The Hostel Shuffle

If finding a job wasn't hard enough, finding a place to live is almost harder! When I first arrived to Queenstown I booked in the cutest hostel ever. It had everything I needed, the people were so friendly, and I made myself at home immediately. Unfortunately, this place only has a two week maximum, so after I had gotten cosy, it was time to get out! It's hard to leave a place where you made friends and then start all over at another hostel, well, it's not hard but it's annoying.

Off recommendation, I went to another hostel right in town, and conveniently a two-second walk from my new work establishment. This place isn't quite as nice as the last one, but the people here are amazing. The only down fall is that with Queenstown being in it's busiest, the hostel book up extremely fast. So I constantly have to move rooms every few days, and some days it's totally full and I might have to switch hostels for a day. In order to avoid having to move around so much, and the longing to just unpack my suitcase and not look at it for another few months, I've been looking for an apartment or house to call my own.

But damn, it's not easy. Everyone wants to be downtown, so it's really hard to find that. Otherwise everything is advertised for an area about a 30 minute walk away. Today me and a few other girls thought we had hit gold by finding an ad for a shared room that was 100 per person per week. This is really cheap for Queenstown so we thought it was too good to be true. We called the woman up anyway just to view it. Turns out it was a complete hole and there were way too many random people living in it for my liking. As in, worse than the college ghetto. So that was a dud, but the apartment quest shall continue! Dreaming of the day I can have my own room and decorating it however I wish!

Happy Monday :)

Feeling a little inspired today!

QT Baby!

View out my window!

Well I have been a terrible blogger. I pretty much failed at updating at all on Asia, but rest assured, I had an amazing experience! I spent three months traveling all around Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, and I encountered some of the most interesting people. Since I failed at updating on Asia, I feel that I should make it up by posting about my experiences in New Zealand.

I didn't know where I wanted to settle so I decided to go to the biggest city, Aucland. I'd give it a week and if it wasn't my cup o' tea then I'd try somewhere else. After arriving in the evening, I came to the conclusion that Kiwi people are very friendly, but that Auckland was not the city for me. I just felt like it had no character and that I could have been anywhee in the world. After a week of feeling a bit lonely and I decided that I would go to either Wellington or Queenstown. Welly is meant to be a bit more funky, but still a bigger city, while Queenstown is a party ski town. Naturally, everyone told me to go to Queenstown and I ended up heading that way!

Celebrating Xmas in June with new
hostel friends!

Since it's in the south island of New Zealand, it's much much colder here! The scenery is breathtaking, with mountains out my window and beautiful trees lining the parks. Everyone is very chilled out and most people are here for the winter ski season.

I managed to find myself a job as a waitress at an American diner opening up in a few days, so I'm really excited to start working again. When you don't work for several months you start to feel a bit useless. So I'm pumped to feel like I have some purpose now! And especially pumped to get a paycheck. Accidentally spent a lot of my savings in Asia, whoops! In the next few days I'll begin working and have more money to explore the mountains and do some of the extreme activities around Queenstown. Keep you posted on how it's going!

Walk Off the Earth

This was introduced to me by a good friend. I think I like it better than the orig.
 Walk Off the Earth - Somebody That I Used To Know

Australia is Done, Now What?

Adios Australia

So to catch you up, I spent my last few months in Oz working like a slave. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed it. My co-workers were awesome, the venue was fun, we got to dress up sometimes - all in all it was a good experience! My roommates and I had decided that we were going to spend New Year in Sydney, which was perfect for me because my flight back to the States was scheduled just a few days after, so I needed to end up in Sydney soon anyway. My last day working at Barkly was Xmas Eve then a few days later me and four other girls packed up everything we owned and shoved it into a tiny baby blue car and drove 10 hours to Sydney. Talk about a good time!

Impressive, huh?

Three of us stayed at a friends house while others dispersed with friends they knew around Sydney and we all just met up for outtings throughout the week. Sydney was so much fun, it was really refreshing just getting out of Melbourne and going to beautiful beaches and not having to worry about work. Shortly after New Year my friends who were staying at the same house as me had to fly to Perth to start their farmwork. This was pretty depressing because A)I didn't know when I would ever see them again, and they had become really great friends of mine, and  B) this meant I had to spend the next week on my own :(. I didn't think I knew how to be alone with myself anymore without feeling awkward?? But it ended up being totally fine. It was actually a really good time to reflect on everything and just spend some time with myself. The past year I hadn't gone more than a day of "me time." It also served to prep me for getting in the mind set of going home. It was definitely bittersweet, as is any ending/new beginning.  

Arriving home was just as good as I thought it would be. You forget how much you miss the comforts of home until you are in it's presence again. Familiar faces, smells, driving...everything is refreshing! But I was well aware, before I even left to come home, that after the honeymoon phase of being home I would get bored and get an itch to do something else. That's just how I am. I constantly need to introduce new things into my life otherwise I start to feel like I'm in a rut. That's why before I came home I made a plan to have one last adventure before I "settle down."

Thailand

While I was in Australia, I had met sooooo many people who had travelled SE Asia and couldn't stop ranting and raving about how it's a must do.  So I figured hey, I worked hard and saved money when I was in Oz, I might as well treat myself and go see SE Asia for myself. I deserve it. It's funny though, I realized that the longer I was home, the harder it was becoming in my head to get myself to leave again. It's really easy to get comfortable, and it's not so easy forcing yourself out of your comfort zone. So my remedy to fix this was to tell as many people as possible about my future Asia plans, that way I couldn't back out. I mean, how embarrassing would that be to tell everyone you were leaving again and then not do it? Sure enough that was the push I needed because a few days later I booked my ticket to Thailand and got all my vaccination shots. As of now my tentative plan is to leave March 5th, 2012 and arrive in Bangkok, Thailand. Travel Thailand for 1 month, then visit Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Bali (if I have the funds), then last but not least end my trip in New Zealand. I had always planned on seeing New Zealand when I was in Australia, but I just got caught up in working and figured I'd just see it after my visa ran out.

