What's been going on..

I have decorated our house for Christmas! Hello kitchen roll Christmas Wreath! We also have the top of a Christmas tree that is propped up on a chair in the bay window, so I'd say we're in full festive spirit.

When you don't have TV or internet, you have to make do with what you can find. So we've had some very interesting evening entertainment...

We have an oven!! It's very old and very rubbish and is either insanely hot or cold, but it is an oven none the less. So I made cookies =] We have a slight obsession with cookies and cream ice cream (as in we eat half a tub every night, not even bothering with bowls) and hot, freshly baked cookies makes it so much better!! It also makes the house smell much better than the usual boy smell!

A gardener came and cut back our garden. It was an overgrown jungle that we were afraid to set foot in for fear of snakes and spiders. Now we can see it is huge, with different levels, a big washing line, a patio area and even a herb garden and vegetable beds. We also discovered this 'little' fellow.

I've been doing more acro yoga, this time on a very crowded Bondi Beach. Yep, even in December the sky is this colour and even the breeze is hot.

 And the best part...
After a ridiculously long interview process and auditions, I have a job at Luna Park, the iconic theme park down on the water at Sydney Harbour. It's an incredible place to be, looking out on the harbour bridge and the opera house, with boats sailing past. I am a rides operator, so it's my job to check the rides first thing, ensure guests are strapped in properly, start and stop the rides.

The park was first opened in the 1930s, and it has retained all of it's classic charm. All the original artwork and a lot of the rides remain. While it has been done up and reopened after a massive fire burnt the place down in the 70s, it's still very old school.

Today was my second day and I had a man fall down a 40ft slide while attempting to get into his mat. And then, I managed to break an entire ride ! My supervisor who was checking I knew what I was doing asked me to turn it off. I did. But then we couldn't turn it back on. Oops.

Epic in Epping

It's all change again!


I quit my blueberry picking job. It was hard work that I stupidly started doing in the hottest part of the year. But mostly I quit because it was a pay-to-work situation. I was paid $7.50 per bucket of blueberries, then I had to pay $26 rent per night, and $5 each day for the bus to the farm and back. With tax, I was just about floating, but I definitely wasn't saving anything for the big adventures I want to have. So I decided to leave Coff's Harbour and head back to the friends I'd left in Sydney.


I went back to Bayside Conference Centre for a few nights, until WE GOT EVICTED! It turns out our landlady did not get government authorisation for us to live there, and a 'lovely' neighbour over the road decided the best use of his time was to photograph people coming and going and forward it to the council.


So I was very nearly homeless. But I was saved. By a beautiful house in Epping. It's a suburb about 40minutes out of Sydney, with good public transport links and a shopping plaza with an incredible food court about 10 minutes walk away. It is a 3 bedroom house - though we turned the 2nd lounge into another bedroom) with a big garden, and I share it with 2 English guys, Marcus and Will (though he is half Swedish so doesn't completely count as English), 2 German guys and 2 German girls.


Our landlady at Bayside is a property agent for this place and she said we could take anything from the Conference Centre. Will very helpfully drives a dumper truck, so we loaded his van with beds, sofas, chairs, back packs and kitchen equipment and made our way to our new home. Over here if people don't want something they leave it outside on the street for people to take if they want it. We got a table, some speakers and a great corner sofa that had been only slightly mauled by a dog. For the first night we had no electricity so we were walking around with head torches, a bit like camping in your own home.


It's a very nice neighbourhood with big houses, and I'm not sure what they thought about 7 young people using a dumper truck to move in with some slightly bizarre office furniture, a semi-destroyed sofa (now patched up with duct tape), lots of back packs and a spear gun*.

* Will's job requires him to pick up things from construction sites and private businesses and homes. He's always picking up interesting things, chairs, stereo system, and the latest acquisition is a spear-fishing spear gun.

Blueberry Picking

I headed north from Sydney, along the Pacific Highway up the East Coast. I stayed in Port Maquerie for a few days with a great friend from uni, Toya. She is a doctor in the ER and now works out here because the conditions are so much better then in England. She has a beautiful apartment less than a minutes walk from the harbour that she shares with 2 other doctors. Toya and her friends indulged me in a life of luxury, with my own room and big double bed, a jet ferry ride where we saw dolphins up close,  movies on tap (including the new Bond film which was mostly emotionless and bland), copious amounts of tea and incredible bunches, and Toya's delicious pak choi soup!

