ESCAPE !!!!

Well HI there all of you who are probably no longer reading! We don't blame you...things haven't been that interesting, but we have been working at the red sands for 3 months now and it's time for a break! We're taking 10 days off for a taste of the outside world before heading back into the red wasteland for another 3 months. So...two days ago we flew to Perth (the big city), and everything has been going great since then. The plan was to buy a cheap car and make our way up the west coast back to Newman. We were worried that car shopping could drag out, and every day it took was a day off of our vacation time, but we lucked out and found the perfect car within a few hours of landing in Perth! Her name is Baby Beluga (Baby - B for short). She is a 1996 Holden Apollo Wagon and she looks like a big white whale! After finding the car we managed to return the rental car without smashing it which was good. Then we set out to outfit it to be a comfy "motor-home". We lucked out again and found a foam warehouse, and they had the exact piece we needed for 75 % off. The car is now more comfortable than our bed back at the red sands and we're off on a nine day adventure...will post photos upon getting back to Newman!

Cheers!

Newman, Western Australia

Hi Everybody!

We're well settled here in Newman now and it's high time for an update, wouldn't you say? We were both ready and reluctant to put Perth in the rear view mirror...it was a very cool city, and the third most expensive place in the world to live. Despite what we heard elsewhere about the golden streets, the job market was competitive and it wasn't a great recipe for re-lining the pockets with cash.

Road Train on The Great Northern Highway

So we got a ride share, said goodbye to our new friends, and headed 12 hours north to Newman, rocking out to aussie music hits of the 80's all the way. The drive itself hinted at the isolation of Newman...the Great Northern Highway is a thin, 2 lane strip of asphalt that cuts a lonely path through thousands of miles of vast emptiness. We saw a lot of kangaroos and wallabys along the way, although most were not alive. Apparently they aren't the brightest when it comes to traffic and will often hop right into it. They're a big problem out here and many people don't drive the freeways at dusk or dawn because the chances of hitting one then are really good. Passing the road trains felt pretty dangerous, but we arrived safely all the same.

Mt. Whaleback Iron Ore Mine

We reached Newman in the late afternoon. It is a smallish mining town in the heart of the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Mt. Waleback (the largest open cut iron mine in the world) is it's only reason for existing...and it is pretty obvious that there is a lot of iron in the ground here...even the dirt rusts. The closer we got to Newman, the redder everything got. Nothing that was meant to be white (street signs, walls, etc.) stays that way and everything here has a red tint to it. Some days it has a post-apocalyptic feel to it...especially when the dust kicks up and the sky turns red as well. The town is basic and is honestly pretty uninteresting. It is big enough for a full sized grocery store, a Chinese takeaway, a hotel, and of course, The Red Sands Pub / Restaurant where we are now employed.

Karijini National Park

It's only geographically redeeming quality is it's closeness to Karijini national park, which is said to be Australia's most beautiful and unique, so that is high on our list of things to do. It's about 2 hours away by car so we're not sure how were going to get there...we may wind up buying a junker car to get around with and do some exploring. Keeping in mind all the while that we are here to refill the bank and are just going to work as much as we can without going nuts.

A Standard Donga !

So far the job is going well...the Red Sands is a clever three in one business, with a large pub, restaurant, bottle shop, and soon to be coffee drive through sharing the same location. With so many hats to wear there are a lot of hours to go around, and the pay is good. We work with a great group of people and things are going pretty well. Rent is the reason that people don't come here to find jobs...on average 1,000 to 1,500 a WEEK for a very basic place. Because of that situation, you would wind up earning very little, so the pub has put up dongas (basically a shipping container for people) out back for the staff. So we have a place to stay, a hot meal most nights out of the restaurant, and as long as we don't go nuts, we'll do well here.

It's a very strange and interesting place...a modern frontier really, and the amount of money and opportunity surrounding this town in the desert is incredible...but more on that next time...

Easer Sale: Discounts on Life Lessons

Happy Easter everyone!

It was a beautiful sunny Easter day here in Perth. We got up early and packed our things for a trip to the wine growing region down south to start new jobs at a vineyard. Unfortunately this evening we are right back where we started, a bit more guarded and with slightly lighter wallets. It turns out that there was no job and we (and 40 others) were scammed by a pretty impressive con artist. The upside...if you can be famous for getting conned out of 300 bucks, then I am definitely famous. TV, radio, print...you name it, I've done the interview. I want everybody and their mom lookin' for this guy. Autograph requests can be sent to Jared Holm, Crimestopper.