New Zealand is set up a lot like Australia visa-wise. You can do a one year or a 6-month visa and work while you're there. So I decided that when I get there I'm going to attempt to do something that is career-oriented for work. This way I can build my resume while I'm away and gain a little more experience in the professional world. I hope this works out as planned. I'll do that for a few months, then travel NZ, then head home! For the sake of my family's sanity, hopefully I will be ready to settle down by that point. As of now I don't think I will stay there an entire year, but we will see. You never know what's going to happen, which is the joy of life.  

Adios Australia, you'll forever have a very special place in my heart.

Sorry I Fail at Blogging - Melbourne

I know, I know, I haven't written in months. It's easy to get side-tracked with life when you haven't been doing anything as exciting as travelling around every two seconds. I'll try and catch you up on everything in a nutshell that's happened in the last six months.

Before the Saints and Sinners Party

According to my last post, I was on my way to Magnetic Island. To be honest, this place was pretty fun, but there really wasn't much to do there besides party. So I spent a night there then headed to Cairns the next morning. Cairns was where it was at! I spent a week skydiving, white-water rafting and partying! At the hostel I was staying at there was a Sinners and Saints party, which apparently is the biggest party of the year in Cairns. They had live tattooing, a dominatrix person doing a show, porn-esque photo shoots, face painting, glow sticks, famous dj's, pub crawls... EVERYTHING you could think of. So me and my friends dressed up and partook in the activities! Two days later I did a skydive which was one of the most amazing experiences. I really thought I would freak out but I surprisingly stayed calm all the way up until they opened the airplane door and I watched the first person being sucked out like a vacuum. There wasn't any turning back since they whipped everyone out of that plane so quick. But once you are soaring in the air there is a moment of realization of how awesome your life is. To my left I was falling 14,000 feet above the great barrier reef, to my right was a rainforest and you land on a strip of the beach. Utterly amazing, I would suggest it to anyone!

The next day we went white-water rafting which I was a bit nervous about since I'm not the strongest of swimmers, but this ended up being one of the funniest trips of them all. Everyone was falling out left and right, it was so much fun.



The A-Team!

After rafting, me and some friends decided to stay in Cairns for a few more days then head down to Melbourne. This was more of a task than it appeared! We went to Flight Centre but everything was $400+. Ridiculous. For a one-way! So the lady at the desk said we could get a flight for $170 through this airline called Tiger Airways, but they weren't reliable and known for cancelling flights all the time. Since we are cheap backpackers we decided to chance it. Bad call.
We woke up at about 4:30am to head to the airport and upon arrival they broke the news that (of course) the flight had been cancelled. I'm usually a calm person in situations like this, but everyone around me was FREAKING OUT because it was ruining all their travelling plans if they didn't get to Melbourne on time. So that was beginning to rub off on me and stress me out. Luckily one of the lads I was travelling with lived in Canberra, which isn't too far from Melbourne. It's kind of in between Sydney and Melbs so he suggested we fly to Sydney, then take a bus to Canberra and then I could stay at his for a few days then fly to Melbourne. So that's what we did! It was actually pretty fun unexpectedly hanging out in Canberra for 4 days rent-free.

A few friends from the hostel I lived
in for 2 months!

Now that I was low on money and needed to get to Melbourne and find a job, it was time to get a move on! I flew into Melbourne and was so excited to finally be there. I had heard nothing but great things from everyone all throughout my travels. I had a friend staying at a hostel in St. Kilda so I decided to go check in there and hope that all the rest would come together.

I got there and spent about 2 solid weeks making friends and partying then decided to go find a job. I spent a day handing out resumes to restaurants in hopes of getting something quick. In Australia they make you do a trial before they decide if they are going to hire you or not. So I ended up getting a trial at this little Irish restaurant/pub. I really enjoyed it and was offered the job but the next day when I called to ask how much the pay was, it wasn't much. They were only offering $13.50 an hour, which might seem like a lot, but that's not even minimum wage here.  And it was cash in hand so I wouldn't get any tax money back. And they couldn't promise me a lot of shifts, so I reluctantly had to say never-mind because that just wasn't livable, let alone savable.

When I first got to Melbourne it was the middle of winter, which was actually really cold and really rainy. So I stayed in the hostel for a few days and ended up meeting a guy while I was eating breakfast who offered me a job! He asked what I was going to be doing for the rest of the day and I mentioned I needed to go out and look for a job and he told me he was a manager at a restaurant not too far away if I wanted to come in for a trial. "Ummm Okay!!" The place was called Mini Bites, and I didn't know it at the time but this would end up being one of the best decisions.

I showed up at 4 o'clock for the trial and met another English girl there who was doing a trial that day as well. The place was brand new, had only been open for a week, and as I looked around I noticed something I definitely didn't expect. This place was a full-on Jewish restaurant. I'm talking seriously Jews, with the curls on the sides, the little hats, big beards, the works. And the night I was working there happened to be a party of all men celebrating something and they were chanting and singing throughout the whole night. I have nothing against Jews, but at the time I just didn't understand the whole thing because I grew up in Bible Belt, America. I hadn't really met many in my life and if I had they weren't really that religious. So needless to say me and the other girl doing the trial were a little freaked out. We kind of looked at each other and told each other that we would stick through this job together for only 2 weeks or so just to get some cash then peace out and find another job. And that decision wasn't just because it was a Jewish restaurant, it was mainly because during our first shift, it was so busy and noone really took the time to explain the till or what anything was and the whole night was just really stressful and confusing.

