I saw a bird...catching a fish!!

Emergency extra post - just had the best lunch break ever...(well, best lunchbreak in a while, anyway): I walked down to the Swan River, which runs right through the city centre but is surrounded by parkland and so doesn't feel very urban, and was sitting on a bench contemplating the expanse of blue water before me. Then a big, white bird surfaced and hopped out onto the bank a couple of metres from me, a live silver fish in its beak!! The bird was about pelican sized, and the fish about the size of a large goldfish...the bird dropped it onto the grass where it flopped around, then seized it, shook it a bit and swallowed it!

That certainly broke up the work day!!

Silverchair, karaoke and illness

Sorry for the long silence, I’ve been waiting to post photos but haven’t got round to it yet…soon I promise.

Since I last posted I’ve been working (boring) and going out a lot (fun). This included an impromptu St Patrick’s day visit to Seoul Karaoke bar (well, everywhere else had huge queues and crowds of stupid drunk backpackers. Karaoke was far more civilised, with sober young Asian guys giving fabulously polished performances – one guy was so professional I had to go over and shake his hand – and the odd out-of-tune tourist. The latter group including, I have to admit, me and Mike. Yes, there was singing (sorry, Victoria) but if it’s any comfort, I don’t think my mic was plugged in properly). Our hostel has also acquired a karaoke machine recently too, and there’ve been many impassioned performances.

Then there was Rock It – a one day music festival where we saw Grinspoon and Silverchair. This was one of the most last minute plans ever – I was happily doing some handwashing in the hostel on Sunday morning when I got a phone call from Laura saying she and Chris were now pretty close to Perth and did we want to go to Rock It? I was pretty easily persuaded, and it turned into a charming day: reunited with Chris and Laura, we sat on the grass in the blazing sun (desperately reapplying the factor 30 ever 5 minutes) drinking craftily smuggled in vodka. It was a very little festival, with just the one stage and minimal amounts of stalls and other entertainment, which made it nice and calm – none of that usual oh-god-what-am-I-missing? that you usually get. The major dampener was that, as at many Australian events, alcohol could only be served and consumed in one area (admittedly a big area with a good stage view) which you had to flash some 18+ ID to get into. Additionally, the area directly in front of the stage was fenced off, as at Big Day Out, with a separate queue and bag searches to get in there. With all these security measures, I see what they’re DOING – this extra barrier would make it significantly harder to have the overcrowding/injury-inducing crushes and violence that sometimes occur in mosh pits. The problem is that it significantly damages the atmosphere. This might have had something to do with why Silverchair’s performance somehow didn’t live up to my expectations…their choice of songs was wrong somehow – too weighted towards the slow, Neon Ballroom/Diorama era – and the crowd was pretty lacklustre and devoid of energy. However, I’m glad I’ve seen them now…yet another thing to tick off my list of “things to do in Australia”.

In other news, I’ve been ill with a rotten cold for the last week or so, which caused me to spend Thursday and Friday off work and in bed. I’m pretty much recovered by now, and went out last night for yet another hostel outing.

Speaking of the hostel, the major news is that Laura and I have found ourselves a room in a houseshare and we move in on Saturday!! Our landlord, who seems a bit weird but uber-helpful, is actually going to pick us up in his car to help us move…too good to be true?! It’s high time to be out of the hostel as the communal bathrooms and kitchens have really started to get me down, as has sleeping in a huge dorm whilst having to get up early for work, etc. I’ll miss the people, though. Our houseshare is with (shock horror) real people who are NOT backpackers!! None of them are Australian, but they’re all a bit older than us and working here in a longer term way. Should be interesting, anyway, and the house is gorgeous – huge living room with doors opening onto the patio, gleaming kitchen and bathroom…it’ll be such a change.

Groundhog Day...

Me and Mike's beds in our hostel

I have a new job!! Actually this is my second new job, as I started one yesterday (boring temping) then got a better offer. I’m now working for Bechtel, an engineering company, for the next 2 or 3 weeks, doing…document production!! Yep, I’m doing EXACTLY the same as I was doing at Multiplex…initially I was dreading it, since I didn’t exactly love the job last time, but I think it’s going to be ok: Multiplex was stressful because it was such a steep learning curve, but now that I know how to do this stuff in Word, hopefully this time around it will be inestimably easier. Touch wood.

