I shouldn't get ahead of my self though, most of you haven't heard a peep from me since my unexplained Thailand photos were posted, and would probably like to know what I've been up to since then. Unfortunately Thailand stories will have to wait, and if you are still curious when I get back you can take me out for a drink and hear all about friendly people on third class trains, Thai New Years, REALLY steep hills on scooters, black moon parties, and caves with very large spiders (the classification of 'massive' now being taken by Australian spiders).
The first of May saw me touch down in the airport outside Sydney, a city that strikes me as big, sparkly, and rather Vancouver-like in atmosphere and geography. The central area is certainly very clean and classy wiht shiny skyscrapers and immaculately-kept parks and green spaces, but it still has some more "colourful" neighbourhoods such as the one where my hostel was located.(Cheap rent comes at a price I suppose). As it was autumn heading into winter it was not the hot weather most people imagine when they think of Australia, but it was mostly clear and sunny, and frankly after being in hot and humid places for five months the cool breeze was a relief. I spent a lot of time walking, taking in the Botanic Gardens, the Opera House, Darling Harbour, and anything that caught my interest and/or was free, (such as an extremely good exhibition of World Press photos at the state library).
A visit to Syndey without a picture like this just wouldn't seem right!
JELLIES!!! (Not the dangerous kind, though since this was in a downtown harbour you wouldn't go swimming there anyway)
My effort to find an original angle on an over-photographed landmark.
The boulevard in sunny Darling Harbour
The Sydney Botanical Gardens, looking as prestine as perfect as ever.
The view from my room at the hostle, "Asylum" - Bizzar name, but good rates.
Being in a big shiny city like Sydney, I had to go out at least once. On the right is Ben, a young German who became a sight-seeing buddy of mine, and can dance surprizingly well, even when more than slightly intoxicated. Behind him is a friend of his he ran into at the pub.
The thing is, all this traveling, even done on a backpacker's budget, adds up. I could not, however, resist the urge to indulge my cinema-craving by going to see the new Startrek movie on the biggest IMAX screen in the world, once I found out it was in Sydney.(Though I did it with a 50% off cupon, I might add). Luckily, I arrived in Oz with a work visa in hand and got right into job hunting. Unfortunately, the current ecomonic climate, and the fact that I knew I wasn't going to be staying in Sydney very long, made job hunting there a little tricky, so after a little over a week I decided to move on.
I headed up to the Blue Mountains, just two hours out of Sydney, but worlds away in climate. The Blue Mountains are actually a plateau, at a much higher elevation than the coast, which means it's cold!! I Got a job cleaning the YHA hostel kitchen in exchange for free accomadation, so I could take my time hiking around the area, and cozy-ing up with a book in front of the fire. It was fortunate I had time to include the latter because I think going so quickly from the extreme heat of Thailand and Africa to windy mountain-tops was a shock to my system, and I wound up with a cold. A quick recovery was important because I had scheduled a caving trip for the day before I left the area. It included hiking, climbing, squeezing through rather tight crevasses, and abseiling (or rappelling as we call it back home) into deep, narrow canyons. Excellent fun.
One of my tour-mates going down our first drop. I was the lucky one to be first over the edge.
The Three Sisters. According to some legends, a protective father had his three daughters turned to stone to guard them from the unwanted advances of young men, but they ended up stuck that way. Oops. Still, makes a great scenery and is one of the biggest tourist attractions of the Blue Mountains.
After the Blue Mountains I set myself up with a work-for-food-and-accomadation stint on a farm through the website helpexchange.net. Great website and a great way to travel, as it gets you off the tourist track and meeting more locals, and learning about their lifestyle and farming, or whatever it is that they do, (the website is not just for farm work). I stayed with the Booth family, who live just outside the small town of Wingham, pop 3970, about a 5 hour train ride north of Sydney, half way up the coast of New South Wales. They were great hosts and I really enjoyed my stay with them, although the weather could have been better - some of you may have seen shots of the flooding on the east coast of Oz a while back. We weren't as badly hit as other places, but it was still pretty darn wet! They have cows and chickens (or chooks, as they call them here), which I fed every day, and even had the joy a catching a few escapees when they got out of the coop.
One of the chook pens, an orange tree, and the weather-vein on one of the few sunny days on the farm.
Tree-planting to restore a local creek area.
Some effects of the flooding on the Manning River near Wingham- and this is after the water has already gone down some from the highest point!
After the first farm I headed up to Coffs Harbour, a coastal town with a nice marina, but it was really just a stop-over to prpare for the next step of my trip. (After being without regular or fast internet for a couple weeks, using the YHA expensive but super-fast connections let me catch up a little.) I set up another farm stay through help-exchange near Byron Bay, a tourist/hippy/surfer mecca, so I got a chance to visit it without paying a premium. By then the weather had improved a little, and though it was maybe a bit cold for swimming there were still surfers out and it made for a good wallk on the beach.
A surfer taking a break to admire the view.
That farmstay was only a few days, as I was keen to get to Brisbane to find a place to live and a paid job before my internship at USM Events started. (That, and by this point in my travels continuous tourism was just no longer financially feasable, so if I wantded to keep a roof over my head paid employment was a must). Also, as much fun as it has been wandering the globe and moving around to nobobdy's plan but my own, the prospect of having my own room and not having to carry spare groceries from one spot to the next every few days was beggining to look very attractive.
So when I landed in Brisbane in early June, about a week anf a half ago from writing this, I got right down to business. Though some of my fellow hostellers were impressed with my determination to find work (some of them had been there weeks with no results), even with continuous searching jobs don't just fall into your lap and I was very gratefull when some friends of my parents offered me a place to stay till I was up and running. Lise and Paul stayed at my parents' place for a summer when I was about five years old, when they were close to my age and on a similar travelling adventure. Lise is Canadian and decided to move to Austrlia with Paul (as Auzzie as they come), and they now live on the ourskirts of Brisbane with their three kids, Thomas, Liam, and Geogeia. They are generously letting me stay as long as I need, though I may not actually be here too much longer. I start work at a bike shop in a couple days, and after much searching I have found a few affordable yet decent places up for rent that look promising. In the mean time, I have an orientation meeting for USM coming tomorrow, so it looks like I am going to have no problem keeping myself busy.
Good thing I'm getting this blog done now :)
Hopefully by next post I can include photos of my new place along with my new city.
Till then,
Carla
1 comment:
I'm still following your blog! Oz sounds and looks awesome. So extremely jealous!
Please come back to Victoria to lead our Harry Potter fans on opening night. We're lost without you Mr. Frodo!!!!
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