MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM AUSTRALIA

So it’s Christmas Eve in Australia and it’s HOT, Christmas is definitely meant to be cold, but it’s all in the experience. We have spent the last few days working and watching Christmas movies, off Eimears Hard-drive which Rory sent her for Christmas! We started with ‘Home Alone’... of course!

Yesterday we spent $400 on our Christmas dinner food.... there’s 16 of us eating though so it’s totally  necessary to spent this much :p 

Our plan for tomorrow is:

• Get up, drink champagne with orange juice & strawberries and exchange presents, we did a Kris Kindle.
• Have a huge fry up for Breakfast.
• Get ready, watch Christmas movies, have some drinks and cook our whopper meal.
• About 3pm, have our Christmas dinner.
• Later that night, skype everyone at home!!!
• Then drink late into the night :) 

Usually we have drinks in the hut out my back every Christmas evening so the Merbein One Big Family Beer Garden will have to do :p 

Anyways, MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!! WE MISS YOU & LOVE YOU xxxx

47 Degrees in December = sweating while standing still!

HEYYY!
Sorry it's been a while, we have been very busy working and also didn't have wifi until now!

So this is what has been happening since my last post:

- We have been working mostly on the Flower Farm, picking, sorting and bunching lilies. I get to drive the quad bike around with the flower trailer which is good fun. One box did fall off the trailer and I killed some flowers, oops :p We are working for the same farmers, Joe and Frank who run the vineyard and the flower nursery. Usually working 6 days a week. Frank said he's gonna teach us how to drive the tractor, well a few of us, so we can spray the insecticide for him :) YAY!!!

(Check out my new ride)

(Aine, hiding in the vines)

(THIS is Grape Farm Australia.. blue skies....baaaaaa)

- Liv & Myself got tickets to see Mariah Carey in Sydney on January 3rd, she is obsessed with Mariah. Oh the excitement. It's an 11 hour drive so we're hoping to only take 2 days off work. Should be good craic, plus we'll get to see Sydney, wohooo :)

-  More people have arrived at the 1BF (One Big Family) house/hostel/hotel - I dunno what to officially call it, as it's a mixture of all three. There are about 9 of us that have been cooking group dinners every night, we all throw in a few $'s and one person chooses a meal to cook, everyone takes turns. I have already made chicken fajitas :)

(Some of the 1BF Crew)

- We had a heat wave all this week, today the heat and humidity finally broke. AND our air con has been broken, so there have been people sleeping in the corridors and under the fan in the living room, it's been HOT, HUMID and madness! The hottest it hit on Thursday was 47 Degrees. Ahhhhh!

- On Sundays we always get Murphy's takeaway - cheese and gravy chips... amazing! 

- ALSO, it's now December 1st and yesterday we got some decorations for our tree. I picked out the red and gold colour scheme, I think my Mam has rubbed off on me a bit! ha! 

(Eimear & Myself after decorating) 

Doesn't feel like Christmas here at all though, even though the shops are now filled with Christmas stuff, the weather is too hot to be Christmas time. It is never the same when you're away from home. We were originally thinking of having a big Christmas dinner, the 5 of us, but more people are staying around Merbein for Christmas day now, and everyone wants the dinner how THEIR Mother cooks it. Too many cooks spoil the broth! One idea was to do it the Aussie way as they have a BBQ for Christmas, or a pot luck and everyone cooks something for the table.... we'll see... either way I just want LOADS of food and to sit in front of the telly with my food coma. 

That's all for now. It's Saturday, time for a swim in the pool and a few drinks xxx 

P.S. If you would like to send us any cards/pressies, our address here is:

89 Game Street

Merbein

VIC

Australia

3505

A few pictures for you!

(Anna sitting outback the 'One Big Family' house)

(Rachel, Me, Larry and Liv)

(The girls doing a bit of sunbathing outback)

(The girls after a long, hard days work on the farm)

(Eimear & Anna - working hard or hardly working)

Broken but VERY Happy

So we have been working on the same farm for the past week. It has been hard work, sometimes back-breaking (the planting) and sometimes quite repetitive (the trimming), but we managed to negotiate our pay with farmer Frank, YAY!!! Planting, flower processing and other various jobs are paid by the hour and when we are bunch trimming the vines we are paid by the vine. We negotiated 70 cent per vine, some people are being paid 30 and 50 cent on other farms. We’d average about 200 vines a day each right now, and we’ll hopefully get faster, which isn’t half bad. We usually work from about 7am until about 2 or 3 depending on what work we are doing. It beats a bar or office job any day – well that’s just my opinion, I like working outdoors.

