Filling The Pages » Sydney

My Australia in Review

Marianne — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:00:26 +0000

After almost five months in Australia, having sneakily avoided winter, I’m settling back into London life. When I think about my most recent travel adventure, I suppose I was able to see quite a lot of Australia, but really, I didn’t see half of it. This is one big country. I passed through five of Australia’s eight states and territories, saw cities, the ocean and the outback and I left thousands of miles uncovered. But what I did see, I’ll never forget.

I loved wandering through Darling Harbour or taking the ferry to Manly Beach in Sydney, exploring the great cafés and night spots in Melbourne, and hitting some of the fantastic museums in Canberra.

In the Northern Territory, I got a taste of what I’ve always imagined to be ‘real’ Australia (not that the cities are any less real) in the Outback. I walked around Ayers Rock and ran under its waterfalls after the rain, trekked through the Valley of the Winds in Kata Tjuta, and hiked around the rim of Kings Canyon. I drove past herds of wild camels, slowly backed away from a Western Brown Snake (one of the deadliest in the world), and evicted various lethal spiders that had found their way indoors.

On the coast, I got to see some music legends at the Byron Bay Bluesfest before heading up to the Whitsundays for a spot of sailing among these beautiful islands. I walked across pure white sand on Whitehaven Beach, and went snorkeling around the most amazing reef I’ve ever seen. The Great Barrier Reef isn’t world famous for nothing after all.

And finally I got to explore the famous Fraser Island – the largest sand island in the world, with its stunning freshwater lakes and abundant dingo population.

My list of Australian memories could go on, but the list of things I still want to see is even longer. It is almost impossible to really convey how fantastically huge and diverse this country is. I’m glad I got to see what I did, and I can’t wait for my chance to see more. The plane ride has never been more worthwhile.

Making my way to the desert

Marianne — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 09:32:43 +0000

I have been in airports a good number of times in my life, and every once in awhile, I’m sitting at my gate, maybe reading, listening to music or eavesdropping on the nearest conversation feeling all smug about how early I am when I see someone sprinting down the hall, trying to hold up their shoulder bag, maybe yelling at their girlfriend/husband/kids/etc. to hurry up as a voice echoes overhead “This is the final boarding call for flight BA 247 to Barcelona. Would all remaining passengers please make their way to Gate 15. Final boarding call for flight BA 247 to Barcelona.”

Well…

That was me. I was the idiot sprinting down the hall in Sydney airport, running to the front of the First Class check-in desks to beg the woman to let me get on the flight, getting stuck at security TWICE because I forgot to take out the nail scissors and bottle opener from my hand luggage, desperately searching the screens for my gate number which has already been taken off the screen because I’m so late, red-faced and panting as I get to the gate just before the staff members close the doors and getting all the haughty looks that I give out myself so often to that last guy who gets on the plane and can’t find a place for his bag overhead because it’s all full already. Yikes.

But I clearly did make the plane (just), and was on my way from Sydney to Ayers Rock. For whatever reason, I didn’t really pay attention at all to how long my flight was about to be, but when I realised that I would be getting a meal AND watching a film, it started to sink in how far I was really flying. And I wasn’t even going across the country; I was just getting to the middle.

I had a window seat and there were no clouds at all, so in between watching the film (The Invention of Lying, by the way, not a bad movie) I kept an eye on what we were flying over. Which was…nothing. Miles and miles and miles of red sand, bush, dry riverbanks, and nothing else. For the ENTIRE flight. I’ve been reading Bill Bryson’s Down Under and in that book Bryson points out that “Australia is the driest, flattest, hottest, most desiccated, infertile and climatically aggressive of all inhabited continents. (Only Antartica is more hostile to life.)” So that’s what I saw. Dry, flat, red land.

After a few hours, it was there. Ayers Rock (or more traditionally, Uluru) was passing by my window, and what seemed like a stone’s throw away (it’s actually 20 kilometres) was a tiny line of little white tents – Longitude 131, my new place of work. I first heard about “Longy” when I wrote the article linked earlier during my time at Black Tomato. It was quite another thing to really see this place from the sky.

