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!