Today, I opted to go on a tour to Wineglass Bay since my driving skills aren’t brilliant. To be fair, I would’ve paid the $90 to not hire a car and spend 7 hours driving anyway. Once we arrived, we walked up to the lookout point, then the group split up. I chose to go to the beach as it’s ranked one of the top in the world, to walk there was good but to get back up was a right pain in the arse.
This week turned out as expected: heaps of work. I didn’t have Friday off, then I had it off, then got booked in for work. I had my last shift at work earlier on today which once again brought my hours up to above 60, and a payslip that I shall be quite happy with.
Besides work, I went back out again with the tour operators Hike and Seek to the Great Ocean Road. The tour once again was really well done and they provided me with a copious amount of coffee, which was well needed after the past couple of weeks. The company are really taking off which is great to see, especially as the people behind it are lovely, and when I’m back in Melbourne I’ll definitely check out their tours that they are starting.
Last night I came back to the hostel last and there were people pouring alcohol down their necks almost as though the world was about to end, and I am so glad that I’m not participating in that kind of shit. Although a box of something that vaguely resembles wine costs under $10 and the following day unable to function, I’d rather just spend the money on something that I will really appreciate.
Tomorrow will be my first day where I can wake up after 5.30 am since last Thursday so I’m going to take advantage of that and get more than six hours sleep. I’m going to go out into the CBD and buy stuff for the next leg of my trip, then Tuesday I’ll carry on planning before I leave Melbourne on Wednesday.
Last week wasn’t that eventful – I was still off work for the most part, only worked three shifts. I went out on the piss on Friday and ended up with a shift on Saturday thanks to my drunken antics, so now I have a new answer to the how easy is it to find a job in Australia question. It was actually quite an enjoyable shift. Besides work, I went for a walk down to St Kilda Beach and, as usual, been for a few drinks.
One night during the week I shared a room with the most inconsiderate people who when asked to shut up at 1/2/3am got louder and tried to make us not sleep. Me being me, I sent the reception a shitty email which was described as “sassy yet professional” by someone I showed it to. It resulted in three people getting chucked out of the hostel which was a spectacular result.
Saturday I went for a 10km hike in the Grampians National Park which was bloody good – I went with the tour operators Hike and Seek, who take you on the 6 hour round journey in their combi, as well as guiding the walk. It was so nice to get out of the city for a bit, especially on a day with perfect weather for a walk.
This week so far I have worked 30 hours, and might be having another 17-30 or so left depending on a few things. It’s finally my last week in Melbourne and shall be on the move again on Wednesday next week, which means that my blog posts shall become a lot more exciting. In the meantime, I’m going to actually get some sleep on Monday and get my shit together for continuing with my travels.
For a change, I didn’t have work this week – I hurt my back so I wasn’t allowed to come in. I made pretty good use of my time off; I went down the park and played Frisbee, went out for a couple of drinks and was part of a team who won a pub quiz. Saturday, I went for a walk with some other long termers in the hostel around the lake outside – there was such nice weather, the kind of morning that made me realise that I’m lucky to live here.
I actually booked Tasmania up this week and spending two weeks over four places, then heading to Sydney for a week, where I think I’ll be spending New Years Eve this year too.
This week at the moment I only have one shift so I may be out doing touristy stuff. After this week I only have a week left until I leave Melbourne.
This past week has been rough: over 60 hours worked over six days in a row. I woke up on Thursday excited for Friday evening so that I could sleep and not have to wake up until the afternoon, probably a sign that I need to reign it in a bit. I’ve still managed a few beers though, which means that the week wasn’t a huge disaster. Tonight, I played some Cards Against Humanity with the long-termers in the hostel which was a laugh.
Next week will thankfully be a lot quieter on the work front, and have booked Monday and Sunday off, so I can actually do something semi-productive tomorrow. With only three to four weeks left in the city, I’ve booked up to go on a 11km hike at the weekend and there are a few bits and pieces that I want to do. Tomorrow, I’m going to find a cafe, caffeinate myself up and come up with a definite plan for leaving the city and what I’m going to do in the meantime, as well as booking some flights to Tasmania and Hong Kong.
As predicted, this week has consisted of the fun stuff: getting up at 4am for work, getting my back sorted out, and the stuff that is actually fun in a non-sarcastic manner: beer – I went for drinks a couple of nights in a row.