I was met at the airport by Kristy, my restaurant supervisor, who drove me around Yulara (the resort-town) to help me get a grasp of where everything was. Yulara has less than 2,000 residents and almost nobody here is actually from the Northern Territory. The ‘town’ is essentially one ring road with one of everything you need. One Post Office, one petrol station, one bank, one small library, one supermarket and so on. The ground is nothing but bright red dirt that now colours most of my clothes, and the bushes that cover the land seem to thrive despite all the odds. In fact, a lot of the bushes around here are completely blackened from previous fires and yet they are green with new leaves. In the middle of the ring road is a hill that gives you a good 360 degree view of the place and the hundreds of miles of nothingness that is behind every building. You can also see Kata Tjuta and Uluru (usually just called ‘the Rock’ around here) which are everyday sights since they’re both only a few kilometres away. After all, the only reason this town even exists is because of these huge monoliths.

I have never been quite so literally in the middle of nowhere.

The pros and cons of working abroad

Marianne — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 04:40:21 +0000

I’ve worked abroad a few times. Just like most people who do it, I seek labour to help me fund the rest of my traveling – hostels, food, drink, transport, and everything else in between. It can add up to be a pretty big bill.

I’ve taught English, handed out flyers on the street and sold promotion packages. Soon (fingers crossed…) I’ll either be employed in a bar, or on a farm.

To work, officially, you need a work visa. But there are PLENTY of places who will overlook this small detail. In fact, of the three jobs abroad I have held up until now, only one required any proof that I was legally eligible to work. One. The others? They’ve decided to take the calculated risk, which of course means that you do too.

Thailand

My Thai working visa was organised through a company called CIEE – the people who also found my teaching placement. I paid them a fee (which I found to be very reasonable) which covered all the costs of my visa, plus a great deal more, and it took away the headache of going through all the paperwork myself. Not bad. Because CIEE handled my paperwork, I don’t know much about obtaining a working visa for Thailand. What I understand is that you must first have a non-immigrant visa on your passport. Then to obtain a work permit, it seems that you must have a job lined up with an employer who will in effect ‘sponsor’ you and provide a contract with your job description and the dates that you will be employed.

In Thailand, my English teaching job was very official. I filled in any number of forms, got a fancy stamp in my passport, got a whole new booklet (my work permit) that looked a lot like another passport and signed a document every month when I received my salary.

We never came across any real problems, and I received my salary in cash which made things a lot simpler. The only hiccup was that my original contract ended on the last day of school. Of course it would; why not, right? The problem? Once my contract was over, I was no loner authorised to stay in the country and would have to either leave, or at least do a quick hop over the border to get a new entry visa as a tourist. The issue: it would mean missing the last week of school to get to the border and back. Luckily, we were able to have our contracts extended as long as the other teachers and I promised not to demand a salary for the extra month which, in theory, we could probably have done.

After teaching, and a couple of months of traveling through Laos and Cambodia, I was back in Thailand and looking for ways to save my dwindling pile of money. Now, of course, I had no valid work permit and nor did my traveling friend. So what did we do? We landed on Koh Phi Phi and quickly became one of the many travelers you see there handing out flyers for the various bars, advertising free buckets (of alcohol), free barbeques, Thai boxing, and any number of incentives to drive traffic. We were paid in cash at the end of each night, no questions asked. The problem is, the island had a slight run-in with the law and, as a result, the police (usually bribed to look the other way) took our photos and shut the bars down early. Luckily that was the worst that happened. I still got paid.

In theory, you are taking the risk of getting in trouble if you do this. But in my own experience and from what I’ve seen, the benefit outweighs the risk. It’s more often the company (i.e. the bar that hired me) that deal with the problems. The police know that you’re going to be gone soon anyway. Spending time getting you in trouble is rarely worthwhile for them.

Australia

Now I’m spending time in Australia, and again looking for ways to support myself and enable my traveling.

Before I arrived here, I obtained a Working Holiday Visa which was incredibly easy. Australia does all of their visas online, which means no need to send your passport anywhere. All I did was apply online, make a quick appointment at the doctors for a chest x-ray, and presto – a visa confirmation in my Gmail inbox. Simple as that.

Unlike the Thai visa, I didn’t have to have a job lined up for me. The Working Holiday Visa allows you to seek any kind of work after you have entered the country for up to six months at a time. Much easier.

