Troy Archie – Everybody Knows This is Nowhere

Happy New Year everyone, I hope you all had a great time and great year. It’s been an interesting one for me and 2006 is looking to be quite insane. I spent New Years eve in Broome, Western Australia and boarded a plane at 6:00 am in the morning to Alice Springs Northern Territory. So yeah, just a little insane.

Simona and Corin, the two Swiss girls Tom, Steve and I were hanging with took off the day before so it was just us guys on new years, another guy Ross from England and pretty much everyone from the hostel. Tom, Steve and I were all flying out to Alice Springs New Years morning so Tom and Steve decided to “take it easy” and not go too overboard. I stayed sober because I dare not risk it. I don’t drink socially, I drink to get drunk, as some of you know quite well, so I kept it dry and it was probably a good thing.

The night started off pretty quite with Tom, Ross, Steve and I just sitting back bullshitting and taking it easy at the hostel. At 11 the hostel bar closed and every went out to the local night spot. It was an alright club but I was a bit ticked that I had to spend $10 to get in (cheap bastard). It was pretty dead at first and the count down to the new year was a bit weak but it was all good fun. Some liquer company had given out free disposable cameras at the hostel so we had fun with those. My digital camera doesn’t take pictures worth crap in the dark and in shady areas so I just used the disposable for the night.

I had a good time and hung around untill about 2:30 before I headed back to the hostel. When I left Steve and Tom were doing alright, Tom was getting a little crazy but Steve was taking it pretty easy so I wasn’t too worried about or flight and such; like I would have missed it if they weren’t there though. I went back to the Hostel in the pouring rain and just hung out with the people that were there and slowly coming in from the club. I figured there was no point in going to sleep for like 3 hours so I just stayed awake the entire night.

About 4:30 rolls around and Steve and Tom haven’t shown up yet and we have a cab coming to pick us up at 5 so I start getting a bit eager. Finally 4:40 hits and in comes Tom and Steve dragging there asses in. Tom was alright but Steve was pretty drunk regardless of what he says. He hits the kitchen ready to cook something but I tell him what time it is and he cancels that idea. To top it off he still hasn’t got a lot of his stuff packed so now he’s rushing around cramming things into his bag getting ready for a cab that’s to be there in 10 minutes. We ended up making it no problem to the cab and airport after pretty much having to swim from the hostel to the cab to the airport. Steve and Tom and still dam drunk in the airport and are being very load and swearing lots. I don’t know how security didn’t come and tell them to shut up.

I figure I got about half an hour sleep on the plane and as I type this I still haven’t slept and figure I’ve been awake for about close to 30 hours now. I need sleep.

Note: Alright, finally got all my pictures loaded and added a few more things in this update so you might want to give it a quick glance over for whatever else I added.

I’ll start off with a supplemental entry just as a catch up and what not.

This is Howard who I worked with at Homestay Plantations in Carnarvon.

Chris, who along with her husband Ken owned Homestay. I got a nice little Christmas present from her of organic dried bananas before I left. I thought that was quite nice and shared the generosity with others that I was with.

Bones and Nikki.

A Ute also known as a Utility Vehicle. This one is a pretty dam nice one and would be compared to probably an S10 pick-up back home. The ones you’d use for work have more of a flat bed on the back and are usualy pretty beaten up.

These are mangos. Now I don’t even know if they even sell mangos in Canada but I had never had one until I got to Sydney and Mike bought one for me to try. The are dam good and dam expensive so expensive I wouldn’t consider buying one for myself. The cheapest I’ve seen them was about $3 a peice. Yes, $3 for a single piece of fruit and that was the cheapest I’ve seen them, most places they go for $5 per. ANyways, at the farm I was staying on in Carnarvon, they grow mangos but they weren’t ripe yet or even close so I was out of luck there but my luck did change. In the middle of the road one day was a pile of mangos that looked like they were on there way to being ripe. Chris noticed them and told me that I should go get them if I wanted any. She figured that some kids were stealing them from a farm down the road where they were a bit more ripe. So I loaded up a milk crate full of these road mangos and Chris verified that yep, they’re big enough and well on there way to ripening. She pulled out the special tissue wrap, wrapped them up like the ones in the markets and loaded them into a box. There was probably about 2 dozen of these things so Christmas came early for me this year. It was a damn heavy box and I ended up giving as many away at Christmas as I could and will try to spread the joy more during New Years.

One thing that I’ve realized I really like about my wwoofing experiences is that it makes other things seem that much more worth it and well earned plus I really like the barter system that it’s all about. I’ve had a bad experience and the work can be tough but I’d rather work a bit and get a free meal and place to stay out of it then a check at the end of the day right now. I don’t have to work, I could take an entire year off, travel the country, go on every single Adventure Tourist thing that they have set up in this country and sit on the beach all day but I don’t. Instead I’ve been doing this wwoofing thing and have really enjoying. Everyone that I’ve met who has picked fruit has pretty much nothing to say about fruit picking other than, (Insert name of fruit/veggie here) is hard or pays well or was easy or was borring, that’s it. No interesting stories, no funny experiences of ironies, just a check at the end of the day. Yeah I guess if you need the money it’s a means to an end but so many people just don’t see the point of doing any work unless they have that colored paper in their pocket at the end of the day. I try to post as much stuff as I can about my wwoofing experiences and some of the stuff that happens but I know I’m not even scratching the surface of what I’ve done and seen.

Lot’s of pumpkins
As I had mentioned before there was a lot of pumpkins at the farm in Carnarvon and I was getting my fill of them. As I went along I collected the seeds and put them on a tray and put them into the oven to let them dry. One thing you need to know about australia is that everybody has ants somewhere in their house no matter if it’s a brand new place or an old delapitaed house, my caravan wasn’t an exception and the ants had made a home in my oven. About the third day of collecting these seeds I opened up the oven and to for the entire try covered in small little ants busily chomping away at the left over pulp that was on the seeds. At first I was just going to toss them but then I noticed they were not going after the seeds. I figured that since I’ll be going to Asia and while up there I plan to give any food a try including bugs, why not give them a try down here. So I lit up the stove and roasted them with my pumpkin seeds. Unfortunately they were pretty small and pretty much distintegrated so I guess I’ll have to wait before I can try bugs.

And while I’m on the topic of bugs I’ll mention that there’s tons of them down here including huge spiders. In my caravan there was a round window with a square screen over it next to my bunk that I was sleeping in. I had the window open for a couple days at first but that all quickly changed one night when I was laying back reading and I looked over to the window and noticed a big white spider that was probably a little smaller than a CD (leg to leg) sitting in the corner of the window, on the other side of the screen, where the square screen and round window overlapped. Nice. I took a fork and kind of poked at it to chase it out of the corner, quickly opened the screen and closed the wondow. Needless to say I kept the wondow closed after that.

I am a cheap bastard. I didn’t think I could get much cheaper but lone behold I have discovered a way; Sardines and cabbage. You can buy a head of cabbage for like a dollar down here, which will last me like a week plus it’s great steamed with a curry over top of it, which I discovered tasted amazing from my stay at the Wests’s farm. As for Sardines, well they don’t taste too great, in fact they’re a bit tastless but for $0.57 a can how can I go wrong? Right? Right? Yeah there’s really no excuse for the sardines but don’t diss the cabbage curry combo or the cinnamon pumpkin until you’ve tried it. Sure as hell beats gross ass unnutritional starchy pasta that everyone else lives off of. That said, I figure I had spent less than $1000 for the month of December untill I bought a plane ticket, which I figure is pretty dam good and I’m managing to do it all the while having a great time meeting cool people and having some rad experiences. Regardless of all this odd food yes I’m still making friends so it’s all good. That said, I know it wouldn’t hurt to just let go a bit and slurge a bit…

Sarongs. Sarongs rule. They are basically a thin sheet of fabric that be used for anything ranging from a beach towel, shower towel and blanket plus they fold down to pretty much nothing. The original towel that I brought down here was this little kid towel that had hockey players all over it. It was very…Canadian. It was pretty small as it was for kids but it still took up way too much space in my pack so I ditched it and bought one of those fast drying super compactable towels for like $25. I then forgot it at a hostel a few weeks later. I manged to get away with not having one as all the hostels had a towel service but then at Homestay Plantations I had to bring my own towel so I went out and bought this little tea towel that I was using to dry my entire self off. Finally after much serching though I found myself a manly sarong and bought it Christmas Eve as a present to myself. I wore it around with great happiness and hung it up to dry at the end of the day. I went around at the end of the day to collect it again and it was gone. I was pretty pissed off; who would do such a thing and especially on Christmas? So I went around and started to ask people if they had done any laundry that day but to no avail. After much questioning and detective work I went back to the clothes line area and sure enough it was there again, hanging up to dry. I figure I either sweated them out or someone took it by mistake. Anyways, sarongs rule and if you are going to do any light travel (backpacking) get yourself a sarong over a towel.

One problem that I’m starting have that I really have to watch out for is I’m starting to “reckon” things. I’m hanging around with too many Australians on my wwoofing stays and the Aussie slang is starting to rub off on me.

Well Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you had a great Christmas, as I know I did. I spent the 23, 24, 25 and 26 in a place called Coral Bay which is a small tourist resort town north of Carnarvon and south of Exmouth in Western Australia. It’s a nice little town, with a great hostel but I guess things are going to be changed around as Hilton has just won a contract to build a 200 room, 5 star resort here after years of fighting. I’m using a guide book that’s about 5 years old and it even lays mention to this and the on going fight to build this place up. Anyway, it’s a pretty small town right now of about 100 or so permenant residents which I’m sure they all work in the tourism trade. SInce it’s so small the grocery stores cost a fortune but I was warned about this and came prepared with enough dam food to feed an army which included a huge pumpkin from Homestay farms 2-3kg bags of oranges and a crap load of tuna. It has a really sheltered bay and you can basicaly walk out from shore with some snorkel gear and see tons of marine life and coral; hence Coral Bay.