When I am travelling, or rather away from England, I get mistaken for being German a lot. It happened to me four times in one week before, my favourite being asking for a ticket for a national park in Croatia in English and being handed the map in German. This week, I was making my dinner and someone asked me a question – all I understood was the word professional, so then I asked them to repeat themselves and then I had to ask them to repeat themselves again… in English. Turns out they thought that I’m German.
Over the weekend, or rather my day off, I booked up with a small tour company to go on a road trip through the Great Ocean Road. I’ve been meaning to do it for ages and hopefully in a few weeks time the weather will be good for it. I also looked into Tasmania which seems to be difficult, but possible, to do without a car. I’ll enjoy it more without being confined to a multiple day group tour though I might have to book a few one day tours. There’s a distillery that produces either the world’s best whisky or one of the best near Hobart so that will definitely have to be done.
Once again, I have a six day work week, four(ish) weeks left until I’ll start spending the money that I’ve been earning, and I’m bloody excited to do that.
I’ve been in Australia for ten weeks now, and it seems as though for the past eight I’ve done nothing but work, drink, wash my work uniform and pop to Woolies, which is pretty much the same as what I used to do living in London. This weeks’ four day work week turned into a six day – definitely had one of those phone calls when I hung up the phone and thought “bollocks.” With that said, I definitely am getting itchy feet again so I’ve come up with a rough plan to keep me going until February, so I’ll be leaving Melbourne in six weeks time, and in the meantime I’m intending on doing more touristy stuff. I highly anticipate that it’ll get left until the last week though.
During the week I worked 55ish hours; if I list what I’ve done during the evenings I think it’ll give the impression that I’ve drowned myself in alcohol. I’ve either gone for drinks or stayed in watching TV with a bottle of vino. Yesterday I went to the Banksy exhibition in Fed Square which was pretty cool, its a bit weird for me to to see something so London themed so far away from where I used to live.
This week is going to be the same as this one, heaps of work over six days. I have already finished day one which was pretty rough to say the least and ended up being over 12 hours long.
I was also featured on Jenny’s blog, Explore, Adventure, Discover, during the week, check it out here
This week has been pretty much the same as the past few; I have done pretty much nothing. Friday was a public holiday so I had the day off and ended up playing football with some people from the hostel in the park outside. Yesterday I had to change rooms in the hostel so I had to pack my bag for the first time in a month or so and it’s pretty much safe to say that I have my own personal off-license in there. I worked four days and been out for drinks a couple of times, but that’s as exciting as it has been.
I also figured that I should probably get my shit together and figure out when I should start travelling again, so there should be six more weeks of work, before going to Tasmania, Sydney then up the east coast to Cairns, Hong Kong then back to Australia to do my farm work.
I had a three day weekend which made a nice change – I decided to go to the food market in South Melbourne and found some amazing produce so I’ve had a fair few nice dinners. I also went to the National Gallery of Victoria which seems pretty good, but I think I’ll be returning on a day when I wake up with a half decent attention span.
During the week I did the same as usual: a lot of chilling and a couple of nights I went out for drinks. Over a few days a lot of the familiar faces in the hostel left so there’s a lot of new people who I probably should try and get chatting to, which should make the next week or so interesting. Hopefully there will be no nutcases.
This week I have another three day weekend so I’m hoping for the usual – a few drinks, maybe a piss up and some chilling.
I havent really done much over the past couple of weeks – I had one day off last week which turned into a duvet day and had this weekend off. Yesterday I went out in the city, and I have spent most of today vertical.
One of the things that has struck me about Australia is that it is more American than English, in terms of the language. Peppers are now called capsicums, courgettes are now a word that I’m not going to attempt to spell and aubergines are now called eggplant. I’ve also greeted someone with “how you going?” And I’m guessing that it’s not going to be too long when I describe something in a quantity of more than two as “heaps” without taking the piss.
Outside of work this week I went out for a couple of drinks with an Australian friend and I went out on Friday twice – I’d just gotten in after spending a few hours out and a really good kebab, then I got invited on a night out so I figured that I might as well. It was a decent night, not amazing by any means. There’s one club over here that everyone in the hostel raves about that I went to for the first time. It turned out that there’s a $25 entry fee and it was shite for what I paid for.
Over the next week I have nothing planned apart from work but I’ll probably have a duvet day and try to go out for a few bevvys at some point.