Mini Bites family on my Birthday.
Having drinks by the beach!

The staff was somehow impressed with us that night so they decided to put us on the roster and gave us some more shifts. The money here was much better so I figured I would keep going in. Day two ran much more smoothly and by the end of the day I had a pretty good grasp of how everything worked and what all the food was. Our secret plot of two weeks turned into a month then two months and so on and so fourth. I ended up working there for about 5 months and I'm so glad I gave it a chance. I made the best of friends through that job, it was so laid back, I had tons of hours, and best of all I had a blast working there.

During my stint at Mini Bites I also ended up landing a bar job without even really looking for it. So for about three months I was working two jobs, which was actually pretty exhausting. I ended up meeting one of the managers of Hotel Barkly and while we were chatting he asked if I had any bar experience. Since I had bartended in the Outback I said yea and he asked if I would come in for a trial on that Friday. I went in and did a shift, but let me tell you, this bar was nothing like the pub I worked at in the Outback. This place was fancy. Everyone was beautiful, rich and ordered vodka lime and sodas. Much different than a Bundy and Coke from clientelle who had half their teeth missing.



Pub Golf Night!



This bar was also much more fast-paced. But I pulled through and adapted quickly so at the end of the shift the manager offered me more shifts and put me on the roster. Best of all, this place paid even more than Mini Bites so I decided to take it on as a weekend job. I loved Mini Bites and still hang out with my friends from there, but about 3 weeks ago we had a staff meeting at the bar and the owner told us that pretty much everyday throughout the month of December there were going to be Christmas parties so they could give us full time work if we wanted it. I decided that it would be wise to just work one job there full-time rather than splitting two jobs, so that's what I've been doing! It's been pretty exciting at Barkly as well! The other night David Beckham came in, got to talk to him for a few minutes and snapped a group photo (seen below), and Snoop Dogg is coming in on New Year! Sadly I'm going to miss Snoop because my last shift at Barkly is going to be Christmas night.



Who is that to the left of me? Oh it's just David Beckham! (He's got his arm around me, Watch out Posh!)



Some friends and I decided it would be fun to go to Sydney for New Year so we are leaving on the 27th and my flight home is on the 6th of Jan. I can't believe my Australian adventure is almost over. It's quite bitter-sweet. Although it's the end of this chapter, it's going to be the beginning of another one. As a traveller you'll notice that you never really end up sticking to your plan exactly as you planned it. You meet others and they tell you their stories and give you more ideas and you find yourself wanting to do it all. So I've decided that I'm going home for a month or two then I'm going to meet some friends who I met in Australia in Thailand and we are going to travel all of South East Asia. So starting in Thailand then doing Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bali. Then after that I want to go to New Zealand. Since I've been in Melbourne I've managed to save up a small fortune, so that money will go towards those trips and hopefully last me so I won't have to work for a few months. Well that's been my life in a nutshell the past 6 or so months! I'll be sure to update soon with Christmas and New Year blogs!

And now for a few memories that can't go without being mentioned...



Finishing up the East Coast

Well it's been a long, strange journey but the coast has finally come to an end! Let me catch you up...

After leaving the town of 1770 where I did the Scooteroo tour, I headed to a cattle ranch about 4 hours north for the night. This is a stop which is included on the OzExperience bus, but it's optional. I had heard it was pretty worth it so I decided I should head out there. When we arrived the staff was wearing full on cowboy attire and lunch was waiting for us. Good thing, because I was starving by this point! We all received a cowboy hat and bandana upon check-in and were given the choice of going horseback riding or 4-wheeling. Obviously all the girls chose riding horses and the boys chose 4-wheeling.

The horse riding was actually pretty fun and a bit different than your normal horse tour. We got to round up goats! So it was fun because we weren't just aimlessly following around a tour guide, we were actually doing something. After riding around for a few hours my butt was killing me and it was time to head back to the camping grounds. We had dinner and started drinking something called "giggly juice." It was basically a fizzy wine. But hey, 2 or 3 bottles and we were all getting pretty comfortable and ready to ride the mechanical bull! Let me tell you this, riding a mechanical bull is not as easy as it seems. A handful of people went before I did and fell off pretty much immediately. Then when it was my turn I flew off in about 2 reps. That shit hurts! But was hilarious... After everyone got a few turns on the bull we all sat around and started playing drinking games. What better way to get to know a group of strangers than by playing a little game of Never Have I Ever? A few hours of drinking games ensued then people started dwindling off to bed since we had an early morning ahead of us. We had to be up by 6am, have some brekky, hit the road and drive for 11 hours to Airlie Beach! After the Cattle Ranch pretty much everybody was best friends so the rest of my coast travels were a sinch!

Up next, Airlie Beach/Whitsundays....

The Marina

After a long bus journey we arrived in cozy little place town called Airlie Beach. Airlie was amazing! This is where I did the 2 day, 2 night boat trip around the Whitsunday Islands. The town is composed of a main strip sprinkled with bars, cafes, restaurants and clubs, then there's a lagoon just down the street where everyone lays around to soak up the rays. Since everyone was excited to finally be in a party town we decided to go all out. Thunda, our bus driver, informed us that if we met him for dinner at the hostel bar he would give us a bunch of free beer. Count me in! Everyone checked in and got settled then went down for dinner around 7:30. We partied at the bar for awhile then decided to head to a club called Mama Africa. Jesus Christ this place did me in.