I am ambivalent about this job, however. For a start, my hours are 7:30am-5pm. Yep that’s right. SEVEN THIRTY!!! WHY?! Australians work really long hours, which seems to conflict with the general perception of Australia as such a laid-back, high-quality-of-life type place. On the other hand, I’d much rather start at 7:30am than finish at 6:30pm. I was also having a minor crisis yesterday over the fact that I’d planned to do something different in Perth: I’ve been applying for things like childcare work – anything to get out of the office!! And what about my career? Yes, you ask, what career: exactly. Out of nowhere, I seem to have become a specialist in producing bid documents for property firms. However, this job pays well and it’s only for a few weeks, so there was no way I could contemplate turning it down.

My first day’s been alright – there’s a really nice HR girl from Ireland who just moved to Australia this year, and she and her boyfriend used to live in south east London!! I had lunch with them and some other people, which makes this job instantly better than Multiplex (I actually got to talk to somebody! I even got invited to a party!!)

In other news, Mike and I are still staying at the Rainbow Hostel (sleeping in a dorm and getting up to work in an office is going to take some getting used to). I really like it there, the people are fantastic…there’s something going on every night, including many trips to Northbridge, the backpacker/nightlife area, and there’s also talk of a paintballing trip soon.

I’m loving Perth – we went for a walk along the Swan River the other day, and despite being right in the city it manages to be really beautiful, with parkland on either side. The city centre is pretty small which makes it manageable – there’s the central business district with the obligatory glass skyscrapers (all non-European cities look the same, I’m finding), a couple of pedestrianised streets of high street shops, and then Northbridge which is full of cafes and restaurants.

Go West

So here I am in Western Australia. Since leaving Melbourne on monday it's been pretty action packed, starting with a 2 day tour of the great ocean road and the Grampians.

After getting up at 5:30am, we met our tour group which consisted of only 6 people, although we were somewhat disconcerted by the fact that one of those was a woman in her 70s. (When backpacking you get so used to everyone being young that sometimes you forget that people of over 35 actually exist at all). She was really sweet, though, and only occasionally showed her age with comments like "These Aborigines have beautiful natures", etc.

The Great Ocean Road is a lovely bit of coastline. We saw koalas in the wild, beaches, and the Twelve Apostles which are hyped as one of Victoria's greatest attractions (although hilariously, they just lost in a public vote on "Victoria's biggest attraction" to the Palace, which is a club/gig venue in St Kilda, Melbourne: it was a stunt on the part of the club's organisers who want to stop it being closed down). Anyway, the Twelve Apostles are limestone towers in the sea, just off the shore, rather like the pancake rocks in NZ. They are a pretty cool sight, though Mike was grumbling about them being overhyped the whole time which is probably true. They say it's impossible to take a bad photo of the Twelve Apostles. We took this as a challenge, and one which I think we rose to admirably. I will post our efforts at some point when I have a USB cable with me.

We then proceeded to leave the coast for the Grampians - a mountain range/national park area which was recently devastated by a bushfire. Although I'm sure it's a beautfiul area when not all burnt out, the blackened landscape of charcoal-coated, leafless tree skeletons was so interesting to visit - eerie to view and to walk through. It reminded me of the kids' book "The Paper Bag Princess" after the dragon has burnt everything down - does anyone apart from me remember that book? Really incredible views from the look out points and cliffs.

We stayed the night in a little town called Hall's Gap - our guide (who talked all the time, like, ALL the time, about bizarre and disconnected things) had told us it was 5km from anywhere, so we were expecting to be really isolated, but it was actually a proper town. OK, maybe the next town was 5km away, but it didn't exactly feel like the middle of nowhere. Our disappointment at this was tempered by the fact that when we went for a walk in the evening we saw loads of real live wild kangaroos bouncing around the place...Mike got some excellent photos. They're so cute! (these are little grey ones, not as big as the red ones in the centre). And so different in shape from other mammals...really funny movements. We also saw some deer, rather randomly.

The next day involved a bit more exploring of the Grampians, followed by finishing the trip to Adelaide by coach. While waiting at the coach stop in some small Victorian town we had the dubious honour of witnessing the Queen's Baton procession going past - the Commonwealth games is in Melbourne very soon. It wasn't much of a procession, I have to say - a couple of joggers who are, presumably, famous Australian athletes, holding the baton which looks a bit crazy and space-age, like a toy. Nothing on that time we saw the Queen processing down Whitehall to open Parliament...now THAT was a procession.

So on to Adelaide, which was cute. A very small, clean city, with wide tree lined roads and no litter. Or hills. Very nice, but I suspect a bit bland most of the time - luckily our arrival coincided with the arts festival, so there was lots going on in the form of plays and concerts everywhere, as well as loads of buskers, art exhibitions, sculptures lying around and groups of crazily dressed people embracing and calling each other "darling". Very enjoyable. Admittedly we only went to one photography exhibition, but we soaked up the atmosphere, and also visited the Botanic Gardens, the Wine Centre (so space age, you could conduct a "virtual interview" with a wine maker!) and the Adelaide Gaol - quite a good amount of sightseeing compared to what I usually manage.

