Sydney 8th December-24th March

I am going to attempt to talk about the 4ish months that I spent living and working in Sydney. I don't quite know how I am going to do it as so much happened there and I met so many amazing people. But here it goes...
All 4 of us stayed with my Uncle, Auntie, and 3 cousins (aged 8, 6 and 4) for a few days while we searched for jobs and apartments. My Uncle picked us up from the airport and pointed out the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House in which we all gasped in unison. They are amazing sites to see, and like I said in the blog before last, seeing them both almost everyday never got boring. Staying with my Uncle was great, I don't get to see my cousins very often and so I spent a lot of time with them throughout my stay in Sydney. They're such energetic, intelligent and funny girls that a day with them leaves you feeling warn out but very happy. They became a great way to distract me from any worries I had about finding a job or from missing home. Just before we left Sydney, Matt and I went to stay with them again and we both looked after the girls while my Uncle and Auntie ran some errands. They taught us how to play a new card game that they had discovered and then we watched a new Disney film and I fell asleep cuddling the youngest one under the duvet. It was lovely.
My Uncle helped us get set up in the new flat that Heidi found on gumtree, a lovely 2 bed flat in a place called Cammeray. First thing to say about that comment is that gumtree is massive in Australia, people sell and buy all sorts of things on there and you can get really good deals. Second thing to say is that, little did we know, Cammeray is one of the poshest places in Sydney, with beautiful houses overlooking the surrounding bays and many people owning yachts. We would often walk down to Tunks Park which had a beautiful view of the marina and was perfect for a drink in the sunshine and a game of catch with the American football.
We rented the flat for $150 a week each, roughly £5.50=$10, and had it for 2 months until his lease ran out. It was a great deal as we got WiFi too (which was capped so we often used next door's WiFi as they gave up the password), but it came unfurnished as most apartments in North Sydney do and so we were sitting on the floor in the lounge for a couple of weeks and had just mattresses as beds. Every 2 weeks there is a throw out day in Sydney and people put things that they do not want any more out on the street ready for the council to pick it up. We collected a lot of pieces of furniture from these weeks including a leather armchair, a table and and ironing board. Matt and Nathan also found a huge corner sofa on gumtree for free and collected it from down the road in two halves. After about a fortnight we had a nice set up in the flat and were comfortable there.
So my search for a job began. I went to numerous interviews manly for phone sales and sales jobs. All 4 of us did 2 day's work for a charity helping children with cancer over Christmas where we had to wear red and green foam deep antlers on our head, round our waist and linked through our arms. There were a lot of backpackers doing this job too, all of them were not from Australia and most of them had English as a second language. Travellers who are English have a massive advantage in Australia as it is easy for us to communicate to others, and so we get the better jobs despite how fluent a traveller with English as a second language is. That job was a nightmare, it was so tiring, we were basically begging, and our pay was 20% of the money we raised. This meant that we worked really hard in order to get paid more, and individually we managed to raise more than most people. The only good thing about the job was that we were raising money for a good cause.
Matt and I also went to another job interview, which we both got offered but neither showed up for, which was face to face selling on the streets in the cbd. We got put into different teams and were asked to show our "managers" (you could become a manager after 2 weeks if you made enough sales which just shows what sort of place it was) that we were enthusiastic and confident enough to sell. I had to approach strangers in the street with my hand out ready to shake theirs and introduce myself in order to start a conversation about selling. It was demoralising. Most of the people working there were young Australians fresh out of college and for some reason they were convinced that the job was great. The commission was pretty good but if you didn't make 2 sales in a week you wouldn't even get paid. It was not the sort of place either of wanted to work. Thankfully I had been asked to meet the manager at a cafe on the next street from our flat on the same day as the sales interview but later in the afternoon. I left the sales interview early in order to make it in time and was greeted my a lovely Australian called Andrew Maggio. Andrew had already decided that I was having the job at his cafe and so I sat down and listened to the list of duties that would be expected of me while I was there. It worked out perfectly, there were so many things right with this job that it just seemed to me that it could only have been God that had sorted it out for me. First of all I would be working in the deli making and selling sandwiches for eating in and take away. This was basically was I was doing at my part time job in Reading so I was used to doing that sort of thing. It was less than a 5 minute walk from our flat, the owners were Italian and we all know how much I love Italy, I didn't have to start until after Christmas which meant I got to spend it with my Uncle and cousins and I would be working a 4 day week earning $540 plus tips and finishing at 3p.m. the only downside was that I started work at 6a.m. which meant I needed to wake up between 5a.m. and 5.30a.m. By the end of our time in Australia I had gotten used to the early starts but at first it was so difficult to deal with. Most nights I would be going to bed at 8p.m and a lot of afternoons were filled up with napping. The people I worked with ended up being incredible though. My partner in crime in midweek was a 33 year-old half Fiji half Irish man named Terrence who I grew to love. He treated me like a sister; he set me up on dates with customers, gave me relationship advice, listened to my troubles and told me elaborate stories about ex girlfriends. He would often big himself up and flirt with customers, constantly making me laugh. He would always call me Jo even though he knew I hated that name, and he would often say, in a jokingly exasperated tone, "come on Jo! " if I ever messed anything up or did something too slow. When John Legend's "All of Me" would come on the radio he would let me just stand at the deli and listen to it as he said it was my daily "boost", knowing that I loved the song that much. I also worked with a girl called Purple who was Korean, had gorgeous hair and always wore bright pink lipstick. We would always shout "behind" when walking through the cafe so that our colleagues would not walk back into us or knock us. Purple's version of "behind" sounded like "bee hive" and she would repeatedly say it with every step she took. The female chef working there was called Anita. She was a gorgeous Nepalese woman who looked after me so well. When I brought Nathan and Matt in to see her they thought she was was way too attractive to be stuck in a kitchen. For some reason I grew quite attached to Anita and people would joke about how much time I spent in the kitchen because I enjoyed standing in there and talking to her.
I also became good friends with the waitresses who worked there, all of them being 18 and just starting university. I became particularly good friends with the twins, Jess and Kate, and often went round to each other's for drinks and out at night together.
Half way through our stay in Australia my parents came out to see me and my Uncle. I had such a lovely time with them and don't know how I would have coped having not seen them for 8 months. We took Heidi and Nathan to Taronga zoo where watched a seal show, saw kangaroos, koalas and wallabies. I was with my parents and cousins when I saw my first kangaroo, and it was in the willful too which made it extra exciting! We went to a National Park near Wahroonga (where my Uncle lives) and saw Australia from a beautiful viewpoint that made it look like the Amazon, walked along a boardwalk where tiny crabs were living on either side of the platform, and found 2 kangaroos drinking from a lake. It was amazing.
I spent nearly all of my weekends off at the beach with either Matt or Heidi. My favourite beach was called Manly and was only a half an hour bus ride away. I would often take a bottle of goon to the beach and have a glass while sunbathing and enjoying my day off. There was a strip of shops in Manly as well where we had a few nice meals out and bought some clothes to make us look less like travellers during our stay in Sydney. Another gorgeous beach we found during the last part of our stay in Sydney was called Balmoral beach. This beach was less busy and overlooked another marina (it reminded me of where Dexter keeps his boat in "Dexter"). Over to the left of the beach was a tiny island connect to the shore by a little bridge where many weddings are held.
While we were living in Cammeray, one of my best friends from home (a fellow camel), Harriet, was also living in Sydney (near Bondi beach). I met her almost straight away and she spent many nights at our flat and came out on nights out with us. It was so great having her in Sydney and I was sad to see her go when she moved to Canberra to become a Nanny. The first night she stayed with us we went into the city on our normal mode of transport (bus) and hopped off at 11p.m. ready to walk to the club. My sandal had broken and so Harried helped me over to a bus stop as we attempted to fix it with safety pins. While we we focusing on my shoe mishap, Matt and Nathan were being hassled by a group of about 20 Australian teenagers. The next thing I knew, I saw Nathan being pushed and shoved and then punched in the face. I quickly looked over to Matt who was being pushed into the bus stop and I began to scream. The guys ran across the road to try and get away from the mob but we're followed, their shirts being ripped to shreds as the yobs struggled to hang onto them. As quickly as it happened, it all stopped, with the group of teens disappearing into the night and with Matt's phone gone. We were left wondering what had just happened and why. We called the police and were giving statements for hours, all for nothing in the end as the police did nothing to follow it up. We were just so shocked that we had been through all of Asia and nothing like this had happened and as soon as we arrived in Sydney we got mugged. Welcome to Sydney!
Anyway, we didn't let this experience taint our view of Sydney and very quickly fell in love with it. I can't explain how beautiful it is, both the cbd with all its tower blocks and city structure and the isolated beaches. This brings me to my Home and Away experiences. Yes, plural! One of the days I spent with my family involved a trip to Palm Beach where Home and Away is filmed. Of course it was a beautiful beach but I was far more concerned with how much it looked like it does on tv! Even the different coloured flags outside the Surf Club were there. I also got a photograph of me next to what looked like Alf's beach cart. As if that wasn't enough, my Home and Away experience continued as a few weeks later I was serving in the cafe when Belle from the tv show walked in! I served her and was totally starstruck that I couldn't even ask her if it really was her, but I googled her afterwards and it definitely was ;) my bosses made fun of me for so long after that because it wasn't really a big deal, especially because we got so many celebrities in our cafe anyway.
With just over a month to go until we left Sydney, we moved flat to Neutral Bay. Thankfully this was only a 25 minute walk from Cammeray so I could get to work, and was still over the bridge. There is a massive divide, similar to that of the North and South of England, in Sydney between people North of the bridge (us), and people in the centre. The flat was fully furnished, with a comfortable double bed that Heidi and I shared and a 50" tv screen with surround sound.
Another little fact about Australia is that they only have 2 types of supermarket: Woolworths, which is not linked to the English Woolworths, and Coles. I found this really strange when we first arrived. They don't sell alcohol in these shops either, there are separate chains connected to each supermarket that only sell alcohol.

