Australia

Melbourne & The Australian Open

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The main reason I came back to Melbourne was the Australian Open – I’d booked tickets whilst in Sydney, and have since been looking forward to the Melbourne climate. What should’ve been a five or six hour travel day from Cairns turned out to be around the 13 hour mark, but bearing in mind that I have a 30+ hour travel day next week it’s not too bad.

Unfortunately, my first day was eventful: a change of plans on the tram into the city made me miss Bourke Street on the day a car got driven down there, had they not changed I would’ve been either down Bourke Street or very close. The first couple of days I spent in Fed Square watching the tennis on the big screen there, as well as a visit to Hosier Lane.

On Monday I went to see the games. My ticket covered four matches,  but after three my brains were pretty fried. I saw the mens doubles where Bryan/Bryan won; the only remaining Brit Johanna Konta beat the Russian Makarova and Brady from the US pay against Lucic-Baroni. I missed the last game, a mens singles, but enjoyed my day and caught the Nadal game back in the hostel.

For me, time spent in Melbourne isn’t complete without a trip to the pub so I made sure that happened. Last time I was in the city I wasn’t too fussed by it, but now I’ve been gone and the weather is heaps nicer, I realise that it is actually bloody good.

If all goes to plan between now and the end of the year, I should be able to take some time off work in Januay and I intend to re-visit the Australian Open. I hope to splash out a bit and see a few matches and maybe even a final.

East-Coast Australia: My Final Thoughts

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Today is my last day of travelling the East Coast. Whilst it has been nice not being employed, compared to Europe it has been underwhelming. Parts of it I really enjoyed (Great Barrier Reef, Magnetic Island, Noosa), parts were a bit meh (Sydney, Brisbane) and some bits went so badly that I have a good story to tell (Whitsundays aka the Alright Barrier Reef).

I think one of the parts that let me down were the hostels; in Europe there’s a lot more getting to know each other, whereas over here I feel that it’s a lot more getting to know people by competitively drinking something that vaguely resembles boxed wine, also known as goon – something that I do not do.

With all of that said, I can now plan for my travels in Australia during my second year accordingly. There will be three trips abroad this year, one of them being next week. I can have fun for the next couple of weeks, then I need to sort out my second year visa. This might include a 30+ hour travel day.

Overall, I am glad that I went with it and have completed this trip but I’m glad to be going back to Melbourne in the morning.

Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef

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There is not a lot to do in Cairns besides chilling out near the lagoon and finding places to eat sushi. I came here to see the Great Barrier Reef and have it live up to the name, as it was the Alright Barrier Reef  at the Whitsundays. I booked up a trip on the boat Silverswift and whilst expensive at AU $200+, it’s completely worth it.

As I’m not a decent swimmer, I did think about getting a see-through bottom (probably has a proper name)  boat tour as I’d be more comfortable, but like most other things within reason it’s more worthwhile to push the boat out and do the more daunting things.

With an early start, I made my way to the pier and caffeinated myself up on board. It took just over an hour and a half to reach the reef then once suited up, this time with a buoyancy jacket, we were let loose into the sea. I don’t have pictures, but what I saw was amazing; the fish were were so brightly coloured and was incredible to swim/float over the coral, watching the fish. One thing that I have to say is that if your internal sarcastic monologue, like mine, is hilarious, don’t laugh because it loosens the seal on the goggles. I also saw some fish that looked like someone I used to work with, as well as someone from school so I had to sort the goggles out a few times.

The second snorkel was the best; there were so many more fish and I was more trusting of the buoyancy vest. I saw a few fish that I recognised from Finding Nemo, though no clown fish, but a similar anemone fish which is close enough. I also saw a jellyfish and some patterned like a giraffe, there were also a lot more fish in the coral, but no turtles this time which I was eager to see.

There was a snorkel tour done by one of the guides on the third and final swim, and there were too many people. I opted to hang at the back then go my own way which paid off – there was a turtle that the group missed so I stayed to watch it for a few minutes, and went behind it as it swam up to get some air. I didn’t expect to get so close to the turtles because of the vest, so this was awesome. The fish were impressive during this snorkel, though not as much as the other two. One of the most noteable things I saw was a ray digging around in the sand.