When I first came here back in May, I stopped in Byron Bay for about a week. While I didn’t work there, I became good friends with quite a few people who did. Everyone I met worked in the hostel where I had a bed – Aquarius Backpackers. I don’t think that their work required a Working Holiday Visa, although most of them had one and often held a second job in bars and offices in the town. I would strongly recommend looking for hostel work to anyone traveling around Oz. It doesn’t require much work (at Aquarius, it was two hours a day) and your pay is in the form of free accommodation. It’s perfect if you’re running low on money and looking for ways to ease the pain. With free accommodation, you’re saving anywhere from $20 – $40/night. That’s pretty good if you ask me!

For the last month in Sydney I worked for Redhot PR, selling promotional packages for Sydney’s top hair salons on the street, in shopping centres, on the beach. Just about anywhere. The pros: they also promote bars and big events, which meant free club entry, and free tickets to things like the Space Ibiza party I went to on New Years Day. They also sent me to Melbourne for a week to work, paying for my flight and accommodation. Plus, every Friday they provided drinks and a small party in the office before we headed out for the night. They certainly piled on the added bonuses.

The cons: technically we were not allowed to sell inside shopping centres, the airport, or anywhere else, which meant spending the day dodging security guards and occasionally getting kicked out. There was no hourly wage, which meant all of my income was commission based. This could be seen as a good thing, as it meant your potential salary is completely unlimited. The difficulty is, if you’re having a rough day, you’re not on your game – you come home with nothing. A lot of people are fantastic at this job. Myself – I had a great start, but I quickly got worn down and eventually it became impossible for me to stay. You’ll find, in Sydney at least, that there are a LOT of jobs like this. My advice – give it a go, and try to stick it out for one week. If, by then, you don’t see the potential, at least you tried, but a week should be enough time for you to see whether you have what it takes.

Next on my list is either bar work or farm work, so we’ll see how it goes!

Welcome to a new decade

Marianne — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:55:05 +0000

On Thursday morning I became one of the 1.5 million people to ring in 2010 in Sydney, Australia. One of the first places in the world to enter the new decade. Pretty cool.

At about 11 in the morning, I headed out with a backpack full of good food and cheap wine to meet up with everyone at Thornton Park in Balmain East. It was the perfect spot – not too big, and apparently not too well known, so our group had plenty of room to spread out our blankets, pump up the iPod speakers and get comfortable for our last day of 2009 with a perfect view of Sydney’s Harbour Bridge.

If you read my Christmas post, you know that the weather here hasn’t been exactly cooperative lately. Christmas day was cold and rainy, then the 27th – 30th were gorgeous, sunny and perfect. Dcember 31st, New Years Eve…..overcast with showers. Of course. Just to put the icing on my weather nightmare cake – I STILL managed to get sunburnt and am now sporting some pretty fabulous burn lines.

I can’t even tell you what we did to pass the time all day except eat, drink and take a few naps. The high point of the entertainment was a few of the boys choosing to strip down to their boxers and jump off the ferry port into the harbour water below. Unfortunately they chose a time when a large ferry was on its way. I’ve never seen a ferry reverse so quickly as this one did, but I’m happy it did and there were no casualties. Good job boys.

Nine o’clock rolled around and round one of fireworks exploded over the bridge. Apparently there was some controversy about the timing of the fireworks for fear of them overshadowing the Auckland fireworks, but they certainly saved the big show for midnight. It was really incredible, although it’s hard to describe fireworks in words and make them sound like more than just a few flashes of colour, but the show I saw was definitely more than that. I’m afraid I’ve had trouble uploading photos, but they are all to come soon, so I’ll keep you updated!

The next day, thanks to my promotions job, I had a free VIP pass to the Space Ibiza party in Sydney to dance and party with the likes of Sam Sparro and Pete Tong. Not bad. Good new year indeed.

Courtesy of The North Shore Times

Marianne — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:55:02 +0000

Meet Marianne, a 10-pound Pom

15 DEC 09 @ 08:50PM BY ALEX WARD

Marianne Mcphee - Now living in Lane Cove

MARIANNE McPhee camped for two days outside a London travel agency to win the chance to become a 10-pound Pom.

