7months travelling, 12months in Australia; We're back on the road

New Zealand....

Our blogging can only be described as pathetic during our time in Australia, but in our defence we had jobs and if we weren't working we were going places or most probably hung over.
Now however we will strive to improve. I don't know where we got to on the blogging in Australia but we had an amazing 12 months. We had an apartment with a view over the harbour and 'the' bridge out of the bedroom window and a view of North Sydney from the Lounge. We stayed there on the Lower North Shore in Neutral Bay for 11 of our 12 months allowance and conveniently had jobs just up the road to walk to.

We left Australia after feeling quite settled there. Although we were the otherside of the world it felt a bit like home as it seemed quite a few people were there! We had our friends we made in Vietnam who were living in Sydney anyways, We stayed with some Uni friends at first, then Henley arrived and Josh and Saz came to visit. We were even lucky enough to have a visit from the A-Plant product manager Mr Humphreys and his partner, who Sar has known for a while. Next were the parents who came out for a few weeks. We went to Melbourne to visit Ollie, Wise and Canny as well as Mr. Young.
Then over in Perth we had Jo-Z and dizzee Sazcal to go and visit and see the West Coast. Not to mention the amount of English people we met over there, 2 of which we went on the big Ayer's Rock/Ocean Road trip with (5000Km in 6 days...massive!)
So we haven't done too badly in the last 12months. We left it until the day our visa expires to leave the country and go and see what nextdoor neighbours New Zealand had to offer - no renovators, no neighbours and no home & away so the odds were against them, but they redeem themselves slightly with the rugby world cup.

After almost being refused onto the aeroplane leaving Sydney because of our visa status (as our flight from NZ to Bali stops in Sydney) it took them a while to realise we weren't going to be leaving the airport and would be in transit (after we had explained this to them 10000000 times!) we arrived in Christchurch. Then it all kicked off again because we hadn't got a print out of our onward flight from New Zealand. They wouldn't let us past security until we showed them one, so we simply said "have you got wi-fi? and we can show you the ticket on our email?" they called over some other important person and then said "you're not troublemakers are you?" and let us through....finally!

We thought we only had 3 weeks in New Zealand but it turns out we have a month to see the south island. We got on a bus into Christchurch and found a hostel (we only found this from the lonely planet we looked at in the Sydney airport. Everything else was based on notes from Joz and Saz.) for a few nights. It was an active prison until 1998 and they had done little to change it from a prison! So we had 3 nights in a cell from the set of 'Bad Girls' to sort ourselves out, make a plan of what to do, buy the bus ticket and really get organised!
Walking round Christchurch was pretty shocking, the whole city centre is a red zone and you can't access it as they are still getting aftershocks from the Big Earthquake in February, so far they have had 5 serious earthquakes which has left the city in a mess to be honest.
Most of the buildings we saw had been ruined and literally whole sides of office blocks have fallen down. Although shocking to see and shocking to say but there was not much to do in Christchurch...simply we got a little bored and spent a whole day walking around some botanical gardens with a cup of tea, aging by the minute. On the bright side we did find a chippy which did fish and chips for $4nz which is the equivalent to £2 so...every cloud

We have now planned to return to Christchurch on the day we leave so we don't have to spend long there. Next stop was Mount Cook which was amazing! right in the middle of snowcapped mountains is a little village with 1 pub and 3 hostels and then HUGE Mt Cook. It was so cool, we haven't been anywhere quite like it. We checked in and headed on a walk straight to Mt Cook. the weather was perfect so in shorts and t-shirts we headed on the track to get a closer view of the mountain, it was amazing!
That night the England Scotland game was on so we went to the pub to watch it. Full of english, oh and 1 scottish girl....happy the whole way through the game right until the end then someone went quiet. Don't think we even heard her leave!
The next 2 days it didn't stop raining so we thanked our lucky stars that we did the walk once we arrived. The next 2 days consisted of watching X-factor, sitting in the sauna and drinking about 100 cup of teas....