Getting bandaged up



After a few drinks here I was pretty drunk and my all time favorite dance song came on, "Party Rock" by LMFAO. I'm not sure if this song has hit the States yet, but if you haven't heard of it and are between the ages of 18-27, YouTube that shit. Anyway, me and all my new bestfriends are dancing away on the dance floor and I'm doing the party shuffle and all the sudden I feel a sharp stab to my foot. I stopped and looked down to find BLOOD flooding out of my foot! I took off my flip flop and hobbled over to sit down and get a good look at the damage and basically a huge shard of glass had gone through my shoe and right inbetween two of my toes. It's a good thing I was drunk because I think this would have really hurt had I been sober. The amount of blood pouring out freaked everybody out and I heard some guy in the distance yell out, "Ew, some chick had her period on the dance floor!" Oh geez...

Anyway, a few moments later someone from staff rushed over and told me to go into the office. My new friend came with me for moral support while the guy bandaged me up. I sat there cracking up because I found it hilarious that this would happen to me the day before I go on a boat trip. Oy Vey. I'll be lucky if I make it home with both my feet.

Ready for my first dive!

Okay, so the next day was my date to departure Airlie and sail around the Whitsundays! For those of you who don't know, the Whitsundays are basically just a cluster of like 70-something (I think) Islands and you go scuba diving, snorkeling and go to Whitehaven beach, which is ranked one of the top 5 beaches in the world. Are you impressed yet? It's two days and two nights and everyone rants and raves about how awesome it is, so needless to say I was PUMPED UP for it! That morning I checked in to let them know I was still coming and the girl gave me a map of where I needed to walk to in the marina to find the boat. Oh great, it's all the way on the other side of town...sweet, that was fun considering I had a gimp foot at this point. I stopped at the Chemist (drug store) on the way to get some bandaids and sure enough on my walk to the boat my foot started bleeding again. At this point I was carrying all my stuff for the trip, a box of goon, it was hot and my hair was everywhere and my foot was bleeding. I'm sure when I rocked up they thought I was a crazy person. Needless to say, the staff on the boat remembered my name right away since I came with a good story about the night before.

That day we went scuba diving/snorkeling! No, I didn't see any sharks...bummer. As much as I'm petrified of sharks and the unknown monsters that live in the water, I have a guilty urge to really see some in real life, not in an aquarium. That night we all got on the goon then woke up early the next day to head to Whitehaven beach. Exciting right? Wrong. We woke up to it pissing down rain. How am I supposed to worship the sun and be a bronzed babe with this shit weather?! Sure enough they made us get off the boat and go to the beach. Pretty much no one wanted to go, it was cold and raining. We all had to wear wetsuits to keep warm. Such a bummer too because we were on one of the most amazing beaches in the world and couldn't even enjoy it. We went back to the boat after a few hours of sitting in the rain and they made us nachos! I miss Mexican food so much. I haven't had it since I've been in Australia so that was my first taste of Mexi since I've been here! It was pretty good. After everyone showered and had dinner we all gathered round to watch the pictures they had been snapping of us the past few days. Cool slideshow but I opted out of buying it. During the slideshow me and a few others heard a bunch of splashing going on on the back of the boat so we went to scope it out. Guess what it was?! Dolphins!!!! 3 Big ones and a baby. They were just swimming around there for like an hour showing off for us. We never got close enough to touch them but they were all around. It was so cool. Then the staff put on Pirates of the Caribbean-how appropriate. Everyone watched that then pretty much passed out. Next morning we woke up and had an early morning snorkel and dive then headed back to Airlie! While I had a blast on the boat, I was looking forward to getting back on dry land. I just hate being around so much damp stuff for extended periods of time. Ew.

When we got back to Airlie Beach I had 2 free nights at a different hostel so went and checked into there. I went and met up with some of the Scottish guys I had met on the bus and they introduced me to a few American girls they had met on their boat. For the next few days we hung out but the night before our OzExperience bus lef we found out it was leaving at like 7:15 or something. I wasn't even going to go out but then got talked into going to the girls' room and having a few quiet drinks. This turned into me blacking out, losing my phone and missing my bus the next morning! Noooo. Even the Scotts had managed to get up and  make the bus. I spent the day getting my life back together and tracing my steps. I asked around everywhere for my phone but no one had seen it. After accepting that I wouldn't get my phone back I went to the nearest convenient store and bought another one. They are only like $50 but then you have to put credit on it so I bought $30 worth for that then headed back to my hostel. I got on facebook and had a friend request from someone random, accompanied with a message saying that he had my phone and if I wanted it back I'd have to meet up in the next few hours. Seriously? Fiiiiine.

If you know me, you know I lose a phone about once every 3 months. They usually have a way of finding their way back to me so I guess I'll just have this backup phone for the next time I lose this one for good. I even thought ahead and put everyone's numbers in the new one so that whenever I do use it I won't get texts and calls from people and have to do the whole awkward, "Sorry, but I lost all my numbers, who is this??" After sorting out my phone I had to reschedule my bus pickup for the next day. The guy wasn't happy that my excuse was that I over-slept. He gave me a full-on lecture and told me I wouldn't be charged this time because it was my free-bee, but if I miss another bus then I'd have to be a $50 fine. Alriiiight, whatever dude I just need to be on tomorrow's bus. Needless to say I was super early at the bus stop the following morning! Off to Magnetic Island.... :)

So Long Longreach! Back to the Coast!





Me and Megan's boyfriend, Joon!



Well somehow or another Longreach won my heart over. Throughout my past 8 weeks there I've done everything from goat racing to sheep shearing and even attended a local party or two. A few new things have happend since I last wrote. My friend who I had roomed with back in Maroochydore, the one who I did my trial with at that Kebab shop, ended up hating the Kebab job (go figure), so I told her to join me in the outback! She pretty much booked a Greyhound straight away and before I knew it she was there. It was so good seeing Megan again but the suprising twist was that she was now dating one of the Koreans from our hostel in Maroochydore and he was going to be joining us in the outback as well! I was lucky to be able to spend my last few weeks in Longreach with some of the closest friends I've made since being in Australia. Needless to say, goodbye at the train station was not easy.

