4 Months In Australia: Kangaroos, Dolphins, And Whales! Oh My!

Sorry for the hiatus folks. After I recovered from the weird infection in my neck I started working 7 days a week and didn’t really feel like I had anything interesting to write about. I have had a few fun adventures in the past two weeks though so I figured I should probably update the blog!

When I arrived in Collie I committed to working there for three months and I started counting down the remaining days very early into my three-month sentence. Things there did not go as planned. I was told I would be working a minimum of 40 hours a week and would get at least one day off every week. I ended up working 7 days a week and was lucky to get 35 hours a week. I was not impressed so when the end of the three months was approaching I started looking for a new job like it was my job and eventually I was offered a position in Augusta, a small town on the southern coast of Western Australia.

Before I left Collie my coworker Amanda offered to take me to a few of the “attractions” in town since I hadn’t had a chance to check them out yet. I still hadn’t even seen a kangaroo and was starting to think they were about as real as unicorns. We set off in the early afternoon and visited Black Diamond (an old quarry that is now a lake), The Collie Dam (not actually in Collie, and a pretty lame dam as far as I’m concerned), The King Tree (the only thing that made this tree stand out from the rest of the forest was the sign on it that said ‘King Tree’), and Gnomesville (a piece of land covered with thousands of garden gnomes). The most exciting part of this little adventure for me was when I saw my first kangaroo. We probably saw about 50 by the time the day was over and I squealed with excitement every single time.

When I left Collie I had a few days to kill before I was due to arrive in Augusta so I decided to check out Bunbury along the way. There is a dolphin centre in Bunbury that offers daily trips to swim with the dolphins during the summer months and I desperately wanted to do this so I had the city built up in my head leading to my disappointment when I finally arrived. Especially since I had missed the opportunity to swim with the dolphins. There didn’t seem to be much to do in the town so I enjoyed a few lazy days, recharging the batteries before starting the new job. I did however see a couple of dolphins while I was walking down the jetty one morning, which was super exciting.

Today I had the day off and decided to take advantage of the connections my employer has with the whale watching company in town and went out on the boat in hunt of Moby Dick. The nausea set in pretty early but I was determined to see a whale so I stood at the front of the boat holding on for dear life for as long as I could but when the girl standing next to me started to puke over the side of the boat I had to call it a day. I didn’t manage to get any pictures of whales but I did see a few before curling up in the fetal position at the back of the boat for the rest of the trip.

I have now been in Augusta for a little over a week and am enjoying it far more than Collie. I am getting full time hours with days off and the view from work is absolutely incredible. The bar I am working at over looks a river that connects to the ocean and it’s pretty spectacular. I’ve started to make a few friends as well, which is exciting because I don’t think I have ever been as lonely as I was during my time in Collie.

Hopefully I will have more exciting adventures to write about in the next little while and not take any more extended breaks from updating this thing!

Video Update

I took a few videos during my time in South East Asia but haven't had the chance to upload them. Spending the last week sick in bed has given me some time to catch up on that sort of thing so in no particular order here are some random videos from my travels.

This first video was taken during my HaLong Bay Cruise. The bartender had a few tricks up his sleeve, including setting a tower of glasses on fire.

This next video is part of the Cao ceremony I witnessed while in Vietnam. Cao is a mix of Buddhism, Muslim, and Christian religions. I found it fairly easy to spot similarities to Buddhism and Muslim but struggled to find anything comparable to Christianity.

While I was in Siem Reap I had the opportunity to check out a traditional dance show. This is actually just a small portion of a dance that lasted for probably close to half an hour. At least it felt that way. The style of dance is called Apsara and is a Khmer tradition. 

While I was in Phuket I visited this next place almost everyday. I'm not sure what it is called but it was an artificial wave for people to practice surfing on. My videography skills leave something to be desired but this guy was one of the most talented guys there.