One Big Family has also grown bigger. We now have about 40 residents - more Germans, English and Irish. There’s even a girl from Portmarnock that knows a lot of people we know from home.

Our rent here is $130 a week each, plus we pay another $30 for our bus to and from work. It’s a fairly good deal, we LOVE this place! It definitely beats Melbourne right now. THIS is what I imagined Australia to be like. Hopefully we will all be able to save money, once we don’t drink it all, ha! There’s always a session going on out the back garden.

We spent our second Saturday here working on the same farm, but this time we were processing their flowers. They grow beautiful Lilies which they sell on to florists or fill orders for weddings. We got to work for 6am and picked about 1000 lilies between us all morning. We then put them through a machine that sorted them by length. The final job was to bunch them by colour and size. It was actually a brilliant day, we really enjoyed it. Eimear said she now realizes why flowers are so expensive, because so much goes into the process before they hit the shops. In the morning the boys got us McDonalds for breakfast, coffees and biscuits throughout the day and then nice cold cokes to finish us off for the day. There were lots of orange trees around so we picked a huge bucket to bring back home, Aine and Liv were very excited about picking our own fruit. We finished about 2.30 and Larry’s cousin Larz picked us up in the bus to bring us home. It’s Saturday, which means FREE BBQ and a huge party!!! The best decision we ever made was to get on that night bus to Merbein!!! Larry and One Big Family – we love you!!!

Officially Australian Farmers! WOHOOO!

We had to be ready by 7am to get in the bus. Larry dropped the 5 of us to a grape farm about 10 minutes away. We spent the day planting trees. It was dirty work but great craic. We all put our ipods in and danced and sang away as we worked. Joe drove the tractor, drilling large holes and filling them with water and Francis, an older lady (who sounds like what a wombat would sound like if it could speak English – said Aine), walked behind the tractor and trailer handing us the small grape trees to plant. We had to stick the trees in the hole and fill it in. We were covered in mud. We had a few 10 minute water breaks and finished about noon, where we were all handed a cold can of coke. All in a days work as a grape farmer! Ha!

We got back to the hostel, made some coffee, hung out and then had well deserved showers. Saturday night was a mental night of drinking at the hostel, we originally planned to head to Mildura to the clubs but ended up just having the best time with everyone at the hostel instead.

People rarely work on Sundays, so we had a nice lie on, made breakfast and headed for the pool for the day. It was a perfect day for nursing our hangovers J Sunday night we all got comfy on the couches in the living room for a movie.

P.S. There was a huge Huntsman Spider on the wall. It was as big as my hand. AHHHHH!

Quick Decisions & New Adventures

We were offered positions at a working hostel in Mildura called Oasis Backpackers. On Friday morning, we had checked out of our hostel Coffee Palace and were going to book a night bus to Mildura until I got talking to one of the guys who worked in the hostel.

He said they used to send backpackers to Oasis 4 years previous but hadn’t worked with them since, due to horrendous reviews. They were known for treating their workers as ‘just a number’ to them and were more interested in filling their hostel beds than finding people work.

Instead, he recommended a place in Merbein which was 10 minutes outside Mildura, who they had been sending people to for the past year and always had great success. It was Larry’s Hostel called One Big Family. After a very quick decision and a phone call to Larry, we booked our over-night bus. Tara decided to stay in Melbourne with Grace and continue finding work, but she knows she has the option of coming up to Merbein if it isn’t working out.

That day we treated ourselves to a huge lunch at Elephant & Wheelbarrow, chicken parma’s and pies, to celebrate our new adventure. Followed by some sunbathing in the Park, just off Fitzroy Street. For the rest of the day we watched TV (including Coronation Street and Eastenders,woohooo) in the TV room at Coffee Palace.

At 9.30pm we boarded the night bus, for a journey to Mildura Bus Station where Larry would pick us up. There was a Samoan Rugby Team on the bus who would not shut up. The driver at one stage yelled, “whoever is playing the music, can shut it off, or walk”!

We waited for Larry at the bus stop at 6.30am, excited and very nervous about our new adventure. He was so nice and welcoming. He drove us to this huge hotel in Merbein, which looked like a throwback from the 80s. It had a big kitchen, 2 dining rooms, living room with a huge TV in the living room, multiple shower and bathrooms, a big balcony to hang out on and a huge back garden with a canopy and seating area. There is also a pub next door, a supermarket 2 minutes away, a really nice swimming pool 5 minutes away, a charity shop round the corner (where we bought all of our work clothes, Runners for $2!!!). It’s perfect. We headed for a nap in our rooms and woke up to meet all the residents. There were 4 Irish girls, 2 Italian guys, 2 German guys, 2 German girls, 1 New Zealand girl and 2 English guys, everyone was so nice, like one big family.