The Epic Road Trip Part 1:

I have decided to write a blog as it's been a while since the last, and we have surprisingly done quite a bit. Mainly because I only have 1 job now as I had to leave the Bakery as my 6 month limit was up. So after a solid 6 months, I hung up my apron and called it a day. There's only so long you can serve up croissants and scones before you start to go a little bit insane. So now I only have my fish job, which Sar loves. Instead of coming up smelling of fish and dough I now come up stinking of pure fish...yummy!
Only working 4-5 days 5 hours a day is a bit better than 6 days a week 12hours a day, so we actually see a bit more of Sydney and we finally have time to sit down, put the kettle on and write about our trip to the red centre/Melbourne. Sar still has her bar job, and has finaly started bringing Newcastle browns home! although she has just had a call from a bakery giving her a trial so it could change!

Firstly the weather has been sooo cold. After 15 months of being in summer and wearing shorts and t-shirt it has suddenly become freezing! we have had to invest in some hoodies, jeans, scarves, double duvets (by invest, i mean found them on the roadside!) and hot water bottles, drinking endless amounts of tea to keep us warm! The worst weather we've had since travelling was India, but a different extreme, dreading going outside into the 52'C heat, not sleeping at night, in a pool of sweat and the electricity cuts off so we have no fan! Now we're dreading going outside as its pouring it down, so we're just as soaked as we were in India but this time it's windy and we're in hoody and trousers!

People thought we were crazy to do 5000Km in a week, we didn't even think about how far it was, once we had booked our flights to Adelaide with the intention of going south to end up at Melbourne. We got talking to Katie and Kieran who also were up for it and after talking for a bit we decided, stuff it, lets go to Ayer's Rock, 'on our way!' to Melbourne! where we would meet Harold Bishop, or Toady and finish the trip there.
Once our Aussie friends heard our plan they thought we had lost the plot! So just before we left, Katie had told a few people in Sydney that if they hadn't heard from us in a week, get the search party!

After arriving in Adelaide, we picked up the warrior. Pretty sweet campervan, asked a local how to get our of Adelaide heading towards Port Augusta into the Outback. We had been warned so many times by people not to drive at night, we even had a sticker on our windscreen saying that they wouldn't 'advise' driving at night and would also 'advise' us to stay at a camp site with power for the first night. "it's only advised, it's not saying we have to" so when we reached Port Augusta and it was getting dark, we decided we would carry on to the next port of call, Pimba, 3 hours from Port Augusta and 3 hours from Coober Pedy. We arrived at 9pm, 3 hours of driving in the dark and didn't hit a thing, we didn't pass a car or a roadtrain either which was a bit worrying but we had got there without a scratch on her.
We pulled in at Spud's Roadhouse....lovely place. Me and Kieran walked into the bar to be greeted by a load of hillbillys who turned and looked at us, we walked up to the bar, cool as a cucumber and asked if we could pull our warrior up for the night. After asking how much, the bar woman/bloke said they have a gold coin box where you just put in whatever you want providing it was gold coins ($1 or $2 coins) luckily I left my wallet in the van and kieran only had $5, so $5 it was for 4 of us to stay the night. No electricity so we ran off the battery, which wasn't advised, but since when did that matter hey!

After a nights sleep, we got up to the amazing red sunrise! and set off at 7am to head to Coober Pedy. Now we really were in the outback, you could see for miles, just red sand and shubland....no kangaroos still though! we arrived at Coober Pedy at around 11am after stopping off on the way. We parked and went to explore the town, visiting the underground churches, an opal mine and some underground houses. it really was desertland and pretty impressive! if not for the underground buildings but for the amount of abo's walking around with cans of beer/petrol in their hand. 1 man was even passed out on the floor with a petrol can next to him!! typical...he fit the stereotype well but I couldn't get a picture as there was a load of them next to him and I didn't wanna get their attention, a bit like feeding a lamb to the slaughter!
We got back to the van around 4 and cooked our first meal on our cooker, again sinking the electricity off the battery...and cooked sausage sandwiches! yummy! and we drove until about 9pm to Mt Ebenezer Roadhouse, off the Stuart highway on Ayer's Rock road about 3 hours from the rock itself. Again we had driven for hours in the dark and didn't hit a thing but called it a night at this roadhouse. Nobody answered the door so we opened the gate and parked up, closing the gate behind us. We thought we had better let someone know and it was a good job we did!! we finally knocked on some door saying 'hello???' then a woman opened the door, after we asked if we could stay the night, she just let us know that they had a shotgun in the room!! but still we had to stay there! a hillbilly guy came out to show us the bathrooms, again told us he had been drinking and had a shotgun in the room. We asked how much it was, he could have charged us anything but he said $5 each. $20 for the night again with no electricity but we did get amazing showers in the morning!! The battery must be getting low on the van!

The next morning was the final drive to Ayer's Rock. We were already on Ayer's rock road so all we had to do was drive straight. Passing Mount Connor on the way kept us entertained, thinking that was Ayer's Rock until we got closer and decided Ayer's rock looked different to what it looked like a while back!Sar would like me to point out she knew all along Mount Connor wasn't Ayer's Rock. an hour later we got to the national park and decided to go straight to the Rock and have a walk around! We pulled up pretty happy we were there, until we looked at the petrol..we had none left and to get to the Olga's we needed atleast another 100Km's worth of petrol to get there and back. We did a few walks around the rock before deciding we had better get petrol now so we could enjoy the rest of the day round the Olga's and ensure we get to see the sunset at Ayer's Rock. Thinking we had passed a petrol station about 15mins back on Ayer's Rock Road we decided we would have a quick check there was no petrol station at Ayer's Rock resort. No sign of it so we set off....the petrol light came on about 5 minutes later on the way. katie decided sleeping would be the best option, Sar remaining hopful while me and Kieran just kept looking at the mirror to each other both with the look, 'we're not going to make it'. Visions of us stuck in the middle of nowhere out of petrol! and hour later we were still driving, no roadsign of anything nearby...then a sign pops up saying petrol station in 2km's! thank god!!! 100km we had driven on an empty tank! back at mount connor!. We filled up and flew back to the rock, and went straight to the Olga's! they were amazing! stopping at every viewpoint possible and walking to 1 of the gorges before heading back and parking up with a view of the Rock, tables and chairs out, cup of tea made while we watched the sun go down over the rock, and took a few hundred pictures!! the day had worked out well! We stayed over at the resort and this time had power! every light was on now!
We saw the sunrise back at Ayer's Rock before heading back, now the next leg was to get as far down towards Adelaide as we could!and we did more than that! we got to a place called Glendambo around 8pm after leaving Ayer's Rock at 8am! On this journey we saw some wild camels on the roadside as well as a load of Emu's! the first wildlife we had seen! Next to the campsite at Glendambo there was a pub so we thought it was only right to have a beer. Also it turned out Australia's largest windmill was in Glendambo too!



We got up that morning and headed as far towards the Victoria border as we could, stopping in Port Augusta before heading towards Mt Gambier, which was more or less on the border of South Australia and Victoria. We arrived there at about 10pm, after passing kangaroos at last!! 5 days of driving and we finally saw some kangaroos on the roadside just outside of Adelaide! When arriving in Mt Gambier we had taken a wrong turning or the fact that there was no signpost for the road we needed and were thrashing it down a crappy B road. Kangaroos signs everywhere but by this time we had got a bit cocky and that meant nothing! We just wanted to get there, we finally found the right road and got to Mt Gambier around 10pm. Everywhere was closed, Kieran and Katie were well asleep so me and Sar parked up in a caravan site, rung the guys doorbell and he told us to pull over and we could have a spot. Whether he meant for free or not, we didn't really give him the choice. By 7am the next morning we had gone! a free nights stay! and we headed towards the coast starting the Great Ocean Road at Port Fairy where we had sausage sandwiches again!

Anyways I've written a bit of a novel here, my fingers hurt and I can't really be bothered to carry on now! so will do the 2nd leg of the trip as soon as I can!

It's been a while...

So...it's been a while since we wrote one of these! Thought I would update on what adventures we've been up to...(and Mum keeps pestering me to write one!!!)...Here goes....

Christmas came and went far too quickly...New Year was amazing, we chose to go to the only place on the North Shore were you can BYO (obviously)..Dom chose the booze...Gin and Tonic, a controversial choice but tasty to say the least. We sat watching 5million dollars worth of fireworks blow up in the sky with a view of the bridge. It will be a highlight of our Australia experience thats for sure.



Things went back to normal after New Year and we were both back to working far too much, but luckily (for me anyway) one of my jobs had to end and I was back on the unemployment road...watching TV, eating lots of food...basically not doing a lot! Sounds like uni again. I managed to find a job at a new bar just at the top of our road. Perfect, I started early Feb and it was going great. Dom also found a new jobby at a seafood fishmonger place. Right next door to his bakery job. All the locals do double takes at us when they see us...I just reply "Yeh I work at the cafe and at the bar" and Dom says "Yes you saw me in the bakery yesterday, I also work there too"!!! The old women love him, they think he's working so hard!! hahaha!!

