Car!!

We got a car!!

His name is currently Stanley. I think naming cars is dumb but I didn't give him the name.

He's a white Ford Fairmont, for anyone that understands what that means. He has quite a nautical theme - we bought sheets to use as curtains that have boats on them without remembering that the dashboard is lined with shells and there are stickers of seahorses and fish on the windows.

As you can see from the pics, he's quite a long car so we can put the back seats down and sleep in him if we are worried about snakes or dingoes getting in the tent!

We're not wasting any more time in Ayr, we leave at 6am tomorrow for the outback! It should take us about a week to get to Alice Springs, which is the next time we will likely have internet or phone signals. After a week there its another 2 weeks of travelling and exploring until we get to Melbourne.

See Mathias' blog for more details. Speak to you soon!

Happy Birthday to Mathias!

(some kind of technical problem means this didn't upload when I did it yesterday)

This guy is 25 today! I was supposed to cook him a big birthday breakfast but spent most of the day either sleeping or vomiting (either I ate something bad or the 4 litres of wine we drank the night before didn't agree with me...)

We did eventually make it to our dinner reservation, which was great! We relished not having to cook or wash up. So, it was a chilled day and he seems happy.

Tomorrow is a very big day but I don't want to jinx ourselves so I can't say more than that just now. Wait there on the edge of your seat for more info!

Hi Ho Hi Ho

Jesus Christ.

We were so looking forward to getting work because Ayr is so damn boring. I got my first job on Saturday, selling hot dogs, candy floss and drinks etc at the parade that was in town. It was so much fun! It was really busy but I enjoyed myself.

The next day I was down to work my first day on a farm. I had heard about the farm before because one of the girls in our room works there. The farmer is well known for being a bit of an arsehole so I can't say I was looking forward to it too much.

Work outfit

I woke up at 5:30am as we start work at 6:45am and have to drive out to the farm. It's actually good to start that early because you get some of it done before the sun comes up. Once the sun is up you just sweat and burn, it's horrible.

It is a squash farm. Here is a picture of the little bastards:

And heaven help anyone that ever serves me one of them. I never want to see them again!!!
They grow on a plant that has needles all over it so you have to be totally covered up - in the heat! The first day I got scratches all over my wrists from where my shirt and gloves met so the day after I had to wear tubigrip bandages as well to cover up the gap.

The plants are very short so you have to bend down all day to pick the squash off. The difference between one being too big and too small is minute and I always seemed to be getting it wrong. You grab a bucket and have a very long row that you must pick. Some plants have 3 or 4 squash on, some have none that are big enough, so you bend down, lift the spiny plant up, pick whatever squash are ready and put them in your bucket, then pick up your bucket and move one step forward and repeat the process. The rows are loooooooooooooong and there are 7 patches of them, so you do 4 rows then have a 15 minute break and then do the last 3.

Even though I had shoes and socks on!

On the first day my back was sore. On the 2nd day I thought I was going to be sick because of the pain. On the 3rd day my hands were so wet inside the gloves that a bunch of skin came off my fingers.

It is the shittest job I have ever done, and I've had some shit jobs. In the end, Mathias and I decided that it is not worth the money to feel so shit and in pain, so when I got back from the field today we asked the hostel to take us off their work list and now we are at the library coming up with another plan.

Never Again!!!!!

Signs of Delta

We now live in a little cow town in the middle of nowhere so don't expect too many updates in the next few months.

The hostel that we're staying at, Delta, is MAD on rules and signs telling you about those rules. There are also cameras everywhere. I don't know what they think is going to happen but whatever it is, they want recorded proof!

As an example of their fondness for signs, let's look at a toilet cubicle. In just one cubicle there are THREE signs telling you what you can and cannot do whilst doing your ones and twos.

One sign says "Use this roll first" another informs you that you should "put toilet paper in the toilet and sanitary towels and tampons in the bin. Thanks." But my personal favourite is this one that guides our Asian cellmates on how to use a western toilet.

Exit the cubicle and you have another barrage of signs telling you how to use the taps and how long to spend in the shower! Lord only knows how I have managed to get by so long without all of these helpful hints for my daily routines.