And then I travelled onwards to Coffs Harbour. Staying at the Hoey Moey on the beach,  I walked straight into a job on day 1 as a blueberry picker at Ravinder and Davinder's farm in Bonville. It's a pretty simple job - you pick the berries off the bush and put them in your bucket, and then you do the same thing again and again and again, and if there's time you do it again! It is hot, backbreaking work in serious heat. It is generally +30° and is usually 32-34 by 8 or 9 am. I start at 6am and go until 2 or 3:30 in the afternoon. Today it got up to 38°C which was pretty horrendous, but we have had days up in the 40s. Sometimes you can get a good line of bushes where all of the fruit hangs in bunches on the outside; then you can do 10 or 11 buckets - once I even got 15, but usually all the berries like to hide right in the middle so you have to stick your whole upper body into the bush. You get scratched and cut and I've lost count of the amount of splinters I have.

A word to the wise! ALWAYS WASH YOUR FRUIT!! We like to sweat all over it!

Things I Have Learned As A Blueberry Picker
1) It is hard work!!
2) It pays REALLY badly!!
3) The best moment ever is when you go to pick one berry,  move the leaves and see there is a whole bunch of big juicy ones!
4) The worst is when you bend down and the top layer of berries fall out of your bucket.
5) Correction, the worst is when a full bucket randomly decides to tip itself over.
6) Berries often hang in pairs, and after a while it does start to feel like you are just pulling multiple tree testicals...

7) There's a lot of time to actually listen to the lyrics in your music. Some songs really mean completely different things that you always thought. And some are really profound. 'The wisdom's in the trees not the glass windows' is rather apt when you have your face in a tree!

8) French rap is very bizarre.

9) Almost as bizarre as German musicals.

10) Blueberry wars are the best way to get through the day.

11) Blueberry juice stains skin for a long time.

12) The best thing to do to cool off after work is dive straight into the ocean.

Today was pretty cool. On the journey home, our boss and bus driver stopped off to buy us a 48 crate of beer! Beer on the beach before diving head first into the waves - not such a bad way to live.

Sydney

Sydney is an interesting city. In ways it is very similar to London, or any other big city, with masses of people, endless streets and sprawling suburbs. There are lots of beautiful areas; the Botanic Gardens, Circular Quay, Darling Harbour, The Rocks. And then there are the streets with the same shops and eateries repeated every 500meters. Hungry Jacks, Lorna Jane, Pie Face, JB HiFi, 7/11. There is shopping centre after shopping centre, no less than 8 on the street I lived on - although to be fair it is quite a long street. And with everything built in blocks, with long straight roads crossing long straight roads, it's far too easy to walk in the wrong direction! I have wasted many hours walking the wrong way on the right street!

I spent a long time searching for work in the city, getting stressed looking for somewhere to live and some way to pay for the expensive cost of living in Sydney. I was getting tired and grouchy with living out of my backpack in a noisy hostel where every night was disturbed by some rowdy roommate or other stumbling in at silly oclock. 

I felt trapped.

Until eventually I realised I didn't have to stay. Yes, my friends were staying, but that didn't mean I had to. As much as I liked being with them, this was my trip, and it was up to me to make the most of it. I didn't come to Australia to live in a city and work in an office just like I did back in England. 

It was time to move on. 

So I started making plans as we moved into a suburb of Sydney called Drummoyne. I worked for a wine festival, Vino Paradiso, in The Rocks, a hip area down by the water that is full with cool bars, restaurants and local markets. And I spent my days doing all the tours and trips that were included in my 2 week introduction to Australia package. I visited Hunter Valley and the Blue Mountains. I had a day surfing at Umima beach in Woy Woy. That was a beginner surf day, and because I knew what I was doing, I spent the whole day on the water with my own personal coach. I also went to Tarronga Zoo, and Sydney Aquarium where they have 2 of only 5 dugongs who live in captivity. I'm usually against creatures in cages, especially when they are as big as dugongs, but these 2 have been rescued from the wild and after release attempts it was deemed they would not survive alone. So I indulged in their beauty, and even got a high 5 from Wuru.

The problem was, I fell in love with life in Drummoyne. We lived in Bayside, an old conference centre, that was gradually being converted into accomodation. The rooms still had an office desk and filing cabinets to store our things. The media room had a big tv at the end of the huge board room table. It was a quiet, homely place, and felt a lot like living in halls at uni. I was sharing a room with Cara, David and Marcus from our original 6, and there were a lot of other couples and individuals. People would be working but we would hang out in the kitchen in the evenings, cooking and eating and drinking together.

I started acroyoga with Will, an English guy and intrepid traveller. He learnt the techique in Bali, or Indonesia, or somewhere else in South East Asia, and we built on what he knew with youtube videos and a lot of practice and falling. 

Acroyoga involves 1 person lying on their back and using their hands and feet to manipulate another person into positions in the air. It's an incredible work out and really works your flexibility and core strength. I loved it. And I loved life in our strange little conference centre.

But I had made plans and needed to follow them through. So I caught my bus up to Port Macquerie and met up with my wonderful friend Toya from uni. She is working out here as a doctor in the Emergency Department, and has a beautiful appartment that looks out over the water. We went on a jet boat ride, saw dolphins from the water, climbed a mountain, visited a koala hospital, had many delicious brunches with her friends, and Toya cooked me her famous Thai Soup That she once made me in Plymouth - it was so good!!

Blue Mountains

The Blue Mountains are definitely up there in my most beautiful places list. I spent a day exploring them, but could have stayed for much longer!

On the way I stopped at Feathervale Wildlife Park and made some new friends. Kangeroos and wallabys roam freely, and they're curious little things. Especially if you have an icecream cone filled with food!

The Blue Mountains is a huge region of cliffs, waterfalls and endless eucalyptus forests. The oils in the eucalyptus leaves diffuse into the air which creates an ethereal blue haze across the sky.

One of the most popular landmarks is the Three Sisters. Its a huge rock formation with an Aboriginal legend. The story says that many years ago a magical witch doctor named Tyowan lived in the mountains. He had 3 daughters, Meehni, Wimlah and Gunnedoo, and he would leave them on the cliff when he went down into the valley to hunt. One day they were frightened by a giant centipede (because that happens) and one of the sisters threw a stone to scare it away. The stone fell down the cliff side and awoke the Bunyip, a monster who lived in the bottom of the valley. The Bunyip raced up to the sisters, but Tyowan turned them into rocks to protect them. The Bunyip then turned his anger on Tyowan and chased him throughout the mountains. At a dead end Tyowan turned himself into a lyre bird to hide in the cracks of the cliff face. But in the process he dropped his magic wand. To this day the lyre bird roams the mountains searching for the lost wand, unable to turn himself or his daughters back to their human form.

Hunter Valley

Hunter Valley is beautiful! It's real countryside, with sprawling vineyards covering the hills. And I was lucky enough to travel through the valley and stop and visit 3 of the many wineries. And all 3 provided a wine tasting session...

First up was McGuigan Wines. 

I got a tour of the factory and saw the presses and the huge fermenting barrels. The biggest one is 54,000 litres, which converts to 72,000 bottles!!

Drayton Family Wines was vineyard #2 And they provided 9 wines to taste - and not in a small measure either, it was almost half a glass. Wine gets me very drunk very quickly, so by this point I'm feeling substantially pissed!

A stop for lunch and then onwards to Wynwoods Estate.  By wine #23 we are all starting to get pretty rowdy.

Until the 2 hour bus journey back to Sydney, where everybody fell asleep. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the free flowing wine meant we made friends quickly and had lots of interesting conversation!!

 

 

# Hostel Life

Welcome to Wake Up

I've been living here for 3 weeks now.

Life in a hostel is a strange cross between living in a house and a hotel. You live in a dorm room with between 4 and 10 bunks, and the more people the cheaper it is, so Iv'e mostly been living with lots of people. Which is good, except people snore.
Or return from a night out at 3 in the morning, and stumble around drunk turning on every light, knocking things over and talking really loudly. You never really get a good night's sleep. Especially if you've got a creaky bunk without rails.



The hostel I've lived in for the longest is Wake Up, and in the basement is Sidebar, one of Sydney's most popular clubs. It's a great place with an awesome buzz. And it's great to be able to just get the lift upstairs and fall into bed - no long walk or taxi ride. But you can hear the bass line even from the 7th floor.


Meal time is always quite frustrating. Though the hostels have kitchens, they are always far too small for the ammount of people trying to use them. There are never enough pots or pans, plates or cutlery, so you end up waiting to use something - usually a hob. Though there are lots of stations and hobs, most don't work. And everyone is jostling for the same spaces. And then, of course, people don't clear up after themselves. If you've ever been to uni or lived in a flat with 4 or 5 people, imagine that times 100!!!

I have lived in Wake Up, in the Central Business District for 3 weeks, and that is far too long! This weekend I moved to a suburb called Drummoyne with 3 of my friends. It's a lot cheaper to live outside the city, and quieter too. We now live in Bayside Conference Centre. It used to be an office building, and is in the process of being converted. People only started living here about 2 weeks ago, and there is still a lot of fine tuning going on. But it's another good crowd with a mix of age ranges, nationalities and personalities. The 4 of us, Cara, David, Marcus and I are sharing a room - complete with office desk and filing cabinets. The media room still hosts the boardroom table! It's spacious and comfortable and quiet here. There are no bunks, instead we each have our own single bed, there's a clean kitchen and a bus stop and supermarket round the corner and a short walk to the harbour. Not too shabby at all.