 

On night one, we had a huge FREE BBQ and a few drinks but we didn’t go too mental, as Larry had set us up with our first FARMING WORK the next day. BOOOOOM work and MONEY!!!!  

Bowls Clubs & Beaches

So we have been hostel hopping, especially since it's been Race week in Melbourne and all hostels are mosre expensive than usual. Absolute worst time to arrive, but ah well.

On our second night, staying in Melbourne's CBD (Central Business District) in Nomads All Nations Hostel, we headed to St.Kilda to meet a friend of Eimear's Boyfriend, Nick. We met him at a Bowls Club. It was a hilarious night. We drank some beer, played some Bowls and signed up for Membership, haha! We hung out with a load of oldies, chatted to a 70 year old lady who bragged about her 50 year old new Boyfriend (stating that she's still got it). We were also invited to jump off a building from a guy who did it as a business. Everyone was so hospitable and welcoming. (Here we are, absolute Bowls Champions, no wonder they wanted us to join, below).

We also spent half a day at the beach, but then felt guilty that we should be job/house hunting. We saw this absolute wierd guy riding his horse up the beach, in this silver armor stuff, and it was sooooo HOT out, poor horse :) and then he took a dump on the beach and everyone went crazy! haha!

(St. Kilda Beach)

So we have been job hunting, which we've had a few call back and trials for, but it's been a little more difficult than we imagined, but I guess you gotta be patient. We have also viewed houses, which we've walked for hours to see. I have sprained my ankle and the girls are all wrecked. We've heard horror stories about living situations, one bedroom flats with 8 people living in one room etc. Tara has moved into a house with her friend Grace, there are 15 guys I think and they are currently on the couch/floor but will have a shared room to themselves soon. Tara has also had a few Hairdressing trials but she says salons are very strict over here. She said she'll give it another week, to see how she's getting on, and if it isn't working out, and we are getting on great, she's going to follow us upstate. Here is how upstate came about:

This morning, we got a call back from a working hostel in Mildura, which we were nervous about due to bad trip advisor reviews, to do our regional work (fruit picking etc). After that, and talking to the guy who runs Coffee Palace Hostel in St. Kilda, which we love, he reccommended a working hostel they send people to 10 minutes from Mildura, which one of the other hostel workers is moving to next week. After a lot of talking we have decided to take it. So tonight we are getting a night bus to Mildura to 'One Big Family' working hostel. We are excited (a new adventure) and nervous/anxious (hopefully there is A LOT of work for us). Wish us luck!!!! Will keep you all updated :) If it all works out, we want to save our regional work money and come back to the City to set ourselves up properly, NOT on Race week, and we'll know the area and what we are getting ourselves in for next time round!!! :)

The End of the Road.... for the Campervans

From Airlie Beach we had 2 days to make it to Cairns. We decided to drive most of the way which was  6 hours to a rest stop in a small town called Tully. It was apparently the wettest town in Australia?! Their landmark was a huge boot/wellie that you could go up inside and they produced a lot of sugarcane there. It was an odd little town where apparently a lot of people did their fruit picking and regional work.  (The girls are poking their heads out of the top of the boot here, sorry the picture is not great)

We stopped at a rest stop for the night beside a transit bus centre which had a bathrooms and one cold shower, we weren't too fussed as it was free - we are such gypsies now. The next day we drove another 2 hours and got to Cairns. It was HOT out. SOOO humid. We stopped off and booked into Gilligans Hostel which was recommended to us which I could definitely recommend, it was like a hotel, with hostel prices, free meal every night, huge pool and huge bar and club. 

We then drove to the depot to drop off our Campervans :( It was a sad day! We were vehicle-less. 

We headed back to Gilligans, they drove us back there for free :) Yay! We then headed for the pool, ate the free dinner, which was sausages and mash potatoes, actually quite nice, 'free' is my favourite flavor. For the rest of the night we hung out at the bar, drank a few 'scooners' which is 3/4 of a pint.... a 'pot' is half a pint and that's what Australians usually drink apparently.... us Irish & English are the ones who super size our drinks to pint size, makes more sense I think, less walking to the bar. 