We moved!

The car thing didn't work out quick enough and we managed to get a couple of spots in a hostel in Ayr that arrange farm work for you - they're hard to come by so we were lucky that they had an opening.

So yesterday was a rush of getting packed and booking a bus but now we are finally here in Ayr! We will most likely be here for the next few months.

In order to work we need a tax number, so we went to McDonald's and spent $6 on food to use the wifi... it didn't work. So we came to a local bar and spent $9 on drinks to use their wifi... the website is currently under maintenance so we can't access the form we need :/

Give us a break, Ayr!

The photos that didn't make the cut

You may have noticed that Mathias' blog has mostly got nature and scenery pictures on it. After complaining to him that I wanted to share the more "holiday snap" pictures that he'd taken he told me that I don't appreciate art (omg I am dating my father :/) and we agreed that I could post some of his photos that he didn't really want on his own blog.

Et voila!

All of these photos were taken by Mathias. Even the ones that he is in. He's a superhero, don't you know.

Our first photo in Australia!

This is my "I just travelled for over 20 hours, I'm carrying all my worldly possessions on my back AND my front in the midday heat and I can't find the damn hire car place" face.

Mathias seemingly less distressed about all of the above than me.

Ok, here is the monster truck. I know, I know, it doesn't look that big in this photo but don't forget we spent the last 2 years driving a twingo.

Our first night in Australia - at Hervey Bay

Long Island with our welcome leis

Free kayaking! Woop!

A relaxing walk in the wilderness

Mummy wallaby chilling on the beach

Northern Queensland

We are kind of in limbo at the moment here in Cairns. We are waiting for some bank issues to straighten out and then, hopefully, we can buy a car and get out of here. The plan is to drive south, stopping at all the farms on the way and hoping one of them has work for us. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Last Thursday we spent the night in a rainforest, which was really cool. We drove up to Daintree Rainforest, which you can only get to by crossing a croc infested river on a ferry. I was pretty nervous about parking in a small space with my monster truck on the ferry but it all went well and the drive afterwards, on winding roads, was really fun after all the long straight stretches of highway we've been on so far.

A view of the Daintree River from the ferry. Spot the crocs!

Here is a list of the fruits that we tried and a picture of the fruit. How many can you identify?

I tried all 10 fruits - I'm quite proud of myself! Let's face it, I rarely eat any fruit and when I do it is only green apples, cherries or the occasional orange, so this was really out of my comfort zone. I can't say I liked many of them! The pommelo was really nice, it tastes a lot like orange. The orange was actually created when the pommelo crossed with another fruit. The Davidson plum (not a plum) was very sour but I liked that too. It's an endangered species of tree but the owner of the farm found a seed in the wild and planted it and now he gets a lot of nice fruit from it.

Here is the Sapodilla. It tastes just like brown sugar.

Here is Mathias trying the Davidson Plum (I made him try everything first!)

And here is the Black Sapote. Its other name is the "chocolate pudding fruit". Let me tell you, that is a LIE. I was so excited about a chocolate tasting fruit :(

Here is the man that runs the farm. He and his wife started it 25 years ago when they got bored of teaching. When they turned up there was no electricity, no phone lines, no anything! He had quite an amazing story to tell.

On the walk back from the farm Mathias found a way to amuse himself...

We had a lovely little cabin all to ourselves at Cape Tribulation. It was perfect, except for one "little" thing...

There was a beautiful beach there. There were signs everywhere about not going in the water because of crocodiles but there were still people in there! I was not tempted.

After that we headed back to Cairns to give back the hire car and we've been here ever since. It's a nice city. Yesterday we went to the botanical gardens where I was bitten by some tiny tiny black creatures and I now have red spots on my legs, arms and hands (typically, Mathias didn't get a single bite)! We are now waiting excitedly to see if they turn gangrenous.

There is a year round colony of flying fox bats here in Cairns. We watch them head out for dinner every night, which is pretty cool. They hang from these particular trees next to the library and they screech all day long. They also poo a lot, so walking on the path under the trees is a little nerve wracking. Here you can see them chilling in the daytime heat: