Wagga Wagga

Wagga what? Don’t worry if you’re asking yourself where Wagga Wagga is because I bet half of the people who live in the next town over have never heard of it. Wagga Wagga (or Wagga for short) means “place of many crows” in aborigine. It’s a small town with a population of less than 50 thousand located approximately 450km south west of Sydney (if you look at a map and point to Canberra with your left index finger, Wagga Wagga will be near your pinky knuckle – I guess this all depends on the map’s scale and the size of your hand, but you have a rough idea).

I arrived here by (super small) propeller plane this afternoon and since Wagga Wagga is too small for it’s own airport, it leases the military one about 12km out of town. Good for the airport shuttle business, not so good for the broke backpacker. The airport shuttle charges $20 for a one-way trip into town and that’s pretty much the only way to leave the airport unless you’re a pilot. The airport shuttle mister was nice enough to put me in the most expensive and oldest bar/hotel west of Sydney. I guess I should have done some accommodation research beforehand instead of telling the guy to drop me off wherever he wished. The shuttle bus driver’s brother-in-law probably owns the place.

I’m in a three bed room that still has the furniture and bed spreads from the 60’s on the second floor of a bar in the dark end of town. Nice. Speaking of “nice”, I’ll spare you the details of the water in the kettle, the smell of the beer fridge or the plumbing in the shared bathroom (all probably haven’t been used since the 60’s). On second thought, I might sleep with my shoes on tonight, and hopefully I won’t get pink eye from the paper thin plastic covered cotton ball that replaced my pillow. видео порно парни секс помощь

The town itself is nothing to brag about, there’s one main street which I walked about 12 times this afternoon. I think if you’re going to visit Australia, there’s not really any point in going any further than maybe 20 minutes from the coast, any coast. Inland Australia looks like Northern Ontario but worse (not Muskoka for you southerners, I mean half a day drive North of Muskoka). Towns are an hour apart from each other and haven’t even heard of one another and most people I passed on the street today looked like derros, riffrafs and bogans.

Looks like the only thing that this town seems to be doing right is keeping up with their stock behind the bar. I guess there’s not much else to do here between 4pm and 11pm but drink. On that note, I’m going to head downstairs for a couple brewskis before heading to bed.

Next stop is the Tumbarumba caravan park; where I will be calling “home” for the next month. (And it’s not “Tomb-ba-room-ba, it’s Tumm-ba-rumm-ba – I was corrected half a dozen times in the past two days).

Leaving for Tumbarumba

Im leaving for Tumbarumba, New South Wales tomorrow because I’m starting my tree planting job on Monday. I was supposed to go with a friend of mine from Redcliffe, but he decided today that we wasn’t coming anymore. However, Brent is running out of work as a carpenter and a backpacker I met in Cairns is looking for work so I’ll see if I can maybe get them jobs tree planting with me. маленький член фото порнуха фотки

Apparently Tumbarumba is pretty hard to get too… from anywhere. The little town of Tumbarumba is located near a national park a couple of hours away from two other little towns (Albury and Wagga Wagga) and a little further from Canberra. I was on the phone for a while today calling the visitor information centers in Tumbarumba, Albury and Wagga Wagga trying to figure out how to get there. The one guy in Wagga Wagga didn’t even know where Tumbarumba was and it’s only an hour away and the one lady from Albury didn’t have a clue how to get there without a car when it’s only an hour and a half away. And to top it all off, the guy from the Tumbarumba visitor information center didn’t even know where the bus station was in his own town of 1500 popultaion.

I finally contacted some half competent people from the train station in Wagga Wagga and figured everything out. I’m going to fly with Qantas tomorrow morning from Brisbane to Sydney then Sydney to Wagga Wagga. I’m going to have to find somewhere to sleep in Wagga Wagga for the night then catch a bus (which I’m not even sure exists) to Tumbaumba Friday afternoon.

