Tom's Oz Travels

Well… doesn’t time fly…

For those of you who don’t know, I’m starting back at Direct Enquiries in Feb, so I had a little bit of an hmm what to do moment with the rest of my time. Moneys limited as I’m not working again and I’ve just had to buy flights home, so limited really is an understatement!

On Monday I fly out to Phuket, Thailand for a 3 week tour, making my way up to Bangkok where I fly home on the 15th Feb!

I wanted to see the west coast, but without working it’s not really possible, and with the limited time left, really isn’t possible! Plus, i’m fedup of worrying about money! So Thailand here I go!

Rich went home this week, and most of our friends in Sydney are going/gone now so it’s a nice time for me to leave. I probably should tell my mum that i’m coming home, but she’s on holiday and meh, she can read it in this? Either way, Mum, i’m coming home on the 15th and Dad, can I have a lift from the Airport? I’ll email you flight details .

So yeah, see you all soon? x

I’ve found a nifty little tool for you non facebook people who read this to view some of the pictures of my trip here in Australia. Just click Photo Gallery above or click this link to see some of my photos, including all from my Australia Zoo and East Coast Trip.

Tom x

Well the cricket turned around just a tad! Absolutely brilliant last couple of days in Brisbane, never forget that.

Brisbane itself was okay, but very over shadowed by the cricket. It was nice to meet up with some strand veterans though and there were a lot of messy nights. Not sure I’ve spent so much money in one week in oz yet…whoops but easily worth it.

We hung around after the cricket to see if we could grab a signature or two. Awesomely I have my ticket signed by the record breaking partnership of cook and trott and the Australian captain ponting. We also got a couple of pics with cook and ponting which is amazing. I’ll post them soon but I’m currently on my phone on our first greyhound coach experience. More on that in a minute.

On Tuesday we flew at 9pm to cairns, so by the time we got to the hostel it was well past midnight so we took that as am early night.

Cairns itself is pretty cool, wasn’t really sure what to expect but it was good. We spent the couple of days there by the lagoon (basically a big outside free swimming pool with some sand). The hostel we were in was fine for facilities but lacked people chatting, drinking etc and as I’m sure you can imagine after almost 8 months rich and I are running out of things to talk about. But it was still good. Like the clever people we are we decided to go out last night knowing full well we had to be up at 7 to get our bus. My alarm has the really depressing thing of telling me how long till it goes off when I set it, seeing 3 hours and 28 mins to go quite frankly is never good. But luckily we made it and were currently cruising through some rainforresty hills.

Next stop is townsville where we get our ferry to magnetic island, which I have high hopes for.

I’m still mulling over what to do with my last few months in oz, I don’t really want to work again, not properly anyways. Freelance and the odd days work is cool. But its rather an expensive country. The original plan was to work again and use our tax back to do Asia, but I want to do Asia for 4 or 5 months so I’m going to do that at the end of the year after a 6 month stint at home.

That leaves Jan Feb and March to think about. I’m leaning towards taking the tax back were owed now, (meaning we can’t legally work again in oz) hireing a car and driving from Sydney, very brief stop in Canberra and then down to Melbourne and then through to Adelaide. From there maybe a flight to Perth. Then maybe buggering off to Thailand for a month mid Feb and rather then travel there, chill out on a beach for a month. Who knows… But I can get a flight from Perth to Bangkok then to London for the same price as a flight home and its a lot cheaper to live there. We’ll see…planning isn’t our forte. On the upside I have work sorted for when I’m home.

Anywhoo I’m going to try and nap on the bus

Hey,

Lets start off with a bit of an update, we’re no longer at the strand! Three weeks ago some friends of ours (English Lee and Lizzie and French Alex) got a nice big house in bondi and offered us a place to stay, how could we say no! Cheap and near the beach, nothing more needs to be said about that. We only just got our first noise complaint (three house parties in! Not a bad effort really)

I say we’re no longer in the strand, that’s for living, we’ve been back quite a few times for a good night.

But now on to the present and why my month is better than yours. We’ve finally booked our east coast adventure let’s have a look at what Rich and I will be doing for the next month.

First Week

Leaving Sydney on the 23rd of Nov, to fly to Brisbane for the first test of the Ashes. At the gabba. So excited about this, genuinely can’t wait, hot weather, beer, cricket. Sorted.

After that..!

After the ashes, we fly up to Cairns for a few days there, from there we get the ferry to the Magnetic Island:

After that, we hop on a bus and make our way down to Airlie Beach

Airlie beach is where we pick up our boat for a 2 night 2 day sail around whitsundays, sun sea and alcohol – it’s going to be messy + fun.

Then, another day in airlie beach and back on the road to Rainbow beach to start our 3 day 2 night 4×4 self drive safari

From there, we potter on down to noosa

From there, Surfers Paradise

Back to Byron Bay

Then back to Sydney for Christmas and New Years

So this is why my next month is better than yours!