The agency offered 150 British travellers with working holiday visas the 10 tickets to Australia as part of its 30th birthday celebrations.

Ms Mcphee, 23, now living in Lane Cove, determinedly queued outside the STA office near London’s Victoria Station to get one of the highly sought-after Qantas tickets.

“Camping on the streets of London was an experience” said Ms McPhee of sleeping in a tent.

“I still can’t really believe it has happened. I just bought a flight to Australia for 10!”

The term 10-pound Pom was given to British immigrants who travelled to Australia between the 1940s and ‘70s under an assisted-passage scheme. More than one million people journeyed to Australia this way.

An avid traveller, Ms McPhee plans to work in Sydney over the summer before exploring and working in other parts of the country.

Tourism Australia UK and Europe general manager Rodney Harrex said the promotion was to raise awareness of the working holiday visa among young Brits at a time when increasing numbers were looking to travel Down Under. – By Alex Ward

Christmas Time in Sydney – beach, sun and heat?

Marianne — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 06:48:29 +0000

Christmas Day on Bondi Beach. I’m thinking of a blazing summer sun, white sand, Father Christmas surfing the waves, and plenty of food and drink. Or not…

Just because it’s summer doesn’t mean it can’t be cold, grey and rainy. Apparently.

Christmas Eve we were full of big plans. Collecting our money together for a Christmas feast, packing towels and sun block into our bags and donning our swim suits under our clothes. We celebrated the night before Christmas with a little party and a late night swim in the apartment building’s basement pool, which turned into me racing Christian in Butterfly across the pool (I still have perfect form even if I’m not the fastest thank you very much!) before a sing along of all the cheesiest songs we could think of. After all, what’s Christmas without a sing-song!

Then it arrived! Christmas morning! I woke up to the beautiful….grey, cold, wet and windy Sydney?! Okay, not exactly what I expected. But it’s not every day you’re in Australia for Christmas, so we weren’t going to let a little weather deter us. After all, it was pretty much like every day of my life in the UK. We’re used to this kind of stuff.

I headed to Bondi Beach which was noticeably less packed than predicted thanks to that chilly wind. We gathered under one of the few wooden pavilions and huddled together to enjoy our Christmas feast. At least the weather couldn’t stop us eating good food. Roast chicken, smoked salmon, pasta salads and plenty of wine. Yummm… I felt like a real flashpacker at that point, even if I was freezing with my towel wrapped around me for warmth.

A few people decided to grab tickets for Sunburnt Christmas – the ‘official’ Bondi Christmas party. I did without, although the shelter of the pavilion did look appealing… Apparently our food was a lot better than theirs anyway, so I feel pretty good about my decision.

So in general – Christmas was fun, although not exactly what I pictured. This is my second Christmas away from home. Last year I was in Thailand, this year Australia. Next year… who knows! Perhaps I’ll make it back to the family, although there’s no telling what continent they’ll be on come next year either, so you’ll just have to keep reading!

Now it’s that strange time in between Christmas and New Years when not much makes sense. I posted this last year, but it’s still my favourite skit about this strange week from Michael McIntyre. And finally, thanks to everyone who sent Christmas cards from around the world to me here in Sydney. It means a lot to know you guys are still thinking of me, and please know I’m thinking of you too! I promise, postcards are slowly but surely on their way. There’s a very long list of you, so patience please!

I have high hopes for my Sydney New Years Eve and New Years Day, so watch this space for the story of what should be an epic welcome to the new decade!

Sydney beach time…surf’s up

Marianne — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:22:06 +0000

There are a lot of great things about Sydney. Great nightlife, busy streets, and all that comes with it. But of course you can’t really talk about Sydney without mentioning the beaches. I’d say three of the most famous beaches are the three I’ve visited over the last week: Bondi, Coogee and Manly.

Last week I hit Bondi Beach with a few friends to spend some time on Sydney’s most famous strip of sand. It’s not huge, especially after you see Manly, but it’s big enough and it’s PACKED mostly with the likes of us, i.e. backpackers, and surfing aficionados, i.e. not us… The surf is KILLER. There’s probably some cool surfer dude term for that, but I wouldn’t know…ahhh one day. I did attempt swimming for about three minutes. I went out until the water hit my thighs (so you know, ten feet from shore) before the waves were already creeping up and over my head, sucking me under. I’m a strong enough swimmer to handle that, but my bikini is not, and after a couple of minutes I decided that was enough indecent exposure and headed back to shore. Not to self: buy more secure bathing suits…

Craig did rent a surf board and gave it a go, but I think after a handful of near death experiences the board was kindly returned to its shop. I think we all need lessons…

I’ll most likely be headed back to Bondi Beach on Christmas day so you’ll hear more about it soon.

Coogee Beach was a brief visit for a free barbeque with Oz Party Bus! I took a walk around the beach talking about the greatness of the Oz Party Christmas Eve Cruise and their bi-weekly party bus that rides around a few of Sydney’s bars each Thursday and Saturday. I found a lot of Aussies on Coogee. Okay, sounds crazy – Australians on an Australian beach?! What?! But honestly, after Bondi Backpacker Heaven, it was actually strange coming across so many locals.

Beach number three: Manly. My favourite beach. Maybe because it’s on the north side of Sydney (the side I also live on) or maybe because it really is the nicest. It’s a little confusing because there are rather small unimpressive beaches next to Manly Wharf but walk through town and you find a large, soft sand beach. Bigger than Coogee and Bondi and in a nicer part of town. The waves here are much more manageable, the atmosphere is more catered towards families, and you don’t trip over beer bottles and cigarette butts on your way to the water’s edge. Not that Bondi or Manly are unpleasant – I promise they’re still fun. In fact, Bondi is the best beach for accessibility the the centre of Sydney, and for social events as it is where you’ll find most of the working holidayers around here. But for chilled out afternoon lying on the sand. Manly is the way to go.

My next stop is Melbourne for a few days!

Update: I am working! At the moment I have some promotions work which means I get to walk the streets, let myself into random office buildings, and walk around the shops all day, and on top of it all they send me on business trips to Melbourne! Not bad. I’ll be spending a lot of the time working, but I’ll do what I can to explore the city and report back.

Until then, Happy Holidays!

Australia on a thousand pennies

Marianne — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:33:05 +0000

It arrived. Finally. November 24th: the date I took off from London on my way to Sydney, Australia on a ticket that cost me £10, or I like to think of it as one thousand pennies.

On August 3rd, almost four months ago, I got in a queue outside STA’s London Victoria office where I stayed until two days later, Wednesday, August 5th to become one of 150 people to be named the new ‘£10 Poms.’ And here I am. Writing to you from a home in Lane Cove, Sydney, where I’ve been settling in for the past five days and getting ready to start this new chapter of my traveling.

So last Tuesday, I boarded my Qantas flight and made myself as comfortable as I could. Unforunately, £10 only got me Economy Class (shocking really…), and I also somehow managed to land a seat in the very last row of the plane. Not ideal, but I made it work. Several movies and a short nap later we were in Bangkok where we were ordered off the plane to walk through the airport, go through security again, and re-board at a new gate minus some original passengers and plus a few new people making the trip from Thailand down to Sydney. Several more movies and another nap later and I woke up to my first Australian sunrise. I don’t think any of this was real until then.

Before I knew it, I was on the ground, backpack in tow, being driven to Lane Cove by the lovely Nad, Johanna and baby Kamran who, along with Nad’s brother Sal and India, the golden lab, were kind enough to host me during my previous stay in Sydney back in May (well, Kamran wasn’t around back then…).

In the last few days I’ve spent a lot of time around the house trying to adjust (the jet lag is killer, my days tend to start around 4:30 in the morning…) and organising my plan of attack which right now just entails finding a job as soon as possible.

Last Saturday I was cordially invited to an American Thanksgiving meal by a few old friends from BU who now call Sydney home. About thirty of us drank, ate and made ourselves thankful by the beach in Double Bay. Not your typical American Thanksgiving scene, but I wasn’t complaining about eating turkey and pumpkin pie with Sydney Harbour as a backdrop. It could definitely be a lot worse.

This week is official job hunt week. Cross your fingers that next time I write here I’ll be employed… Wish me luck.

