3 weeks i’ve traveled to and thru beautiful cities and national parks such as coral bay which has water the color of turquoise, the tourist beach town of broome, gorgeous kakadu national park, and prospering darwin. while staying in darwin i found a job to work on a cattle station (paid with food and accommodation covered) in chudleigh park, northern queensland. i thought it sounded like fun so i thought, hell i’ll try it. before i left darwin i was asked to pick up kristina, a 20 year old german who needed some farm work experience in order to be granted her second year work/holiday visa. so we roadtripped the 23 hours from darwin to chudleigh park.

chudleigh park is located just above the small city of hugheden (pop. 1000). on the station amelia (22, australian) runs the show. the other workers are jobie (21, australian), kat (29, belgian), kristi (25, danish), and kristina (20, german). it’s crazy to think that it’s pretty much 6 twenty-somethings running a 420,000 acre cattle station. needless to say there is a lot to do. a shit load to do. we work 12-14 hour days (which is why i haven’t communicated with, well, anybody since getting here [love you guys!]), 6 days a week, and the temp is high 80’s. on most days breakfast is at 5:30am and we’re usually home around 7:30pm. but i’m constantly doing something different and it’s really fun. i ride tractors and forklifts to feed cattle, quads and dirt bikes to muster them, and amelia has taken me up in her helicopter a couple times. i’ve never been in a helicopter before and it’s frickin cool and i have to admit, it’s funner than the small airplanes i’ve flown.

i don’t know how long i’ll be here chasing cattle, but like what i told amelia, i’m playing it by ear so we’ll see. and i really wanna post pics but the internet here is limited to usage so i’ll have to post them when i go into town next.

i hope everyone is doing well out there!! i'll post more when i get a day off!

hi auntie becky!!

great wall of china

from the moment i decided i was going to china i was super excited to see the great wall. and then the day came. i have never wanted so much to see a historical site in my life.

it was an hour and 20 minute bus ride out of beijing to this particular part of the wall. $3 bus ride, $30 wall entrance ticket, and a lot of walking. we took a cable car to the highest point of the wall in this area. there were so many people when we arrived at the top at around 2pm but later in the day (it closes at 5) there was practically no one.

you can see how packed this part of the wall was, i thought people were going to fall out

this is my friend, Rob, who showed me around all of beijing and was kind enough to take me to so many of the tourist sites throughout my stay even tho he'd seen them all like 10 times before

this pic and the next were just nuts, it really looked like people were just falling off an edge of the wall

the wall in many places had very steep grades and with such crowds pushing their way through it would have been like a domino effect had someone lost their balance

where's the asian waldo? i like how a few others are doing the exact same thing as me lol

RENTON

re

the battery in my camera died as i made my way around the wall. at least i had my phone camera because the clouds finally passed and the scenery was just awesome towards the bottom of the wall.

love you guys!

shanghai

PICTURES ARE UP!!

hey everyone!

i know it's been a while but i didn't think anyone actually read this thing.  so here i am, dusting off the ol blog with many, many pictures, in which i'll post in a few parts.

first off is shanghai.  my mom and i were talking about a month ago and i told her that if she ever made it to china for work, i'd come and meet her.  well, she did.  she made it to shanghai for a five-day layover.  last i said in my blog i was in chiang rai, thailand.  from there i traveled to and thru laos (very beautiful and how i imagine thailand 50 years ago), then to southern china's Jinghong.  i flew out of jinghong to shanghai where i met up with my mom.

it was really nice to see a familiar face especially my mom's.  we traveled to a couple of different tourist places, such as the "bend" and the "world financial center" (the tallest building in shanghai).  we also went shopping like 3 of the 5 days there.  ugh, the pearl shop was frequented at least 3 of those 5 days.  PEARLS dammit!!

(by the way, the pics on this post were saved under lo res. if you want to see hi res click on the picture.)

on our way to shop for pearls. sarah and steph, you'd better appreciate it!

random downtown shanghai pics

i don't know why i thought this was so cool, but i did. it was 29 degrees!

the "bend"

photos courtesy of julie andrade

shanghai at night! 

ok, it's not shanghai at night. it's just a model but a sick-ass model at that. my mom and i probably spent a good 20 minutes just watching this thing and taking pictures because it was so cool

for the first time on this trip i actually felt a little homesick when i got in the cab to leave shanghai.

but now i feel fine, of course ;)

i'll post the other pics soon (promise).  and HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA or GRANDPA!!  my mom didn't specify which one of you had the birthday coming up on the 29th.  she just said "it's grands birthday on the 29th." and "hi" auntie carol!