Time has no meaning here.

So what did I do for these oh so holy of day’s you ask? Well if you took the exact polor opposite of what I would normally do during this time of year you’d get my Christmas. For example, for Christmas Eve I’d usualy spend it with with about 20 some family members, stuff myself full of homemade Ukrainian foods and junkfood, have a nice gift exchange with my family and pretty much chill out with everyone. Not this year. For Christmas dinner this year it was cabbage, tuna, pumpkin and peanuts which I will add I did thouroghly enjoy, especialy the pumpkin and cabbage. I spent the night with people that were basicaly perfect strangers up until the previous night or that day. After dinner we went out the local pub and had great time at the local watering hole.

Now that brings us to Christmas day. Back home we would get up around 8-9, have brunch, open presents, visit for a bit then go for a second round of eating tons of Ukranian food and junkfood and then finish the day with feeling sick a regretting all you ate. Good fun.

Coral Bay

Enter bizzaro world redux: This is how I started the morning; Me and the big man himself.

Started off pretty early, comparing that I was out pretty late and went to hit the beach for a workout. Lonebehold a big crowd was ammasing on the beach wating for Saint Nic’s arrival on a speed boat. After he same and went I did my workout with a sandbag that I had just made but unfortunately it broke halfway through so I figure I must have been a bad boy this year. After that I went out for a quick snorkel as having mentioned before you can walk off the beach and into some great coral with lots of cool fish and other marine life. I finished the morning with a special Christmas brunch of pumpkin, (which again I will say is amazing with cinnamon) oranges, peanuts and the cremde la creme, a can of salmon. Unfortunately the canned salmon down here tastes like crap and I was very much dissapointed. Well at least the cheap stuff tastes like crap, I’m sure the good stuff tastes good but dammed if I’m paying more than $2.50. After brunch the Christmas Crew and I went out to the beach to spent the day soaking in the rays and doing some snorkelling.

Starting from the left; Corin, Erin and Simona. Erin is from where of all places? Edmonton. She was living in Brisbane doing a student exchange from UBC. It was pretty cool running into someone from home and talking up shit that no one else would know or understand like West Edmonton Mall and the Oilers who I see are number one in the Norstwest division right now; what a time to be away from hockey…I’ve been searching the net to see if the channels down here will be showing any hockey during the winter Olympics, yeah I’m hurtin’. Way in the back we have Steve on the right and Tom on the left.

Corin and Simona are from Switzerland and were going to school in Perth to learn English. Now that they’re finished school, they’re travelling Australia.

In here we have Tom, from Ireland who’s been on a round the world trip for the last 7 months, Steve from England who’s also on a round the world trip, and Cukumy(sp) from Japan who’s travelling up the west coast to Darwin for a short get away. The blond lady was on vacation from Perth and I can’t remember her name. She came up for the sunset and popped up now and again to hang out.

Here’s another person I spent Christmas with, Joe. Joe’s a 73 year old Italian imagrantliving in Perth, travelling up the coast all the way over to Brisbaine to visit his family. He said it’ll probably take him 2-3 months to do it as he is in no rush and because there’s plenty to see along the way. He was one of the nicest most generous guys I have ever met. Now you ask what’s the point of all this and why are you hanging out with some 70 year old man? Well my point is for starters is that you don’t need to be a 20 some year old person to stay in hostels and be part of the “backpacker community”. Hostels are a place where anyone of any age, creed and sex can stay, met other people of any age, creed and sex. Yeah some of them are a bit dingy but you can eventualy spot them from a mile away. You share a bathroom and kitchen, which is nice as you can then cook for yourself instead of alsway eating out. Joe stay’s a hostels because he wants to meet people and because they’re a lot cheaper than going to a hotel. All hostels have different sized rooms ranging from 10 person dorms to 2 person private rooms and that’s what Joe rents. Another case example is this one guy that I’ve been traveling with, Steve. He’s about in his mid 30’s and has travelled pretty extensively but has always stayed in hotels and such. This time around he decided to stay in hostels and he says he’s having way more fun simply because he’s meeting people. So where am I going with all this? You don’t need to spend $2000 for a 5 star all inclusive resort bull shit to have a vacation and see the world. Check out a hostel, meet people, cook some of your own meals and do it for a fraction of the cost. Mom & Brad, Dad, Booboosh & Mike and anyone else who thinks that traveling like this is for kids, well it’s not. I emplore you to spend a couple nights in a hostel and see what it really is like.

I met this German guy who had travelled across Canada and stayed in hostels the whole time. I was surprised to find out that most places in Canada have hostels but sure enough they do. Edmonton I guess has quite a few, even Jasper and Banff have one each so really, even travelling on Canada can be done for very cheap. After talking to that guy I would really like to travel Canada and actualy see my own country. Canada is so divided politcaly and culturally that I think it would be really interesting to travel across it and see other people’s perspectives in different corners of the country.
Rant Done.

Chillin’ on the beach.

Later that day we had a good Christmas dinner with again, for myself curried pumpkin, crappy salmon, steamed cabbage and a special treat, tomatoes. I didn’t but them, they had BBQ Christmas Eve here at the hostel and they were going to throw away all of the tomatoe ends so I took them (as I mentioned before I’m cheap as shit) and cooked them up my new favorite way; fried with pepper. After dinner all went out to watch the sun set, which was a bit dissapointing as it was clowdy out in the horizon but was great regardless. The wind was pretty strong but it’s really nice and warm here, holding around 32 so it was a great sea wind. The wind has been a lot less of a nusence here and pretty much in Carnarvon too so sitting on the beach and swimming has been great.

So needless to say I had an amazing Christmas day, I wouldn’t say it was my best Christmas ever but just extremely different and that’s what makes it so cool.

One of Santa’s Reindeer.

I had a great time snorkelling in Coral Bay but as I have mentioned before I am the worst swimmer in the world and even before I really started out and went into any deep water I was going to go back to the rental shop and rent out a life jacket. What a wuss. After some practice though I got the hang of it and realized that it’s pretty hard to sink as the water there was very salty and the flippers keep you pretty bouant. Regardless I had a great time snorkelling and saw some really cool stuff. I really wanted to see a manta or turtle or shark but had no such luck but I still say lots of really colorful fish and lots of great coral. There are tour packages that will garentee you to see certain things but I found them to be a big much and just kept to swimming from the shore, which was still quite amazing how much stuff you can see from just walking into the water. Steve saw a turtle twice when he was out there and another guy saw a couple smaller mantas.

Sunset on Coral Bay on my last night.

You’ve got to really watch the sun out here because it’ll get you. My mom and sister complained to me that I looked very pale and asked if I had been out in the sun at all. I had been covering up pretty good, especially while working and had been doing my best to put on sun screen and stay in the shade. Well my first day at Coral Bay I went all day without sun screen and a shirt and I got pretty fried. Fortunately it was cloudy out so I didn’t get burnt but I got very brown which I guess is for the best but it made me realize just how it can creep up on you. A lot of Australians that I have met looked so old because they never covered up or wore sunscreen. At the McKenny’s farm, Angela looked like she was 60 but was in her mid 40’s; Mom you looked like you are 20 year’s younger than her. As for Graham well, he had one ear removed and a huge scar from surgery due to skin cancer. Scary shit.

I’ve ended up spending an extra day in Coral Bay and had a great time and after an 18 hour bus ride I am now up in Broome. I was going to stop in Port Hedland to go to this national park there but none of the tours were running due to Christmas and New Years and I really didn’t want to stay there as it’s just a big dirty industrial town. Everything was red there from the iron ore mines and it was pretty dam hot there to top it off. So I, along with Steve, Corin and Serina went straight up to Broome together. It wasn’t too bad of a bus ride but I now know why people warned me about going up here and why they call it “The Wet”. I’m currently sitting in the Broome Library and it’s absolutely pouring outside. It’s extremely humid and all you do is sweat. It’s probably around 33 but the humidity is pretty high. It’s not all that bad and I’m getting a bit aclimatized already but I don’t plan to go any farther north from here. I would really love to see the Kimberly which is the area around Darwin but it’s all basically closed save for a few things due to the rains. Broome was my destination when I left Perth over a month ago and from there I really had no idea what to do next. It’s taken me a while to get up here but it’s been great. I have met lots of great people and have had an amazing time but it feels weird as it feels like it’s the end of a journey. I think it’s just that from here I’ll be setting off from some people that I’ve been traveling with for longer than I have anyone else. I was hoping to find a vehicle that I could relocate for the rental companies to Experence, which is along the south coast east of Perth but with no such luck so since I don’t want to go north up to Darwin(yet) and I’m not going to go back down to Perth and retrace my steps I’m booked a flight to Alice Springs. Unfortunately the flight goes only on weekends so it was either I catch a flight late New Years eve or early New Years morning or wait a week sitting around in Broome. I decided for the New Years day flight which should be interesting. From Alice Springs I’m planning on going south towards Adalaide, over along the Great Ocean Road towards Melborne, across to Tasmania, up the eastcoast and from there up to Darwin. I figure Darwin will be a bit cooler and dryer by the time I circle around and get there but I’m planning to far ahead right now and have to think about today…

Here’s a couple pics of our bus ride and such.

Here’s another middle of nowhere Roadhouse sign with the distances to other places.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Here’s the last bit of pics from Coral Bay.

Safe Travels

Troy

Note: Everything is updated here with pics from my farm stay in Carnarvon included.

Well where have I been and what have I been doing? I can’t believe it’s been 2 weeks since I last updated this but sure enough it is so here I go.

Well after my disastrous wwoofing at the McKenny’s farm I felt quite jaded to the whole thing and wasn’t quite too sure I’d do it again. I spent $50 on the wwoofing book but I have to say the experience that I had at the West’s farm worth it. What I resented most about the McKenny stay was being accused of being a snoop, something that I am not but it’s all seemingly ancient history now and I look back and laugh.

Anyways, I ended up stay in Geraldton for 2 more nights and pretty much slept and chilled out. Geraldton is an industrial town so there wasn’t much to see and do there but they did have a pretty cool hostel with quite a few cool people staying there. I met 3 other Canadians there so that was pretty cool as I really hadn’t met any since I got here.

After Geraldton I headed up further north to Kalbarri which is a national park and small town of about 5000 people. My first day there I rented a bike and went biking for the day along the coast which as I was told is what you want to see. Now it’s been extremely windy here and the further north I’ve gone it’s gotten windier and windier. It’s become quite a nascence and has really been a downer at times but regardless I set out for the day. I was told by the lady at the hostel that it was about a 14 km ride out to this place called Nature’s Bridge and that it’s where you want to go. 14km, pff, no problem I figured, I did that and them some out on Rottnest Island. Well that was 14km uphill and against a wind that at one point nearly blew my pants off, I kid you not. I only made it out about 8km but it was killer. The hill I had to climb was huge and again, the wind, my god the wind.

I did manage to make it to a couple of the recommended turn offs and spent quite a while climbing through the canyons and cliffs of one in particular which was as far as I went. I don’t think I was suppose to go that far back off the trail and climbing along the cliffs like that but… It was probably a little dangerous too but I’m young and invincible plus the lure of what was over the next cliff really got a hold of me. Some of the rocks along the shore looked they had been cut by a machine they were so smooth from the constant waves crashing onto them. I had a really good time climbing around out there and took way too many pictures for sure.

Yeah there’s no one in these pics because it was just me.

After all that climbing and all that biking to get there I was getting pretty beat. I wanted to go on but was out of water and started to make some stupid mistakes when trying to find my way out of the canyon. The way back was easy, down hill and with the wind was a joke.

When I got back to the hostel I met up with some other people that said they went all the way out to Nature’s Bridge and biked back. I was amazed. Now I like to think I’m in pretty good shape and have been consistently working out while traveling so I’m thinking these people must train biking or something. Well it ends up there’s a shuttle bus that takes you out to Nature’s Bridge and from there you can bike all the way back, avoiding the hill of doom and constant onslaught of the wind. Nice.

The next day was a pretty stressed day involving sleeping in, working out, eating, reading, listening to music and taking a nap which was all tough business. I was a bit beat up from the day before so a day of not leaving the vicinity of the pool was welcoming.

The next day I went out on a hiking, canoeing and swimming tour of Kalbarri National Park. It was probably the nicest day weather wise that I’ve had thus far in country, holding around 30 with get this, no wind. Big shocker. We were taken out by bus and driven out to a few scenic spots like:

Z-Bend

Nature’s Window

After that the hike started. We hiked probably about 7km in land to a “river” that was inside of the canyon. Since it’s the summer down here the river wasn’t flowing on the surface and you could only go so far before you hit land. From there we had a swim, had lunch and went about canoeing. I was teamed up with this German fellow, Roger who was pretty experienced at canoeing so we were one of the few people who actually canoed the full length of the river which was about 5km I think. After canoeing we had another swim. I’m such a terrible swimmer; I gotta watch that especially in the ocean. All in all I think it was a 13km hike and then a 10km canoe we did so again I was pretty beat up after all that.

The hike in.

Canoeing in the canyon.

More pics of the national park.

The next day, again was another rough day of recuperation involving lots of reading

There were plenty of cool people staying at the hostel so I met quite a few people and had a good time. There were two really young “English” guys that came in on the bus with me that were alright but a little offset. What I mean by “English” is that they were very proper and seemed like they came from a very refined background. I ended up sharing a room with them and a Scottish couple, Chris & Karen who I ended up traveling and hanging out with for a bit. The night I went on the canyon tours I went back to the hostel, worked out and pretty much went to bed completely exhausted. I put on my eye covers and a pair of ear plugs to ensure I get a good nights sleep and good thing I did. I slept soundly for a good 10 hours and the next morning when I woke up I had everyone that I was sharing the room with coming up apologizing to me for being so noisy. I guess the two English guys got a bit drunk and words were exchanged with Chris and Karen and a fight just about broke out in our room but I didn’t even notice.

The busses out to Kalbarri were pretty stupid so I and a host of other people ended up getting stuck out there a little longer then we anticipated which was a good thing as it gave me time to chill out and have some down time. The days were pretty much spent sitting by the pool and playing this highly addictive card game that Chris introduced to anyone willing to play. It’s was something like poker but Dutch. Played a little too many games of that with a couple Aussies Shayne & Joe and an English guy named Daz, it was good fun.

I ended up having a really good time in Kalbarri getting there Wednesday night and leaving Monday night, so 5 day’s I spent there.

After Kalbarri I headed up to Denham on Shark Bay which is a UN World Heritage site. Now on the way up there we had a stop over at a “Roadhouse” which is basically a truck stop in the middle of nowhere and by the middle of nowhere I mean the middle of nowhere.

450km between Denham and Kalbarri and what was in between the two town? Two Roadhouses. That’s it. Nothing. No farms, no small little hamlets, nothing.

Overlander Roadhouse. A very bizarre place.

Denham

Chris & Karen and Shayne ended up heading up that way too and I again ended up sharing a room with Chris & Karen. Now, I thought Kalbarri was windy but when we got to Denham I swear we were in the middle of a hurricane it was so intense. We didn’t get into Denham until late so we didn’t have to deal with the wind much save getting to our rooms.

The next day, again, windy as hell but that didn’t stop us from having a little fun. Chris noticed a couple canoes sitting along the shore and asked if we could use them. “No worries”, as they say down here “but not until 4.” Well after sitting around in the sun being bored we noticed that the ores were stored next to your dorm house so we decided to give the canoes a whirl.

A couple things about the Shark Bay area; It’s a World Heritage site with the towns Denham and the resort Monkey Mia in it. There’s suppose to be tones of wildlife in the waters there and in the morning you can go and hand feed the dolphins at Monkey Mia. The water is beautiful and extremely shallow. I think at the deepest point it’s only like 5 meters or something like that plus it’s very protected by the reef so there’s pretty much no waves or current.

Anyways, we go canoeing in this crystal clear, shallow water with the only thing to contend with is the wind. So we buddy up, Chris & Karen in one canoe, Shayne and I in another. Now the boats were the most seaworthy vessels and with the wind it made some decent sized waves that had us taking on a bit of water but we managed somehow.

We noticed Chris pointing out to something and trying to get our attention to something in the distance about 400meters away from us. It ended up being dolphins or what we assume are dolphins jumping in and out of the water so we make haste and start paddling towards them. Now Shayne and I get pretty damn close to them and try and try to get closer but they can move a lot faster than us in our shitty canoe.

Meanwhile, back at the other boat with Chris and Karen; Karen, who has been watching a lot of documentaries on TV about sharks the last couple day’s starts to freak out a little. The last show she watched had some guy proving that some sharks can and will jump out of the water to attack a prey, namely the great white and tiger shark, pretty much the two that will attack people. So Karen gets a little jumpy and demands to go back to shore. When they get back to shore Chris jumps out and runs over to Shayne and me wanting to get in. The boat says right on it that it’s safe for 3 people and we figure 3 people means faster to chase dolphins. We’re in about waist deep water at this point and Chris tries jumping in but with the waves and wind we roll right over into the water. Next try things work out great; all three of us are in and ready to go. We start paddling along but only get about a meter away when a bit of a wave hits us and that’s all it takes for the entire boat to take on water and sink like a rock. 3 times we try this and each and every time we go under. By then the dolphins were long gone and we couldn’t see them anymore so we headed back to shore.

There were tons of stuff to do in Denham but I ended up only staying one day. I managed to get a hold of a wwoofing host family in a town called Carnarvon, a little north of Denham that sounded like a pretty good deal so I figured I best get back on the horse and not let my past experience hold me back.

The busses this far north are running arriving at the stop points at really crappy times so I figured it would be better to get to Carnarvon at 9:15AM then 10:30PM and have to look for a hostel that late at night plus I had a whole ton of errands to do which I figure I needed a day and a bigger town to do. Carnarvon is only like 7000 people but it’s a hub compared to the likes of Kalbarri at about 2000 and Denham of a couple hundred.

The bus left Denham at like 5:15 and again with a stop over at Overlander and a whole lot of nothing in between.

Carnarvon

Pics of my stay.

Carnarvon is a bit of a dump, not too much of a tourist town, especially this time of year and the guy who ran the hostel was a seedy fellow charging deposits and fees for just about anything he could from sheets to dishes to holding your bags after you check out. There were probably a dozen people at most staying there so it was pretty much a ghost town. Luckily I stayed only one night there and managed to get a hold of the wwoofing hosts the next day and was out of there a.s.a.p.

The farm that I stayed at is called Homestay Plantation and it’s a certified organic farm, growing mainly bananas, mangos and a host of other veggies. The main things in season right now are bananas (which are year round actually), pumpkins, turnips, green peppers swiss chard and a couple other little odds and ends. The mangos weren’t quite ripe yet and the bananas are actually picked green for shipping.

The farm is owned by a couple, Chris and Ken but is run by a guy named Howard who I worked with. Chris is a psychologist for the town crisis center and Ken runs his own backhoe and transportation business. I didn’t really spend very much time with them, especially Ken as he was out of town most of the time but they were both really nice people that pretty much let me do what I wanted.

It was a pretty nice little setup I had there with my own trailer or “Caravan” as they’re called down here with all my food provided for me to cook on my own. I was given all the eggs I could eat, steak, chicken and was told, “Help yourself to anything in the garden.” Nice. I ended up finding quite a liking to the pumpkins; cooked with cinnamon or else curry and mint is amazing. Always thinking with my stomach…

It was great to have your own space for a little while in the caravan and open up your pack, unpack everything and have your own quite little area. I worked from 8-12 everyday and had the rest of the day just to chill out. As much I enjoy my time hanging out with other people and meeting other travelers it’s great to have quiet time and your own place to relax and clear your thoughts.

That’s the caravan on the right. Yeah it looks a little “rustic” but it was all mine for a week.

A look inside.

There I am with a big bowl of eggs and a plate of chicken and beef right in front of me

There isn’t a huge RV craze out in Australia like there is in Canada. There’s no 5th wheels, very little motor homes and trailers and what few that are around are on the older side, that’s at least what I’ve seen. No 10 acre lots with nice, bright, shiny new $100 000 RV’s in perfect sales formation.

Howard took me on a tour of the town and other plantations that were in the area. The town isn’t much to look at but the farming area on the outskirts was pretty nice. The river, where all the farmers get there water from was a bit of a joke. I wish I got a picture of it but I forgot my camera but basically it was just a big barren stretch of sand. Right now it only flows underground but in a couple weeks time or whenever a cyclone hits in the north it’ll be flowing like mad. I saw some pictures and it looked like the Mississippi.

For work I pretty much picked weeds and then planted stuff afterwards. Since its 100% organic there’s no use of chemicals of any sort so the weeds have to be pulled by hand. It’s a crappy job but someone’s got to do it. Who would have thought that pulling weeds would be so tough; my body was hurting good after a couple days pulling the tree sized weeds out.

Howard got the tractor and made some big mounds for me to plant sweet potatoes in. I leveled them all off, set up an irrigation system on them, made cuttings for the plants and planted them. It was a pretty cool to learn how to set it all up and get things going like that. The next day I made cuttings out of basil and chives and planted them in between the sweet potatoes as they act as a pest deterrent.

Sweet potatoes in.

Chives and Basil next.

I also planted some water melons, pumpkins and corn and did other jobs like weed whacking and helped make deliveries to the distribution company. And then I picked more weeds. Weed picking is a tough crappy job and did a fair amount of it. My lower back and hamstrings were killing me after a couple days of hunching over in the fields all day. It was a very monotonous job and made the day drag on unbelievably at some points. Fortunately I had my Mp3 player with me and managed to find a kick ass radio station down here. Triple Jay it’s called it’s the government funded youth station that’s broadcasted across the country. Really good stuff and it puts the CBC to shame as far as I’m concerned.

The wind that I so much hated and complained about settled down quite a bit so some of the days got to be pretty sticky. One day I’m cursing it and the next I’m begging for it. It does do major damage to the crops though so I guess no wind is good. Howard said he saw on the news that the temperature the day before got up to 39. I say it didn’t feel like it was 39 but at the same time I drank 6 liters of water in 4 hours and felt like passing out after my workout. Chris mentioned that I should put a little bit of salt in my water just to replenish my electrolytes and I found that that helped quite a bit. Other then that one day it’s been a consistent 29 here pretty much all week with an alright breeze. I imagine the wind is stronger along the coast as we’re about 8km inland.

Carnarvon does have one pretty cool thing; the Space Observatory.

It was made specifically for the Apollo missions (moon landing missions) and was the station that they beamed down all the information to including the first moon landing. Now it’s pretty much abandoned and all caged up. They’ve tried to get it up and going as a tourist attraction but keep on running into snags, NASA says they might start using it again too.

How fitting that it was a full moon that night to go along with these pics.

Here’s a bunch of pics of the area around there. Note, you’ll probably ask, why the hell did I take so many pictures of junk? Well I have people interested in junk that read this. Allen there’s a “Fordson” tractor in there I thought you’d like to take a look at.

Here’s a section of land that I levelled with dirt, setup an irrigation system, planted corn and then watermellons in between the corn.

So I’m having a pretty good wwoofing stay here in Carnarvon, save for all of the weed picking I feel it’s a pretty good experience. The week here has really flown by and I can’t believe it’s already over. I find with these wwoofing stints, it makes you appreciate the time you spend doing nothing and chilling. I’m hesitant to get a job fruit picking or something like that now because I can see how miserably boring they can be and for the cash that they pay I don’t know if it’s worth it. Two of the Canadian’s that I met in Geraldton put it in good words saying that there are plenty of good paying jobs that don’t require you to work for peanuts in the hot sun for some asshole farmer who will treat you like shit. Point taken but at the same time it’s all about the experience… I’m thinking as of now though to just travel for the next couple months, and if what I was told is true that some of my contacts could hook me up with a drafting job no problem on the Gold Coast, do all my working there. But hey, that could easily fall through.

As for my next move, I’m heading up to Coral Bay for Christmas on the beach. After that I’d really like to go up to this national park called Karijini but I don’t know if it’s going to happen. The bus doesn’t go there, only to a town just north of it and as it’s the summer here it’s the off season in the north and it doesn’t look like there’s any tours going there. From what I’m told your best bet is to rent a car and go there. I guess I’ll see when I get there. After that I hope to be up in Broome for new years and after that I have no idea. I hear Broome will be stupid hot so I’m thinking that I might do a rental car relocation back down to Perth or perhaps towards Adelaide. I was also thinking about flying to Alice Springs but as of right now I really don’t know.

A couple random thoughts and points:

The nights in the southern hemisphere are insanely dark. I mean like blackity, black, dark. I have to walk from my caravan to the bathroom and if I forget to turn the garage light on and the moon isn’t out I’m pretty blind, it is unreal. That said because of that darkness the stars are just amazing. When I was in Narrogin and on the West’s farm we were pretty far outside of town so there was zero light pollution and the stars are something else. I can’t even put it into words of how intense the night sky is. They don’t have the northern lights and the moons are pretty crappy though.
Western Australia is like Alberta in the sense that it’s the economic power house of Australia, putting in more money than any other state or territory in the country so from what I’m told there’s also mumblings of WA separating from the rest of the country but I really haven’t heard much. Albeit it is a large country, it isn’t split politically or culturally like Canada is. From what I’ve seen the entire state is booming big time especially around Perth and Carnarvon is pretty much on the brink of exploding from what I’m told.

Race riots. You’ve probably seen it on the news that there have been race riots in Sydney and I see today that the Canadian government issued a warning to stay away from the Sydney beaches. Not surprisingly it’s caused quite a big stir down here and I saw on a new poll said that something like 75% of the population say there’s an underlying racist tone and I’d have to agree with it. I can’t quite put my finger on it but it’s definitely there. Things that some people have said make me raise my eyebrows, some of the political parties, there stances and objectives plus some of the political talk shows that I’ve seen makes me think/realize that Canada is a lot more harmonious, of course that’s coming from a middle class white male that was raised in small town Alberta.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
I got this book from the book exchange the day before I left and I finally finished it in Kalbarri. I didn’t think it would have taken me this long to read it but I did read “The Zone” by Barry Sears in there too, which I recommend.
The book is pretty much a look into values as a guy and his son travel across the country on a motorbike trip and was based on a true story. He makes comparisons with repairing and up keeping his bike with life and its many philosophies. At times it was boring as a hell and I really had to drag through it especially when he would get into ancient Greece philosophy and Plato, Socrates and the whole bunch. In the end though, I felt it conveyed a really good message on life and how the individual can make the world just a little bit better of a place. It also had a pretty interesting surprise ending, that of which being true.
I give it 3.5 out of 5 and would recommend it.
As for now I just traded in Zen and the Art, at the local book exchange, for the only book that that they had that looked of any interest called “When the war was over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution” by Elizabeth Becker (sorry Dan, couldn’t find the Lance Armstrong book you recommended). It’s basically the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and subsequently the 3 million people that died under its power. So far I think it’s great and can’t put it down.
I’ve also been reading the bible a bit; pretty interesting stuff.

So that’s that. I’m having a good time and in good health and spirits. Christmas alone for the first time should be pretty interesting. I hear Coral Bay is super nice though so I’m looking forward to that. No huge feast this year but instead it’s back to tuna, oranges and peanuts. I ate really good on my wwoofing stint so I really don’t care at this point, I’ve had my fill.

Safe Travels

Troy

Well I spent a quick night in Geraldton and quickly headed out to an other farm north of town for an other wwoofing stay. I spent pretty much the entire day running around getting small tasks done and TRYING to make phone calls.