Our last week in Sydney:
We decided to quit our jobs to give us a week in Sydney without any responsibilities so that we could just enjoy being there again like before we got our jobs. On the Monday we went skydiving from 14000 ft over the coast of Sydney. I was petrified as we flew up in a tiny plane and watched the first person fall out into the vast blue sky. When it was my turn, I was moved to edge of the plane by the instructor attached to my back and I took a deep breath as we slipped into nothingness. It was quite literally breath taking. I somehow felt so safe as I was falling free fall though the sky and took in the amazing sight of Sydney below me. I started to find it hard to breathe, especially when fell into extremely cold patches of air, but the parachute was soon opened and I was able to steer us round in circles in the air. I enjoyed every minute of it and I would highly recommend it. Afterwards, Heidi.. Matt and I went out into the city for the evening and went to scubar. We had a great night knowing we didn't have work the next day and got ourselves into our usual amount of trouble.
On Tuesday we enjoyed ourselves at Balmoral beach for the last time, making the most of the sun and the view.
On Wednesday we visited the Blue Mountains which was a couple of hours out of Sydney on the train. We had a great day taking in the view of the mountains and doing little walks in the countryside. We took the cable cars across to one part of the National Park and took the mountain train down to the bottom of the mountain. The train allowed for different settings on the chairs which meant you could travel down the mountain at a 52° angle as if it were a rollacoaster.
On Thursday Matt and I went into the city to meet one of my friends from University. We exchanged travelling stories and enjoyed being with people from home. We ran some errands ready for leaving New Zealand and then walked over the Harbour Bridge back to the flat. Walking over the bridge was a great experience as the Opera House body
Circular Quay were in great view.
That night we went to Greenwood which was not only near both our flats but was the best night out we had had in Sydney. So we decided our last night should be shared with Greenwood. Kate came to our flat and we showed her some games that we played at uni in England, I then dropped her iPhone and paid her $160 to get it repaired. But we won't go into that ;)
On Friday I took full advantage of the flat and watched tv all day, knowing that I wouldn't get a chance to do so any time soon.
On Saturday, Matt, Nathan and I went to Wet n Wild, the biggest waterpark in the world. One of the rides had a 360° loop and was terrifying. You entered the ride individually by standing on a glass floor that would move from under your feet, leaving you to drop down a tube on a vertical drop. We also went on rides where all 3 of us sat on a blow up ring and got thrown about in water. It was a great day to end our time in Sydney on.