Tom x

What did you do this weekend? … This is what I did:

I did a 1,400km round trip to my new favourite place in Australia, Byron Bay. After trying to convice me all week French Alex finally got his way, 1pm Friday afternoon I decided yep, i’m going. And I’m glad I did!

Random is a rather understated word for the weekend. To fill the car up Alex found some nice people on Gumtree to come with us, so the 5 of us set off, Me, Alex, German Angelique, Swiss German Jenny and Australian Dan.

Alex and myself shared the drive up there, with a bit of a forced break along the way. At 12:01am this is the view in the rear view mirror as I’m driving:

“crap!” And why was I pulled over? Changing lanes from left to right as they merged and the left lane ended…and I didn’t indicate. $143 fine for not indicating! Ack!

Never mind, on with our journey we went. So next, we made it to Byron in one piece, one little issue though, it was about 4am and we didn’t really have anywhere to stay, so Alex, myself and our new friends shared a cosy night in his car.

As you can see, I look pretty comfy there…sleep didn’t happen for very long though by about 8am we were up again.

The reason we went to Byron was to visit some friends who we lived with at the strand for quite a few months as they’ve started their travels up the east coast. So it was great to see them again. We camped at a place called the Art Factory. The art factory is a hostel/campsite so you have the option, it has a lake in the middle, hammocks, wild turkeys running around and as many hippies as you could ever ask for.

The weather was perfect for the weekend, so clearly sunburn was lingering. On the Saturday we bought a couple of crates of beer and chilled out on the beach, kicked a football around, threw an AFL ball around and played a bit of Frisbee then a nice swim in the sea.

After that, invested in 3 bottles of vodka and headed back to the art factory, few drinking games, and went out to cheeky monkeys a club in town and then came back, chilled in the hammocks then went to sleep.

On Sunday we drove up to the lighthouse and then down to Tallow Beach:

As you can see the beach was practically empty, had the most fun being absolutely wiped out by the massive waves and extremely strong current. Then after that we walked to the lighthouse, down the track and we all took place along a cliff edge for a nice view of the sunset.

I’m not going to write any more to this, but post a few pics of the sunset. Whilst we were watching this sunset there were wild dolphins swimming beneath us. So yeah, what did you do with your weekend?

Tom x

Well, I guess I failed on the old blog-me-jobby. Thing is, we’ve been here for a while now and ‘trying’ to save money so we can move on in oct (once I come back for my fleeting two week visit to the UK). But the saving isn’t going great, getting drunk is just far too fun.

Well, I’ll try a chronological update backdating what’s gone on, so grab a cup of tea, pack of digestives and get comfy, this is a long one. – So Dad, you don’t have to moan at me when I ring home now 
Lets start with the boring stuff, Work. Works going well, the company are really really nice. They even let me come in last week late because I was going out the previous night for quite a big night out…now that’s my sort of company. And as always, I’ve changed to a more IT based role here now, making a new company website/ticket management system/CRM. Geekin’ it up for beer moneys, I spose I can live with that. If anyone’s interested http://aits.skinzy.net/new/ is how the new one is currently looking. (http://www.compuclean.com.au is the current one…). I’m here till I leave for the UK for Amy’s wedding then I think i’ll come back for 2 weeks then we’ll go off up the east coast. It depends on money as we still have to buy a car/campervan type thing and I need to get back to Australia some how in oct. We’ll sort that problem out later.

So, the last update was in May, what’s have we done…hmm, I guess the first big thing was my birthday. For this, we had ‘The Strand, Beer Pong Tournament 2010’. – As you can see this is the setup for the games. Basically teams (picked at random) you have to throw a table tennis ball in to the oppositions cups and if it goes in they drink it. There’s more to it but you get the idea. Congrats to Ben and James for winning.

I had a really good birthday, seems like so long ago now! Conny, one of the long term Germans living with us even made me a cake! . Then after the pong tournament we went to the pub and drank some more…good times were had, hangovers were had more. The next day woke up and went down for some food, bar staff gave me a pint and a shot. As if I didn’t feel bad enough!

Oh actually, dad pointed out the other day I never blogged about Newcastle. Me, Rich a German (Martin) and an American (Monica) hired a car and went to Newcastle for the day, the actual city reminded me of the UK Newcastle, so we swiftly left in search of something else, and we found sandboarding, that was a lot of fun, but a hell of a lot of effort walking back up the dune once going down. But look how high Rich can jump..!

I think I blogged about this, but we also went to the blue mountains for a day, that was fun, a few nice walks and a really nice drive: .

We went to the ANZ Stadium to watch a Rugby League game called State of Origin, it’s basically a massive derby between Queensland and New South Wales. The weather was absolutley tipping it down, but a brilliant experience. I think it was something along the lines of 80,000 fans there. Mental. This is the train on the way there

And the actual stadium:

There’s a street near us which leads to the opera house / botanic gardens etc and for the end of June they had a light show on a lot of the buildings and on the opera house. Again, we left the strand and ventured to see it, it was actually really cool.