Luckily a few of the girls who I had gone to Longreach with are leaving just the week after me, so I will most likely see them again. After boarding the train I endured a grueling 18 hour ride back to the coast. Destination-Bundaberg! If you remember awhile back I was in Bundaberg, what a hole. I had to go back there first because that's where the OzExperience bus droppoed me off last. Since my train didn't get in until 1am, a few days prior I had called the reception to ask if anyone could be there to let me in. The girl assured me someone would be there and that there should be no dramas. I KNEW there wouldn't be anyone there and that I would be stranded once I got there. Sure enough, after an 18 hour train ride I rock up to the hostel with all my crap looking like a bum and what do I see? Lights out, door locked, no one at reception. Really?

Luckily I had saved the hostel number because I had a gut feeling this would happen. Please please pleeeaassee answer.

"Urrhmmm hello? (laughter in background"

"Oh HIIII, I just got off my train and was wondering if you could let me in so I could check in??"

"Are you booked here?"

"Ya, I talked to a lady the other day and she said someone would be here to let me in since I'm getting in late."

"Hmm ok, I'll be right there."

This guy rocks up complaining about how he had no note that I was coming and that I was lucky he was here because he was just shutting down the bar. He gave me my sheet and room key and I cringed as I walked to the room. Bundaberg has left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth because not only is the hostel an absolute dump, the last time I was there with the boys was such a desperate time. That was back when we were talking to Sue Strawberry about doing back-breaking work! Trying to figure out what our next move was going to be since everyone was so low on skrilla. Oh well, one night here won't kill me.

I passed out immediately and woke up to a phone call from my bus driver asking if I could be at the stop an hour earlier. Sure thing, buddy! I grabbed myself an ice coffee, checked out and was on my merry way to the town of 1770! The bus driver was interested in my American-ness so he called me up to the front to chat him up. He told me all about all the odd jobs he's done and how he's really into trees. Been a bus tour guide for 10 years now though.

After we arrived in 1770 he informed us that our Scooteroo tour was going to be at 2pm that day. Guess I wouldn't be catching up on any sleep. What is a Scooteroo tour you ask? It's the most fun ever! Pretty much everyone gets a mini Harley Davidson motorcycle and we ride it around for 4 hours and tour 1770/Agnes Waters. I was worried I'd crash but luckily I've still got all my limbs and didn't crash once. The best part was that when I was being sized for my helmet I ran into my friend Dean! What are the freaking odds? He had done OzIntro with me back when I first got to Australia and I hadn't seen him since I was working in Surfers. He was now working on the Scooteroo tour and living it up! So good to see an unexpected familiar face.



What a bad a**



After the tour it was time to go back to the hostel and get on the goon/make some friends! I ended up hanging out with some Scots, a few brits, a german and a dutch and a Canadian all night. Good times. So far that's the extent of my travels, but I think today I'm going to go visit the beach, which I haven't seen in 2 months! Tomorrow I'm off to the cattle ranch. It's one of the mandatory stops that the OzExerience bus does, so we dress up like we are in the country, lasso up goats and ride mechanical bulls. Should be funny. Saturday I'm off to the Whitsundays so I will be sure to write again very soon!

xx

Looooongreach

Ohhhh the outback. Where to begin? I guess I'll start with how I ended up here...

Last you read I was in a town called Maroochydore with a few of my guy friends I had been traveling with. We had spent about a week and half there then the boys finally got some farm work! Since I had a lot of down time on my hands I kept saying I was going to apply for jobs, but each day I kept putting it off and became quite unproductive in that field. I came to the realization that the reason I wasn't trying was because I knew deep down that I didn't really want to stay there for that long so I decided I was going to leave. The only reason I was sticking around was because I wasn't ready to leave the boys yet, and I wasn't quite sure where to go. When you spend enough time with a group of people while traveling, you start to forget that this is your trip and not a group trip. And if you aren't happy somewhere, then you should go somewhere that does make you happy. It's not that I wasn't happy in Maroochydore, it's just that I knew I didn't want to stay there much longer.

I got in contact with a few girl friends who I had traveled with when I first got to Australia. Turns out they were just a few hours away in a town called 1770 and said they'd be more than happy to have me join them. They warned me that they were looking for jobs and that if they got offered one in the next few days they were going to have to go. That was fine with me and I told them that if they did get a job then to tell the boss that they had one more coming and if they had room for me I'd be willing to go. Sure enough just a few hours later "Lethal," the owner of an outback hotel, called them saying he needed 3 girls to come bartend at the pub in the hotel. They mentioned they had one more and he said I could go work there too. Sweet!



Last night, tres amigos!



That day I booked a 22-hour train ride to Longreach, Queensland. While I was really excited to finally have some girls around and to finally have an income again, it was really hard knowing that I was going to have to leave the boys. After I told them the new plan they were sad but at the same time happy that I was doing what was best for me. The next day was my last night along with a few other boys who were leaving for Melbourne. The hostel ended up having a big BBQ/party that night and we all went off to the beach and had a great time. What a perfect last night! In the morning I packed up my bags and held back tears while I said goodbye to everyone. Don't worry, once I got to the bus station I started bawling. I was really excited to meet up with the girls, but at the same time it's hard to leave people that you've had such amazing experiences with and have grown quite attached to.



A toast!

I rode the train for about 8 hours until the girls hopped on in Rockhampton. After that it was all good because I finally had people to talk to! In the morning we arrived in Longreach and got a tour of the 4-block long town. I felt like I had gone back in time to the 50's or something. There are no stop lights, 2 restaurants, several hotels, a bakery and a few shops. That's abbouuuuuut it. Hmm, interesting. I think I might have culture shock when I actually go back to the coast. 

Did you know there was such a thing as Target Country? I didn't...



Longreach's newest crew!



Now I've never bartended before, but it's pretty simple here. Everyone drinks the exact same thing. Either beer or rum and coke. Every now and then they'll feel a little adventurous and order shots! We work 5 shifts a week, get free accommodation and food as well as $300 each week. Not too shabby. And there is nothing to spend money on here so it's a good way to save up. Most of the locals are really nice, but nearly everyone is a "regular," and most of the older men are very pervy. You really learn to grow some thick skin here. Ontop of fending off pervs left and right, my first week here was a little rough. I decided to go on a run and ended up getting blisters from my shoes, which turned into a terrible infection. I couldn't hardly walk for a few days and had to go to the doctor and get tons of antibiotics. Greaaat. In a new town, starting a new job and now I can't even walk. I had to be bed ridden for a couple days but luckily the antibiotics kicked in and my foot began to start looking much more human again. Thank God for that!

While I have never spent an extended period of time in a small country town, we have had some really good times here already and the time is flying by. I can't believe I've already been here nearly 3 weeks. I think I will stick around another 3 weeks then head back to the east coast and finish that up. After the east coast I am thinking of going to Bali and New Zealand, then back to Australia to perhaps settle in Melbourne. Hopefully everything goes as planned and I meet more amazing people along the way.

I'll continue to keep everyone posted on how the outback is treating me. Until then...

Cheers!

Maroochydore!

I suppose it's time for an update.

A couple of days ago we left Bundaberg and set our sights for a town called Maroochydore. We figured since it's close to Brisbane we could go there for a few days until we figured out the whole job thing. We got on Google and literally just picked the cheapest one and showed up. This town is much better and there seems to be more job opportunities. The boys were put on the waiting list to fruit pick, which seems to be moving along pretty quickly, so I think in the next few days they will get hired.

I was put in a girls dorm and ended up meeting a really nice English girl who was also looking for a job. We decided to go to the library and print off a bunch of resumes then go walk around town to hand them out. There is a plaza with tons of shops about 20 minutes away so we decided to head there first. We handed out a bunch and finally got to this Kebab restaurant/bar right off the river who said they were hiring. She agreed to let us have a trial day and for Megan to go in the next day and me to do mine the day after her. We were so excited to finally get a yes, well more of a maybe, but nonetheless it was exciting.

Megan did her trial yesterday and called me immediately after to tell me that she got the job, which was very exciting. She came back and told me all the ins and outs, how it was all set up and what I should expect. Pretty much as long as you are efficient and friendly it should be fine. Sweet! She said it was super slow and that she only had to talk to two tables and they were like an hour apart from each other so it was pretty easy.

I woke up this morning getting ready to do my trial and arrived 15 minutes ahead of time. When I got there I informed someone behind the counter that I was there for the trial and he told me that none of the managers were there yet so to come back in 30 minutes. Ooookay?? I guess I'll just walk around the mall and kill some time then. When I got back the owner was there and put me with another girl to shadow. She told me she had never trained before and that she hadn't been there that long. I asked how long she had been there and she said since November. "So you've been here four months then?" "Yea about that." ---hmm sounds like plenty of time to me!

She did a pretty crap job of explaining anything so I pretty much had to figure it out on my own as I went along. At first it was going pretty smoothly and I helped greet tables and set everything up then she let me do a few on my own with her there for when the guests asked questions about the menu, as I had only blarely even glanced at it. Then the kitchen made a large platter of samples, so one of the girls went out to the walkway to entice people in with the samples. After this happend the restaurant got slammed. There weren't enough waitresses to get everything done in a timely manner so they told me to just go on my own and if I had any questions to just ask. "Uhhh, are you sure? okay?" Within 15 minutes I was taking care about about seven tables on my own and doing a pretty good job considering I didn't know what the hell I was doing. Then a couple from one of my tables went up to pay their bill and it was higher than they had expected. What happend was, there is a specials board with a few items that you can get for $12 if you buy a drink with it, and I thought they had asked me just in general what some of the popular items on the menu were. So I named off a few, which one of the trainers had told me earlier, and they ordered both. One of them happend to be on the specials board for $12 but the other one was $20. But hell if I knew what was on the board and what wasn't because I had only glanced at it when the trainer pointed at it.

Anyway, so after the manager sorted out what happend she pulled me aside and explained it. Obviously I was apologetic and it was an honest mistake, but what did they expect? They threw me out there on my first day with absolutely no menu knowledge and expect me to not slip up at all? Besides, they only lost a few dollars out of it. But she was not happy with this and pretty much told me I could go home now and that they would get back to me if they were interested and still have a few more trials throughout the week. Which I knew was bull because they hired my friend the day before right after her shift. So I guess I'll take that as a no. While I was disappointed, I knew that working at a restaurant that disorganized would just stress me out and I probably wouldn't have lasted long anyway. It's back to square one and I'm going to walk around town tomorrow and hand out some more resumes. On my walk home I stopped at Subway and treated myself to a cheer-me-up smoothie and picked up an application :).

Today the hostel is having a BBQ down by the lake and pretty much everyone is going, so that should be fun. Other than that, Maroochydore has been a pretty good time! There is a nice beach right around the corner where I have been soaking up some rays lately. That's all I've got for now!

Cheers

Bundaberg Bunda-sucks

Bundaberg is a shit hole.

We arrived here with high hopes of finding some farm work, but no such luck. When we got here we checked into a hostel called Cellblock Backpackers. This hostel used to be a holding cell for prisoners back in the day, and has now been converted into a hostel. For me, it felt similar to being in an insane asylum. There is one long hallway where most of the rooms were, then all the walls were white. The plus side was that there was a pool and a bar there and the people we met were pretty cool. Otherwise, it was pretty gross. After a day we checked out and checked into another hostel called Federal Backpackers. It's a lot more colorful, but it's still a dump. We saw a mouse in the kitchen...disgusting.