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In Tumbarumba, all the tree planters stay in cabins in a caravan park. The cabins have three bunk beds each and there is a common kitchen as well as common bathrooms. The cost is something like $15/night. I’m actually pretty excited to start work (ask me on Tuesday and I’ll probably be over it). I haven’t worked since January and haven’t tree planted since the summer of 2007. I’m pretty sure the land here will be a little better than in Timmins, where I used to plant, but it’s most likely going to be colder and they are definitely going to be longer weeks as we plant 12 days in a row instead of only five.

This contract in Tumbarumba is only for a month, but I’m hoping to be able to plant for other contracts afterwards. It would be ideal for me to plant for 3-5 months. This way I could make enough money to travel for another six months or so plus be able to qualify for a second working holiday visa.

We were checking our resting heart rate in the living room for fun tonight and apparently I’m super unfit. So I’m a little scared to see how I cope (physically and mentally) working 12 days in a row since I’ve been sleeping in for the last five months.

Fishing in Redcliffe

Phil’s always been into fishing. Brent bought a new rod several weeks ago and got back into fishing. I always liked fishing but would never be the one to suggest going fishing. Until now that is. I just realized I’ve been getting into “old man sports” if you will. I’ve recently really enjoyed fishing and golfing.

Since I got back from Newcastle about a month ago, Brent, Phil and I have gone fishing quite a bit. We leave when Phil gets back from work and stay out until the sun goes down. We usually get a few hours out there. Don’t forget it’s winter here right now, so sunset is usually between 5:30 and 6:30.

Sometimes we fish off of a jetty, sometimes we’re in a boat, sometimes we’re fishing off the beach and if the tide is low, we’ll often walk out into the ocean and fish in water knee or waist deep. Personally, I’m not a big fan of the latter since there are crabs and stuff out there that I would hate to step on and piss off.

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We catch fish more times than not. Just recently I caught a 59cm flathead in the Scarborough marina. I had never caught a flathead before and had no idea how big they get but apparently that was the biggest flathead Phil and Brent had ever seen.

Darwin

I decided to squeeze in another little trip before tree planting down south. I headed Darwin in the top end of Australia in the Northern Territory. I picked Darwin because even though it’s almost winter in the southern hemisphere, it is always hot and sunny in Darwin in the dry season.

My flights to and from Darwin were unfortunately at ridiculous hours. I got into Darwin at 1:30am, so by the time I got off the plane, got my bag, got to my hostel and checked in, it was a little past 3am. That said, I slept in till 11am the first day I was there. My flight back to Brisbane was even worse, I went out drinking with some Dutch, German and English people before catching a 1:45am flight in a pretty tipsy state. I ended up getting into Brisbane at 6am after not being able to sleep on the plane. By the time I got the train and the bus back to Redcliffe it was almost 9am. So as you can imagine, I slept till the afternoon.

My hostel in Darwin was really nice. It had a two layer pool, a jacuzzi, a pool bar and a really big pool deck all on a rooftop. I was staying in a 6 bed dorm room and had to share a bathroom. I met some really nice people from mostly European countries. I spent a lot of time either reading by the pool or playing pool volleyball with a soccer ball with others from the hostel. Our hostel was on the busiest  road in Darwin and every so often, we’d accidentally launch the ball off the roof onto the road. One of the restaurant owners took a knife and popped our ball after getting a wet soccer ball land on the tables of his restaurant a few times too many.

I took a half day fishing charter my second day in Darwin. We went out into the Darwin harbor and caught quite a few fish. The biggest ones were 40cm cods and blue bones. The guy from Colorado snagged a 10 foot shark, but after fighting with it for a while, the shark left with the hook and bait.

I went on a tour on my last day in Darwin. We first got to hold an 8 foot Python. It was all fun and games until the thing tried to eat my wiener. After that I quickly gave it back to the handler since those snakes are capable of eating cats, dogs and small dingoes whole. We then went on a boat and saw some crocodiles jump out of the water to get food from a rope. The first one we saw was the biggest croc in the Adelaide river. He’s 8 meters long and is close to 100 years old. The locals call him “Hannibal” because he’s so tough he even eats other crocs. After the crocs we went swimming in a couple different waterfalls. We weren’t able to swim in one of them because the rangers spotted a croc in it a couple of days prior.