That's my time in Sydney shortened down into a blog. So much more happened but the photographs will fill the gaps that my words have left. Now onto our New Zealand adventure!!!

Brisbane and Cairns

So we flew into Brisbane from Singapore and arrived into Australia at a stupid time in the morning. Because we're tight backpackers we didn't want to pay a hostel for a room that night seeing as we wouldn't have arrived until about 3a.m. so we all camped out in the airport on some sofas. Fortunately Brisbane airport stayed open all night (unlike Cairns as we found out later!) and I shoved my ear plugs in my ears and a tshirt over my head while making myself comfortable in the dark and empty airport. When I woke up it was light and bustling and all the hundreds of people in the airport attending to their own business had seen the sight of what must have looked like 4 young tramps piled over all of the sofas. We wasted some more time until the free shuttle bus picked us up to take us to our hostel (called Base Hostel - I'd recommend!) and grabbed some breakfast. We were so disgusted by the prices of things in the airport and were just praying that prices were tripled because it was an airport and that this was not just typical Australian prices. We had good from paying roughly 30p for a can of coke to paying almost £2. A meal had gone from £1-£2 to £6-£10. So we freaked out a bit, realised how much we would need to get a job when we got to Sydney and decided never to eat out in Australia. Of course the first thing we did when we got to Brisbane centre was sit down in a food court! Driving from the airport to our hostel was so exciting as we hadn't seen buildings so built up in such a long time. I was gasping with excitement at all of the talk tower blocks and the hustle and bustle of the city even though the lack of these things is what had drawn me to Thailand in the first place!
We then explored Brisbane, a much smaller version of Sydney but a city that had everything I needed. A lot of our traveller friends had said that they hated Brisbane because it had "no point", but for me, someone who loves city life but can often feel swallowed up by how big everything is, it was brilliant. A 10 minute walk through the city centre led to the artificial beach surrounded by green parkland and the river. The beach was absolutely gorgeous, with 3 pools resembling the sea (for the swimmers like me, Matt and Nathan) and a section of sand for the sunbathers (Heidi).
We spent a few days in Brisbane, enjoying the beach and the shops, and also spent a lot of time flat hunting for when we arrived in Sydney. The strain of travelling in a 4 became apparent while we were in Brisbane, spending so much time with the same people began to get a bit much for all of us and so Matt and I had a night out in a club called Victory. That night we were introduced to goon. Goon is simply a box of wine, apart from in Australia the box is discarded by the drinker, leaving just the silver bag with a tap to pour out Tim wine. Also, a bag of 4 litres, sometimes 5, only cost $9-$12 (about £6ish). Matt and I were not actually aware that this was what goon was, thinking that it would actually be labelled as goon and come without the box, but we were soon enlightened in Cairns.
The club was amazing, we met a few people and found some spare $s on the floor! We both ordered a "jam jar" each, which is kind of the same as an English fish bucket but in a jam jar. The club was massive with lots of rooms and an outside area with a live band.
In the morning we both went to get lunch and then to the Brisbane museum. The best part about the museum was the animal section where they had skulls of all types of animals found in Australia ranging from the smallest to the largest. They also had a section full of insects that you could touch and look at - horrible insects might I add, like a praying mantis and massive spiders.
After a few days we had pretty much done Brisbane and were ready to go to Cairns. The same thing happened at Cairns airport where we arrived at about midnight and did not want to pay for a hostel. However, this airport did not stay open past midnight and our flight was the last of the day and so we got kicked out of the building and had to sleep outside the airport until 5a.m. when we gathered our things together and headed towards the free shuttle.

We arrived at our hostel called the Asylum and to say I was not pleased with Heidi (who had booked it) would be a massive understatement. It was a dump. We arrived at about 7a.m. and people were still awake from drinking the night before, including the member of staff who eventually let us sign in and gave us the keys to our room. Our bedroom was basic but we were sharing just as a 4 which is always a privilege and it was the cheapest hostel we could find in Cairns so it was going to be a dump, right?
Turned out it was the best hostel so far. The people were amazing, those who worked there and those who were visiting and we became best friends with 3 English girls who we continued to meet up with on our travels.

Cairns was similar to Brisbane only in the fact that it also had a man-made beach in its centre. The sea was actually pretty dirty and there was no same around the shore, hence why the lagoon was made. This lagoon was more beautiful than Brisbane's and we spent a few days there, some just us 4 and some with the many friends we made at the hostel. We met one guy named Hampus who was fascinated with how small Heidi was and whom completely fascinated me. We had hour long conversations about pure fiction, becoming more and more engrossed in what we were saying until we were just too tired to talk any more. We had a confusing debate about the difference between share, chair and Cher due to his strong Swedish accent not leaving much definition between the three words. He was hilarious and we spent many afternoons in the pool hanging out with him and many evenings drinking with him.

One night was Nick's birthday (the drunk worker who gave us our keys on the first night) and he walked around the hostel dressed in a Santa's outfit whilst letting the "artistic wasters" paint all over him. The artistic wasters were something out of Mean Girls. They were very clique-y and were not all there. They were constantly high, never stopped drinking, were not all there and would daily give each other homemade tattoos.
We all went out for Nick's birthday as the owner of the Asylum was keen to get us out of the hostel for at least one night, although he often drank with us too, and because we left so early for the club we were back home by midnight and up to our usual drinking games in the front yard.
Having said all of that, we spent numerous days getting early nights due to our early mornings. Cairns was where we bought a day trip to the Great Barrier Reef where we all did 2 dives and spent the rest of the time snorkelling. We hired an underwater camera and took loads of snaps of us with our underwater gear on and all the fish we saw. Funnily enough we didn't see anything as amazing as when we went snorkelling in Bali and swam along with turtles for an hour. Having said that, it was a brilliant experience and I truly felt like a mermaid. Swimming that deep underwater for 40 minutes and seeing the fish in their natural habitat is an experience I will never forget. Our diving instructor looked like someone who walked straight out of Home and Away and I was so happy to be under his care for over half an hour. As we rose to the surface we swam through a layer of red fungi that was floating on the surface. I turned to Heidi to point out how disgusting it was and saw her floating away on the surface due to the weights on her snorkelling equipment. I quickly swam over and held her firmly until she stopped floating away and got her balance back. I then turned away from her and followed the instructor who was taking up back to the boat. He then turned to me, pointing at my face, and told me that I must have had a nose bleed from being so far underwater and that I need to clean my face. I was distraught. This gorgeous instructor not only had to witness me in a tight wetsuit but pointed out my nose bleeding down my face. I quickly shot underwater to clean my face and realised it wasn't blood but the horrible red fungi from the top of the water. I turned to Heidi who was laughing her head off at me as I blushed in embarrassment. She had obviously seen my face as I had stopped her from floating away and yet she still hadn't told me about the muck on my face!

A couple of days later we hired a mini van with Amy, Tash and Lizzie (the 3 English girls) and drove our own way to the waterfalls in the surrounding area. We ment untie Peter Andre waterfall which actually turned out to be the Herbal Essences waterfall. We were staring at all the female visitors who were standing in the water and flicking their hair back while their friends took photos of them. Turned out they weren't all vain as we assumed they were, and they probably wondered what on earth we were doing screeching Mysterious Girl at the top of our voices. We had been misled! We also visited "Josephine Falls" which, of course, was the best waterfall. A natural slide had been created from the water falling down a rock, and so we climbed up one side, ran towards the flow of water and then slid down the rock into the big bluey green pool of water.
Some other random things happened while we were in Cairns, such as us finding out tilt Amy had been on ITV's The Cube, where she won the money that she was travelling on, Matt and I devoured a family box at McDonald's which consisted of 4 chips, 4 burgers, 4 drinks and 20 chicken bites, and we panicked a lot over the fact that we hadn't found a flat in Sydney yet. Little did we know that it would all be fine...