Once the third swim had finished, we returned to Cairns. This was by far one of the best experiences I’ve had in the past year of travelling, the highlight being getting so close to the turtle. I’m going to have a Google of snorkel spots in Australia, get an attachment for my gopro and snorkel again during my second year in this country. I may not be the biggest fan of Australia, but this is one of the things that has made coming over here worth it.

Magnetic Island

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It was a bit of an ordeal to get out of Airlie Beach and I was glad to see the back of it; it’s a place to go to the Whitsundays so there is not a lot to do.

Magnetic Island is a few hours away on the bus to Townsville, then a 20 minute ferry to the island. On the day I arrived I tackled some of a bushwalk without changing from my flip flops which wasn’t ideal.

The first full day I chose to do the Forts walk, through an Australian World War II base, which was quite interesting to see. I have no idea how the Australians got everything up the hill as I was struggling with just a backpack. On the way up I saw a few koalas as well as where the soldiers were based during the war.

The next couple of days were more of the same: a lot of walking. The second day I did the longest trail on the island, part of it through a rainforest which was difficult in the humid conditions. Once I found where the end of the trail was, I made a plan to start there and walk to the hostel through three or four other trails for my last day. It was bloody difficult, around 14km on a hot, humid day taking a good four hours, though starting in the rainforest was the worst of it, and was pretty rewarding once I’d completed it and had a lay down after. I’m pretty sure I saw walked past a death adder judging by the tail, but I wasn’t exactly going to hang back and make sure when the name suggests that it, like half the wildlife in Australia, wants to kill me.

The Whitsundays

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Last week I went to Airlie Beach to do a tour of the Whitsundays. I try to watch my language writing on here, but there is no other way to describe it than a complete fuck up from start to finish.

To start with, I had a 14 or so hour bus ride from Hervey Bay, which broke down at 4/5am, and we had to wait a couple of hours for the bus behind us to come and pick us up. I did manage to watch Inception on the bus, which I’ve been meaning to do for a couple of years which I think was one of the highlights of the trip.

I had a day in Airlie Beach to waste, then the next day I had to check in at the Ozsail office to get information for the trip. I saw a couple of people there who were at Fraser Island so we spent the morning together.

The first day on the boat wasn’t too bad, it rained a bit but the crew and other people were a good crowd. The next day, however, I woke up to the boat being thrown around. I was going to get changed then get onto the deck, though it took me a couple of seconds to realise that I had to get onto the deck asap, otherwise I’d be redecorating the boat.

The sea was rough and it was absolutely pissing it down so I got soaked. I witnessed a member of staff fall over and nearly fall off the edge. We were going to go to Whitehaven Beach, but it was not really do-able due to the weather.

We decided that we were better off doing one night instead of two, so a couple of snorkel stops were scheduled. As I’m not a strong swimmer, I had been assured that there would be a floatation device so that I wouldn’t drown, which was engraved with “warning: this is a toy,” which, obviously was incredibly reassuring.

I saw some of the reef which was cool and a turtle, but it wasnt really a prime spot to see it, so after 20 minutes having my life depend on a child’s swimming pool toy, we got back onto the boat and went back to the land.

The next day, I checked out of my hostel then got a phonecall from the bus company telling me that all the buses were cancelled for the next couple of days as the roads were flooded. It wasn’t all bad; I went to a better hostel then ended up having a room trip to domino’s then we went on a night out. I have never been on a night out in flip flops, but this was a first.

I don’t think I need to summarise what I think from this part of the trip. Anyone who’s Facebook friends with me would have seen my Karl Pilkington – inspired “it’s not the great barrier reef, it’s the alright barrier reef” post, which more or less sums it up. I’m hoping to come back whilst there is better weather for a daytrip, rather than an overnight one and snorkel properly at some point between now and when I travel to Melbourne.

Fraser Island

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I have wifi again, although it isn’t great, so excuse the lack of pictures.

I chose to do a trip to Fraser Island over New Years, a UNESCO heritage site. We had a pep talk the night before where the tour company squeezed in the fact that we were in tents and had no showers, which was marvellous of them.