There seemed to be some sort of religious festivity happening during my visit to the Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur. The following is part of a Hindu ceremony or ritual (not really sure) that I witnessed.

I also happened to stumble upon some monkeys doing it like they do on the discovery channel. They were chasing each other and screaming, I started recording because I thought they were going to fight, but that's not quite what happened. I uploaded it even though they weren't fighting because well, it's pretty funny.

The final video I have is also from the animal kingdom but not quite as risque as the last one. While I was in Phuket I went on a day tour that involved an elephant show. I'm not sure the animals at the centre were treated properly but they were very talented. This is a short video of an elephant playing soccer. The elephants did preform some cooler tricks but this is the only one I managed to catch on video.

Alright I think that is all the videos I have. Sorry for the randomness of this post but I felt these would help add some life to some of my previous posts and rather than go back and add them to their respective entries where they probably wouldn't be seen I thought I would add them all here. I hope you enjoyed despite my terrible camera skills.

A Real Pain In The Neck

It’s safe to say the last few days did not go the way I imagined, not even close. I was supposed to work a short shift on Sunday over lunch, where I would have been thrown into the deep end, left on my own to run the show with the boss around only if I absolutely needed him.

Unfortunately I spent most of Saturday night up in pain, with what I thought was strained neck muscles. I was pretty clearly exhausted and in pain when I showed up for work Sunday morning so my boss told me to take the day off. He gave me some painkillers he had and his son got me some Deep-Heat (like A5-35) and they seemed to work for a short while but I still spent most of the day in pain. I went to the drug store in hopes of scoring some muscle relaxants but apparently you need a prescription to get that sort of thing here.

I continued to use the drugs and the rub that Chris and Cooper gave me and eventually they stopped providing any form of relief at all. I was up most of the night in excruciating pain and by morning I was officially in the most pain I had ever been in, in my entire life. I texted Chris asking him if there was a walk-in clinic in town and he replied several hours later telling me there wasn’t but if I went to the doctor’s office across the street and they could see I was in distress they would have someone see me. I called my insurance company who asked about a million questions, leaving me in tears because my neck had become so swollen it was difficult to open my mouth, before heading to the doctors office.

Since I wasn’t on the books I needed to be seen by the triage nurse, who more or less wrote me off as soon as she saw me. Like me she thought it was just a muscle strain and suggested I go see a physiotherapist. I ended up waiting over an hour to see a doctor but it was worth it because it turns out it wasn’t a muscle strain at all. The doctor wasn’t completely sure what was wrong but he knew it wasn’t muscular and told me I should be admitted to the hospital. I burst into tears with this news. Not only was I in excruciating pain but now I was going to have to stay in the hospital, pray the insurance company would cover it or my time in Australia would be ending faster than it even started, and what about my new job? I have only worked two shifts and have already called in sick, really not making the greatest of first impressions.

I was a giant ball of stress, pain, and emotion as the doctor tried to calm me down and convince me this was the best course of action. Eventually I agreed and we began the half-hour process of setting an IV in my extremely dehydrated veins. All of my friends who work in hospitals notice how ‘nice’ my veins are but this never seems to be the case when someone actually needs to find one and stick a needle in it. Once the IV was finally set the doctor drew some blood and sent me off to find my own way to the hospital.

I headed back to the hotel and packed a few changes of clothes and some toiletries, along with the paperwork and test tubes of blood the doctor gave me, before begging my boss to drive me to the hospital. I had pretty much checked out due to the pain by the time we reached the hospital and the lady trying to admit me gave up fairly quickly and just sent me to my room after I gave her my passport as the insurance company had already called her and I was useless at answering questions.

Since I already had the Iv set in my arm they wasted no time and started pumping drugs into me almost immediately. I spent the rest of the day drifting in and out of sleep and watching terrible daytime TV. During one of the brief periods I was awake a nurse suggested I eat some ice-cream. Since I hadn’t eaten anything since the night before, (and projectile vomited everything I consumed) I figured food would probably be a good idea even if it was only ice-cream. My body did not agree. I could not open my mouth far enough to fit the spoon in. I tried to just suck the ice-cream off the tip of the spoon but I almost screamed when I tried because it caused so much pain. Apparently my stomach was going to remain empty a little while longer.