And of course, the obligatory beer in front of the harbour bridge next to the opera house:

For the world cup, we were lucky to have an official Fifa Fan Fest at Darling Harbour, down the road. Basically 3 massive screens where they showed every game live. Okay, it was quite a lot of effort watching the world cup here as the late game was on at 4:30in the morning!

Watching the Germany game with a load of Germans…that was fun.

What else big have we done, apart from drinking, for Richs birthday we got quite drunk and then went to get in a club, couldn’t get in and ended up in an Irish bar on the dance floor with a live band shouting a long to Johnny Cash, was a rather good night!

The company I work for let me take their company cars for use on the weekends so soon we might go do something fun like go to Port Stephens or similar, somewhere a bit more north and hottttttttt. Driving in Sydney is insane, you basically have to bully your way or you’re going to stay in the same lane for ever, it really is insane.

We’ve had a proper little family going here at the strand, but it’s slowly getting smaller, so Rich and I are looking for an apartment for the last few months in Sydney, try and save a bit of money.

Heres a picture of Swedish Midsummer, a big event in Sweden, the Swedish guys here cooked us all proper meatballs / made vodka with fishermans friends and generally provided a great night for us all:

What happens when it gets cold on the roof or it gets closed….Thank you Room 18!

Okay, that’s enough for now. I promise when we start travelling properly this will be updated, but no one wants to hear about me at work and getting drunk on the roof! What have you all been up to? Missing you all loads. I hope you’re all going to buy me beers at the Wedding as I will have no money!

Just incase any of you pesky Germans are reading this, ich schlafe mit deiner mutter, Zigeuner! This is for you:

Tom xx

Really haven’t done much since my last posts, just been looking for a few jobs, and a lot of sitting around and even sometimes reading! It’s a hard life…

But that’s going to change now i’m employed. I had the fun choice between two jobs I was offered, one for Johnson and Johnson, doing reporting based on their complaints, and the one I accepted, for a small Australian IT company, helping with a bit of sales, a bit of data work and a bit of design work. I’m not sure when I start, some time in the next week I think. But luckily I start at 10am .

Hmm, what else have we done, as always, with a hostel it’s quite often someones last night, so there has been a lot of saying goodbye to people. On the whole though, it’s been a quiet week. We’ve been here over a month now, that’s scary!

As always still spending a hell of a lot of money, for example one club we go to (okay, we know people who work there so we don’t pay) but if you did have to is $25 just to get in the door, that’s insane. It’ll be good when I get my first pay!

For now, I have to work out what to have for dinner, we spend so much shopping, yet never have anything to eat! Grr

Tom

After a few lapse days of not doing a whole lot useful we decided to go to the Aquarium in Darling Harbour yesterday. It was actually a really good laugh, we saw a lot of sharks and dugongs (woop woop, sorry DE lot if the song is now in your head).

We’re going to the wildlife centre today then up the towery thing, i forget what it’s called but it’s really high up. Should be some nice pics.

Oh, and Happy Birthday for yesterday again mother . Last night we played a few drinking games with the lovely goon and then went to a club called the Gaff, was aight, rather drunk – but theres no real shock there.

Still not made it to a beach, but we will! It’s a bank holiday weekend here for everyone, Anzac day, I think it marks the date of the first big military fight fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War, or something along those lines. Apparently you can bet randomers on the streets on a game of heads or tales with 10cent coins or something along those lines, I shall report back when I know.

Currently whilst writing this i’m listening to a German girls iPod, with her ‘cheesy’ playlist, a cross between English and German very cheesy songs. The current is “Coco Jumbo” by “Mr President” – Delightful.

Okay, now I guess I should get ready to go out. Byebye

I guess i’m just as lazy in Australia as I am in the UK, but there we go. What have we done since my last blog post? Well, not a lot to be honest, we saw a live band on weds night ina bar/club type place who were pretty good. Spent a lot of time at the bontanic gardens playing cards and chilling out and that’s about it…Untill we heard on Friday that the Stereophonics were playing a free acoustic gig in Hyde Park. That’s literally down the road from where we are, so obviously we couldn’t say no to that!

They were really good and helped on by a few jugs of snakebite made the evening pretty damn good to be honest!

Today i’m up earlier than normal replying to everyone’s lovely emails (sorry i’m so slow!) and about to start looking for work. I’m loving chilling out here, but i’m not sure my body is enjoying 2L of goon wine a day….

Rich and I are officially rubbish, we’ve still not been to a beach… but this week we definitely will.

My language skills are improving! I can now count to five in English, Finnish, German, French and say many a swear in German.

Right, i’m off to be productive….wish me luck!

Tom x