Then yesterday we flew - yes, flew, as in a plane, it felt like such a failure after all this overland travel, but was the cheapest option - the 3 hours to Perth. So here we are. Feeling slightly confused and disoriented now - we've crossed 2 time zones (South Australia is, bizarrely, half an hour behind Victoria) so now I believe we're only 8 hours different from the UK. We've checked into a VERY cheap hostel with a crazy proprieter - like, seriously crazy, he talks all the time and doesn't really make sense, and he put us BOTH into rooms which turned out not to have any spare beds, which caused alot of confusion. The bathroom facilities at this hostel are AWFUL, which I guess explains why it's so cheap, but apart from that it is ok, with lots of communal space, and there's some kind of barbeque/party going on tonight which could be fun.

We just went into a place called the JobShop looking for jobs, only to be roundly rejected - apparently they have mostly country work, ie harvest and farm jobs, outside the city. We have to wait in the city for a week or so at least, as Mike needs to meet Chris and Laura in order to sort out what they're going to do about selling the car, so now we're looking at exploring other recruitment options...I'm hoping for a fantastic job as one of the people I worked with at Multiplex has recommended me to the CBRE office in Perth: fingers crossed.

Photes - grape picking

Utter humiliation

I'm now back in Melbourne after we fled Mildura at the dead of night - completed one full (6 day!) week of fruit picking and promptly packed up and took the night bus back to civilisation! Ah, it wasn't that bad, I had an interesting and at times enjoyable week, and the countryside was beautiful. It felt VERY good not to have to pick grapes today though!!

The title of this post refers to tuesday night, when Peter, the manager of our hostel, came round with the work roster. Now, our hostel was in central Mildura but the farm where we worked was actually about 20kms away, across the border in New South Wales, so every day someone had to drive us there in the minivan. Annabel had done it up to that point, but she had been lucky enough to get transferred to one of the much-sought-after hourly-paid jobs, so Peter had put ME down to drive the next day. (I had foolishly admitted to having a driving license when asked at check-in).

I immediately told him there was no way I could do it. "I haven't driven since I passed my test 6 years ago, and that van is really weird, and I don't want to be responsible for driving everybody..." Peter pointed out that there was no one else on the job with a license and told me I would be fine. I demurred. He threw me the keys and said he'd take me for a drive round the block to get used to the vehicle.

On the way to the van, I psyched myself up. After all, I told myself, I do HAVE a license. Just because I haven't used it doesn't mean I'm not capable. It would be fine.

We climbed into the van, which, may I point out, was weird with the gear stick on the side of the steering wheel. To make things even easier, the gears were arranged as the mirror-image of the normal gear pattern: 1st gear was to the right of neutral, instead of left. I started the van. It jumped forward - not in neutral. OK, don't panic. I found neutral, checked all my mirrors, checked my blind spot, eased off the clutch and - yes! pulled out. Everything was going fine. I tried to find 2nd gear, failed, and somehow went into 4th. The engine sounded crazy. I tried again - still no 2nd. I slowed down, went back into first, then realised that a car was coming up behind and, obviously annoyed, was really close on my tail...I thought about indicating that I was pulling in but couldn't remember how to.

I think we'd driven about 5 metres down the road before Peter was yelling "Stop, stop, pull in, get out, you're not driving...I don't know what we're going to do but you are NOT driving."

He took me back home in silence. I walked into the hostel living room, tried to put a brave face on it ("Yep, I was right, I can't drive...") but collapsed in tears before the words were out of my mouth. It was not a good evening - this was pancake day, so once I'd recovered sufficiently I tried to make pancakes and couldn't manage that either - we were using a stupid hostel frying-pan with no handle and nasty home-brand instant pancake mix, and it just would not turn solid, but remained as squidgy dough in the bottom of the pan. This lead me to label myself as a failure as a human being.

Luckily we eventually discovered that there was a French guy on our job who also had a driving license, so he was given the job of driving us to work.

Aside from that trauma, things were good - there were some really nice people at our hostel, and we went out with them on wednesday night which made our last day of grape picking harder than it should have been - Mike spent the whole morning sleeping in the back of the van, and I spent the afternoon stretched out in the shade, asleep. We haven't been paid yet, but I'm not expecting much...you really realise the value of money when you can measure every dollar as "2 buckets, after tax". Grrr...