We had to leave the hostel on the first day at 6am, and headed off to the ferry port in the four wheel drive cars. Once on the island, we were soon fearing for our lives due to the off-road driving. First, we headed down to a rainforest with a fresh water river running through, where we also stopped for lunch. After, there was a bit more off – road driving until we got to Lake Wabbi – a bit of a walk from a beach through a forest,  then onto a sand dune, and finally into the lake. The lake contains fish that eat the dead skin off of your body.

After the walk back to the beach we drove to the camp where we cooked dinner, seperated into groups. Because of the fact that I’m a chef I opted to cook, not going to lie but I didn’t want someone to give me a rare or cooked to shit burger, and of course I had a backseat driver. All of the suggestions I responded that I’d just do it to their food and they could clean up the mess. It worked.

We had a few drinks, half the group were playing ring of fire. It’s a game where everyone has their own rules and everyone is convinced that their rules are right, kind of annoying so I sat out of it and chatted to some people. After a while we left the campsite where the night sky was the clearest I’ve ever seen it, and I doubt I will see anything like it until I see the Northern Lights someday. Of course, as we are in a country where half the wildlife wants to kill you, we had to take jagged plastic poles in case a dingo came after us.

The second day the weather wasn’t so great, I started off couting at least 50 mosquito bites. It was a lot of driving and the novelty of having your life flash before your eyes had worn off. The first stop was the Champagne Pools; a lot of people didn’t really partake just because it was a miserable day. On the way back, we stopped off at the famous shipwreck, then Eli Creek, which is a lazy river.

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The last day we went to Lake McKenzie, probably the highlight of the trip. The lake is clear, and the sand you can use as a body scrub as well as shampoo. We stayed there for a couple of hours and true to form, I got sunburnt. A couple of hours later,  we were waiting for the ferry.

Overall, the trip had its good and bad; I wish we were treated like people on holiday and not backpackers as it bought the Reading and Leeds Festival experience to what should have been a fantastic few days. I joke that I am a one man wolfpack like the guy in the Hangover films, but after the second night with 22 other people I needed some peace and quiet. I wouldn’t go again just because I’ve done it, but if I were to go again, I’d definitely pick a different company.

Noosa

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Eight nights in Noosa was more than enough, but given that it was Christmas, it was a nice place to be. I had a brilliant first impression of the hostel – the person using the locker prior to me had left two boxes of tea bags in there. It’s a shame that they didn’t leave any decent (English) bacon in there too, but there is only so much that you can ask for.

My hostel was pretty far out from the main beach area. I ended up doing the coastal walk twice, as well as part of it on two occasions. I Googled the distance between the path and the hostel, so all together the long walks came to roughly 16.8km. It’s a good walk – quite a bit of willing too; I saw a few koalas as well as lizards – one was around a metre long nose to tail.

I was looking forward to having decent weather on Christmas Day – I’m never too fussed by it, but I’ve skiied on it before and it would have been quite nice to have the opposite. Instead, it rained so hostel movie marathon was in order, including two Lord of the Rings movies.

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Yesterday, I went kayaking in the Everglades. I’m still not too sure what an everglade is, but I picked the right day for it – nice and sunny. It was a tour group, and with these kind of things there is at least one boat that think that they’re competing in the Olympics. Well, that was the boat I was in, team Flashpackers Hostel won gold.

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I’m having a quick stop in Rainbow Beach before going to Fraser Island, I’ll upload some pictures when I leave here.

 

2016: A Round-Up

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Almost eleven months ago, I boarded a one way flight from England to Malaga. Without a doubt, those five months turned into the best experience I’ve ever had.

I started off with the best country: Spain. I ate some food that stands out as some of the  best that I have ever eaten, I loved most places that I visited and I learnt a fair bit of the language that I’ve probably forgotten by now. Las Fallas Festival was well worth seeing, though I could quite happily not deal with the chaos for a while! I can see myself, once I’m finished with long-term trips, staying in Spain for a bit and trying to learn the language.

Italy was also a good one for the most part; whilst Rome wasn’t to my liking and Pompeii was alright, Venice and Florence I liked, and I definitely can’t forget Milan. I pressed the wrong button and ended up with a flight there instead of Venice, though I can’t moan after eating the best pizza I think I’m ever going to eat.