The story: Backpackers conned out of 300 Large

The worst part of this mess is that we and everyone else quit their jobs and checked out of where they were staying for this, and most people had nowhere to go. Finding a place to stay in Perth is hard most days, let alone Easter Sunday. We were very fortunate to be taken back in by the people we have been staying with, and have been tirelessly looking for a job over the last week. In a complete change of direction, we are now heading to the outback town of Newman where we have bee hired to work in a bar. This job came through a legitimate recruiter, so we can rest our scam detectors on this one.

It's been a fun and difficult two months trying to decide where we'll settle in to recoup our travel funds, and it looks like we've found it. It would have been nice to work and live in Perth, but it's so expensive that I'm pretty sure it would have been in one pocket and out the other. On to Newman...

Wild Wild West

Traveling through and getting settled in are very different things. We have been here in Perth a week now, and things are just starting to come together for us. If you imagine Australia as the US, Cairns (where we were) would be about where Maryland is, and Perth would be Los Angeles. Our eyes ache from looking at jobs, cars, and places to live on the computer. The amount of competition for everything here is incredible. When a decent add for a job or place to stay hits the websites, it is not unusual for it to have 500+ views in a couple hours!

Anyhow, as always it usually comes down to who you know. The people we were staying with over the last week have introduced us to some really nice friends of theirs who had an available room, so now we're very well set for another week. I have gotten a job here in the city selling solar panels door to door. Not what I saw myself doing exactly, but the money is (potentially) good, and it's not as bad as you would expect. New experiences...Meanwhile, Krista and I both had an interview for farming jobs driving giant modern equipment for wheat seeding. Pretty exciting as we'll never get to do something like that again, and the money is good as well. We don't have the experience they wanted, but we think they liked us, so we have our fingers crossed. We should hear back on that soon. So, this time round Krista gets to sit pretty and wait to see what happens while I work...last time it was the other way, so fair is fair.

We have some leads for work one way or the other, so we're a bit less freaked out. When we first got here I felt a bit like a minnow in the crashing surf that is Perth, but it's calming a bit now....chat to ya soon, a lot should be happening!

Catching Up

Hi everyone!
I know its been a while since we've written, and so much has happened! Through some friends at the hostel, Jared got his dream job, just what every boy dreams of...solar panel telemarketer! He charmed the pants off everyone and managed to make a sale his first day...this was quickly followed by a more expected day, in which the first person who answered told Jared  "You can go **** yourself!" I will never be mean to telemarketers again (probably)...anybody else got a guilty conscious? (Dad...? haha)

I was still working at the seafood restaurant, but not very happily. Another waitress who had just been hired had come from Perth, and she couldn't say enough good things about it. This was about the umpteenth Perth endorsement we'd heard, so on a whim Jared purchased some cheap plane tickets and we were committed to going across the country! I was dreading quitting the restaurant since they had treated me pretty well (the first day I was thinking about telling them I was quitting they first offered me half a bottle of 200 dollar wine...needless to say I put it off another day!). When I finally did tell them and give them a week and a half notice, they took me off the schedule! Jared had a similar experience with his shifts being cut, just when we really needed the moolah. 

After saying goodbye to our friends in Cairns, it was off to Perth...people had been telling us that Perth was really crowded and it might be hard to find a place. We really should have looked earlier, but that day before our evening flight we exhausted every resource for accommodation we knew...and that's a lot. Hostels, Couchsurfing, Air BnB, and finally it was down to the dreaded hotel. Jared and I have stayed in a grand total of 0 hotels since our trip began last February, and we were ashamed that it had come to this...paying full price for just a bed! But when you have landed at 10 pm and want nothing more than to sleep, your standards go down...or up, whichever way you look at it. We booked the absolute cheapest thing we could find online for 110 bucks and caught a cab across town. When we got there they said that the room was not actually available anymore but they felt sorry for us so they gave us the last room they had...a business suite, for the same price. Yay!