SURF CAMP

I'm back in Sydney now after what was one of the greatest weeks of my life! 

Monday morning I got a coach down to 7 Mile Beach in Gerroa with the rest of my crowd, and checked in to our bunks in a caravan park. After the initial talk we suited up (though it is sunny, the water is still pretty cold as we are only just in Spring over here), and headed down to the beach.

It's been so long since I surfed, and I never had a proper lesson, so I went completely back to basics and learnt from scratch, getting rid of all of my bad habits. We started off small on white water waves, working on balance and the correct pop-up technique. The Chicken Wing method is so much better than what I was doing; I always used to lose my balance and fall down.

Chicken Wing; push upper body up, back heel to knee with flat foot, straighten arms, step through with back foot into safety position, push off arms and stand.

Up at 7 for breakfast before the morning session, then a bbq lunch, rest and session 2. Then drinks and chilling into the evening. Quiet time starts at 10, so you either go to bed or to the beach, where the stars were incredible. I have never seen them so bright!

Just like everywhere else I have been to, the people at surf camp were great. The guys who ran it were so much fun and really great teachers. I learnt so much from them.

I learnt to turn left and right properly, and ride the wave to the side instead of straight forwards. We progressed onto green unbroken waves pretty early in the week, learning the easiest ways to paddle out back behind the impact zone. At first the guys were pushing us in to the waves, telling me when to paddle, when to get up. But I quickly got my head around it. I watched them judging the swell lines as they came in, saw when they would send someone or hold back. I got familiar with which bumps in the water were going to grow into a good wave, big or small, where they would break and where the best position was to catch them. And then it was game on. I caught green wave after green wave, and headed back for another with the biggest grin. 

There was only 1 afternoon, at low tide, when the waves weren't great. And then we just got silly and had fun. Practicing silly tricks; the coffin (lying on your back, hands crossed), driving the car (bit of mime work to keep it fresh), the golf swing (you get it...), 180s, and my personal favourite, the buddha.

 Two lessons a day, 3 hours each. By Wednesday I was starting to ache. By Thursday the bruises were showing and by Friday the friction spots were all red and bloody. I feel like I have spent a week in a boxing ring - my body looks like it too.

Dream Team

A 21 hour journey on a Greyhound Bus and I arrived in Sydney.

Sydney is a great city. It is very like London with interesting cafes and restaurants lining the streets, beautiful parks, big shopping centres and hip people. It's huge, sprawling over miles of streets and suburbs, and I'm really struggling to orient myself - I spent a couple of hours this morning on the same few streets trying to get back to where I'd come from, walking in circles. I even had a map and couldn't figure it out! (I blame the map!)

I am here with a 1 year work and travel visa, on a 2 week orientation package with AIFS - the American Institute for Foreign Study. There are 6 of us on the programme, all from England! From left to right, Marcus, David, me, Cara, Lauren and Jonno. Everybody is great and we get on really well. We are thinking of getting an apartment in Sydney together and staying here for Christmas and New Years - they are BIG in Sydney!!

Marcus and I have an interesting back story. We met, not in Sydney, but in LA. We were sat together on the flight from Los Angeles to Fiji! And in Fiji we just happened to stay in the same hostel for a few days at the end of my trip. He stayed in Fiji while I was in the Sunshine Coast, flying over a week later, and yet we still somehow managed to walk into our hostel here at the same moment!

Time has flown! So far we've been so busy without actually doing much! We've had a few talks about working here and travelling. We've set up bank accounts and applied for Tax File Numbers. We've done a great walking tour of the city, sat around in the sunshine, and worked on CVs, looking for jobs and apartments.

We've also done lots of socialising!! Lots of places here do free pizza and drinks evenings, before moving on to a bar. Our first night we joined the party in the Greyhound store and made friends with the guys who work there. We got free drinks all night, Lauren won a skydive, and we have been promised an incredible deal travelling up the East Coast. We are going in to see them about it today, so more on that later...

We took a day out from job hunting and headed into the sunshine with a couple of other friends. We got a ferry from Sydney Harbour, sailing past the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, and 30 minutes later arrived in Manly beach, one of the most beautiful beaches in Sydney. White sand beaches, sunshine, waves, the perfect place to chill out. Surprisingly the water was FREEZING! Much colder than the Sunshine Coast, though perhaps not as cold as England.

We've split our 2 weeks in half, and in the middle, we've booked in to another great deal. Tomorrow we are going to SURF CAMP! We travel down to Seven Mile Beach where we will live in cabins on the beach for 5 days. 2 surf lessons a day, with bbqs and camp fires and 100 people. From everything we've heard, it is going to be epic. I am ridiculously excited and acting a little bit like a kid on Christmas Eve.