I’ve had major problems with the phones here and the major company Telstra who seem to be hated by everyone including now me. I must have wasted $5 on their pay phones trying to make calls but the stupid machines kept eating my money or the booths were located on the busiest street corner in the city and couldn’t hear what the other person was saying. I must of kicked 4 different pay phones that day. Finaly after one call I snapped and as I turned around I noticed Telstra regional office across the street from where I was standing. Trembling with rage I casually walked across the street and into the building where 4 people were cusualy working away. I was absolutey filled with rage and ready to snap but covered it with my polite Canadian demenor. The following conversation went a little something like this:
“Hello, how are you doing today? I would like to make a phone call, please.” I said.
“A phone call?” the young lady replied with a confused look on her face. At this time the other 3 people in the front office all stopped, turned from their desks and looked at me with the same confused look on their faces.
“Yes, a phone call. I have wasted nearly $5 on your shitty pay phones that either keep eating my money or are perfectly placed next to a busy street making it impossible to hear the other person.”
At this time everyone in the office turned back in their desks and burried their heads in their work.
“Oh, umm…I guess you can use that one over there…”
“Thank you.”

So now I know how to get free phone calls.

Back to the journey at hand. After having an amazing stay at the West’s farm I was eager for an other great experience staying with an other family. I picked out a farm that was a small operationg working with some cattle, sheep, turkeys, chickens, pigs and couple bee hives. They had a lot of neat little projects on the go and seemed like really nice people. Their names were Graham and Angela McKenny and were about in their mid to late 40’s. Angela ran their farm and Graham was a full time plumber here in town. They were pretty cool people and listened to some good music.

They had a number of interesting little hobbys and projects always on the go. With all the milk Angela collected she made cheese and creams, they collected honey from the bees and Angela was really big into homeopathic cures for them and all their animals using different herbs and such.

My first day was an early one where a sheep shearer was coming to the farm to shear the 17 sheep they have. My job was to take the sheep after the shearer sheared it and pull it back into the pen. They were pretty stubborn animals and some of them gave us some problems. A couple took Graham for a ride into his truck and into the tress but other then that things went off pretty smoothly.

Here’s the sheep shearer shearing away.

The next day we had to get the pigs to the slaughter house so we made a sort of ramp and walkway into the back of the truck where a cage was set up for them. Another farmer told them to leave up to 2 hours to load pigs up because they can be a major hassle.

Here’s them starting out.

And there’s the end.

Down the walkway they go. Graham and I stood behing an old pallet and slowly pushed it forward making the walkway smaller and smaller.

Just about there.

Finally into the back of the truck.

Not too many problems actually and I think it only took about half an hour.

Graham and Angela were pretty camera shy so I had to get candid pictures of them all the time.
It was pretty interesting to see and take part of these two tasks but the other job the other tasks pretty much sucked. Picking up cow shit and hauling things around for them were the order of the day and I felt that all I was doing was following them around holding the gate open for them as they drove through it with their trucks. I was never too sure when the day ended and I think they expected me to always be on call sort of speak, making the days extremely long. They really didn’t give very good instruction and seemed to rather want to do the main tasks for themselves.

Now for the bad. As I said before Angela was big on herbs and homeopathic cures. She had a big list on a desk of their in the kitchen detailing all the uses for many of the herbs and such. I thought it looked pretty interesting so I started to give it a read. She took great offense to these and accused me of snooping through her things and next day asked me to leave the next morning. This was after the first morning and after what I had seen of the them and the tasks I was more than pleased to leave. They were decent people but extremely flakey and seemed a bit too hippish. They were always spouting off about big buisness and the government and how they’re controlling peoples minds and blah blah blah. I think they smoked a little too much herb back in their day. They said people needed to get out into the real world more yet they were quite content to never leave the isolation of their farm unless they had to. They were also so uptight about medicine and homeopathic cures saying how evil hospitals and doctors were. She was always giving Graham and herself some weird herbs and such in hopes that they would reach opptimal health yet they were always hacking away and limping around. They talked about how healthy they were because they ate their own meats, eggs and milk that was free of chemicals and additives yet they would gussle down like 4 litres of Sprite and eat half a loaf of white bread a day. But now I’m ranting and picking out all their hippocracies and I am guilty of my own so I’ll end it there.

So after hitting such a great high after the West’s farm I’ve hit a hard low and feel a bit bitter and jaded after that wwoofing experience. I left their farm Monday morning, tired as shit as they slept like 5 hours a night and dirty as hell, got into town, had a nap a half decent breakfast and now I’m back at it dirty and reckless. I’m spending tonight in Geraldton and looking to take off to Kalbarri tommorrow afternoon. Kalbarri is a national park about an hour north of Geraldton where I hpe to just chill out a lot and rest myself up.

Well that’s that. A shorter entry this time around but for good reason. Here’s some more pics of my stay. There’s a couple pictures in there of a stay that I went to with them. Those are for all the farmers out there.

Safe Travels.

First off, give me some feedback people and not just, “Looks like your having fun” crap. Comments of something I did, something I should try, perhaps a bit of advice or insight into my journeys, critisism is also good too. If it’s a bit personal or whatever email it to me.

Well it’s been a bit and I figure it’s time for an update. It’s been a pretty interesting week plus and I really feel my travels have gotten underway but I guess I’ll start at the beginning.

I spent a couple more days in Perth having gotten back to town on Monday night and finally left on Thursday morning. I figure I was in town for about a week with a little get away down to Narrogin in the middle of it all. I was pretty damn glad to finally get out of the damn city, onto a bus and finally heading north.

Getting ready for Christmas in Perth.

My first stop was Jurien Bay where a farmer was picking me up for a “Wwoofing” stint on his fish farm. I had some problems getting a hold of the people as their cell phone had really bad reception and plus they were a couple minutes late picking me up so I was a bit worried that we didn’t get our messages straight but they showed.

The beach at Jurien Bay.

Albert and Diane West were the people that I was staying with and they run a fish farm halfway between Jurien Bay and another town called Badgingarra. The farm is probably about 30 minutes from the closest town so it’s really out in the woodworks. They had just moved into a new house so some stuff was at the old house, which was pretty dilapidated, and some was at the new house, which was so new some of the rooms still had no windows, like the one I stayed in. If you add in the fact that the first night we had no power it was actually a lot like camping. It may have been extremely rustic but it sure did beat sleeping in another room with 9 other people, 4 of which snore like lawn mowers, that was next to a street with a car that had an alarm that went off every half hour, in a bed that I got wicked bed-bug bites from; of which I’ve gotten over. Ah hostels…

Along with them there was their 15-year-old grandson Troy who had just gotten home from school for summer and Kate their 18 year-old granddaughter who just graduated from high school. Now Troy and Kate are children of their adopted daughter Tracey who is an aboriginal and like a lot of aboriginals, has a lot of problems so Diane and Albert managed to adopt Troy and his sister Kate.

Kate was in town for only a couple days and was there to have a get away with a couple of her friends for graduation so I really didn’t get to know her all that well. She’s a nice girl and is a normal person, her friends on the other hand were a bit inconsiderate. When you’re staying at someones place for free and being fed for free you could at least help out instead of just sitting there watching a 65 year old grandmother with a gimped knee limp around the kitchen cooking for you. Some peoples kids…

Needless to say, another Troy created a bit of confusion at times. Troy is pretty restless, has a bit of a short attention span and from what I’m told has a bit of a learning problem. Seemed like a normal kid to me at first but as time wore on I could see what they were talking about. In the span of an hour he could be seen chasing around the family dogs, playing video games, watching a movie, chatting on the internet, having a bite to eat and riding around on his motorbike. Very restless, not all quite there with some things and had a tough time just staying in one spot to do a task so he pretty much was a nightmare to try and get work out of. By the end of my stay he was starting to drive my patients. Albert and Diane’s patients with him amazed me.

Troy cracking the whip

Albert

Diane

Work consisted of a whole plethora of duties. I had to water the plants a couple times, which was a good time to listen to music and stop to smell the roses. Albert and I dug a trench one day and buried some pipe in it, which as shitty as it sounds I rather enjoyed; after years of sitting in front of a computer, I had forgotten what some good hard work felt like. Those were pretty much the little side jobs that I did but since I’m such a nice guy and the lady of the house had a knee problem, I usually did the dishes, emptied the dishwasher, helped make dinner and little crap like that. I’m such a fricken gentleman, huh?

33 hanging baskets. All me baby.

I went a little overboard on the orange picking.

Now that stuff was a small portion of what I did as the bulk of my work was working the fish farm, which was the cool part. Now you’re probably thinking, “a fish farm in Australia that’s no where near the ocean, huh?” Well since the soil here is pretty much all sand and doesn’t absorb water very well, when it rains the water just puddles everywhere and flows away, so what Albert does is, with his backhoe, digs these big ass “damns” which are essentially just big holes and lets the water fill up. There’s about 30 of these damns all around the farm and I think he said about 28 currently have fish in there. The fish he raises are Silver Perch and goldfish.

Damn

Duties for the fish farm were things like moving around the paddle wheels, which put oxygen in the water and minor maintenance jobs like that to the big fun job; netting, counting and sorting the fish. This was the cool job. What we would do is start off with a damn like above and set up a net next to it ready to go. Albert would start off on one side and pull the net through the water close the shore while I would pull the net off the trailer. When he got to the other side I would start walking my end of the net down the other end of the shore.

Here’s Albert pulling the net through one side.

Here am I pulling it along the other side. It’s amazing how at first you’ll be a bit apprehensive about going into the water but 2 minutes later strip down and get right in there. Albert wasn’t kidding when he said he sucked at taking pictures. I’m way on the left.

After that we would pull the nets closer to the opposite shore that we started on and trap the fish in the net. From there Albert would start netting the fish in a handheld net and pass it up to me on top of the “Ute” (Utility Vehicle, aka car/truck style vehicle) where I would throw them into a big tank on the back of it.

Albert netting some fish and bringing them up to me.

The tank full of fish, no the fish aren’t dead, they’re “sleeping”. Seriously they are. Albert puts in a bit of clover oil into the tank and it pretty much knocks them right out or at least makes them extremely docile. Oddly enough, fish farming doesn’t smell like fish but smells of clover oil which is kinda cool because everytime I smell clover I think of my stay there. I think there was like 200 in the tank here, which from what I’m told was a good haul.

From there we take the full tank to a larger tank out by the sheds and start sorting and counting them. We’d sort them by type (gold fish & perch) and size. The big ones would go into the fresh water tank and the small and medium ones would go back into different ponds to grow more. Again, you’d be surprised at how quickly you can get over your apprehensiveness of touch and handling live fish. The silver perch were pretty much out cold but the gold fish would put up a fight and sometimes get away and by get away I mean you’d drop them off the side of the Ute and have to pick them up.

Now the best part of fish farming and farming in general as far as I’m concerned; eating what you grow and raise.

Albert getting lunch ready, I ate that fish like 10 minutes later.

A turtle we pulled from one of the damns.

It doesn’t get much fresher than that and that’s only part of it. Fresh eggs that were still warm from the chicken or “chucks” and being able to pick an orange off of a tree and eat it was the order of the day. I swear I just about burnt myself on the orange’s juice it was so dam hot and fresh, bet you’ve never tried that before.

“Chucks” as they’re called down here. I had fresh eggs ever morning from these fellows.

So yeah, that was pretty much my duties out on the farm. I’d usually get myself up at 6:00, make breakfast for myself, start work at 7:00 and finish work by about 1:00 with lunch. After that I did whatever I felt like. I spent most of my time working out, reading, listening to music, driving around on the quad and just chilling out. Yeah, I learned to drive a quad, how about that.

This is a bunch of pics of their house. It wasn’t finished yet and is a work in progress but is a pretty cool design. I think it’s called a mesa style of house; it was very Mexican style anyways. Pretty much all the house was made with recycled wood taken from other houses from the area that were tore down. They don’t have wells down here so they have to gather all the rainwater into a big drum for drinking and pump other water from the damns for everything else.

This is Diane getting lunch ready. That’s an old wood stove in the back ground and again on Monday the power went out again for the whole day and we ended up having to light it to make dinner.

The entire kitchen was made with wood that was floorboards.

All of the ceiling beams used were a really heavy hard wood that they recycled.

A really nice hardwood clock of theirs.

The entire house was designed to keep the cool air in and hot air out during the summer, and hot air in and cold air out during the winter. It got up to 34 a couple days but it was a nice 24 inside the house, all without an air conditioner. 34 sounds hot but it actually didn’t feel that hot as it’s pretty much always windy here and in fact the nights could get pretty cool. 28 in Perth felt hotter.

One of the views of the area.

So I ended up spending 7 days with the West’s and I honestly feel like a changed person. You really don’t know how other people live and even really get to know them untill you live with them and be a part of their family. You see their weaknesses and their strengths, and I must say Diane and Albert have plenty of strength. Their patients with Troy was amazing and I don’t know how they managed to do it for so long especially after raising 5 of their own children. Their generosity, kindness and humor through hardships was inspiring. Albert’s work ethic and knowledge also amazed me and now has me with visions of having my own small acrege some day, growing and raising my own food.

I started to get a little bored and eager to leave by about Monday but found that after working the mornings I was still eager to do more and felt I had learned and accomplished something. I had forgotten what getting your hands dirty felt like and what some good hard work felt like; fufilling. That said, I think my next farm stint will be only about 4-5 days unless I feel otherwise, 7 was just too long.

My last day Diane took me out to the Pinnicles which were by there place that are suppose to be a big tourist draw. Kinda borring to fish farming I thought. I’d write more about them but there isn’t too much to write about them.

That’s me

As for now I’m in a city north of Jurien Bay called Geraldton, chilling out and listening to the Oiler’s game Vs the Canucks (Torres just score, man I’m hurting for hockey). It looks like I might be going out to another farm here tonight but I might hold off until Sunday or Monday unless I get my little tasks done today. This farm is a cattle farm so it should be interesting and hopefully I can get some good beef for dinners. Geraldton is a bit of a hurting town so I don’t want to stick around in town too long. The two hostels that are in town are pretty crappy from what I’ve seen.
I’m finding hostels to be rather borring and rather empty but I’m thinking it might be bacause most people are headed south not north. They say it’s too hot up north, it was 24 in Perth yesterday; not hot enough for me. I’ve yet to stay in a party hostel despite my serching.

I guess some people would ask what’s the point this work without pay and whatnot and say aren’t you suppose to be on vacation? Well just like that Irish bloke who had gotten drunk everyday for 6 months straight, each to their own. I’m out here for a cool experience and that’s what I’m getting. That said, if you have any comments, critisisms, input or insights into my travels throw me a line, I would really appreciate that.

Here are a couple more pics that I took.

Safe Travels.

Well well well, it’s been a busy interesting last couple days and I finally have time to sit down now and post here. Perth started out to be a pretty boring town but has ended up to be quite fun. Now where to start…

I guess it was last Thursday I switched hostels from the geriatrics ward hostel I was in to a really good one where I have met tones of great people. I met this English guy named Adam, a Korean guy named Yangsung and a German girl Verena and we all really hit it off well and have had a good time the last couple days so pretty much “home” life has been pretty good. It’s quite enjoyable to get a hostel after a long day and see some familiar faces to chill out with and have a good laugh.

When I first started this blog I was going to give each post the name of a song that was going through my head at the time, even the blog’s title is a song but now I have found that I have listened to pretty much no music as I find it really kills any chance of conversation and interaction with people. Case in point:

The last couple days I have been eyeing this book called WWOOFing that they sell at some stores. WOOFing stands for Will Work On Organic Farms and how it works is the book is full of organic farmers who let international travellers come and work at their farms for a couple hours a day and repay them with accommodations, food stay and the experience of seeing life in a different place. I have been eyeing this book for the last couple days now but wasn’t too sure if I wanted to spend the $50 on it and to top it off I couldn’t find anyone who has had any experience with it. Well on Friday I was standing on the street next to this girl wearing a backpack (obviously a fellow traveller), both waiting for the lights to change so we could cross the street. I struck up a conversation with her about where she was going and coming from. Ends up she had just picked up a WWOOFing book a little while ago, had just got back from her first farm stay and was on her way to another place for a stay. I pretty much ended up drilling her with 1000 questions right there on the street and only got rave reviews from her about WWOOFing. So I ran out, bought the book and am now trying to get a hold of some farmers looking for an out going young fellow such as myself.

I was about to put on my headphones a couple seconds earlier but held off and ended up having a great conversation with a complete stranger and potentially changed my travel plans right around. I’m finding that when you’re travelling along interaction is key just about conversation is good, save the 15 minute monologue some security guard gave me about his job, home life and mother in-law, anyways…

Friday was a pretty busy day, I went out the local botanical gardens here in Perth and just hung out in the park doing handstands and reading.

Here is a shot of Perth from King’s Park.

Now in King’s Park they have a huge war memorial and I must say it’s pretty classy. Australia is very very proud of its history, especially its war efforts and it really puts Canada’s to shame. I’ve never seen anything like this back home and the only war monument that I can think of in Canada is the eternal flame in Ottawa. I don’t know if I just don’t know where they are back home and I keep bumping into interesting historical and memorial sites over here but Canada’s efforts for memorial is a bit of a joke.

Halls of the Dead

War Memorial.

Another shot from King’s Park.

A duck that wouldn’t leave me alone.

So I was suppose to leave Perth Saturday morning and had my bus ticket all booked to start my journey up north but got word that some people that were my grandmother’s friend’s sister lived in town and really wanted to meet me. I managed to postpone my ticket and got a hold Bob and Glenda Smallmen. It was a pretty quiet night and we just went out for fish n’ chips (first time I’ve eaten anything deep fried in over 2 years) and got a bit of a tour of the city. The next day I went out to the family owned and run water slides they have and hit the slides and pool for the afternoon. Afterwards we went out to their place just outside of town in a suburb called Byford for “tea” and that is where I met their two sons Mark and James who were pretty much right around my age and both really cool guys. They took me out to see the sun set over the valley and to get a close look at some kangaroos that were near their place. James is a draftsperson too so it was pretty interesting to see what he was building and drafting. I was quite taken by his original fully intact Optimus Prime and Starscreamer Transformers that he had. Very cool. They also explained to me the rules of Cricket, which currently a lot of people down here are following. It was always on TV in the background at the hostels but I had no idea what the rules were but I’m getting a hand of it and think it’s pretty interesting. Ain’t no hockey though.

Later that night I got a hold of another person that I had never met before and got together with her. Her name is Hayley Pots and she was an exchange student with some friends of ours in Camrose for a year. She took me out to her family farm near this little town called Narrogin way off of the beaten trail. There were no backpackers in this town and I don’t there ever has been or ever will be which was great. I feel very fortunate to see, meet and stay with “real” Australians and not just some people trying to sell you something. I’m pretty sure most other travellers in Australia haven’t had an experience like this and will probably never will.

In Narrogin I was privy to the 17th (I think) annual Revheads competition. Now revheads is where they take suped up cars and just rev the shit out of them trying to make the longest, smokiest and loudest burn out possible before their tires blow. I have never seen anything like this before and I’m told it’s pretty local. I came out of their covered in black tar and soot that took 3 showers to get fully off but it was good fun.

The first guy was the best and did like a 6 minute burn out.

Just give’er

A couple guys with a motorized couch that they were driving around.

After that we went around sleepy Narrogin and met Hayley’s aunt and “Granny”. Granny was the coolest and sweetest old lady, next to my grandmother of course, and I got to hang out in her garden eating her fresh fruits. They have these things called Lokids that they don’t sell in the stores but a lot of people seem to grow that I took quite a liking to.

Sleepy Narrogin

Narrogin and Granny really reminded me of my grandmother and her hometown Vermillion

The next day we took another little tour of the town and the farm. Hayley’s dad, Barry, took me out for a good long tour and showed me his land and gave me a quick education of farming around there. It was pretty interesting to see just how different things are down here and the life of a farmer on down-under.

Whipping through the country

Sheep and lots of them. I think they have like over 3000 head of sheep, which I’m told is rather small.

More sheep.

Beautiful country out here.

The welcoming I have received has been extremely warm and I’m rather touched by the openness of all the people I’ve had the opportunity to meet from Hayley, Granny and to the Smallmans. This one weekend has aloud me decide what I want out of this trip and where I want to go with it. I feel kinda bad for some of the other “travellers” who don’t get the opportunity or ever make an effort to get into that type of situation to see what this country is really all about.

Again, thank you Hayley for taking me out to your farm and letting me have this opportunity.

When I got back to the hostel Monday night it was business as usual for most of the people which included drinking and sitting around. There was one group of guys that when I left they were planted in front of the TV and when I came back they were in the exact same positions, the only thing changed was their clothes. It was pretty bizarre scene. I then overheard another guy bragging about how he has been in the pub drunk every night for 6 months straight (he was Irish go figure). I acted the fool and with a confused look on my face asked him why he just doesn’t stay home and drink. He replied, “Where like at the hostel?” I shot back, “no, your home country.” All I got back was a blank stare. Each to their own I suppose.

My plan now is by the end of the week to start making my way up north towards Broome and hopefully get a hold of some WWOOFing hosts and get on a farm or two at my first stop. I am in good health, save for getting a wicked case of bed-bugs and being itchy as hell. I am meeting some amazing people and just having generally a great time. I’ve only been in country for 2 weeks now and Hayley asked me if time was flying by and I must say that no it hasn’t. I have so many great people and just having an all around blast. I think I have met more people in these last two weeks than I have in the last two years and that this is something I desperately needed. My workouts are still going strong and I’m already freaking some people out with them. Good fun.

Good health to all and until next time…
More pics here

Well I’m in Perth right now and Perth is a bit borring so I thought I’d put in an other entry but this one of all my general thoughts and observations thus far of Australia and whatever. The crappiest thing thus far about travelling alone is you don’t have anyone to share these weird quirky little thoughts and observations with so that’s why I’m posting them here. I hope I don’t sound too insane from this.

Flies. You ever see on TV they’ll show some poor desolate people in Africa or some other far away country and the people there always seem to be covered in flies. You think to yourself that they must be so weak, tired, dirt poor and without any hope that they just don’t do anything about them. The truth is is that they just don’t care. The flies in Australia are HIGHLY agressive and they’re always hovering around you and always in your face. Eventually you just stop caring and let them crawl over you.

Bordies. They’re not short pants. They’re not swimming shorts. They’re “Boardies” and they are useless. Everyone down here wears them and they are quite fashionable but they’re just absolutely pointless. They don’t have an inside liner like swimmers so you have to wear underwear with them but yet they don’t have any pockets so you don’t have anywhere to put change, room key… I bought a pair at the factory outlet and had them for 2 day’s before I tossed them.

Aborigines. They’re in rough shape like the Natives back home. I watched a group huff a bag of something in a park earlier today.

Hostels. They sure can be hit and miss. I don’t mind them being a dirty or rough around the edges at all, it’s the atmosphere and people that I’m interest in the most. I’ve thus far gotten burnt out hippies that keep to themselves, super friendly open to conversation people and now this one which is full of old people and asians that can’t speak a word of English. I sat and listened to two 70-80 year old British ex-patriots argue about who was the best King of England for an hour last night. Things started to get pretty ugly at some points. I have yet to stay at a “party” hostel or a real young person hostel yet so that should be interesting.

Asians. I’m assuming they’re Japanesse on this one and I’m trying not to sound racists but they are a riddle to me. You’ll be sitting on a beautful pristine beach with bluer than blue water and you’ll look over and see them playing games on their cell phones and organizers. I just don’t get them.

Coffee. Australians really like good coffee, good expensive coffee to be exact. I’ve seen only one Starbucks thus far and that was in Sydney. Sorry, no Timmies and no other major franchise to replace either of them. They’re all just small mom and pop operations selling coffee for like $2-$3 a hit. No $0.99 all you can drink diner coffee down here. Good thing I brought my coffee press.

Even McDonald’s is getting in on the actions.

Resturants. Australia is a very eat out country. Most of the resturants are sit-down places and I’ve seen very few fast food places. Pretty must all the places are again mom and pop operations and there are very few franchises like back home with Boston Pizza and Joey Tomatoes. They’re all kind of expensive too but I guess you get what you pay for. A meal for under $10 is considered good.

Food. It’s funny, my grandmother said to me that I wasn’t going to be able to eat the way I normaly eat while travelling. Ends up she’s right but the funny thing is, everyone else is eating the way I used to eat. I see everyone else making big huge salads, BBQing chicken and steak, cooking up big stir-fries and having omletes for breakfast meanwhile I’m currently living off of cans of tuna, oranges, peanuts and whatever else is on sale or cheap. I’m keeping my diet fundamentally the same as back home, just on a tighter budget. I figure I’m eating for less than $10 AUD a day right now.

Sunglasses. I’m glad as hell that I got a contacts before I left as I am loving sunglasses.

Cars. Cars don’t stop for pedestrains here. Mike warrned me about this and he was right. Even at crosswalks they speed through.

The Ocean. I still can’t get enough of it. This picture gives it no justification from what I saw that night on Rottnest.

Showers. Jumping into the ocean isn’t considered a shower/bath. I need to follow this one better. See Flies?

Accents. I’m doing pretty good understanding what people are saying with their accents. German, Scot, Asian, so far the only person that I had a really tough time understanding was another Canadian and no he wasn’t a newfie.

Air Conditioning. I don’t like it. The heat is alright but the second I get into an air conditioned area I just about fall asleep. 3 times now, twice on a ferry and once on a bus I just about fell asleep due to the cool air.

Perth. Perth is kinda of a borring town. There isn’t too much to do but that could be a good thing as it lets me catch up on things. It could also be the fact that the city isn’t on the ocean. It’s also kind of a weird town as it’s very Asian, and what I mean by that is that there are hundreds of Asian food resturants, tons of asian internet cafes and lots of Asian food stores yet I haven’t seen that many Asians around compared to a place like Vancouver where I would a minority.

Like I say, Perth is a little borring so I’m thinking about rigging out but at the same time I feel like I’m moving too fast and need to chill a bit. I think perhaps my best bet would be to chill at the next stop which is looking to Cervantes as it’s on the coast and not far from some really cool outback scenery.

Well that’s that.

Troy out.

Well I’m back in Fremantle right now after 2 and a half glorious days on Rottnest Island. Rottnest island is a small island about 12km long and about 4 km wide about 30 minutes ferry ride from Fremantle. The weather was beautiful they whole time I was there save for the wind which at time gusted up to 30 knots, which I have no idea how many kilometers that is but it was windy. Regardless it was still an amazing place. There’s pretty much no cars on the island save essential services and you get around by bike.

The first night in the hostel it was pretty much a ghost town and there was only me and 5 other people there and I ended up having an entire 6 person room to myself. It was pretty nice but stupid me left the window open and with the heavy wind I ended up freezing my ass off all night.
The second day and night more people started to come in and I went out with a group of girls from the local college to watch the sunset. When I came back to the hostel it was packed and I pretty much spent the rest of the night just bullshitting with people and getting idea’s on where to go and what to do. Now that’s the Australian experience I want, no burnt out hippies please.

This is a quokka, they’re all over the island and stupid tame.

The water looks extremely inviting buts it a bit cool at around 20 degrees but that didn’t stop me.

Yep, life was pretty tough on the island. The highlights of my day’s involved sleeping under a tree, riding my bike around and finding good beaches to sit on and read.

The sunrise was also pretty damn cool…

…as was the sunset…

Maybe my wallets in there…

All and all it was a very relaxed couple of days but it’s time to move on. I just bought a jump-on-jump-off bus ticket up north to Broome and plan to take about a month and a half getting up there, checking out all the sights along the way. After that I’m planning on heading back down to Perth and start making my way along the southern part of the country. I figure by the time I get up to Broome it will be stupid hot and by the time I get back down to Perth, it’ll be nice and hot but we’ll see what happens as I’ll probably take off in a couple days. Day’s are starting to blend together and time is starting to slow to a crawl, which is good.

Now for a very serious matter that could very well alter my travel experience and even my life. I could use some feedback on this one as it’s a pretty tough decision;
I’m thinking about ditching all but one pair of underwear, all my short pants and just wearing swimtrunks all the time.
Yep, life is just that tough right now…

Troy out.
More photos here

Well here I am in Fremantle Western Australia right now, which is just outside of Perth. I arrived from Sydney about 5PM Wednesday and I’ve been pretty busy. My last day in Sydney I spent pretty much most of the day in the Sydney Botanical Gardens which is right next to the Opera House. It’s an incredibly beautiful place and I could have spent at least another day there just walking around and hanging out.