In short, I have never ever seen a city with less accommodation for the thousands of people that come through daily (it's a mining town, so there are tons of people who stay a week before heading back to the mines)...If 10 new hotels opened up tomorrow, there would be no rooms left in about 10 minutes. This lets the hotels that actually do exist charge ridiculous rates...as much as 400 a night for just an ok hotel. Apparently Perth is the fourth most expensive city in the world, for living in general. So much for thinking the streets of Perth were going to be paved in gold...apparently everybody else thought so too, and I guess they just ripped up all the gold to pay for the crazy cost of living here.

After a day of panic, we have managed to find ourselves a share house for 400 a week and reverted ourselves to a mild level of panic. We hope to find a job this week and are basically devoting ourselves to the job hunt every second of every day, so keep your fingers crossed for us! We'll update as soon as we know anything.

P.S. We don't want to hear any I told you so's yet!

Slow Days...

Well, the last few days have been a bit slow....with the exception of an exciting job prospect in one of Australia's best fishing and diving areas. It would be far too discouraging to describe it in full in case it doesn't happen...so more on that later. In the mean time I am going to cut corners and copy/paste an email I wrote when I was less lazy. A few people have asked me about Australia (when to come and the like), and in an effort to possibly drum up more potential visitors, here is some handy info! A fair warning though...if you are already a bit tired or bored, definitely don't read on! More on the exciting job soon!

-------------------------------------------------------------

Well Howdy,

Luckily for you, I don't even need to waste time researching...I am, at present, a fully saturated sponge of Australian knowledge. For example: Did you know that Australia once lost a Prime Minister as unceremoniously as you might lose a left sock? He jumped in the the bay one day for a quick dip, accompanied by the expected procession of staff, and was never seen again.

Anyhow, and more to the point, I am excited you might visit, and I do have some opinions that I feel could help. Firstly, $1300 is not an unreasonable round-trip price as it is a very long way away. Skyscanner.com is a great resource. That said, I would be surprised if you were able to find it cheaper than $1200 - $1300 anyhow...;( With Skyscanner, search LAX to Australia and it will show you prices for all the different airports.

As far as where to go, that's the hardest question of all. Weather wise, it will be the middle of winter here in May. The north jungilly bits will be dry and mild compared to the hell sauna they are now. The south of the country (Sydney and definitely Melbourne) will be cold and grey from what I hear (50's in the day). Also, the "winter" in the north is a great time to do the reef because all (most) of the awful stinging killing things migrate elsewhere leaving the waters relatively safe. Cairns is the city to go to for the reef...you can venture further north, but you'll still fly into Cairn's regional airport. It is also a great place to see the rainforest in relative safety (great hospital in Cairns) and the Altheron tablelands...a beautiful fruit growing jungle area full of waterfalls and the like. So, in short, for that time of year, I would fly into Sydney to see it, then fly to Cairns for the jungle and reef. From Cairns, do a flight to the outback (Alice Springs or somewhere else) and then return to Brisbane, Melbourne, or Sydney for a flight home.

I definitely agree with not trying to see the entire country. The size is a bit of a shock, and ground transport is completely out of the question. You'll have to leave the south coast and the west for another trip and another time of year.

Despite a sizable bout of laziness at the time of this email writing, I did get up and walk  to the travel desk to find the price of getting a full dive certification on the reef. Unfortunately the guy was occupied with 4 Swedish girls, and as I approached I heard one of them ask "so, do you guys offer trips to the reef." Knowing how long that was likely to take, I immediately gave up and walked back to my room. It would be a fair question except for the fact that the reef is the only reason anyone comes to this town, and any travel desk that didn't offer a reef trip would be promptly laughed out of the business. So, I don't really know the total cost, but it's about $80 a dive and you would need 4 over 2 different days to go home certified. Equipment seems to always be included in the price, so I would guess the total cost at about $600 (possibly less) for a nice experience with a good company (ocean freedom's power boat out of Cairns is a very friendly and well run operation with a very cool Scottish Captain). I would say it would be totally worth it. Do it!

As far as landmarks go, Uluru rock is as classically Australian as the Sydney Opera House. Beyond that, Australia is full to the brim with strange formations and geologic oddities. You'll just have to a bit of searching. For ideas, I like trolling pre-packaged tours that tell you all the stops.

Unfortunately, I can't say where we'll be tomorrow any more than I could say where we'll be in May, but I am sure we can get together!

