Saturday 31 August 2013

Things I Have Learned in My First Month

So I have been in Australia almost a month now and I thought it might be fun to share a few of the things I have learned:

1.  I brought far too much stuff!! I would be great to have a tiny case with just a few changes of clothes in right now.  Most of what I packed is useful though and I will need it (eventually), its just that dragging it about from place to place is a real pain! I would just get a smaller case and chuck most of it out, but I don't really want to get rid of stuff that I like and I will just have to buy it back over time anyway.

2.  Everything is far more expensive than I thought it would be, it would be easy to spend $100 a day without even really buying much

3.  No matter how many times I see one, I am still confused by the drive through off-licence (why Australia, just why...?!)

4.  The world is both bigger and smaller than you think it is

5. German backpackers are everywhere

6.  You get blase really quickly about the number of things here that can kill you!

7.  Great ideas about what to write in blog posts arrive in my brain about 4am and then have completely disappeared by the time I sit down to write a blog the next day

8.  When travelling bring a book you do not like to be the first one you leave at a book exchange so you don't have to lose a book you actually like

9. The best way to have an adventure is to get as far away from other backpackers as possible

10. I can never ever adequately describe anything you are doing for people back home

11.  When this far away, Europe itself feels like home and any talk of it makes me smile.

12.  Muggy heat is the worst type of heat

13. Tim Tam sucks are just awesome (thank you Shauna)

13.  I am oddly intrigued by what the stuff people sell to each other says about a place, for example what names appear on the named bookmarks and what types of food show up again and again in cafes and shops

14.  The fact that the background birdsong and animal noises here are different to home was pone of the hardest things to get used to

15. A year is going to go very quickly

16.  I wish I had someone to travel with

17. Travelling is awesome, it makes you look at the world in a whole new way

18.  Things that matter, matter no matter how far away they are

19.  Possums look even stranger close up

20.  I had forgotten how much I like quadbikes





Thursday 29 August 2013

I Can Eat Macdonald's 30c Ice Cream!

Ok so the Cooktown thing was great fun! I got to drive a quad bike and a tractor and learned to change a trailer wheel.   I also saw tarantulas and lizards and ate passion fruit and oranges picked straight off a tree!  I learned to plant pineapples too and got to eat home made ice cream and butter and bread all of which were yummy! Other  goings on were were also cool but less novel, like feeding the pig and chickens and setting up a egg incubator which seemed to be perpetually sulking because the humidity wasn't right, I think the guy needs a new one!

But Jess, you said you would be away a month and this is not a month from your last post I hear you say! No, true...well the guy I was doing the farm work for was also an electrician working for the council and got called away to fix something-or-other! He was going to be a week in which time I would have had no work so I was given the option to leave, which I did.

Now I am back in Cairns! It looks like, to get work, my best bet is to fly back to Sydney.  I have been in contact with a marketing company who said they will interview me for sales work whenever I make my way back there (they are always hiring apparently).

I will go back if nothing turns up here soon, but a friend from university gets to Cairns in just over a week so I really want to find a way to stay here and see him.  I am thinking of doing some short term wwoofing because I cant afford to hang around for a week if I have to pay my way for food and accommodation! I tried to visit one place today and there was nobody in.  The phone of a second place is always engaged, but I have somewhere else I will try this evening (fingers crossed)!

Tomorrow I have to go back to the doctors at stupidly-early-o-clock, because, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I need a doctors note to say I can dive. I went today, but the doctor I saw seemed  unsure about passing me, he wants to chat some things over with the company or something and was a little confused over some aspects of my medical history (I got confused about the specifics because he had a very very thick Indian accent).  All I know is there is another doctor who knows more about the dive certificate I need that I can see tomorrow!  The receptionist didn't seem to think that this second doctor will have a problem passing me so that's good.  I hope he doesn't anyway because either way I owe the practice $60 for testing me. I miss the NHS!

Hopefully, everything will work out, I will find a woofing place and get to do my diving and such with my friend before I head back to Sydney! watch this space!




Monday 19 August 2013

They Will Teach Me To Drive A Tractor!

I have found a farm work position in a small town called Cooktown, I leave Cairns tomorrow!

Another little map for you!

  I work for my meals and accommodation and live with a family and their 9 month old little boy! There is a possibility that I will be able to get more paid work in the town! Even better, a girl I know from traveling has found work in the same town!

Its a small town, which is what I wanted to see so I am happy! There is no internet though apparently so I probably will fall off the technological world while there!

I will be back in a month (unless I extend my stay), update you all then!!

Let the Adventures begin!