After several hours of sleep, 3 rounds of IV antibiotics, a couple different kinds of pain killers, some steroids, and some anti-inflammatories I was able to open my mouth just enough to fit a spoon inside. This was no small victory because it meant I could finally eat something. The nurse was so excited she brought me two ice-creams and a yogurt, perhaps a little ambitious or hopeful on her behalf as it was about 10pm and I was completely shattered. I ate one ice-cream and continued to sleep off and on until about 4am.

Day two in the hospital went a little better. I was in no pain at all when I woke up, a miracle as far as I’m concerned, but was still tired, and was getting pretty lonely. Not having any visitors was bad enough but I kept getting stuck with some pretty unfriendly nurses. In addition to not being very personable none of them seemed to be on the same page about anything. Some of them were checking my vitals every 2 hours, some of them were letting me go 8 hours between checks, and some of the nurses insisted on monitoring my urine output while others didn’t seem to see the point. I really would have minded if the ones who insisted on monitoring it actually bothered to check and empty the bowl I needed to pee into because when I called them to empty it I waited for about 15 minutes for someone to show up while they all chatted it up at the nurses station just down the hall from my room. No one every hurried when I hit the call button, it really is a good thing I was never in distress.

I had an ultrasound scheduled for 4pm but it ended up happening much earlier in the day than that. The only other time I have had an ultrasound was when I had mono and my fever was so high I was hallucinating and as I was watching the screen I thought there was a horror moving taking place inside of me, not a good feeling at all. This was a much better experience, except the tech kept taking pictures and although I know that is her job I was worried she was taking pictures of things that were wrong, but she assured me everything looked okay.

When the doctor came in this morning he told me the ultrasound looked okay and that he wanted to do one more round of blood work to make sure I had this bacterial infection under control. He told me he would be back to see me around noon and if the tests came back okay then I could go home. I was pretty sure I was going to starve to death if people continued to serve me a diet of pureed veggies much longer so I was stoked about this news until 12:00 when there was no doctor in sight and the nurse hooked me up to an IV that took at least an hour and a half to run.

I was sure I was going to be in the hospital for another night and I started to sulk. I just wanted to go home and sleep in my own bed. Not really a lot of difference between the two, the hospital even has a better cable package, but home is just less depressing, plus I can eat what I want and not get questioned for not eating mushy broccoli.

Luckily the doctor just got held up in surgery and I ended up being discharged in the early afternoon. I am not out of the woods yet and I know that but it it’s nice not being hooked up to machines and feeling like I have some control over my life. Not worrying about the bill I'm racking up for every night I stay there is also nice.

Now I get to start the process of jumping through hoops for the insurance company, worrying about whether or not I still have a job, and trying to get better of course. I picked up a prescription after I got back home and have a follow up appointment with the doctor on Friday.

Clearly I haven’t managed to achieve my goal of hitting the ground running but really things could have been much worse. I have no idea where this infection came from and it is possible I contracted it while in Asia and it just took its time to hit me. If I had gotten this sick in a third world country where no one speaks English I think I would have been in a lot of trouble. I need to be thankful I didn’t get sick while I was in Asia, and that I still had a few days remaining on my travel insurance when I did get sick. It’s been a pretty trying few days but I’m trying to stay positive. That being said I could really use a hug so feel free to send them my way!

I Got A Job!

I spent most of the day Tuesday hunting for a job. I applied for tens of jobs online and a few in person. I was sat in the waiting room of a placement agency when I saw a sign that said ‘no passport, no job’ and decided waiting any longer would be a waste of time since I didn’t have my passport on me. I decided I would head back to the hostel and call it a day and head back to the agency with my passport first thing in the morning.