We also played some sort of bingo, but the DJ was an Aussie so we didn't understand half the numbers he yelled out. Bloody language barriers. haha!

The next day we spent all day looking for regional work (fruit picking or farming jobs) up North or South near Melbourne. We thought it would be good to get our regional work out of the way.... plus we could save a lot of money to set ourselves up better in Melbourne. We must have rang over 50 places. We also attended a talk in one of the travel agencies about regional work but apparently this round of workers for this season are already hired and the next round isn't for 6 weeks. I don't believe these people anymore, too many travel agents have lied to us. So we had a meeting and decided to go with our original plan of heading for Melbourne. We booked a flight, got it for $160, for a next day 3.5 hour flight down South. The travel agent in Gilligans told us she could get us cheap flights for 350. LIARS!!! Case and point!

That next morning, we were on a flight out of HOT Cairns to cooler Melbourne. The girls took advantage and had a nap.... while catching flies!

We arrived in Melbourne and had to put shoes, jeans and jumpers on. WTF??!! I do love jeans though, haha! But I do prefer jean SHORTS and HEAT!!!! It just so happened to be a colder day though, and apparently they can have 4 seasons in one day.... Frost Valley??!!! ha! 

Oh and a tip, for other travellers.... when you don't have an iron.... use a hair straightener :)

Back to Dry Land

The next morning we ate breakfast and then had the choice to go snorkeling one last time on the reef if we wanted, which we did. After snorkeling, Niko had made us hot dogs with cheese and grilled onions. Anna helped Niko grate the cheese, in return, she didn't have to pay for her can of coke she bought on the boat, ha! (Picture below) We loaded our hot dogs up with toppings and headed to the front of the boat to scoff them down while we bounced through the waves, it was quite choppy today, maybe because Andy gave us a shot of driving the boat, YES! (Picture below, who would let me drive a boat in fairness?! Liv & Eimear also had a go)

(Here's our New Horizon Boat family, below)

After getting back at 1pm, we checked back into Nomads and met Aidan and Sam who were still there. We hung out an chilled all afternoon, all exhausted from chilling for the last two days on a boat, haha!

That night we decided to treat ourselves to vodka instead of goon and all went in on some bottles. We ate some chips – the chipper chips here are goooood and enjoyed a few drinks with the boys before heading out to meet our boat crew for a dance at Phoenix Bar down the road.

(Here's the Aussie boys, Aidan & Sam)

We had a 6 hour drive ahead of us the next day to get over half way to Cairns, which we knew was going to be a struggle after a night out! 

Whitsundays

We woke up to the roar of the engine about 7am. Niko already had a continental breakfast ready for us of toast, with different spreads, fruit salad and cereals. Andy drove us to Hook Island and they anchored. Ian took about 8 of us at a time in a small speed boat and dropped us off on the Whitsunday Island for a few hours. With our stinger suits in hand we all made our way up a walkway through the trees and found the lookout point. The view was gorgeous.

We then made our way back down and followed the small maps to find the cove. The Whitsunday Islands have the purest sand in the world – 95% silica sand. You can clean your jewelry with it.

We put on our stinger suits and went for a swim in the waves. We also all tried a human pyramid on the beach, which was hilarious! We hung out on the beach, played Frisbee and sunbathed all morning.

Ian came to pick us all back up at 11 and lunch was ready on the boat. We had rolls and wraps, with salad, different vegetables, cold meats, sweet corn and tuna. Our eyes were all too big for our bellies!

After lunch, anyone who wanted to scuba dive, yes you heard me, we ACTUALLY SCUBA DIVED, had a talk about it and had to sign some waivers with Storm. He divided us into teams of four and took us team by team to the shore where we did a quick introduction to our respirators. There was also 3 tests we had to pass to be able to go forward – getting rid of water in your mask, retrieving your lost respirator and equalising your ears by holding your nose and blowing, we had to do this every time we dropped a few meters in depth. (Aine, Eimear, Tara & Hailey, below)

(Anna, Liv, Me & Josh, below)

After a shaky start, as the bubbles really messed with my breathing, I couldn’t get a deep breath at the beginning, we swam off deeper with our flippers over the GREAT BARRIER REEF!!! There was so much colorful coral and beautiful fish. There was a HUGE fish called a Maori Wrasse which had a big hump back head and eyes that moved around like a chameleon. I touched it several times and at the end gave it a hug! Haha! I would definitely scuba dive again, after getting over the initial fear of breathing through the respirator and getting used to the bubbles coming out of it, it was easy. You just have to remember to keep equalizing your ears like you would on an airplane. We went down over 10 feet for our first dive which was pretty good! I took pictures on my underwater camera which I am yet to get developed! 

