Outback farming photos

Back to Sydney

 Back to the beginning and back to Sydney. I have circled around the East coast and decided to give it a try with living and working in Sydney.
My journey here was quite long but rather enjoyable. I started making my way down from Cairns to Rockhampton using Greyhound bus services. The journey lasted 18 hours which equals 1070km to be exact. The driver made plenty of stops on the way, so there was no feeling that I had been on the bus that long! Once I made it to Rocky, my dear farming family were already waiting for me and had sent a car to pick me up from the bus stop. It was such a joy to see them all again. As we arrived at the house I got loads of hugs and kisses from everyone. What an amazing feeling!! I helped myself and got myself a Kenrol cocktail which is made up of Bundy 5 white rum, sparkling water, lime cordial, lime, and ice. Very refreshing!! For the first time I could sit there like a queen and not have to do anything - no cooking, no cleaning, just chilling out and enjoying good company. The next morning though I woke up at 5.45am to help out with the feed. I wanted to do it for the good old times. I enjoyed doing it and it was a nice idea to do it since I got free food and accommodation for that night :)
I spent the rest of the day enjoying myself, applying for jobs and packing my bags. In the afternoon, it was time to say good bye and head to the airport to continue my journey towards Sydney. I had to take two flights. Rocky-Brisbane and Brisbane-Sydney. Both flights were around an hour. I flew with Virgin Australia. Their prices are reasonable and quality higher than Tiger or Ryanair. The good thing about domestic flights is that I can get an extra 23kgs for only 30 AUD on internal flights. That is really good value. In total I could take 46kg of baggage with me. Virgin have started a new on board entertainment system where I can use my laptop and log on to their entertainment system and watch all the movies etc if they do not have screens on the seats themselves. Very handy! I could also dload a virgin app on my iPhone and use that on board to do same things. I chose to use my laptop as I did not want to drain my phone's battery.
I started watching Good Will Hunting - one of the movies I have never seen actually! I watched the start of it on one flight and the second half on the other flight. I did not manage  to see then end though. Have to get it one day when I get unlimited internet usage.
Back to Sydney. I had started applying for jobs a day before arriving in Syd, so I had an interview lined up with an agency for the next morning already. It did not look very promising. I only spent 20 mins with them but you never know. I had another one agreed for the following day (which was yesterda) and that looked much more promising. I probably spent an hour chatting with the girl and she was very impressed with me. She said she'd send my resume on to a number of companies, probably 10! Hopefully, one of them will be interested in hiring me on a temporary basis. Should be able to find out next week. There were two specific roles that I might get lucky on but will talk about it when things are actually happening.
Accommodation in Sydney is mad expensive. It was impossible to book a nice hostel and all the prices have been driven up for weekends, they're slightly lower during the week though. I ended up paying 40 AUD per night in a shit hostel! No space to breathe or put my bags + dirty + weird people staying in these places.
I had to pick the best of the worst and suffer for a few nights until I can get back to a better rated hostel for another week. I spent two nights in Westend Nomads - 43 AUD per night sharing with 5 other people. I was not impressed. Even worse, I had to move out and find another one. I picked one for the weekend near Cogee beach. At least nice views and nice area. The hostel itself - substandard!! A complete dump. Luckily, I won't stay here for long and will have to spend another two nights in it. Looking at the positive side - there are excellent training facilities outside. Could run all the way from Cogee to Bondi beach along the cliffs on a boardwalk. I ran 9km yesterday, pretty hard, considering there are a lot of stairs (as a boardwalk would have) and steep climbs. Nevertheless, challenging and I like challenges! I am getting fitter and fitter and feeling better about myself every day. If I had a job too I would not have anything to complain about. Maybe the weather haha.
Last night the guy from reception came around into our room and asked if there was anyone travelling solo. After finding out I was, he asked me kindly if I could sleep one night in a different room, shared with girls because one guy had nowhere to stay and they could help him out if one of the girls moved rooms for one night. I said ok, I can do it. How bad can it be?? Once I got into the room, the girls were having a party of course. I was not impressed, was not intending to go out last night. Going to bed early didn't work out and the damn bed was 20cm shorter than the normal one!! I could not even stretch my legs properly. Was that meant for midgets or Asian only??? Seriously?? Why would anyone even buy the bunk bed if it does not fit an average height person? I did not sleep well, plus the mattress was awful! I could feel the boards of the bed. My only concern was not to get bedbugs. Looks like I am ok, no bites on me for now! Might have been lucky this time.
My plan for the weekend is to go for a walk to Bondi and back (12km return) and visit Taronga zoo tomorrow. It is supposed to be great. Might go out tonight. An Irish and American are keen on that. The Irish girl is so Irish that I cannot stop laughing. She's from Cork and I can't stop laughing when she gets pissed off about something. Reminds me of good old times in Ireland :) Well, the Irish was not supposed to stay out late last night. She arrived back at the hostel this morning, not sure if she got lucky haha.

Some photos from Port Douglas to follow:
The weekend before moving to Sydney I spent an afternoon on the reef snorkeling for 1.5 hrs, checking out the beautiful marine life. We got a speedboat out to the reef - 16 km in 16 minutes. We had to wear stinger suits though. Obviously, I looked sexy as! Sunday was a pretty good day too. A bunch of locals and me decided to go for a swim in in a hidden waterfall. It really was hidden. Noone would know about it. It was worth a visit. Walked about 2km to the waterfall and even spotted a few small turtles in the waterfall pool. Pretty cool!!

4 mile beach

4 mile beach again

Panorama of 4 mile beach & my training ground

Start of bushwalk

On our way to Cassowary falls

Wrong way! Random dog.

Obstacle course

More obstacles before waterfall

Group photo :)

Cassowary Falls

Find two turtles :)

Me posing!

Sexy stinger suit

Reef Sprinter

Superman (woman)

Vulva coral

Cairns & Port Douglas

Hi there!
I will just continue where I left off last time.
After a night in the rainforest hostel and a relaxing morning at Cape Tribulation I continued my journey on towards Port Douglas. Day two of my trip included a visit to Mossman Gorge for a refreshing swim in a slightly cooler water (comparing to the ocean which would average around 30 degrees). The gorge is supposed to have the second purest water in the world and I could have easily had a drink while swimming but didn't really trust it since there were kids swimming around everywhere! After a refreshing swim the tour bus took four people to Port Douglas and the rest of them headed back to Cairns. I got dropped off at Parrotfish Lodge. It looked ok on the outside but I did not like the feel from that place. I did not stay long in the room but decided to dress up, put some make up on and head out for dinner. Went to a local pub and ordered myself a glass of wine with my dinner. They called me madam there, if only they knew I was a flashpacker! There is definitely a connection between how you dress and how you get treated based on your appearance.. It was fun though. And I got myself another glass! Later on when I walked back to have a drink at the hostel bar, I was told I had to pay 10 AUD to get into the bar. wtf? Apparently, there was a comedy night going on and I would have had to pay the money if I wanted to stay at the bar. They told me if I wanted a drink I could get it and go to the lounge area of the hostel and sit there but there wouldn't be any people around. Thanks for that! I got pissed off and decided to go back to town centre, walk into a random pub and have a drink there, alone or not! Lucky me, I did not even get a chance to order a drink before a local bloke was standing next to me asking where I was sitting. Well, I did not have to have my drink alone after all!
The following day I headed back to Cairns to carry on with my little tours. I had a waterfalls day trip planned for the next day. We probably visited 4-5 waterfalls, had a chance to swim in all of them. Damn, the water was "refreshing". The most memorable of them are Millaa Millaa and Josephine's falls. Josephine's falls has a really cool natural water slide. Just like a water park except you could slide off a rock and end up in a pool of water. Had great fun out there. Millaa Millaa is famous for Timotei and Herbal Essences shampoo advertisement. We took photos trying to copy Timotei ad but I haven't got the photos yet. When ever the tour company uploads them on their FB page I will make sure I get a few off them! Yet again, a great day out although it ended with a massive pain in my ear for me. Probably the cold water. Luckily, I was free of pain the next day and was very, very excited about my last but the best tour - wakeboarding on Tinnaroo lake! Although the instructor was late picking us up, there were only three of us and we had the whole day for ourselves. We could do what ever we wanted and as much as we wanted. I was a bit nervous in the beginning when it was my turn to get the board and jump in the water but once I was up I was absolutely loving it. Apparently I pulled off some tricks (not even knowing myself) that people learn to do after 20 hours of practice. I think one of them was a 180 degrees turn. Plus I rode the wave as if I was on the snowboard and flying across a rail. Couldn't believe how much I impressed myself. Silly me I thought I wouldn't even be able to stand on the board. So, so, so wrong! We also tried wakesurfing which was much easier and not challenging for the body. The tube ride at the end of the day was just great laughs and some awesome falls by me :) Obviously, I just had to master a faceplant when attempting a trick on wakeboard. I fell so badly that my head was sore for 4 days after, couldn't even walk up the stairs. Muscle pain in my whole body wasn't helping either. In the end, amazing times, great day out on the lake. Couldn't recommend it enough!!
After a week and a half in Cairns I am back in Port Douglas and enjoying the paradise while searching for jobs in Cairns and Port Douglas. It is not looking good. I will wait another week and then it's time to go to a city (Sydney or Brisbane) and get a temp job there to top up my bank account before I can start holidaying again.

Cairns

I think it's about time to give an update on my adventures up in Cairns! My holidays started at the end of October and were supposed to finish on the 4th of November. Today is the 16th of November... OOOOOPPPPSSS!!! I pretty much quickly realised 4th of November was not going to be realistic, so I decided not to even care when I stop holidaying and start working again. I had originally planned 7 nights in Cairns which seemed reasonable enough as there is not much to do in the town itself. There's plenty to see and do around the area though. As soon as I arrived in Cairns I decided to go for a walk in town the next morning and check out the man made lagoon "beach". Another town in a beautiful location but no beach! Needless to say there are endless stretches of beach around Cairns though. Things get particularly beautiful North of the city. Back to my big plans. Well, I ended up going to a random travel agent with certain things in mind that I definitely wanted to do. I gave the agent the list and asked whether I had missed anything. She said I had covered everything and even more as normal backpackers don't even do all of it. Sorry but I am a flashpacker and I am only here once in my life most likely, so the best thing to do is to do everything! I ended up booking almost 7 days of action packed tours. My first one would have been a day trip to the outer reef of the Great Barrier Reef with an instructed scuba dive. Being under water and breathing is the strangest feeling I have had. Once I got my wetsuit and all equipment on we were asked to float under water while holding on to the railings and trying to breathe normally. My first reaction was: "Oh my god, I can't breathe properly. It is so difficult and I feel like everything is too tight!". The instructor then advised me to take really really deep breaths and try to stay under water. I followed his advice and in a minute I was already cruising. Obviously not going anywhere myself but got used to the breathing pretty quickly. Before starting to go further down the instructor made sure we understood simple hand signals and that we were able to clear water from inside the masks underneath the water. We also had to demonstrate that we are able to remove the oxygen gauge (not sure if this is the right word to use...) and then put it back on our mouths. Once everyone was able to do these things we started going towards the bottom of the seabed. The instructor took 4 people at once. We formed a line while hooking onto each others elbows so that noone would get lost. We would have gone somewhere between 6-8 metres deep which did not seem that deep at all while being down there. The dive only lasted about 20 minutes which was a bit disappointing as I was hoping it would last at least half an hour. It must be some sort of a regulation or requirement not to stay under water no longer than 20 mins because all the dive boats seem to do the same thing with all introductory dives. Otherwise, I had a great day out and GBR is definitely worth a visit! Managed to make friends with a Sydney girl who was on holidays with her friend too. We ended up going out together that night. Great night, plus I've got a couch to crash on in Sydney if I ever needed to :)

One must do thing ticked off, I did not take a break and had another tour already booked for the next day! Although only having 2,5 hours sleep I was as fresh as a daisy and ready to roll the next morning! Next on, my bucket list was a two-day tour to Daintree rainforest, Mossman gorge and Port Douglas. The tour bus picked me up from the hostel and  took us to North of Cairns. The drive itself was beautiful, along the coastline opening up some magnificent views! The tour guide Jo was very knowledgeable and could pretty much talk about anything making it sound very interesting. I complimented her for her good work.

It took around an hour and a half to get to a river (which's name I can't even remember any more) where we stepped on a boat that took us on a 45-minute river cruise in hope of spotting some resident crocs. Apparently there was a big one hidden somewhere but I couldn't possibly distinguish it from the tree roots.

We spotted a baby croc, just about half a metre long. They really do move fast when they need to! Further on, the trip took us into the Daintree rainforest where we had a 20 minute walk before heading to PK's Jungle Hostel where I was going to stay overnight. The hostel was situated in the rainforest, no phone reception, therefore no social networking and plenty of time for myself! I went on a quiet stroll on the nearby beach and enjoyed the breathtaking views of the ocean and nature around me. My loneliness didn't last long, soon a German guy appeared on the beach who recognised me from the dive tour that I had taken on the previous day. We hung out on the beach for a while and headed back to the hostel. Turns out he was in the same room with me! The hostel was hosting a Halloween party that night and everybody was setting up the decorations and getting into the party mood. As the evening got closer, it turned out to be more like a staff party since there were not many visitors around. I didn't mind that, I wasn't feeling up for the party anyway after having slept 2,5 hrs the previous night.

As unfortunate as it was I ended up staying in the same room with young English girls who were definitely up for the party. They stormed into the room while I was asleep and pointed a bloody torch in my face asking who is this girl! Damn, let me sleep people. They were gone soon enough and I could almost peacefully sleep until morning. Spent the next half of the day walking around Cape Tribulation and once again enjoying the beautiful views! Life can't be any better, even when I am unemployed and slowly running out of money...

Got to continue my adventure blog some other time. Time to hit the pool!!!