Shortly after making my way back to the sauna of a hostel I was staying in my phone rang. A man named Chris was calling and after asking very few questions he offered me a job in a small town called Collie located about 200km away from Perth. I accepted but since I had three nights booked in my hostel I told him I would come to Collie on Friday. This was probably a silly decision because the time spent in Perth was pretty much a complete waste. It was so hot I didn’t feel like doing anything and there was no air conditioning in my hostel, making it even hotter than it was outside and since the temperature was inching towards the 40’s it was pretty unbearable.

I did however get to catch up with a friend from the UK and that was pretty cool. I used to work with Ben back in Blackpool and when I asked him if he wanted to catch up he offered to show me around a little bit. He picked me up around noon on Thursday and we took off down the coast. He took me to a few different beaches before we stopped for a drink then made our way back to the hostel. The beaches were beautiful, I just wish I had been smart enough to wear a bathing suit so I could have dove in. Oh well, I’m here for a year so I’m sure I will have another opportunity.

I made sure I had all of my ducks in a row before heading out with Ben on Thursday, I bought some new clothes for work, I had set up my bank account, and I had purchased my train ticket, so all I had to do on Friday morning was walk to the train station. Collie doesn’t have a functioning train station (kind of ironic since it is home to a steam engine museum) so Chris originally told me he would pick me up in Brunswick Junction but called me after I had purchased my ticket and asked me to meet him in Bunbury instead. This created a bit of drama since it was a stop further down the line but $8 and a few confusing conversations later everything was sorted.

I started working just a few short hours after I arrived which was a bit of a shock to me but I said I wanted to hit the ground running right? I guess I got what I asked for. The bar is so much different from what I am used to. It was so quiet that we closed early and were finished cleaning up well before 9pm. That would never happen at Walkabout. I think the earliest I ever got out of there was like 2:45am. Today I worked a split shift, which was quite a bit busier than yesterday but still nothing like what I’m used to dealing with.

I think I’m catching on to things fairly quickly but I did make my fair share of mistakes today. Getting used to the till has been a bit more challenging than expected because you actually need to remember if a beer is super, medium, or light to be able to ring it through, and for several items you just need to memorize the price and ring it through as a miscellaneous item, hard to do when you are also trying to remember the 1000 other things the person you are shadowing just told you. I need to work on being more attentive and aware of every single person in the bar. I’m sure it will all come with time though.

Since I have been working since I got here I haven’t really had a chance to explore at all but I am only working a 3 hour shift tomorrow so hopefully I will be able to go for a bit of a wander afterwards. I would like to pick up a few things for my room but I have a feeling this is going to be one of those towns where nothing is open on Sunday’s.

First Few Days In Oz

Sorry for the lack of updates boys and girls, it hasn’t been for lack of things to write about that’s for sure, I just haven’t had Internet access. I’ve tried my luck with a few different ‘free’ hotspots but none of them have panned out very well for me but I guess that isn’t really important.

When I first arrived at my hostel on Friday I met a Welsh guy (I think his name was Mark) who had also just arrived. He tagged along with me on my adventure to buy a new cell phone and ended up buying a new sim card for himself. I decided to go with the most expensive company (I’m not sure if he knew that) because they are the only company with coverage in outback areas and there is a very good chance I am going to end up in the middle of nowhere and I would like to be able to connect with family and friends if that happens.

I also applied for my tax id on Friday, which may have been a bad idea. I probably should have waited until I had a job and an address to apply since it can take up to 28 days to process and I used a hostel address but as of tomorrow will no longer be staying at that hostel. I should still be in the same neighbourhood so it should work out okay, but I think my plan to hit the ground running perhaps wasn’t the best laid out plan.