I didn’t drink until my last night in Darwin, which proved to be a bad idea since I was pretty tipsy checking in for my flight. I don’t know if I mentioned Jetstar charging me an extra $80 last time I flew with them. But once again Jetstar gave me a hard time. This time the lady wouldn’t let me check in since I only had my drivers license and no passport. I argued with her for a while telling her I had taken  half a dozen domestic flights in the past 4 months and never needed my passport. Anyways, after a while she gave in while giving me attitude. Once in Brisbane, my bag was the last to come out on the conveyor belt and I was sure that Jetstar lady from Darwin had sent my bag to Honolulu or something on purpose for arguing with her. That could have been dangerous for Brisbane Jetstar staff since I hadn’t slept in over 24 hours and all I wanted to do was get home and go to bed.

One last trip before working

I got the tree planting job in Tumbarumba, New South Wales. Tumbarumba is just a little town south-west of Canberra with a population less than 1500. The weather in the winter ranges from 5 celsius at night to roughly 20 celsius during the day, so it’s perfect tree planting weather. It’s also dry season at the moment, so hopefully we won’t be planting in a lot of rain. We work 12 days on and have 3 days off and live with fellow planters in houses owned by the company. I’m actually looking forward to planting and also finally seeing the bank account go up instead of down for a change. One of Phil and Bent’s friend that I met a couple of months ago will also come tree planting with me, it’s going to be his first time and he’s pretty excited about it, much like I was before planting in Timmins.

The tree planting contract doesn’t start until June 8th, so I still have a few weeks before I head down south (I plan on heading down at the very beginning of June so I can settle a bit and meet people before working). Instead of sticking around Redcliffe, I decided to squeeze in another trip before I leave. I  booked 4 nights in a hostel in Darwin on the northern tip of Australia. I chose Darwin because even if it’s almost winter here in the southern hemisphere, Darwin still gets a high of 32 celsius, which I can definitely live with. The flights to Darwin are at odd hours, so I booked 4 nights, but I’ll be gone for 6 days.

Darwin is known for it’s crocodiles, so I’m going to try to find a tour where they show you wild crocs or maybe go to a croc farm, which they have nearby. Either than that, I haven’t really planned much, I usually like talking to backpackers at the hostels and visiting some tour booking shops before deciding what to do.

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Day trip to the Gold Coast

Ben’s mom got two free tickets to the Wet n’ Wild water park in the Gold Coast and Ben invited me to go with him. I took the bus from Redcliffe to the Sandgate train station and then jumped on a train to the Nerang train station in the Gold Coast where Ben picked me up. The whole trip took about three hours and only cost about $12.

We went for a quick bite to eat before heading to the water park and then spent a good three hours going on all the slides. It was on a Wednesday, it’s getting a little colder and it’s off season right now, so there were barely anyone around and we didn’t have to wait in line. I could just imagine this water park being super busy and having to wait hours in line on a weekend in the summer. The rides were pretty sweet, some of them a little intense. There was one where the lifeguard told me to tuck my chin in, thinking I was tough, I dismissed her suggestion and hurt my neck once hitting the water after pretty much free falling in a tube with Ben’s weight pulling us down. That said, this water park is definitely not just for kids, we’re both in our mid twenties and we still had a great time. My favorite ride was the race one where you can race others down the slide and get an official placing. Of course being much heavier and having a superior technique, Ben won every race.

Starving and not ready to pay an arm and a leg for lunch at the water park, we went for some sushi downtown before going golfing with Shane. The golf course we played on was interesting. The first three holes were less than 200m combined and the back of the course was really poorly lit so it was hard to see our balls once we hit them. I had a pretty shocking game, I lost three balls in one pond and doubled the course par. I’ll blame it on the rental clubs and use Shane’s excuse : “you only play as good as the clubs you’re using”.

After golf we got some burgers and headed to Ben’s place where we played Simpsons Monopoly over a few beers. Owning three quarters of the board in less than an hour, I racked in the cash and dominated in monopoly for the first time in over a decade. “You have to spend money to make money” as Ben would say.

The next day, Ben and I got some pies at a bakery for breakfast then met Metsy and some of their friends at the beach. Before hopping on a train back to Brisbane in the afternoon, we had lunch and a few beers at a surf club. All in all it was a great couple days and the Gold Coast never disappoints.

Maybe tree planting

I’ve been in Australia for nearly three and a half months now have seen pretty much the whole East Coast except for Sydney. Even though I’ve only spend a little over half of my savings so far, I’ve started job searching. It’s going to be winter soon and I’d rather work in the winter and continue traveling next spring.

My job searching was pretty easy, I googled “treeplanting in Australia” and found a company that plants in New South Wales and is looking for planters for their May-August contracts. Tree planters in Australia plant in much nicer land than what I planted on a couple of summers ago in Timmins and also get paid more. So I’ve been in contact with them over email and it looks like I’ve got a job for the next four months. The boss rents out houses in the town (I forgot the name, it’s in an email) and only charges his planters $280/month rent. They supply all your planting equipment but you have to buy your own food and I’m going to have to buy some steeled toed boots and all that stuff.

I haven’t worked since January, so I’m looking forward to working and seeing the bank account go up instead of down. They said the average planter makes about $300/day and top planters make upwards of $450/day. I have no idea if that’s true or not, but we plant 7 days/week so I’m sure I can make some good coin.

I’ll write more about this tree planting business once I get more information, but I just wanted to give you guys a heads up. I told Brent and Phil about me maybe moving away for four months and they were pretty shattered. It’s great fun living with them in Redcliffe, but there’s no way I could make as much money in so little time if I got a job here.

Newcastle

I went to visit some friends I met in Whistler last year in Newcastle (a couple of hours North of Sydney). I stayed with one of my old Whistler roommates Chris and his family for the majority of the week. Chris works in Western Australia but comes home every third week. His family was awesome, they were really nice and welcoming.

While in Newcastle I also got to see another of my old Whistler roommates Callan as well as some of my old Whistler co-workers from lift ops.

Although Newcastle is a nice coastal town with many nice beaches, it’s a working town which strives on it’s coal industry. In fact, it’s currently the largest coal exporting harbor in the world.

The first three nights were spent drinking quite a bit, enough to make us lay off the booze for the remainder of my time in Newcastle. In fact, for my last couple of days, even the smell of beer would almost make me sick. I didn’t even want to think about the next time I would drink. But we had some good nights on the town as well as some good nights just hanging out at Chris’ sisters house playing pool in the garage.

One of the many highlights of my trip to Newcastle was playing a round of golf with the boys. We hired two carts and hit the golf course with force. I hadn’t played golf in over two years, and I’ll be the first to say that I had quite a few chocking hits. But Chris and I managed to make a dollar for the game against Callan and Gavin.

I flew to and from Newcastle with Jetstar this time instead of Virgin and the day I left, they charged me an extra $80 for checked baggage (my flight was less than $80) which I was sure I said I would have when I bought the tickets. I argued a bit with them but I was late checking in and only had a few minutes to get to my gate so I gave in and handed them my credit card. Never flying with Jetstar again.

Cairns to Brisbane adventure

My Cairns to Brisbane road trip with the greyhound bus couldn’t have been any better. I first flew to Cairns and spend four nights there. It was super hot the whole time. When I got off the plane in Cairns, the heat hit me like when you stick your face close to the oven and open the door to smell whatever it is that your mom is baking. It was over 30 degrees my first day so I spent it lounging around on the grass at the lagoon. My hostel in Cairns was wicked. I was in a four bed dorm room with an ensuite bathroom, but the best part was the huge pool and free dinner. It was more like a resort. There were so many things to do that the few days I was too hung over to do anything I just spent it within the walls of the hostel, playing in the pool and sunbathing with all the other backpackers who had come out with me the night before. There were quite a few bars in Cairns but everyone in my hostel all went to one, it was called the woolshed and that’s where we got our free meal as well as $3 pints, what a bargain!

My last day in Cairns was spend crammed into a little rental car with three other solo backpackers I met at my hostel. We drove about 300 km’s that day and made a huge loop south of Cairns. We drove from lake to lake and waterfall to waterfall to swim and take pictures of the wet tropics. We really wanted to see a crocodile, but since we were in a 900cc Dihatsu Charade that maxed out at 60km’s/h, it was probably a good thing we didn’t spot any.

I was having so much fun in Cairns and met such great people that I was even thinking of getting a refund on my buss pass and just spend two weeks there. But I thought it would be best to keep going, because that’s what nomads and globe trotters do, they never settle down. And good thing I did, because I had just as much fun and met even more people in Airlie Beach and Hervey Bay. My camera broke in Cairns, or rather, I broke my camera in Cairns as well. So I had to buy a new one, which set my budget back quite a bit because Cameras are the type of thing where you don’t want to go cheap, because you get what you pay for.

After a fun 12 hour bus ride where the air conditioner broke half way, I got to Airlie Beach soaked in sweat. My hostel in Airlie Beach was a little more expensive, it was $28 per night and I stayed 4 nighs. What was cool about this hostel was that i was in a 6 bed dorm with ensuite and every single night I had five new roomates, so I got to meet a lot of people. I went out pretty hard for a few nights to the bars and clubs. It reminded me a lot of Whistler since it was a resort town and 90% of people there were backpackers and tourists. If I was a local, I would definitely walk around with a big bag because without one, you’d feel out of place. I spent most days at the local lagoon and most nights meeting new people over a beer or two… or three to twelve. One night I was drinking with some Israelis, the next some English, Scottish and Irish and the next some Swiss.

While in Airlie Beach, I took a day trip to Daydream Island in the Whitsundays for $79 (lunch included). That was pretty cool. Maybe not worth that much though. It would be cool to get a job at a resort on one of the Whitsunday islands. I think it would be like Whistler, where you live and work on the same resort and get to see how everything works behind the scene. I might look into that actually. Airlie Beach had the most beautiful women I’d ever seen, and a lot of European ones, which means they didn’t mind getting topless. Haha.

After sun bathing for 8 days in a row and starting to look like an oreo cookie (I think I’m the darkest I’ve ever been), I took another long bus ride to Hervey Bay. It was an overnight bus so I got to save a night of accommodation, however trying to get comfortable on a 13 hour bus ride is torture, to the neck mostly. I tried to lay across both seats without having any limbs in the aisle (because we were warned) but it seemed like every position I was in I had the lump between seats either digging into my spine or sides. Hervey Bay is bigger than I expected. Looks a lot like Redcliffe. My hostel was nice. I was in a six bed dorm room with ensuite for $22/night for two nights. During my full day in Hervey Bay, I took a day trip to Frasier Island for $159 with two other Canadians I met in my hostel. The latter is the biggest sand island in the world which is also home to a 125km beach. Said beach is also a recognized highway that has a 100km/h speed limit.

I took the bus back to Brisbane on April 26th and am flying to Newcastle on the 30th for a week to visit some friends I met in whistler.

Change of plans

I was supposed to go camping on Moreton Island this week, but it’s been raining for a while now and was pouring down when I was supposed to catch the barge. Plus Phil heard on the radio that there was severe weather warning for the South East coast of Queensland and Brent couldn’t even see Moreton Island on a weather radar online. The last thing I wanted to do was get on the island when it was pouring down, having to set up camp, getting all my stuff wet and then staying for another 4 nights with a whole bunch of soaked stuff. Plus there’s no cover since you’re camping on the beach and the sand would just be mud. So I decided to postpone the camping trip for a few weeks. I’m now planning on going on the second weekend of May because then Phil could come with me.

My new plan is to leave for Cairns tomorrow and do that bus trip I had planned earlier. I’m going to try to get back by April 30th because that’s when my friend Pilley is coming back to New Castle on the East Coast for a week and I’m planning on going to see him while he’s there.

So if everything goes as planned, I’ll be gone up North till the end of April then gone to New Castle till the beginning of May, just before my second attempt to go camping on Moreton Island with Phil on the second weekend of May. Then I might look into finding work for a few months.