Cellblock, the first hostel



The way it works is that the hostels here assign you to a farm to work at and a van comes and picks everyone up in the morning and takes them to the farms. Since everyone heard that Bundaberg is the place to go if you are looking for farm work, there was an overplus of people and not enough work so there were long waiting lists at each hostel we talked to. In order to be put on the list you have to book your stay at the hostel for at least one week, and there's no guarantee that you will get work soon. Even when you do get work, before you are put on a contract you might only be getting 2 or 3 days of work per week, which isn't really enough. We also talked to a hostel that told us they had work for us and to come visit them in the morning to discuss it. When we arrived there, there was noone at reception and this French guy came out and told us not to book there because they told him and his friends that there was work as well, but once they got there they booked a week and they still hadn't worked yet and had been there for about five days. Scam artists!

After talking it over if it was worth it to stay, we decided we should leave. No point sticking around wasting accommodation money if there is no guarantee of getting a job for awhile. We got online and started applying for several jobs and called this farmer a few hours away from Brisbane, but he said he just recently filled some positions but to call him on Monday to see if he has anymore openings. Back when we were in Brisbane an Irish guy staying in my room gave me a number to this lady named Sue who does strawberry picking. We decided it was worth a shot to call her and sure enough she had positions for us! You may think this sounds promising, but the thing is, there are many many downfalls to this job offer. She mentioned at least three times throughout the phone call that this wasn't going to be easy work and that we weren't picking, we were planting the strawberry seeds.

Sue said she would send us an email of the job description and we could talk it over and get back to her about it. She seemed like a really nice lady, but once we got the job description we were pretty weary. Highlights of the email include:

• $40-$45 per every 1,000 seeds we plant (Is that a joke?)
• $165 per week for accommodation and food is not included
• The nearest grocery store is 15 kilometres away so we have to pay $5 for a ride to town
• $100 deposit at the beginning and must work for 1 month in order to get our deposit back
• A direct quote: "This is backbreaking work, if you have any back problems this job is not for you. The first four days you will be very sore and tired, but after that you shouldn't feel anymore pain." ---WTF???!
• We don't get work everyday. Some weeks we may work 4 days straight then have 3 days off or work 2 days then 5 days off, it's unpredictable

Oh Sue, what are you trying to sign us up for? Hell?

After looking this over and exchanging a few "this sounds terrible" looks, we thought we wouldn't really be actually making any money there. The hours are unpredictable and we still have to pay for accommodation and we are only making $45 for every 1,000 plants we plant soooo I don't know... We thought on it half the day then called Sue back to ask a few more questions. She said that we are in groups of 4 and that if you are good, groups usually average around 5,000 plants per day. We told her of our concerns of not really saving any money and just breaking even or even losing money while we were there and she said that we shouldn't lose any money and that if we are then she would let us leave with our deposit back. We decided that we would get back to her about it on Monday or Tuesday and we decided to keep it in mind as a last resort. In the meantime we are going to go back down to the Sunshine Coast, which is about an hour from Brisbane and stay there for 3 days. During those 3 days we are going to look for other options of work and hope to God that something better comes along.

Today we booked our train tickets to a town called Maroochydore (Mar-oo-chi-door), so at least now we can get the heck out of Bundaberg and hopefully have a few more job opportunities there. If not, then Sue can welcome us into her personal hell.

While it is kind of stressful figuring all of this job stuff out, I do appreciate that it's all in the experience and I love how spontaneous everything has been. In situations like this, you really just have to roll with the punches and hope for the best! As for tonight, we are going to the bar downstairs and celebrating our Bundaberg departure off of the Happy Hour $5 pitchers from 8-10 pm :).

Cheers

Let the Good Times Roll - Fraser Island Adventures!

What can I say, a good time was had indeed. Like I said earlier we decided to take off from Brisbane and do one of the packages we booked just to have some fun before we started work agian. It was really nice to put any worries behind and have a solid adventure.

Being a baller

We arrived in Rainbow Beach on Saturday evening and checked into our hostel. Luckily we didn't have to really pay for anything because 3 days accommodation and a meal ticket was included in our package that we booked when we first arrived in Australia. We were told that we had to be up the next morning at 6:45 to do an orientation, which included watching three videos about different ways we can roll our van and how to avoid it, about how if we go in the ocean we will get attacked by sharks and about the dangers of dingos! After watching the videos, which kind of put us off, we got ready to be put in our groups for the vans. We ended up getting pretty jipped on this because we got put in the leader car, so none of us got to drive the whole time. Just the guide guy, Adam. Bummer. But don't worry, we still took fake pictures of us driving.. Seen below :). Our group consisted of me and my three guy friends who I have been traveling with the whole time, two Israeli girls, and a brother and sister from England. We all got along really well and played some really interesting games to pass the time on the road. At first we thought we were just only with our van the whole time but there were four vans following each other and we did all the stops together as a big group and camped out together, so that was nice because it gave us the opportunity to meet more people.

Crystal clear lakes!

Fraser Island is the biggest sand island in the world and there are several lakes throughout it that are beautiful. The first day we stopped for lunch then went to a lake where it was crystal clear and changed colors dramatically. The picture doesn't even do it justice. After swimming around for a few hours we went to our little campsite where we set up camp then cooked a nice little feast for everyone. The night was spent under the stars with jugs of goon at our sides and some hilarious banter. During the night the dingos came out and we could hear them running all around our camp site scavenging for food! Creepy.