A few days to see a few faces

Marianne — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 01:35:11 +0000

So November the 14th rolled around. Ten days until I leave. Hmmm should probably sort myself out and maybe see a few people before I disappear. Right. Let’s go.

Day One: A trip to The Photographers’ Gallery in London with Tom before heading to the Apple Store. I love the Apple Store – so many pretty things. So many things I can’t afford. But I still got seen by a lovely Genius who fixed all the little bugs on my Mac and bought a World Traveller Kit which is AWESOME. Okay, a tiny overreaction, but it lets me charge my iPod (and my laptop if I switch the plug) anywhere in the WORLD! So basically it’s a box that comes with all the little plug ins to switch in the white block thing. But I was excited. After dealing with plugging in adapters on top of adapters to find the right combination, it’s pretty thrilling. Then we headed to Bizarros for a really nice Italian dinner near home. We were going to the new Moroccan place for it’s opening, but overcrowded buffet and eating while standing up wasn’t our idea of a good meal. Day One: check.

Day Two: Sunday lunch with Johanna and Tamsin at Pearl Liang. My very late discovery and probably one of my favourite restaurants these days. Yummy Dim Sum and super cheap. Perfect.

Three: My last English Fish ‘n Chips!! Ok, it ended up not being QUITE my last, but certainly my last one from a greasy take away soaked in vinegar and tartare sauce. Sooo good. I can’t resist a good English chippie!

Day Four, November 17th – Dinner at Las Iguanas and rather expensive cocktails with the lovely Nims. I’ll miss that girl. Can always be trusted to come out for a good drink and a chinwag.

Wednesday, the 18th – Off to La Porte Des Indes with my godparents who are nowadays in possession of all my worldly belongings that didn’t fit in my backpack.

Day Six – My last day at Black Tomato! Although they’ll be using my talents while I’m Down Under. Good company, good internship, and good people. Then I headed into East London to another late find and another favourite restaurant – Lahore. REALLY good food (try the pork chops: simply mouthwatering).

Day Seven – The Big One. Leaving drinks. I randomly chose Thai Square in Trafalgar Square as the meeting point. It ended up being pretty successful although we were just about the only non-Asian’s in the place, but that was no reason to not enjoy ourselves and we certainly did. Lots of people made it out including my lovely ex-housemate Hannah, my original London friends (two of whom have headed off to Thailand, so you can read about their trip here plus if you’re looking to get some good, cheap Thai shirts and accessories imported, or want some bespoke artwork and furniture designed by two great people, Sophie and Claudia are the girls to talk to!) along with Tom and Miguel (the suave one).

Day Seven/Eight – My leaving drinks and the following day all kind of blend into one since my head never hit a pillow in between. After (thankfully) grabbing a night bus home from Thai Square, Tom and I were home for….ten minutes? Then it was off to Liverpool Street Station where we accidentally bought First Class tickets on the Stansted Express. Oops. We traveled in style to the airport and grabbed the VERY early flight to Berlin!

Four days until I leave. To be continued.

Off again…

Marianne — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:47:38 +0000

Well, it’s official. In one week I will be boarding a plane headed to Sydney via Bangkok, on a one way ticket.

It’s hard to really get my head around it all. The fact that I haven’t started packing at all probably helps with that.

Last weekend I managed to head up to Glasgow to see my lovely family one more time before I leave the hemisphere. I realised that having spent the last 12 years of my life in a different continent, whether it was North America, Asia or Australasia, my family have gotten older (and wiser?) and I haven’t been as close and in touch with them as I would like. My ‘baby’ cousin Lucy is 12 years old which seems impossible, my older cousin Martin is married (I was lucky enough to make it to the wedding), and Raymond is in his last year of uni and getting ready to go around the world with his girlfriend.

As excited as I am to head Down Under, it’s definitely going to be hard being so far away yet again. On top of that, I’ll be leaving an amazing home, with the best neighbours I could have asked for, and a job that is the closest to perfect I’ve come so far (I basically get to do this – travel writing – all day, what could be better?).

So here it goes. A week of manic running around and seeing all the faces I’ll miss before I walk through the gate at Heathrow.