We had booked to go to Cairns on 16th Feb...so off we set at 4am! We had 4days there and we were going to spend our christmas money on a dive or 3 :) We spent the first days just strolling around. It was a strange place, there was no beach, but a man-made beach with metal palms trees and metal fish everywhere, haha! It was a replacement beach I guess. It reminded me of America in the Western moveies, with all the swinging bar doors and tumbleweed everywhere. It was entirely like that but not too far off! We had a great time diving, that will be another highlight of our trip, we unfortunatley went straight after a huge hurricane had hit and the visability and coral had been badly damanged by everything. However it was so much fun, and we saw so many cool fish and a huge, huge grouper.



The day after our diving we went on a little trip up the coast North to Cape Tribulation, a port where Captain Cook came and fixed his boat. Fact! It was beautiful, we didnt a little sightseeing around the beaches and the cape itself. We walked through the oldest rainforest in Australia and saw the biggest spider Ive ever seen. It was as big as my face! Gros.



Anyway, our trip, like everything else, quickly came to and end and we were back "home" to Sydney in no time. The next day we booked flights to Adelaide and Melbourne. This was going to be our huge road trip of the Australia trip...Adelaide to Ayres Rock, Ayres Rock to Melbourne in a campervan in 7days...EXCITINGG!!

Ashes in Brisbane 1st Test

25/11/2010 - 27/11/2010

4.50am I'm up and go to meet Garfield (Tom) and Rob next door and head down to the train station. We arrive at the airport at 6am. Me and Garfield head to the desk after trying to check in on the computers and were greeted with the message 'your flight has been cancelled'....this can't be happening!! we're going to Brisbane to watch the 1st test of the ashes, it's supposed to be a lucky day! Rob is ofcourse flying with Qantas so off he trotts, no flies on this guy, check in a ready to fly at 6.30.
Me and Garfield rock up to the desk to be told it is true and the earliest flight we can get on is the 9am flight which will get us in to Brisbane at 9.25am (because of the time difference) so we agree to that, take our measly $6 apology reward to get a McDonalds breakfast which takes up around 10 minutes of the 3 hours we have to wait!...We decided to sit in the virgin lounge and try and get on the 7am if there are any seats....our luck comes back as we are told we can get on the 7am flight, to then be told we can't! so we decide to try the 8am flight, but again...no chance. so we have half an hour to try and sort me a hostel for when I arrive...no such luck, I ring about 4 different places and they're all full with no room...luck seems to be running out, a cancelled flight and nowhere to stay once I'm there!

WE get our flight at 9, arrive in Brisbane at 9.30, grab a taxi with 3 other english guys going to watch the ashes and head straight tothe gabba...we arrived at 10.15 somehow! but a guy decided to pay the $60 taxi himself, so we obliged and got on our way to our seats. We had missed the first ball but we were there, with Rob and Chris on the beers. We decided we needed a beer and got them in. Sitting in the heat watching the ashes with beers in our hand!....this was the life!!
The stadium was sweet! 40,000 capacity, atmosphere was amazing as we were sat next to the Barmy Army, singing and the other side of us was the Aussie Jarmy Army, all dressed in Pyjamas...they didn't have any songs though apart from...'you are a w**ker!!' or 'sidddddllllleeee, sidddddlllleeee'. Although we will give them credit where its due, the army were singing 'you all live in a convict colony' and we were put in our place with 'you all live in a poor economy' quite witty for the Aussies!!
All out by 4pm, so in the 1st day we also got to watch an hour of us bowling. 5,30 and they called it a day so we headed back to hostels. I still didn't have 1 so went with Rob and Garf to ask if there was anyway I could get somewhere to sleep!....my lucky day in the end....they offered to put me in their tv room with a mattress!! jackpot!!

We headed to the Barmy Army headquarters, an english pub to have dinner and a couple of beers, where they actually serve all the beer in pint glasses!!!this is more like it!! After a few beers we went to a bar where another live band was playing. After a couple we headed back for an early night and decided to live it up the next night.

The next day we headed back to the Gabba the next day to watch us bowl, after a shocking start we managed to get 5 wickets but struggled with Hussey and Haddin. I was sitting next to this aussie woman who couldn't decide if she wanted England to win or Australia. She claimed she was English and moved to Australia 32years ago but had no sign of an english accent. I think she was just trying to be nice as I was surrounded by Australian supporters!! and to be fair they were thrashing us!!!...but the Barmy Army were giving it their all. an early finish at 4pm that day meant we went back to the hostel and meet some of the army at the hostel. some blackpool supporters dressed up in union jack trousers and monty panesar beards were sitting in the bar so we joined them with a few jugs of strongbow! what a crazy bunch!! we met another Town supporter and a scummy Ipswich supporter in that time, whilst 1 of the panesar, Blackpool supporters was trying to tell us Blackpool were the richest club in the premiership and that Charlie Adam was 1 of the best players in the premiership.....course he is mate, course!!



We headed out to the headquarters again for a drink, and then went to Victory again where beer was too cheap! and skittle bombs were a must!!...our groove came out, we had met Ron burgundy too and that's when Rob and I decided Tom looked a lot like Garfield. That entertained us for hours that night! we evenutally decided to head home. Garfield met a friend at the kebab shop, spending about an hour trying to get this Aussie guy to admit that he was his little b*tch and that all Aussies are the English's little b**ches! anyone else would have smashed him but he picked on a little fat guy and wouldn't let go until he admitted it!....he never did!hahah a lot of fun..."you are though aren't you?" "welll just a little bit?"....haha A* for effort!



We tried to get some bikes out for a ride, but Garfield refused to ride them as he had something in his trousers, it was affecting his walking that's for sure...."he's definitely s**t himself!"...so the bikes stayed where they were..We got back. I went into my tv room to find out it was full and I had actually been upgraded to a bed!! Garfield got to the toilet and we got a few hours kip. Up at 9, we went to the Gabba to try and get tickets for the 3rd day, luckily we got 4 tickets together but we just had to sit and watch Hussey and Haddin smash us even more. Until 2pm, however we did get to see Monty Panesar, a highlight there! Then we headed to the airport back to Sydney. An awesome weekend!! The next 2 days we nailed them in the bowling and batting, 517-1. The cookie monster is a hero!.. Hopefully we can get some tickets for the Sydney test in January

Balmoral Beach :)

23/11/2010

Sar finally had a day off from her 2 jobs. After working non-stop for 10 days! This was in my 2 weeks of no work stint, so we decided to do something with our time...beautiful day, 33'C, so we got on the bus at the top of the road and decided to see what Balmoral beach had to offer. We had heard a lot of good things from Jess, Ange, Julz, Tracey and nearly everyone we have met! 15 minutes on the bus and we had arrived. It was beautiful, a long beach again with the rocky headland and houses all built into the hillside surrounding the beach. Then in the middle of the beach there was a bridge out to an island which broke the beach up into 2 parts. We sunbathed for most of the day, took a picnic consisting of pancakes and bread with an avocado dip...yummy! We went to the island to see the great view and get a bit of shade before heading back to the beach to get some more sun....the water was FREEZING! So cold that we chickened out of swimming and decided to paddle and then go back to our sunbathing. Another great beach, just 15mins away...Sydney is getting better by the day, we are living the dream in an amazing city! Definitely heading back once the weather gets back to it's best...possibly Christmas day
We revisited on 14th December...again we both had the day off and the weather has been amazing for the past week! 11am we arrive and lay there until 4. This time I have to take a swim and it's ice cold, sooo refreshing as it's wayyy hot! after 5 hours in the sun Sar has missed everywhere with he cream! red everywhere!! apart from a strip on her arm and 1 of her knees! the sun is leathel!

Melbourne Cup

02/11/2010

The Melbourne Cup came around on 2nd November. We didn't know much about it other than it was a big annual Horse racing event down in Melbourne but we decided to muscle in on it too and place a bet. Sar got told the favourites were number 3,8 and 11 so we decided we would bet $20 on 5 horses. I had heard good things about number 13 (surprisingly!) so we put our money on numbers 3, 7, 11, 13 and 21....We got back with our bet placed so all we needed was any of those horses to get 1st, 2nd or 3rd and we won, too easy....We watched it in our lounge cheering on the horses and...none of them won, number 3 came 3rd so we got a about $3 back! wooooo
13 was a terrible decision, hardly worth racing, and who won....number 8!!! we spent hours kicking ourselves!! we had got told to put money on 3, 8 and 11 and decided we knew better and left number 8 off!! we would have won $100!!!! just to run it in, we should have known...8 is my lucky number, not 13!!!...maybe next year. Tom had put his money on 8 and won $70 back...just to rub it in!

Jobs

2 1/2 months into our year stint in australia and we have gone through a lot of jobs! As soon as we arrived, I had the choice of choosing either an ice-cream man or a removal man. I went for the removal man and gave the boss a call....We had randomly got this number off a guy we met diving in Indonesia! Sure enough I rang him and he offered me work the next day. 6am pick up! It turned out the work was a doddle, filling containers with school tables, desks and chairs to send off to Papua New Guinea etc, and the odd house removal which was nothing the guns couldn't handle.
Although once we moved into our Flat, it meant I needed regular hours. The removal work was on a basis that if he needed me he'd ring me at 9pm the night before and say he'd pick me up at 6. So sometimes I never got the phone call or rang him asking for work and he had nothing for me, so I started to look elsewhere. Also the fact that we had a close encounter with 7 red back spiders on 1 job put me off a little bit, I hadn't signed up for that!
Me and Sar both registered with agencies within the first week hoping to find any job we could....Sar's got back with nothing...useless!! mine got back to me with a job in an airport trying to persuade people to sign up with insurance...I turned this down as I thought the chances are if someone is in the airport, the chances are they have already got their insurance sorted! Plus I think for the sake of the company it would be best if I didn't do a shitty job like that!!

So I held out the removal work for a bit longer, starting to get regular hours but then every week my pay would be wrong, so I'd have to chase it up and really hassle him for the money. So I continued looking. I got a text from this guy who asked me to do some call centre work for him...the ironic thing was he couldn't talk on the phone about it, it was all through text! so I did 3 9-5 shifts and to be honest....it was hell!! getting abuse on the phones all day ringing people in Victoria asking if there was a political election, which party they want to vote for...as you can imagined I got told to shove it everywhere possible!!
luckily, well not at the time, he then had no work for the next 2 weeks. So I had turned down the airport job, no work at the call centre and the removal jobs were about 2 jobs a week...It was time I got my amazing as ever CV out on the road, got my RSA so I could work in a bar and went on the job hunt...I handed it into about 10 bars, 3 cafes and a bakery. A week later I heard nothing back so decided to chase them up, and out of the blue the bakery offered me a job!! the local bar up the road is a possibility too, so 3 jobs later here I am working in a bakery with full time hours!...wearing white trousers, white top, an apron and a hat...this job is a real mans job...so much that when the removal guy rang me to do a job I couldn't tell him I was working in a bakery, instead.....a cafe!

Sar had no luck with the agency mallarky and her CV looks a lot better than mine, plus she's also added a picture of her face on her CV which has worked well! Sar had no work for around 1 month apart from the odd babysitting job, 1 of which she saw a huntsman spider and rang me to drive over and kill it!...I told Sar to smack and if not get the little Aussie kid to, she must be used to them living here...that didn't go down well, she started crying!! So I got in the car ready, and sadly we had a flat tyre!...turns out the spider was on the outside of the window anyways!!!...mr toad!!
So 1 month of sitting around, she got a call for an interview at a shop and nailed it!!
Sar soon got a job at Forever New, a womeswear shop and on her 2nd shift got offered to be jewellery manager! and also, meeting Tracey through our Aussie friends we met in Vietnam, managed to swindle her a role in a cafe up the road doing 3 days at each job! Sar also got offered a few jobs but had to turn them down as she already had too many hours offered to her!! So 2 1/2 months in and we are finally going well... I thought I'd post a blog if anyone is interested in what jobs we've done and what we're doing now, plus so we don't forget!...It's not as easy as it's made out well for us anyways!

Both getting ready for work in the morning, Sar calls me in the room to find a HUGE huntsman on the wall...As I have a duel with the spider, he wimps out and runs under the bed. Luckily he ran onto a box. Pulled the box out, Sar hands me a flip flop and I smash him...huntsman in the house count: 1 - huntsman surviving in the house - 0