Saturday I opened up my bank account and moved hostels, as the one that I stayed at on the first night was incredibly overpriced, it was just conveniently located for my bank meeting. I spent the morning absolutely loving Perth. There was a basketball game in town on Friday night so the city centre was buzzing and some of the excitement seemed to spill over into the morning. All the people I encountered were super friendly and I was feeling at home. Things quickly changed when on my way to my new hostel I encountered a series of crazy homeless people who were yelling at the voices in their heads, and sometimes at other people including me. If that weren’t bad enough the staff at my new hostel weren’t very friendly, my new room didn’t have air conditioning, and of course like many places in Perth they have adopted the silly policy of charging for Wi-Fi. I was not a fan of the city by the time I went to bed on Saturday night.

Sunday was a lazy day for me. Although Perth is a big city you would think it was a small town in a bible belt if you took a look at how many restaurants and businesses were closed on a Sunday. I was a little annoyed by this at first but ended up shrugging it off since I didn’t really have anything I needed to do or buy. I went for a few short wanders and treated myself to an afternoon nap. The past few weeks have been pretty hectic and I’m hoping to dive back into the workforce as soon as possible so I should rest while I can right?

Macklemore was playing a concert at the fringe festival that night but it was sold out. Lucky for me the festival grounds are right near my house and I was able to hang out in the garden surround the stage without paying a cent. I only recently found out who Macklemore is, ‘Thrift Shop’ is huge in Cambodia, but since discovering him I have downloaded his discography and he has made me laugh and even brought tears to my eyes. I have to say I was very disappointed by his performance, unless what he was doing was visually stunning he put on a pretty lackluster show. I’m still glad I decided to lurk outside the concert like the creepy weirdo that I am because I ended up meeting Chad and Wuppy, two guys who live in the area, who will hopefully help me find my way around the city in the days to come.

It was pretty cold out and Chad and Wuppy had to work in the morning so they left pretty early and I bailed soon after. I could hear the concert from my bed anyway, and I definitely made the right decision in leaving. He played his biggest hit, as his third song so had nothing to build up to. He even ended up playing it again for his encore, a pretty lame move in my opinion.

Today I went to meet with a recruitment agency that deals exclusively with backpackers. I had been stressing over this meeting all weekend, worrying about what I would say and what I would wear. I tried to find an outfit suitable for an interview but the cheapest one I found that looked okay cost $80 and I still would have had to buy shoes and I might not wear it ever again. Either I worried for nothing or the girl at the office wrote me off as soon as she saw me because she barely gave me the time of day. She only asked a few short questions, made some snap judgments, and took phone calls while I was mid-sentence. She told me she was forwarding my details to a country pub who are desperate for staff so I should hear something soon. I’m not sure if she actually thought I was a good candidate for the job and was just a rude Irishwoman or if she had in fact written me off as a waste of time as soon as she laid eyes on me.

After my meeting I headed back to the hostel and tried to extend my stay as I am due to check out tomorrow but was told there are only private rooms available and they are way out of my price range. I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to find a new hostel and applying for jobs online. I feel like I’m either overqualified or under-qualified for everything I apply for and am worried this job hunt is going to pan out the way the one in the UK did and I really can’t afford for that to happen.

I'm trying to stay positive, I mean I’ve only been in town for one full business day and I can’t expect miracles but I’m stressing to the max already. Everything here is super expensive which is really stretching my budget. I have spent more in 3 days in Australia than I would in 3 weeks in Asia. I want to go back to my $6 hostels that have buffet breakfasts, a swimming pool, and free Wi-Fi. Unfortunately that isn’t an option so I need to find a job ASAP.

Tomorrow I am moving to a hostel around the corner and once I get checked in I plan to apply for some jobs in person. So far I have only seen three help-wanted signs, and one of them was a strip club, so that leaves two jobs to apply for. Not a promising number but hopefully I can seek out some more. And maybe the job board at the new hostel will be better than the one here.

Please keep your fingers crossed and send positive thoughts in my direction because I sure could use some help right now!