A few other places are worth a mention – Budapest, my favourite city in the world (so far). Liked it so much I went twice, loved the thermal baths, food, hostel and general feel of the city. I stayed in a great hostel in Prague, enjoyed re-visiting Berlin and exploring Porto. I’m pretty sure I’m still burning off the calories of the Franceschina that I ate. Oh, and I also saw Beyoncé.

I could go on for days about my trip to Europe. Next came Singapore, which gave me my first feel for Asia, and has left me wanting to see more. I did perhaps the most dangerous tour of a city that I could ever do, ate so much good food that it warranted two lunches and/or two dinners some days as well as seeing a culture that wasn’t too familiar to me.

What I was looking forward to the most about this year was Australia, and it’s been alright; besides the friends that I made,  nothing has really stood out compared to my other trips. The East Coast is almost over, then after a week long trip, I’ll be back in Australia working on a farm for my second year visa. I have a good feeling that after this week, the trip will pick up a bit and I’ll be very, very busy.

What will I be up to in 2017?  Firstly, I’ll be at the Australian Open in Melbourne, before going to Hong Kong for Chinese New Year… I’ve only mentioned it a few times! I’ll then be doing my farm work, and when it’s over I will put my feet up for a couple of weeks. Then, I’ll be back at work for up to six months, saving  up my money again for some more trips. Japan is definitely on the cards, and I may go somewhere else. I honestly don’t see myself finishing the two years in Australia, though my visa will expire in July 2018, so I’m expecting to spend the whole of 2017 down under.

I have a couple of goals for the next year: firstly, I’d like to find my own place to live rather than a hostel, although there is more chance of me becoming the next pope than trying to balance work, life and living in and hostel ever again. I’d also like to learn something that isn’t work-related, take another cookery class abroad (Japan, I’m looking at you), and eat something that most English people wouldn’t consider eating.

If you click the read more button, you’ll see some of my favourite pictures. I tried to narrow it down to 10, but that quite obviously wasn’t going to work out.

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Gold Coast/Surfers Paradise

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I’d arrived in Surfers Paradise on Tuesday and just went out for a walk. The hostel had advertised a night out at a beer garden which is something that I was interested in (surprise!) which turned out to be a shit club with the name Beer Garden, so I left after 20 minutes.

It’s been a while since I actually did something, rather than sit around so on Wednesday I made the journey to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. It’s the kind of thing that I assume is going to be for kids and entertaining their grown ups but figured that I’d give it a go anyway and it was quite a good day out. I learnt some useful information as well, for example, a platypus can run up to 40km/hour in short bursts.

I think that by now, I can write a lengthy book about how I’ve been woken/kept up by, and last night was one of those nights. I stayed in whilst two of my roommates went out, one of them came in at half 1, got into bed and made a phonecall until I called her out on her bullshit, which, apparently was ok because she was whispering and I was in the wrong for saying something. Half hour later, roommate #2 made an entrance by knocking on the door so hard that I thought the door was on its way off the hinges. I really do miss having my own room.

Today, I have done pretty much nothing as I’m based in a tourist trap, then tomorrow I’m off again.

Byron Bay

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To get to Byron Bay was a 13 hour bus ride from Sydney. I go into these things thinking that I’ll get a fair bit of sleep and like every time I’ve travelled overnight, only managed an hours sleep or so.

As I had arrived at 7.30 am, I ditched my backpack in the hostel and went for breakfast at a cafe nearby. I got the impression that I’d rather like the town, but there is only so much you can do there if you’re not a massive fan of beaches. I had a look around the shops and read a book in the hostel.

My second day there I did the Coastal Walk to the famous lighthouse, which to get to you have to be at the most eastern point of mainland Australia. Of course with these things there is someone who had to outdo everyone by climbing over the safety barrier to be more east than everyone else. Twat.

The next day I went on a day trip with some other backpackers to a small hippy town called Nimbin. On the way there we stopped off at a pub to get some bevvys for the journey, and I’m not too sure what impression a bus full of people in their 20s, most with a drink in their hand gave before midday. After Nimbin, we stopped off at a National Park for a BBQ, and then a waterfall that would be more accurately described as a leak.

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I didn’t do much else during the week; I manged to read four books and had a tasting at a brewery. To be honest, the East Coast hasn’t excited me so far. I have to hang back a bit because I have a trip booked over New Years, so I’m hoping that next month I get back to travelling at the same pace that I did Europe at.