...

With all that quality info, I expect boatloads of visitors!

Lions, Tigers, and Jobs, oh my!

So it's been a couple weeks and I think we are finally getting settled in...the clothes are strewn about the room in a pattern that looks pretty homey and even with our SPF 50 we are both getting tanner...it really hasn't been long, and we've seen quite a few new things, which brings me to a new section of our blog entitled...TODAY'S POTENTIAL DEADLY ATTACK! Australia is full of them, which we knew before we came here, but we’ve been amazed at the countless ways the land down under can try to kill us. Sure, some of them are expected, like the crocodile, but others are just strange...try the cassowary, for example. Basically a living dinosaur bird creature that would love nothing more than to stab you in the chest with it's head butting bony thing. Ok, it probably has other things it likes, but the sign was pretty intimidating when you're trying to enjoy a nice jungle trek. The trees are also out to get us, and the spiders have been the biggest I've ever seen (which is saying something coming from Florida). We have escaped unscathed so far, except for a few bug bites. 

In other news, I have a job, while Jared continues to lounge around the hostel drinking beer and eating bon bons. Just kidding, he's been a pretty sweet boyfriend, occasionally working my breakfast shift when I have to go to work later that morning. I am getting schooled in fine dining at the seafood restaurant I'm working at, and am pretty happy I'm not doing dishes with all the cutlery we go through...5 forks for this entree, 10 knives for this one. The chefs have won all kinds of awards apparently, and each dish is expertly crafted into a tower of deliciousness with some random whole crab perched on top.

Yesterday Jared and I both managed to get the day off, from the restaurant and the hostel, and got in a bit of diving on the great barrier reef. We saw turtles, sharks, giant fish, giant clams, and tons of coral. We have been bit by the diving bug, and are currently searching out volunteer opportunities on live aboard dive boats. 

I have the next couple days off again, so we'll continue to explore and see if we can find anything that pays better than what we've currently got. We'll update you soon!

Arriving in Cairns (Cans)

It's been a week since we arrived here in Cairns, (pronounced "cans"...the aussies don't like r's) and we're beginning to settle in. We have our first jobs about figured out...we are working a few hours each day for free room and board (pasta and toast) at a hostel. I'm a bus driver... adding another completely random job to my ever growing list, and Krista handles breakfast. I like my job alright...the 3am "last call" run is the most interesting for obvious reasons. As far as the paid work goes, nothing yet, but the search is starting to warm up a little. Krista is way out in front having already gotten three offers. It turns out they don't really want men working in the bars...who would have thought?

Trying to find work has distracted me almost entirely from daydreaming ...but I have managed a few random thoughts...Firstly, lets put the whole "toilets flushing the other way" thing to rest once and for all...what a bunch of crap, no pun intended (ok, maybe a little intended). But in all seriousness, I was genuinely disappointed. In fact, they do a sort of front to back flush...not at all exciting.

Also disappointing is the realization that I seem to be somewhat less attractive than the average male specimen here. Now obviously this isn't something that I am particularly used to, so it came as a bit of a shock. Seriously, I'm not a terribly self conscious person by nature, but these people are in ridiculously good shape, and their magnificent ozone layer hole bronzes them like rotisserie chickens. How am I going to compete with that? On the up side, I think I have learned one of their secrets. Upon landing in Brisbane, to get a taste of home,  I went immediately to a fast food burger joint for lunch. There I noticed that their large sized soda cup was the same size as our small. Very tricky Australians...but I'm on to you...

Back in the Saddle Again!

G'Day Mate!

After a great three months at home, the new year is well on its way and I'm back on the road again. Due to a hostile takeover, the blog has a new contributor and a new coat of paint. I can't guarantee the writing will be any good, but she is crazy about taking pictures, so we definitely won't be lacking in that department. As you may have guessed, we are on location in beautiful Australia, land of poisonous creatures and $7 beers. The name of the game this time around is to make a little $ while traveling. If your favorite posts from before included "I just spent 500,000 on sushi" and "Cliff diving into piles of money" you might be a little disappointed from here on. I will be working a lot of the time, but I promise to keep it as interesting as possible, and to do something exciting every now and then. I'm still recovering from the 18 hour flight (blood only just started moving again), so I'll sleep now and be back with more later...