The next day we went to another lake and went off roading a bit. We stopped at this beautiful lake with champagne waves but as soon as we got there it started pouring down rain on us so we had to run back to the vans! I managed to get a few good pics in though. Again the night was followed by good laughs but the dingos were much more aggressive this time! In the morning we woke up and they had torn through four of the tents when people were sleeping, including my friends' tent! There was a box of goon outside of the tent and they ripped it to shreds. Guess they were trying to have a good time too? Alcoholic dingos...tisk tisk.

Dingo aftermath!

The last day we had some breakfast then set out to see a few sites. First we went to this huge sand dune which had a lake at the bottom of it. It was about a two mile walk to get there then we spent a few hours there before heading to our next destination. We made some wraps for lunch then headed to this canal where we could walk through, it was pretty cool! I kept hearing this guy shouting out, "This is just like Minnesota water!!" What?

About to walk through the canal

After the canal we stopped and saw a giant ship wreck that's been washed up ashore for a long time and snapped a few photos. Pretty neat that a giant ship wreck is still just on the beach after all these years. It was used during WW1. Sadly after the shipwreck it was time to head back to Rainbow Beach and back to reality! We still had 2 days accommadation left on our vouchers so during those two days we were going to figure out our next move.

We decided that we were going to get on the OzExperience bus Thursday morning and head to a small town called Bundaberg. Pretty much the only thing cool to do there is go to the Bundaberg Brewery and yea, that's about it. Although there isn't much to do there, it's a good place for backpackers to stop for fruit picking work so we figured we would give it a go. I guess the hostels there set you up with work, so we will see what happens. I don't know if I really want to do the fruit picking, it sounds like some pretty strenuous work. Up at 5am every morning, picking fruit throughout the day in the heat. The boys are for sure going to do it but I will at least just get to Bundaberg so that I can get phone reception again and maybe check it out for like a week and if it's unbareable I think I'll try and do the barmaid job in a pub gig. The boys really need to do it because they need quick money and in order for them to receive their second year working holiday visa they have to fruit pick for three months. I can't get a second year visa so I don't really have a need to do the fruit picking.

That's pretty much all I've got for now. Tonight is our last night in Rainbow Beach then it's off to Bundaberg! I hope I can get some phone reception there, keep your fingers crossed for me!

Cheers

Fraser Island Here I Come!

Fraser Island

So we didn't last in Brisbane too long. We ended up walking over to the other Base hostel and talking to Jeremy about what kind of jobs were available. Basically, there were tons of jobs for me and absolutely nothing for the guys. He told me there were tons of barmaid jobs at the country pubs so I told him I would think on it and come back and see him if I am interested.
We went back to the hostel and hung out on the patio where we met a group of Aussies from the Sunshine Coast, which is about an hour from Brisbane. We made friends with them and one of them even offered to let us stay at his place next time we are in the Sunshine Coast. It's handy to make connections like that because accommodation isn't cheap!

The next day I was so bored of sitting in the hostel doing nothing so me and this guy from Israel who was staying in our room walked over to the Modern Art Museum. This turned out to be way more fun than I thought it would be! When you first walk in there is this huge Lego station full of white legos and you could just sit there for hours building things. Some people had made the most intricate, huge and awesome buildings. I sat there for about 30 minutes putting something together which was fun. After that we went into the "Balloon Room." This was literally a room full of purple balloons and you get like 3 minutes to just run around in it with random people. So fun and ridiculous. I felt like I was five years old again and it was awesome. There was also a Michael Jackson room full of just videos of people singing MJ songs--hilarious as well. We did this outter space optical illusion room, as well as sliding down a slide that went from the top of the museum to the bottom. Pretty efficient way of getting down if I do say so myself.

Throughout the day I had been thinking that I should just get out of Brisbane and go start doing some of the fun things I have booked and then just get a job afterwards. I was only just wasting time and money just sitting around in a city doing nothing so I might as well go off. When I got back to the hostel I was going to tell my friends that I was probably going to carry on in the next few days and turns out they were thinking the exact same thing. So we booked one more night in our hostel then booked Fraser Island. Fraser Island is something that is a must do when you are in Australia. It's like a 2 day, 3 night, 4-wheel-drive safari excursion across an island and you drive yourself. I guess there is kind of a guide person a ways ahead of you but they load up the vans with like 6-8 people and you just go and you camp out under the stars and swim and just have a blast. You are supposed to be 23 in order to drive it, so looks like I'm going to be one of the drivers for awhile! This should be interesting. I'm so excited to get there. We were going to stop in Noosa which is like a pretty island on the way but turns out we have to get to Rainbow Beach a night before to do an orientation for Fraser Island. Dang, oh well.

Yesterday it was raining all day so we couldn't really do much. My mate Jake and I walked over to this outdoor pub for a few beers just go get out of the hostel for awhile. The rest of the night was spent playing drinking games with our trusty goon. This morning we all woke up early to pack then had to walk over to the OzExperience bus to catch our ride to Rainbow Beach. This was the wooooorrsttt walk ever. We were running late so the boys were sprinting off to make sure the bus didn't leave, I was struggling pretty hard. I had my huge suitcase, my backpack, purse, 2 boxes of goon for our trip and my groceries. The bag to the goon ripped, everything was falling everywhere, it was raining and I was rushed. So after about the 3rd time I dropped everything I had to just leave my groceries in the middle of the street. I'm sure people thought I was some sort of crazy lady. One lady caught up to me asking if I wanted her to go back and get it for me but I just told her not to worry about it because I was in a big rush. Nice lady though. Luckily I made it to the bus on time!

It's been raining the past few days so we are keeping our fingers crossed for some good weather when we are on the island. Should be a good time none-the-less! I'll be sure to keep everyone posted on how it all goes!

Cheers