The weather was amazing holding out in the upper 20’s the entire time I was there with a great breeze coming off of the harbour.

I took this one at a place called the “Rocks” which is next to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I thought it was a funny scene to come across.

A view from the gardens.

There are plenty of cool animals in the gardens ranging from bats to lizards to macaws.

I just about stepped on this guy.

That night Mike, Susan and I went out for dinner at this little Thai diner right around the corner from his place. It was the first time I had ever had Thai food or any “real” Asian food for that matter so it was a good experience. Sydney is a damn big city and little unnerving and it’s easily the biggest city I’ve ever been in. The mass transit is enormous and you can get anywhere in town using it with little hassle, it was a little expensive though but I’m sure I’m saying that without realizing just how far I had gone.

The next day was spent getting to Perth and finding my way to Fremantle. Fremantle is a nice little suburb just south-west of Perth of about 20 000 people in Western Australia. It’s a pretty cool town and I mean that in a couple ways. It’s got a lot of really old buildings that are very European with tonnes of history as it was one of the first ports on the west coast.

It’s also got a massive shipyard.

I had a whole slew of pictures that I took but for some reason they all got deleted past this point. I’ll try to retake them as best I can and post them. You can also go here for all of my pictures that I have taken so far.

That and it’s kinda cold here compared to Sydney. When I left Sydney it was probably about 25 at about 9 in the morning so it was going to be a scorcher the day that I left. When I got here it was probably about 18 above with a really cool wind coming off of the ocean, I ended up going out the next day and buying a long sleeved shirt. That said the weather got better during the day and is holding around the low to mid 20’s with an amazing breeze coming off of the ocean. This town and weather is how I’d imagine summer in the Maritimes would be like back home.

It was pretty long day and when I first got to the hostel I was a little intimidated but after I had a workout, went down to the kitchen for some diner and started talking to other people I settled right in and had a good time. I went out with a group of people to a couple different bars for some drinks and had a good time. It was very welcoming and the people I met were super friendly and I managed to get a lot of information from them.

Unfortunately all the cool people left and I found myself being pretty much the only person left in the hostel without dreadlocks (damn hippies). The place was pretty noisy too and very “quaint” and I mean that in the dirty and inconvenient way. I don’t mind a dirty place but it was the people that got to me. I guess most of the them had been living there for a couple months and were planning on staying there for an other couple months so there was a definite “in crowd” which consisted of a lot of pretty sketchy people who weren’t really doing much save sit around and drink at the hostel. After a couple nights there I switched hostels just this morning to a place around the corner that was is an YHA member. I was thinking that I would avoid membership places like this while travelling but after just checking in and going into the hostel for half an hour, I realized it was much better.

My true first day in town I just did some boring errands and got thinking about what I want to do next. The third day was a busy ass day. I started off with a workout on the beach which ended off with a jump in the ocean. If I spend the rest of my day’s starting each morning like that I could die a happy man. The water was amazing and it was a lot more suited to swimming than in Sydney as there wasn’t much of a current. The salt water still took me off guard and I have to remember to close my mouth.

I spent the rest of the day hoofing around town going to the Fremantle Market.

It was a pretty nice little market with lots of CHEAP fresh fruit and veggies. Ahh, always thinking with my stomach.

After that I went down to the beach and watched the sun set. I had never seen anything like that ever before in my life. I was amazing and all I can say is that we don’t get them like that on the prairies.

Later that night I went out on a late night tour of the Fremantle Prison. It was made back in the early 1800’s and used all the way up until 1991 as a maximum security prison. They had no running water and the prisoners had to use the “Bucket System” even up to ’91. They don’t treat their prisoners too good that’s for sure. Again I had pictures of this place but I seem to have lost them. Maybe it was because of the ghosts that I was warned about…

It was a long ass day and I think in the last week I have walked more kilometres than I have in the last year. That said I am having a good time and planning on spending the day on the beach just relaxing. I keep say that I’m going to do that but each day I hear about something or see something that I want to do or check out.

Tomorrow I’m off to Rottenest Island which is just off of the coast. From what I hear it’s an amazing place to see. From there I’m planning to start heading up north up to Broome but I’m told that it’s starting to get really really hot up there so there isn’t that many people going north right now. That said I really want to head north for a bit as per Jesse’s recommendations. I’m looking to get a Hop-on Hop-off bus pass and spend a couple weeks making my way up there, stopping at the little towns along the way and from there try to hook up with someone with a vehicle that’s heading the opposite direction or just bus it back. I’ve also been thinking about buying my own vehicle and start driving. Throwing a fishing rod into the back and sticking to the coast could be a lot of fun I figure but I’ll see what happens.

Now to needlessly worry my mother:
I think I’m getting too much sun. I took off my sunglasses and noticed I had a bit of a sunglass tan. I also can’t find my wallet. Oh well I’m sure it’ll show up.

Love you all.
Troy

Go here to see some more of my pictures:
http://www.ballofdirt.com/entries/9302/91269.html

Well here I am in Sydney, It’s been a hell of a journey just to get here but Brad and I finally made it as planned. Friday all started with me waking up at 3:30 for our flight to Vancouver which took off at 5:00 AM. I didn’t get to the bed the night before until 12 so sleep deprivation and coffee made the experience quite interesting. We got to the airport with plenty of time but with Brad having problems with his visa and me getting held up in security, we ended up having to run to the plane just to get on. It was just like out of a fancy Hollywood movie. It was almost best that way as there ended up being no long tearful good-byes at the terminal.

Since we were flying on standby passes we got to Vancouver nice and early to maximize our potential of getting onto one of 3 flights going to Honolulu. We didn’t get on the first flight and ended up having to wait in the Vancouver terminal for just about 12 hours and even though I was extremely tired I couldn’t manage to fall asleep. After that ordeal I know hate the Vancouver airport. The second flight came around and we patiently waited to see if our names would be called to be one of the lucky few to “win” the tickets to get away from the terrible place known as Vancouver International Airport. Again no luck. Fortunately the third “lottery” was a couple minutes after the second and the fun began again. Unfortunately this one didn’t look very promising at all and there looked to be a number of people with standby tickets waiting for their names to be called too. Somehow or any other, after the plane being delayed for nearly an hour and against the constant flow of late passengers, we managed to get on. By that point I didn’t care where I was going so long as it was away from the airport.

To top off the crappy wait at Vancouver the flight from Vancouver to Honolulu was the worst flight ever. Against lack of sleep and exhaustion I still couldn’t fall asleep until about an hour before we landed. In Honolulu, again faced major odds that we wouldn’t get onto the flight as the first Honolulu plane that we had earlier missed in Vancouver ended up having problems in Honolulu and got cancelled so everyone from that plane was trying to get onto the later flight. Yet again we beat the odds and managed to get on and fortunately I fell asleep even before the plane took off. This flight went well and I pretty much slept through the entire flight. It was actually a good thing that I was on basically no sleep for such a long time and slept only on the last leg of the journey as I experienced very little jet lag.

In Sydney I met up with a cousin of mine, Mike that I really had never met. For my first day in town he took me out with a friend of his, mountain biking. It was an absolutely beautiful day holding around 25 above with not a cloud in the sky. The trails that we went on were pretty cool and pretty hardcore. There were some pretty hairy parts on the trails that I had to dismount the bike and walk down the rocks and logs that were used as drop offs on the trail. It was pretty damn fun and was just what I needed after sitting on a plane and in airports for the last couple days.

After getting soaked with sweat we went down to Manly beach for a dip. This was the first time that I have ever been in the ocean. I had been to the ocean in Victoria when I was a kid but I don’t consider that the same thing. Here there was some pretty big waves coming at you and the water was very very salty. The water felt great and I thought it was warm but Mike said it was still pretty cold. What really took me off guard was the rip tide from the waves. It was kind of freaky and I can easily see how someone can get easily exhausted and drown if they’re not careful. The rest of the was pretty laid back and chilled out, we had a BBQ later on that night and I met Susan, Mike’s girlfriend and his roommate, Massimo. Along with Mike they are both very cool people. I spent the rest of the day drinking coffee trying to stay up as late as possible to ensure I get no jet lag. Needless to say, it was a pretty busy and exciting day and I slept well that night, a very good first day in Australia.

Monday was a day that I spent pretty much running around getting lost in downtown Sydney. I wanted to go to Bondi beach so I took the bus there thinking that it would be a good way to see the city. Unfortunately I took the wrong bus and it ended up being a bus that snaked through the city going through every residential area and suburb along the way. To top it off, school had just gotten out and there were hundreds of kids on the bus which had to stop at every single stop along the way. By the time I got to Bondi I was beat from tromping around downtown and the long bus ride. I didn’t think too much of Bondi and was a little disappointed by it. It was a very trendy place and all the stores there were pretty expensive which I thought was odd because the area seemed geared towards backpackers.

All in all that was pretty much my day. Sydney is an extremely beautiful city but I’m eager to leave as I’m finding it rather expensive. Stupid cheap-ass me spent way too much time today walking around comparing prices for food and looking for some decent cheap clothing. What a waste and that’s something that I’m going to have to let up on a bit but I’m hoping it’s just Sydney that’s expensive and not the whole country. That said I just bought my ticket for Perth and will be taking off on Wednesday.

Here’s the view that I woke up to in Sydney. Pretty crazy huh?
P.S. It’s funny Tiff, seeing which way the water went down the toilet was the first thing I did.