When we got back, Niko had put out some snacks, which we all scoffed. All this swimming gave us a huge appetite, not like I needed more of one.

The people who didn’t want to scuba dive had the option to snorkel the reef instead. When everyone returned to the boat, they pulled up the anchor and we took off for a small sand Island which is across from Hammond?? Island, can’t remember the name. It was a 6 star Island where Celebrities went, apparently they brag that they can have anything in the world shipped in within 24hours. Ian told us lots of stories – Madonna got kicked off the Island for being too much of a Diva and wanting the whole Island to herself. Rod Steward got kicked off for walked around the beach, drugged out of his mind, with only a guitar on with two girls by his side. Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers got kicked off for showing up at the formal restaurant in only a waist coast!

The small sand Island we were dropped off to is apparently where the Celebrities are brought over for champagne and strawberries if they request. I don’t know why though because it actually smells of fish!

But it does have a nice sunset!

 

They came back to get us in an hour and our dinner was ready. Spaghetti Bolognaise, salad and garlic bread!!! We got on the goon again and later on that night at about 11pm, when some of the girls had gone to bed, I was playing guitar on the back of the boat with a few of the crew and a dolphin came by to visit. I woke up a few of the girls and we watched it for about a half and hour. It was chasing small fish that were attracted to the light from our boat that beamed into the sea. It was also showing off a bit! I tried to get some pictures but it was near impossible in the dark!

A great end to our last night on the New Horizon! 

The New Horizon Boat

We had to board our boat at 2.30pm so we hung out at Nomads pool all morning and used the Internet at the Travelbugs down the road. We said our goodbyes to the lads and headed down the Bicentennial walkway, which parallelled the coast and we headed for Gloria’s Café, Abel Point Marina that was our meeting point.

We introduced ourselves to lots of Germans, Dutch and English who were also on our boat. There was 32 passengers on our boat and 4 crew – The Skipper (Captain) - Andy from Australia, The Chef – Niko from Australia, The Dive Instructor – Storm from Westchester New York (Yes, that is his real name) and the Deckhand – Ian from Athlone in IRELAND!!!  

The boat was really nice, a huge sail, like a pirate ship. The main deck wasn’t as big as I though it would be but I guess it would force us to all hang out. Our friends Holly and Hailey, the English girls from Frazer Island were there. Ian put the 8 of us together at the back of the boat in our own quarters. We descended a small steep stairs to the bottom of the boat where there was 8 beds in a small cabin. It was definitely cosy but nice to have our own space. Everyone else was in the main quarters at the middle of the boat.

We took off after a hilarious introduction form the crew and our first stop was out in the middle of the Whitsundays for some swimming. We were all fitted with ‘stingers suits’ due to the killer jellyfish in the sea. Then they had us all WALK THE PLANK! It was hilarious! The current was so strong though, as soon as you hit the water, you literally had to swim fast to get to the ladder before you were pulled off behind the boat.

We all dried off, or rinsed off in the shower and dinner was served. Actually SERVED! YES! Most of the girls had the white fish, which I tried and was lovely but I had the chicken kiev, which was also nice. There was rolls, mash potato, salad and COLESLAW, I looove coleslaw and it was goooood!!!

We pulled out the goon and the night begun! We mainly hung out with two Essex boys, Danny and Jamie, a Swedish girl called Danni and Holly and Hails! Great first night, everyone was knackered from the swim earlier so it definitely wasn’t a late one!

Airlie Beach you BEAUTY!

It took us about 6 hours in total, but we powered through and arrived into Airlie Beach about 3pm. 

We checked in for our boat at ABC Travel and signed a few waivers. We then drove over to Nomads which was across the road and checked into a powered caravan site, pretending there was only 2 of us per campervan to get a cheaper deal – we know the tricks of the travellers now ;)

Nomads hostel was a lovely spot, we were overlooking their swimming pool, bar and dorm style cabins which were made of glass.

We made friends with two Australian guys, Aidan and Sam, childhood friends who met up in Airlie Beach for fishing trips. They were the nicest and most generous Australians we’ve met so far. They offered us all beers and we sat and hung out with them all night. Aidan went missing for about 20 minutes and returned back with a huge white paper full of fish and chips, enough for about 10 people, and a bag of ‘Power Pop’, which is this pink champagne, which he says girls love here. We definitely did!