A birthday babble – 11/11/10

Well here I am, 29 years old! Exactly one year to go until this little holiday of mine comes to an end, ooohhhhh so many questions, what next? Ummmm, I heard McDonalds are hiring. I also think that I would like to upgrade from looking after a pot plant and take one more step towards maturity and get a gold fish, maybe. But enough of that, all those stresses of a normal life and settling down can wait until my next birthday. WOW, this time next year I will be celebrating my 30th birthday in AFRICA, that excites me, and everything is coming together so well for the Final Continent Expedition.

Yesterday I was cutting rocks (yes that is as exciting as it sounds and looks), and when I cut rocks I have a lot of time to think, 10 hours of metal on rock piercing sound time to be precise. My mind was drifting off back to my last birthday spent at Hostel Antarctica, at the end of the world in Ushuaia, Argentina with a great bunch of travellers I had met that day. I had only been in Ushuaia 2 days, at the start of my big job hunt to get work in Antarctica, after nearly 3 years of trying so hard to get there.

On my birthday last year Antarctica was a dream, I was just running on hope, I was scared shitless to be truthful, scared of leaving Ushuaia without getting to Antarctica, and that was the most likely outcome at this time last year. But as you know, I did make it after a month of being there after a lot of hard work and of course luck (cheers Sich). I wonder what would of happened if I had stayed the full Antarctic season (November to March) in Ushuaia and hadn’t got to the ice. I wouldn’t have made the front page of my local paper, I wouldn’t have been interviewed by Paul Henry I know that much. I would of just been some guy still trying to get to Antarctica.

Looking back I’m even surprised at myself, how consumed I was with my goal, at getting to Antarctica. They say that the male brain thinks about sex every 52 seconds, well it was like that for me with Antarctica (Just ask Mandy, she got sick of wearing the penguin suit). OK, I’m not quite sure where I’m going with all this. I actually lied above, I’m not 29, it’s the night before my birthday but I’m writing this blog post to come up tomorrow on my birthday, and it’s late at night after a long day cutting rocks, my eyes are half shut, so sorry for the ramble.

What I’m trying to say is that, now my goal is insight, attainable, well basically nothing is going to get in the way of me working in Africa, except maybe an oncoming bus I don’t see (I really shouldn’t write things like that). But looking at me on my last birthday, I was just chasing a dream. And that to me is one of the most beautiful things in the world, without hope we are hopeless (ummmm, would you like extra cheese with that sir?). I love looking at people now who have an idea, a dream, and they are doing everything in their power to achieve it, they are giving up so much with no guarantee of success. That is the best birthday present one can have, to be inspired.

I think now would be a good time to use my birthday as an excuse to get some donations. Soooooo if you haven’t put your birthday present in the mail just yet, then I will save you the postage and you can help give a little smiling African orphan [insert unicef smiling African child photo here] a new bike. And remember every little bit counts, even $2. So far we have raised $2000 of the $12,000, thank you to everyone that has donated. If you donate, then I will let you take my birthday wish. Your wish is one click away http://www.everydayhero.com.au/hapworkingtheworld

Ok, this has been one big tangent of a blog post. I was meant to be writing about my previous birthdays, as my birthday always acts as a marker point for my working the world journey. But since I babbled on above I will just list my past birthdays, and what I was thinking at that time. I should add here that I left NZ on the 7th of April 2003 as a 21 year old. My birthdays have been spent in the following places;

22 – Seoul, South Korea (2003)

23 – Alicante, Spain (2004)

24 – Vancouver, Canada (2005)

25 – Sylvan Lake, Alberta, Canada – a week before having to leave for Mexico (2006)

26 – Nelson, New Zealand – after my accident (2007)

27 – Woodie Woodie mine site, Western Australian outback (2008)

28 – Ushuaia, Argentina (2009)

29 – Tullah, Tasmania, Australia (2010(

30 – A bicycle container in Southern Africa

Thank you all so much for the support over the years, I’m looking forward to having you all on board for this last year of Hap Working the World. I feel as though I should say God bless here, but I’m not religious so it feels a little weird. I’ve just realised writing the last sentence that God backwards is dog. Wow, this leads me to a joke I just made up. ‘what do you call a dog walking backwards?’ , yep you guessed it, ‘God’. I seriously have to get to bed.

Dog bless. Hap

Please note: God’s status was not intended to be harmed in the fatigued writing of this post.