That’s my sentimental post of the week. The next one will be more upbeat as I’ll be recounting what is sure to be a fantastic week of celebration and farewell. First stop – a nice little dinner with the one and only Nims at Las Iguanas. As long as I figure out how to get there in the next two hours…

Australia cont’d

Marianne — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:47:00 +0000

I’ve had some issues with Internet connectivity lately so here goes the very delayed last entry to my traveling blog. Since I left Australia I was back in London for two weeks, doing some work for a quick bank account boost, and I’m currently in the States visiting friends and family for a few weeks.

Here it goes:

So after leaving Sydney I headed up to Byron Bay with the Wills. We got off the bus after what ended up being a pretty sleepless night for me and arrived to several backpacker staff with their vans trying to draw us to their hostels. It worked; Will, Will and I were too tired to do any deciding ourselves, so we followed a blond Canadian named Eric to his van and he took us to Aquarius hostel.

We checked in to the nicest dorm I’ve ever stayed in and picked beds on the top floor of our duplex style room where we met Katie, another Canadian who had also just arrived.

Our first day in Byron was spent watching the rain POUR down like I’ve never seen before. We realized that this may go on, so we found out about bus trips to a place called Nimbin – a hippie town that hasn’t moved on since about 1968. We took a very psychedelic bus tour to the town listening to Pink Floyd, The Doors and other ‘free love’ bands to arrive in a multi-coloured tie-dye town. Walking down the main street was an exercise in turning down one offer after another for weed, brownies, more weed, cookies…you get the idea. I took a tour of the Nimbin Museum whose design concept was something along the lines of ‘here’s some stuff I found on the street/at the flea market/in my cellar.’ There was stuff EVERYWHERE, and none of it seemed to make any sort of sense. Hippie heaven. At the end, before exiting, we met a 50-something year old woman rushing off yelling “just wait 15 minutes guys, I’ll be back with the cookies soon, I just have to pick them up from my house.” This wasn’t just a nice lady who baked things for visitors. She made her money making tourists feel like they were on a Grateful Dead tour, or a character in Ken Kesey’s acid charged life. On the way home our bus driver pointed out all the ‘beautiful shades of green’ in the countryside and took us through the mud back to our Byron home. Where it was still raining.

Unfortunately the rain continued so after meeting the backpacker staff and we spent our nights exploring Byron Bay nightlife with them and spending most of our days watching the rain come down with two days of sun that we spent on the beach and walking to the lighthouse – the Easternmost point of mainland Australia.

After a few days I decided I needed to make a move up north if I wanted to see more of the country. One problem. All that rain? Causes problems. Like flooding. In both directions.

Nobody, myself included, could get in or (more importantly) OUT of Byron for a few days.

I embraced my fate and paid at the reception for more nights at Aquarius. At least I could hang out here with people I liked, and I got free dinner every night, even if it was the same stuff over and over again… free is free. Plus we entertained ourselves with pub quiz nights and poker tournaments.

For all the less-than-ideal weather, I had an amazing time in Byron Bay thanks to the Wills, Katie and the Aquarius staff. After deciding that it was time for me to leave I realized that my time was now quite short, so instead of heading up north I headed back to Sydney and the twins. Since the highway was still flooded I took a flight from the small airport inland that was still accessible down to Sydney airport where Joh met me to take me back to another few days of home comforts. Mike and Lisa were still around so I spent my last few days seeing them, taking a day trip to the Blue Mountains, and going to the Sydney Aquarium where I saw a platypus! They’d been hiding when we went to the Sydney Zoo in my first week, so I was glad to check off that last Australian animal from my list after kangaroo, wallaby and koala among others.

I also cooked a meal for Nad, Sal, Joh and Lisa that went down well, I think?

I loved Australia, a sentiment perhaps not expressed well enough in this shortened version of my time there, but I have decided to save up as quickly as possible for a return trip on a one year work-holiday visa.

So that’s it! I took a flight from Sydney back to Bangkok where I spent a day doing some last minute shopping and sharing my stories with new travelers experiencing their first nights abroad on Koh San Road. Then it was back to the airport to travel back to London and home.

Seven and a half months later, a term of teaching and an amazing backpacker experience through Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and finally Australia and I’m back where I started. Back in the Foster home in Crouch End, London. Dreaming of my next adventure.

I’ve had a great time writing this blog and plan on setting up a more permanent URL to continue life as a blogger, so watch this space for a final update and a name URL address.

Thanks for reading, commenting, and sending me all those great letters and packages. I write for you.

“The world is a book and those who do not travel only read one page.” – St Augustine.

This Strange Western World….

Marianne — Fri, 29 May 2009 02:25:00 +0000

I arrived at Bangkok airport on May 12 to find out that my parents lovely next door neighbor, Betsy, had managed to get me upgraded on my British Airways flight to Sydney! So I went from being a poor backpacker living in dirty guesthouses to walking in to the Business Class lounge with all the other richer travelers. I felt slightly out of place with my clothes that I’d been wearing for the last week of partying and my bare feet, but hey, they still let me in!

After a long flight where I watched Milk, Happy Go Lucky, The Reader and Frost/Nixon in the World Traveler Plus section of my Bangkok to Sydney plane I arrived in this strange place, where people spoke English, and signs were in English, and people weren’t bowing to greet each other….I didn’t know what to do. I decided to put my sandals on since I was now the only barefoot person in the place, and it was FREEZING!!! Okay, not freezing maybe, but that’s how it felt after months of wallowing around in oppressive heat.

I got through immigration, found my backpack and went through the crazy strict Australian quarantine to wait to be met by a complete stranger, a friend of my godfather’s who I knew very little about. After a few minutes I was met by two identical twins, Nad and Sal who took me in a real car! It wasn’t a tuk tuk, or a songthaew, or a Bangkok taxi or anything. A REAL car! Weird.

Then they drove me back to a real house! Where I met Joh, Nad’s girlfriend, and India, they’re lovable Golden Labrador. It was all very….normal. I haven’t had normal since I left London back in mid-October, so it was all quite a shock. I napped in a double bed with a duvet and everything! Then when I got up, I watched TV on this HUGE widescreen and was reminded of the joys of cable.

After that, Sal took me to a mall! Like the ones I go to in the States, with a food court and everything, where I was overwhelmed by choices of food and I found myself wanting ANYTHING but Thai food! There was a Thai stand, but I was surprised to find how little I wanted to go near it. However, to ease myself in to all this normal food, I did have an Indian curry. Baby steps.

After my re-introduction to the Western way of life, Joh took me on a quick driving tour of Sydney where the sight of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House really made me realize where I was. Australia!! We met Nad for a drink and some dinner at the Opera House bar sitting outside under a heat lamp with the lights of the Harbour Bridge behind us. Not bad.

I spent the next few days seeing some of the sights with Will and Will, my friends from Koh Pha Ngan, my good friend Lisa from my days as a Thai English teacher who now works as a nanny here in Oz, and Mike, an Irish guy who I ran in to several times on my travels through Laos and Cambodia, now living and working in Oz himself on a one year visa.

I had lunch with Nad and Sal in Darling Harbour, where I also watched fireworks on jet skis with Mike and some friends. I went to The Rocks market with Lisa after an AMAZING buffet lunch with her in the revolving restaurant in the Sydney Tower where I was able to look over all of the city on a perfectly clear day. Oh yea, and I ate barbequed kangaroo. Never thought I’d say THAT sentence. I saw Manly Beach and the surrounding area with Nad and Joh, and went to the Taronga Zoo with the Wills.

I also experienced nightlife being back in a city. My first night out was with the Wills. I hadn’t quite adjusted to wearing shoes at that point, and I in fact didn’t really own any except some unimpressive sandals. My friend Bella had given me her sandals that were slightly nicer, so I wore those but since they were the closest thing to shoes I’d worn in quite some time they immediately started to hurt. I carried them around, putting them on to get in the door of bars and then promptly taking them off again. I got some looks for walking around Sydney barefoot, but not much I was going to do about it. I bought a pair of nice warm suede boots the next day, don’t worry.

After about a week of this city life, I joined the Wills on an overnight bus up north to Byron Bay. I planned to go there for a few days then head up to try to see Frasier Island, the Whitsundays and whatever else I had time for. My plans changed slightly once we got there thanks to Mother Nature, but that’s a story for my next entry!